Acting Like Nerds

Though I originally planned for a massive setup with 8 jumps, 12 weaves, a tunnel and a dog walk, I decided to make things a little more simple and work on some skills-type stuff with less equipment.

I've long scoured AgilityNerd.com and have several course maps saved on my computer, hopefully for future use one day, but this one fit in the space I have available so well that I just couldn't resist them - even though they were some of the hardest courses I've ever practiced without my instructor around!

So, a HUGE thank you to Steve of AgilityNerd for putting this stuff together for those who are pitifully course-building-challenged, like myself.  All courses in this MargeBlog came came from his blog and are his property.  You can find additional maps and information on these courses in the AgilityNerd post linked in the previous paragraph.

An equally large thank you to my wonderful boyfriend, Louie, for being so nice as to sit in the cold training hall with me and take all of these lovely videos.  What ever would I do without him?!

Here is the video:

Though I don't expect many to read this, since recovering from the holidays is probably the greatest priority right now for most people, here are some notes:

Sequence 1

Sequence 1 wasn't too bad at all and started us out on a good note, save for that pesky 6-7-8.  I think I ran it multiple ways, but I don't really like how I handled it in the run shown in the video.  

Sequence 2  

I had the most fun with this course.  We didn't work on it long at all - I think we ran it clean on the first try.  Off side tunnel entries and offside weave entries didn't present a problem at all.  The ending was nice and flowy, so it was fun for Marge.

Sequence 3

Oy, threadles.  I practice them sometimes at home, but still have a lot of trouble with that whole "backy-uppy" thing.  I tried that and an opposite side handling of the opening, but I don't think I did either particularly well.  Surprisingly, though, going from 8-9 was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I did go the "long way," around the far side of jump 8, but it was the safe way. Notice when I tried going the other way around jump 8 that it was harder for me to find my path and we almost wound up at the weaves.  Very cool little course!

Sequence 4

By far, this was the hardest sequence of the night.  Well, at least 6-7-8-9 was, because I gave up on it.  My problem was that I was trying to beat Marge down the line to jump 7 (as I whined about in the video) and sort of will her into the tunnel even though I knew she wouldn't go on her own.  In retrospect, front crossing to keep her on my left as she came over jump 6 probably would have helped some.  I may have tried it, but it's not on tape so I'm not sure.

Sequence 5

This course really opened up my eyes as to how important lateral motion is. The first few times, I was in Marge's path for the weaves and she was SO not getting them. Then, since she was tired, she was doing all sorts of wacky stuff like skipping poles or starting on the wrong side (thus the bent poles). I was afraid of Marge blowing by the weaves if I pulled too hard to the right, but it didn't happen and she found her entry perfectly. The final 180 was pretty tricky. I think because of slight differences in how I had everything set up, I could NOT front cross the weaves and get her over 8 and 9. Fading from the weaves and pulling hard worked just fine for us.

Our biggest problem tonight was drive ahead, especially to the tunnel, though I suspect it at least partially had to do with Marge being tired towards the end.  Several of my readers have commented that I should begin to throw treats for Marge rather than always feed her out of my hand; I've always done it to some (small) degree, but did try to implement it a bit more tonight.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to try sequence 6, although I was really curious as to how I would handle it.  Maybe next time!

Thus concludes our final agility post of 2009.  And, what a year for agility it has been!  Beginning in April and culminating in our debut November trial.  We may be able to squeeze in a dual Rally/Agility practice some time during the week, but I'm not positive that it's going to happen.  We have no agility class tomorrow, so we won't be back on course until Monday.

I am pitifully behind on commenting blogs - I sort of took an unofficial hiatus over the weekend.  Will catch up sometime this year - I promise. ;)