Dogwalk Transition

Shasta is eight months old today!  I can't believe she is already eight months and I can't believe she is only eight months.  If that makes any sense.

About a week ago I decided to make the transition from the puppy dogwalk that we have to the "regular" dogwalk which for us is the old small size AKC dogwalk. 

It's tough to know exactly when to make these changes.  She was very confident on the puppy dogwalk, approaching it with good speed.  She was able to navigate slightly crooked entries.  She had lost her balance a few times on the puppy dogwalk and she jumped off the dogwalk every time, never just fell off.  Exactly what I was looking for.  So I felt like we were ready.

I was a bit surprised by how different she was initially on the higher dogwalk.  To me it didn't look like that much of an increase in slope.  Clearly Shasta didn't agree with my assessment!

I spent the first few days debating if she had become too tentative and if I should go back to the puppy dogwalk.  But I guessed that it wasn't that she isn't ready for the higher walk but that it was a transition we would have to work through regardless of when we moved up in size.  So we continued to work on it.

As of tonight, I felt like I saw a big improvement.  She is still approaching it with what looks like great concentration, a bit slow.  But she looks very relaxed and comfortable to me now when going up and over it.  I think the speed is going to pick up soon.  As I've mentioned a couple of times in this blog, I continue to be convinced that for her more than the most dogs, speed will go with confidence.

Sequencing Video

A quick 45 second video of Shasta doing a little jump sequencing.  The first half has two front crosses and a serpentine.  The second half has two rear crosses.  And a wrong course!

Good speed, good skills.  I am very happy where we are at.

Cik/Cap, Zig/Zag

Training continues to go well right now.  We are working on some really nice sequences of jumps (bars on the ground).  She is now happier about doing "just jumps".  Previously she knew the rewards came fast and furiously on the teeter and dog walk so anything else was understandably second-rate to her.   I am really happy with the sequencing.  I'm already quite comfortable with most front crosses, blind crosses, rear crosses, wraps, 180s.  It's going really well.

We watched Sylvia Trkman's Cik/Cap video.  It's her way of teaching collection and tight turns.  It's basically doing the cone work that I've already done with the dogs but with a few tweaks and a slightly more detailed process.  I watched it for Sonic and am going to try it with Sonic (at least for a while).  But while I'm doing it with Sonic I figured I might as well do it with Shasta too.  We'll see how it goes.

Sylvia uses the commands Cik (pronounced like "sick") and Cap (pronounced like "sap").  I wasn't sure I could use those without confusing myself so I decided to use Zig and Zag.  If it does work out, I'm sure the commands will be confusing to others watching us!