European Open Practice

Roo and I headed up to Sacramento for three days of nonstop agility training in the heat with some pretty amazing agility handlers.  Twelve international courses completed in three days.  

A few things that I came away with from this weekend...  We can do International courses.  I think heading to tryouts, I wasn't so confident on the courses.  I definitely feel like we have improved after this weekend.  I also felt like I could trust Roo more on the courses.  Micro managing this weekend only seemed to cause bars to come down.  As for the bars, very few came down.  

The real take home from practice was that my dog is not hitting her up contact on the dog walk.  This has never been a problem since in AKC, the up contact does not get judged on the dog walk.  I've only worried about the down portion.  It wasn't on my radar until I got called on it a month ago at a USDAA trial.  I had no idea.  Roo also got called on it at tryouts in the last round.  Well, this weekend, she missed a lot of up contacts.  When she has to turn or collect, she hits it.  Otherwise, my long striding dog just glides right over it.  

Here's me ready to go into panic mode  ...  yep, she's definitely missing it!

Only three weeks to go so there's not much I can do at this point but give it my best shot at fixing it.  Today, hit-it board trianing starts!