So this week I was extremely frustrated with Gus' performance. I have entered him in the up coming Saguaro Scramblers trial the weekend of October 18th and 19th. The only reason I have entered him is to get Flex some exposure to the trial environment. He continues to knock most jump bars and refuses to weave at speed. His handling is going very well.
Set 1 - I worked with Gus on this set in stages because of his weaving issues. I lead out to a position between 1 and 2 (closer to 2) and released Gus from his stay while looking over my right shoulder. He handled very well from 1 to 4 but knocked all of the jump bars. I kept him on my right from 1 to 3 and then did a front cross so he was on my left headed into the far tunnel entry. This prevented him from going into the wrong end of the tunnel. After he completed the tunnel I put him on leash and sent him into the weaves. On the first 2 turns he did not weave well even on leash but on the 3rd try he did better. I kept him off side and held the leash to make sure he completed them. After the weaves I took him off leash again to finish 6 through 9. I had him on my right side and headed to 6. If I did not move fast enough he would cut in front of me and take the off course number 8 jump. When I did move fast enough to get him out over 7 it was very difficult to get a reasonably tight turn to come back over jump number 8. Once he was over jump 8 he had a straight shot into the chute with which he had no problems.
Set 2 - This set was exceptionally difficult for us. Besides requiring a tremendous amount of speed since lead outs were not allowed, the set is mostly jumps so Gus knocked most of the bars. We also had a lot of problems going from jump 5 to the teeter. Gus continually wanted to push out wide around the teeter. Finally I tried a front cross in front of the teeter and that gave him a better approach and he was more successful. I am still not able to get in front of Gussie for front crosses on tight courses like this one.
Set 3 - Weaves, Weaves, Weaves. OMG they will be the death of him. He weaved OK (because he was a little tired) on leash. I rewarded him with the tunnel which seemed to work OK. We focused our practice to on and off side weaving for the entire set. He was doing pretty well, but did pop at pole 10 on a number of turns. He was building up some speed and having good foot work on a few of those turns. We need more practice around equipment and other dogs.
Set 4 - This set was to practice threadles and serpentine patterns. We definitely had a few handling issues with this one - again because of his speed. We performed the black square sequence first and we were pretty successful. He had nice switches and ran very smoothly. he did have a wide turn from 5 to 6 because my motion pushed him out there. This was difficult for me because I really don't know how to handle this so that he doesn't go so wide without layer the number 6 jump (which is not allowed in APHS). On the white square sequence we struggled. Handling the threadle without using RFPs with Gus was very difficult. I was constantly out of position for the number 5 jump. I need to set this up at home and see what I can do to make this work for us.
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