Another Good Practice!

Another good practice yesterday, not only for Zio, but the whole team. We ran the Speeding Sheepdog team, but Jean-Luc was having trouble holding the ball past the start/finish line with the short runback area at CSA. We decided that we'll just move him to fourth dog and Zio to third until we can get some warmer weather to have a full runback area at the outdoor practice field to work on it. That gives us two months of practicing and two tournaments to get it right for the Grove qualifier in April. Division 4 is a whole new adventure for us, so I'm eager to see what we're capable of as we gain experience.

The new dogs and our dogs in training are progressing in leaps and bounds! Getting new people and their dogs involved brings a new level of excitement to everything.

New People!

Katie and Susan have been actively recruiting people and we had some awesome new dogs & people come to our practice yesterday. Some of the dogs seem like real naturals and act like they love it already!

We were in a time constraint yesterday, due to the meeting before practice, so we did a condensed version of practice. It is starting to become an issue with not having an adequate runback area to practice on. We tried to just use two gates for a longer runback area, but to get a tight enough pass, you really needed to anticipate the other dog will not bobble the ball or have any other miscue. Bottom line is that shortening the course really didn't help us fix anything.

I need to get back to practicing after work in the evenings too. The cold snap appears to have relaxed it's grip slightly, so Zio and I are going back to our box work. The good news is that our entry for Bonham has been sent in and we're a month away from racing again!

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Dream Team 2010 Video

This is racing from the our Dream Team entry Nov 12th on Championship weekend.

Practice with Sure Shots

We had an awesome time practicing with Sure Shots in the Dallas area Sunday. There were a lot of dogs to work through, but the energy level and organization made it a ton-o-fun. Thanks to all of our friends at Sure Shots for all of your great tips and ideas for our dogs.

Many of our dogs really surprised us with their progress by using some of your pointers. Now I'm even more excited about the next tournament! Speaking of tournaments, Susan and Connie may have found a place in OKC to host a tournament. We'll hopefully know something soon.

More to come...

First 2011 Practice

Practice went well yesterday as Zio continued his box work to improve his drive off the box. Later in the session, we ran the Speeding Sheepdogs over 11 inch jumps for the first time. Zio knocked a jump over going to the box one time and Jean-Luc broke the top 1" slat on another jump later in the session. Passing with Cody was uneventful, but we kept the passes a little wide. I think Susan Owen timed one run at 19 seconds, so we should be good once the passes get tightened up. Jean-Luc was better about holding his ball, but only if Zio gave him an extra wide pass. He's still getting used to passing as the number 3 dog, so we'll keep working at it to get him comfortable. Worst case is we'll move him to number 4 for the February tournament, but I think he'll be fine by then.

We are discussing the feasibility of heading down to Dallas one weekend this month to practice with our friends at Sure Shots. I think it would be fun to work with some new dogs and also look at their training methods.

Outdoors

We had a good outdoor practice yesterday at the OKPaws field. It was mid-40's with an Oklahoma breeze of 20-25 mph, but wasn't too bad if you kept active. Too much standing around would let the cold settle into the bones.

I wanted to get some opinions on the work Zio and I have been doing at home, using just the stride regulator before the box. It's good to have extra sets of eyes sometimes. They noticed that Zio hits the box differently when there is a ball in versus without the ball. Without the ball, he tends to run out of room coming off the box when he hits it too far left. With the ball, his rear hits further to the right and he seems to come back straight. After thinking it over, it may only seem straighter because he's hitting far enough to the right to avoid the jump bars on the ground discouraging wide turns.

Technically, it really shouldn't matter where he hits the box. Center of the box is actually supposed to be better. Coming back straight is coming back straight. Muscle memory wise, it's better for him to keep repeating the same motions (getting the ball) on his turn that he would use during a tournament. He has such a long body that it may be more difficult for him to hit the center and get the ball smoothly.

We also discussed using a larger stride regulator, but I really want to keep the visual cues to a minimum. From trying to reconstruct his turn all year long, Zio seems to really depend on the "junk" being in place to guide him. He seems to do worse at tournaments if all if ever sees at practice is the jump board before the box. That being said, we'll continue with the minimalist cue of one PVC jump bar on the ground to keep him from crashing the box and force him to drive back on his return. My logic is that you can't punch the box and also drive back over the strider.

Susan Owens mentioned using a clicker, which is something I've been considering anyway. It may be time to invest $1.98 in one!