It’s been a long while since I’ve looked at Dylan’s obstacle times. A whole year, in fact!

As always, brutally honest times taken from the moment of first contact with the obstacle to the moment the front paw(s) hit the ground. Averages in bold, all times taken from competition runs within the last three months only.

Dogwalk: 2.87 [3.39] (2.87, 3.00, 2.60, 2.46, 3.00, 2.96, 3.20)
Aframe: 1.53 [2.36] (1.60, 1.67, 1.60, 1.34mc, 1.46)
Seesaw: 1.73 [1.95] (1.80, 1.91, 1.54, 1.86, 1.53)

Averages from the last time I took them are in square brackets (that’s Jan 09, apart from the Aframe, which is from Sept 08), and the improvement is fairly noticable. The actual improvement though is in the consistency of the times; a year ago we had variations of up to 4s between times. That Aframe in particular is getting nailed, these days, although contact reliability has slipped from 100% to 90%, hence that little “mc” mark. Seesaw times are looking good, could be a little better but nothing I’m overly worried about right now.

That 2.46 in the Dogwalk times is making me very happy. I would estimate that Dyl runs 2.20 in training, and that 2.46 suggest we’re finally, slowly, making the transition to the ring. On the other hand, we still have plenty of 3s runs in there, so we have a lot of work to do yet! The average is better than it was, but still nowhere near where I would like it to be. We need consistent 2.4s to be anywhere like competitive enough for a G3 win.

No 12 weaves times because we haven’t done 12 weaves very often recently! Possibly because indoor shows sometimes can’t peg them, but judges just don’t seem to be including the weaves all that often anyway at the moment.

There is nothing more exciting than planning and plotting and worrying, formulating a strict plan and 15minutes after finally taking the plunge and putting into action, seeing results.

Well, maybe it wasn’t quite so dramatic as that. I have been encouraging Dylan to stretch and extend into his jumping for months, but it does seem a little bit co-incidental that after 4 runs through a grid pattern he suddenly remember how to actually use his legs. It really was as dramatic as that.

First grid went well, although it didn’t go to plan. I had a grid on a 3-4-4-5-6 basis, and Dyl shortened fine for the first 3, and then bailed on the second two. First time I’ve ever seen Dylan bail on a jump of his own accord, and it made me very happy. It told me two things; one, Dyl did not know how to extend into the second two jumps, and two, he is confident enough to bail rather than smashing onwards in an effort to please.

He’d sorted it out the next three times, really working it nicely with a bounce action until the last one, where he threw in a small single stride between. (Though I do have to say that Kim also did this exercise, and she bounced every single section comfortably). I don’t think I had the final spacing quite right for Dyl, but I’ll adjust for that next time.

We then did some straightforward flick-flack sequences, and wheee, lovely extension! Dyl was twisting and working his lanky little self all over those jumps. He was better with more room from me, and oddly (?) with less movement from me. Flicking him away from me over obstacles seemed to produce his best jumping, although anything where I was practically motionless seemed to encourage better jumping. Which suggests the the problem is me! Options then …

• Dylan is paying too much attention to me (anticipating cues?) so the jumps are coming up too quickly for him to sort himself out – he can’t do two things at once.
• Dyl is trying to focus on the jumps but is getting distracted by me running. (Opposite of the above, but same results)
• I am confusing Dylan somehow – am I not being clear and consistent enough with my cues?

The only really obvious issue was one of the last sequences we did, which was a very widely spaced three jump right-angle pinwheel style thing. Dyl stuttered into the first jump, was tight into the second and then only really relaxed into the third. So much for my theory of corners being better! Whilst I wasn’t moving a whole lot on this section, I had to keep moving to be able to handle the turn to the weaves 2 jumps later. So theory above still holds up, sadly.

I got such a kick every time I saw his back pads flicking over those jumps. I hope we can continue to make progress on this, and get it fluent and consistent every time around. I’m almost looking forward to doing some more work on this!

There’s always something. Dylan’s weaves are good right now, his seesaw is fast and although his dogwalk and aframe still need more work, they’ve improved. But now … jumping.

This has been bothering me for a long time, actually, but I haven’t been quite sure where to start, or even whether it’s just me seeing things.

I have spent hours today watching back every video from the past 12months. It is pretty clear to me that as a rule, Dylan jumps with his hind legs tucked under him. I’m not sure this has gotten any worse since he’s started competing, and I’m not sure it’s a physical limitation or injury. He extends fully over long jumps and he also has no problems extending in flyball. However, I do think it’s gotten worse as Dylan’s enthusiasm has increased. From what I can see, Dylan just doesn’t understand how to run flat out and jump over large jumps.

This past weekend, it was very noticable that Dylan worked the pinwheel style bends better than he worked the straights. His jumping action was long and clean, he shaped his body around the turn and he took just one, long stride between each jump. As soon as he hit the straight again, he began to take short, chopped strides into jumps, and his jumping action was shorter and more tucked. See clip below!

