A week and a half ago were the Cavalier shows at OTR. She was three for three in open jumpers, two for two in open standard and NQd her first excellent standard run when she avoided the aframe.
A great Q rate but there were a number of signs of issues. Most obvious was the aframe. She was getting more confused of her job each run to the point on Saturday of sitting on the apex. So it wasn't shocking when she avoided it all together on Sunday. Two tries and she refused them both and I went on. Speed also wasn't yet what it could be. And she had a few issues of freezing in the run when she was near the entrance/exit side, I think she was stopping to say, "c'mon dad, let's go get our treats".
With Kris' help I addressed the aframe issue as much as I could with no back yard. We set the aframe up in our pole barn and I did them Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Did a couple in class on Wednesday. Kris took her to the Inn during the day on Thursday and took her to SPDTC at night to do aframes. I focused on rewarding the release and not the "stick" of her contacts in class but that was all I could address anything else.
This last weekend was SPDTC. Not a good Q rate, 1 for 6, but she actually ran much better. First, addressing the aframe worked great, at least for now. Three great aframes, came down confidently and stuck her 2on-2off. But what was really much better was her speed. Much better! I am convinced the speed cost us most of our NQs as the increased/unexpected speed caused me to make the wrong handling choices and she got a couple of wrong courses. She also knocked a couple of bars that I think was because she wasn't as good at timing jumps at the increased speed. For no training reason, maybe it was just a better location for it, we didn't have any "freezing" or distraction issues.
So, the three issues from the weekend before, with only meaningful training on the aframe, and all three things were not issues this last week. Interesting.
But this week brought it's own issues. One, we were only 2 for 6 on weaves. I still don't believe it's stress and I'm still fairly confident I'm not looking at a long issue, but she did miss three entries and popped once. I need to spend more consistent training time on them again. There were the wrong courses that came when I was trying to move into a front cross. And she is not as comfortable as I would like on the aframe.
When I get a chance to train, I need to focus on:
- Weaves
- Triple
- Moving front crosses
- Aframe
- Speed off start line and contacts
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