We had a couple training days happen and go. It went unnoticed here because I was probably driving around looking for a bathroom to use. We do have a plywood subfloor now, plumbing and an installed tub. But that’s it. I’m going to venture a guess of 3 more weeks til it is actually a bathroom that you look at and say, “Now that is a bathroom. Tub! Toilet! Sink! Walls!”
Something I was noticing a lot teaching class this week was giving your dog a nice Spatial Boundary while jumping. Imagine your dog is boy in a plastic bubble. They need to be surrounded by a cushiony plastic bubble filled with air and you cannot touch them in there or they will grow up to become an overweight scientologist with an airstrip for a front yard who ruins the movie Hairspray. When you crowd and push your dog’s bubble, it can cause a run around. Refusal. Turnout. Backjump. Any number of sins that depending on how you look at it, are worse or better than having your own personal baby John Travolta. Really, his career is sort of like how my dogs go. Brilliant! Look Who’s Talking 3! Wow Quentin Taratino! You are so Fat! Movie Musical Star! Movie Musical Ruiner!
Crowding to a rear cross can just slam your dog right up to the bar, where they are going to jump poorly, not read a rear cross, or just plain old not be able to jump it and refuse. And you are going to think, why is my dog refusing? Not thinking about Spatial Boundaries. Let your dog get ahead, way ahead. Teach that skill with a Go On. Which is what we happened to work on in class the other night because I was so in Spatial Boundary mode.
Sometimes this happens when your dog’s speed is inconsistent. My dogs all run Fast Fast Fast on Wed. nites. There is a lot of barking, it’s a stressful environment, and it’s on dirt. The barking and the dirt and the cool night time air are all things that get my group moving. If every trial was in the evening and under a covered arena, I would be set. When I go out to Dee’s practice yard in the late morning and it’s already warm and sunny and there are gophers Everywhere and everyone is kind of laid back and hanging out, they are harder to get moving. I need a frisbee for Otterpop and have to really work on Ruby. This is when I run them differently. I have room to get out there ahead of them and put in a front cross I might not have been able to do the night before. I have to adjust my pace correctly to work with what they are dishing out. When the dogs are inconsistent, you have to match up.