I responded to the special trial offer yesterday, and was really impressed by what I saw. So here I am.

I built the course from Lesson 6Â in my yard this morning and tried both Dusty and Libby out on the the first sequence.Â

Lead-Out Pivot. Apparently, I have to work on doing a lead-out pivot, since both the dogs and I were kind of clueless as to what to do.

I ran Dusty first. He attacked the course with his customary vigor once we explored the concept that he was to run over my feet and enter the weaves. Dusty is used to me hanging back and letting him find the entrance.

Jumping a line of jumps. My dogwalk is about 15 feet from the line of three jumps. I didn't think this would present a problem, but I failed to look at it from Dusty's perspective. The DW was in a direct line with the first jump as he exited the tunnel. Even taking the up-ramp off and putting it on the ground did not take care of this problem. I had to call his name to swing his head toward jump 2.Â

Getting to the right spot. Although the object of this sequence was to not enter the curved tunnel after the 3rd jump, I realized that when it was time to run the actual course, I was not going to be anywhere near where I had to be to execute a front cross to the tunnel. I went back inside and watched the first sequence again. Duh. I thought I was moving on after the A-frame and not babysitting the tunnel entrance, but I was nowhere close to being by the right standard of the dummy jump.

I took Libby outside and tried the sequence with her--same problems with the leadout. Very simply, it's a skill we will have to learn. The rest of the course she ran beautifully--even better than Dusty, except she missed the first jump of the three after the straight tunnel. I failed to support a push to that jump. Next time thru was flawless--getting to the right spot for the three jumps meant that I could have easily made the front cross needed for the curved tunnel. I can't wait to try it with Dusty tomorrow--we had class last night and class tonight, so I don't want to push it too hard with him today.