Aframe Obsessions.....

MY AFRAME OBSESSION LIVES!!! (but it is getting a little old!)
It is my theory that anyone who has TRAINED a running contact...(as opposed to if you have a dog that has always "naturally" ran through their contact because they naturally run through -the running contact is built in, or you know how to manage so they do it) goes through a little obsessive phase.

WHO KNEW there could be so much to think about even if you were looking for things to think about...lots of thinking about all the little components, dogs strides, how their back feet look as they run-together or split, watching other peoples videos, watching your own videos of your own practice, reading about other peoples journey with running contacts, etc...LOL, my poor family and friends and poor people who visit my blog ;-). All this obsession and I have not got to the part of how to train exits and how to go to the next obstacle, I am sure that will be a whole new area for us. I am getting really ready to move on to the next stage and get this Aframe all put together. We had a big set back a few weeks ago and had to go back to the start,but you know what they say it is always darkest before the light, and they were probably not talking about aframes, but...that saying works for those too! Now I just feel like things are clicking and it is time to shift from slow and careful to HYPERDRIVE. It is very exciting!

I moved the aframe up 7 inches in two practice sessions, we are FINALLY at 5 ft 3-almost at full height. I am soooo excited that we had a 89% success rate, so we can move the aframe up another few inches at our next practice, how cool is that? The one trial that was not successful in our last practice was when I did a different entrance to the aframe which I was not supposed to do. I think Cricket got off balance and on try three she set her foot down on top of the apex, so not her fault she just was not ready for that entrance challenge and it caught her off balance-but she almost made that one too.


BELIEVE IT OR NOT WE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO DO THIS!
Do not feel you have to watch this, this is part of my obsession and my feelings will not be hurt if you choose to pass on this ;-). If you do watch, check out trial 3...not successful. I had given Cricket a bad entry, which I am not supposed to do yet, she does not yet know how to balance herself with a harder entry, so on the top of the apex she sets her right front foot down-I never saw that even watching the slow motion-Brittney her breeder saw that-and it totally explains why she had to put her foot down before the box, what a miracle she is smart enough to figure it out and even being a little off balanced she was so close to that being a good hit.


This has totally been worth it to train a running aframe because I really am learning a lot, and I have a lot of thoughts on the good and bad of this method--I can not wait to see if my opinion changes as we head into the next phase, and as we get to start competing and see how this baby holds up! It is still aways away, but the end is getting in sight!

As tired as I am of training this, I am already thinking I know someone who I am pretty positive will let me borrow one of their dogs, hummm....and when I get Cricket trialing.., maybe I could borrow a dog to try to to see how I could do trying this another time with the benefit of knowing where I messed up the first time. ;-) Wouldn't that be fun to do with the benefit of some recent hindsight? LOL, see there is an obsessive quality to this training...at least for me. Hummmm....something to think about.....hahahahahahaha