First two jumps are nice; long clean jumping action with single stride in between the jumps, good take-off points and good landing. The whole thing looks smooth. I note I am handling from just in front, having done a front cross in the gap, and that there are no other options or obstacles which might distract or impede from Dylan’s path. Third jump approach starts off well, but then Dylan appears to shorten his stride (stutters into the jump) and doesn’t power into the turn. He’s clearly not flexing his body around the turn – perhaps he thinks he has to slow down to make the turn? I’m handling from some distance away, I don’t cue the turn all that well. He’s jumping into the wall.

Things like this make me think that the problem is with turning, and that we’re back to the previous issue of Dylan not knowing how to move his body whilst he’s jumping (or rather, I’ve taught it badly, and too late, which is also true).

Again, on the curve, we’ve got fairly decent jumping. It’s not as nice as the above and I don’t know why; I rear-crossed at the top when I should have maybe tried to race him for a front cross? The motion cues maybe aren’t as strong? Anyway, it’s the final straight that concerns me most, where Dylan drops his front end forward and collects his stride to put in two short, choppy strides. Is it because he couldn’t make the single extended stride? I’m not entirely sure I buy that. Is it because he’s running in to the fence? Thinks he’s finishing the course?

I also think Dylan is jumping off his front end rather than his back end, but I find it quite hard to tell. In the last clip in particular, his jumping appears to be focussed on getting his front end up and over, rather than really using his back end to power his whole body over. Or is it all just down to his naturally cautious personality? Either way, it means I am going to have to do some serious jump training, and to stop assuming that he’s as smart and athletic as Kim and can figure this out for himself. (Not to demean Dylan, he has skills that Kim has never had, like a willingness to learn and work, and a constant enthusiasm for agility!)

This is what we worked on at training this week. It was fun! It was also not intended to be as difficult as it was; on paper, we thought it was pretty simple, but then we all tried it and suddenly it was not quite so easy.

Everybody initially ran it with the handler basically stationary at the top wing of 2, pushing out to 4 and then bringing the dog across your feet to 5 and then pulling back for 6 and wrapping the right wing of 6 to the weaves. This method? Did Not Work. Nobody managed to successfully pull their dog through the gap smoothly. The back of 2 was just way too tempting, and there was no good way for the handler to block it off clearly whilst stood on the bottom side of 5.

We all stood and frowned for a while, so Emma and Bailey went and did it perfectly so we all hated her for a while. Why would you want a Medium dog with amazing weave entries and 100% running contacts who can turn really tightly without losing any speed? We couldn’t fathom it either, but there you go.

The next attempt was to handle 1-2-3 the same way, but to step through the gap and front cross to flip the dog over 4 to 5. The back of 2 immediately stopped being tempting and none of the dogs took that one, but Dylan really struggled to turn wrap the left wing of 4, so we sacrificed a lot of speed to keep the turn tight.¹ (Emma and Bailey did it this way too, perfectly. We hated them some more). At this point, we also decided that flicking the dogs around the far wing of 6 was quicker when handling on the top side.

Cue lightbulb moment.

Third time lucky … 1-2 with the dog on the right, turn to pull them through to 3, front cross to take them over 4. Wrap the dog around the right wing of 4, bring them back alongide 4 and then flick them out for 5 and 6 and away. Everyone sees the light. It’s the longer way around, but it was so much faster and smoother.

No one had any problems with the weave entry, which was good!²

¹This is my fault. I have been trying to teach Dyl to wrap wings ala Silvia Trkman for months, and we fail. Dyl is afraid to turn his body mid-air in case he falls over (or even worse, knocks a pole). I’m working on it, I promise!
²I call these soft sided weave entries. Apparently they are also called flat weave entries?

Dylan and I had a really lazy training session this week, which was a very bad of me considering we have Wilmslow this weekend, which is our first competition in 6 weeks and we probably should have done some more serious training. I had intended to be good and work on wing wraps and proofing Aframe contacts. It didn’t happen! We did some lovely wraps on Medium to warm up, did a little bit of contact proofing, but then just had 30 minutes of blasting courses and being spontaneous.

I do feel a little bit guilty about doing that, but not too much. We have worked very hard over the past month or so on improving Dyl’s turns, and speeding up his contacts. Sometimes it’s nice to have a night off; besides, Dylan makes me laugh and he is so very enthusiastic about it all, so we never have a “wasted” session.

Kim is running brilliantly at training, although she only does 5-10 minutes at the start of the session. She’s sassy and stroppy and just blitzing everything in sight. We are entered at Wyre in December, but Kim may just come to run around the field and bark a lot. I miss her, but I miss her more when we’re on course and hating it.

I find it very hard switching between the two dogs, but it’s getting easier. Kim can turn on a sixpence, even in midair, and she just looks like one of those wick youngsters at the moment, super streamlined and fast. Dylan isn’t quite like that! He can’t turn anywhere near as sharply and he just doesn’t jump as fast as Kim (he can however outrun her on the flat!). But I can cue Dylan a lot earlier, for example for a tight turn or push/pull. Kim shuts down on early cues.

Wilmslow Saturday, Stocksbridge Sunday, and I would like results but would be happy with enthusiasm and effort even if it goes wrong. Remind me I said that on Monday …