Excellent JWW Course Set-Up Sunday Night

Last night Sheryl and I met at the field at 7:30 to set up the below XJWW course. It was my first time ever to set up an entire course from a map. Whew! It was a lot of work! We didn't finish until about 9:15, then spent 30 minutes or so running Maxie, Lucky and Charlie. We were both sweating buckets. I gained a whole new appreciation of the people in our club who set up courses each week, believe me!

I saw this course run by several people last Saturday, in Hattiesburg. Very few Q'd. A surprising # of D's had trouble at 4, which looks so simple to handle with an OUT command. Due to wide spacing between obstacles and 3 long tunnels, you either have to run a lot to reach the back side, or handle from a distance. The course below shows what I think the judge might have intended to test for -- distance handling. Because without that skill, there is almost always an obstacle in your way to run wide of, or you have to run right alongside your dog all around the course -- a long run.

I intend to go out this week and practice this, in segments and with touch targets if necessary, to get Maxie used to "going out" away from me. No way we would have Q'd in a real trial on this one. We made 4 but he missed 5, 6 and 7 unless I ran right beside him. He screwed up going OUT to 10, and didn't even see 11 (I didn't support it). I was surprised, though, that he had no trouble with 14 and 15, and going thru all 3 tunnels in sequence and over the finish line at 19, with me staying behind the turquoise lines. Lucky ran the course, too, just for fun, with many treats. She did the whole course, in segments, but was far more interested in the cat on the field.

Sheryl and I divided the course up into trouble spots (5-7; 9-13; 15-19) to practice separately, with a target moved around from just past 6 to just past 7 to encourage go outs.  Each one could be handled from greater and greater distances as D gains confidence.

That's my take on it anyway.  We'll see how it goes next week.

Sun's coming out after a horrible thunder storm late last night.  I may get in some back yard practice a little later on.  However, Maxie and Lucky are both zonked.  Hattiesburg trip, and last night, wore them out.  I'm a bit worn out myself.