Elaine's seminar today was better than last year - the weather cooperated it was cool and dry (no torrential downpours). I only took Grace to work. Before we started Grace and I worked weave poles for a few minutes. I'm seeing slow improvement. I really wish I could find a few minutes twice a day to consistently work the 2X2s as she seems to "get" that method.
The morning was spent on a winged jump box course with a couple of tunnels (a 90 and a straight). Grace ran really well. Elaine helped me get out of her way on a few of the front crosses. Like last year Elaine noted several folks were losing connection with their dogs - Elaine did not mention this to me at all on Saturday (tomorrow may be another story). Grace is jumping better than last year, she is working at more distance, is more confident in her role as agility buddy without the need to herd me (she has sheep for that now).
The afternoon course contained an A-frame/tunnel discrimination. Most dogs were managing to get the tunnel... not Grace. She still is struggling with tunnel entrances so I need to work these. Elaine also helped me see how to improve training her rear crosses by working very near a jump and getting Grace to turn in the correct direction with someone assisting in handing out the cookies. Next we moved onto training obstacle discrimination (in this case the one we had seen on the course)... poor Grace she continued to struggle with the tunnel entrances when there were other obstacles that were easier to get started on. Some of my students are struggling with this so I think we may work on this Wednesday evening for a few minutes.
I got the herding pictures of my training buddies uploaded to a Picasa Web Album. I took lots of photos today which I'll try and upload tomorrow evening or next week.
