Boring. And weave entries.

In some ways it's good that I've not got much to add.

Mostly I've been working a lot, which tires me out and bores the dogs--a bad combination. And it's been raining quite a bit off and on the last month or 2 (surprise--it's winter!), which makes me not want to play in the yard, which bores the dogs--a bad combination. So instead I eat a lot of Girl Scout cookies and Valentine's candy and other healthy things.

In class about 3 weeks ago we got the lecture on consistently training weave pole entries. "Consistently training" meaning clearly identifying and tracking where in a 360-degree arc from the weave pole entry do you send the dog, and whether over a jump or not, and whether the dog is on your right or left; noting where you are for each side of the weave entrances from which side of your body, etc., and start each training session where you last left off being only partially successful, so that you're not always going back to the beginning and spending (wasting) time redoing things that you already do well, instead working on the entries that need improvement.

This has proven challenging. Not getting weave entries--Tika's are already pretty good and get better and better the more I work on them, which is something that I can do easily on my yard--but identifying where exactly they break down. For example, let's say I have a jump about 9 feet and 45 degrees away from the weave entry. I note my starting position. I note Tika's starting position. I direct her over the jump and into the weaves and she's fine. Using the same setup, I move her slightly to one side from where she had been. She doesn't make the entry. Or I move her one foot back and she doesn't make it. But move her 2 feet back and she does make it.

So I know that in that general vicinity we sometimes have trouble making the entry. But I can't say that, with the jump 9' away at a 45-degree angle and me on the left, she makes/doesn't make the entry. I also have to factor in how far she is from the jump and where she is in relation to either side of the jump. This is too many factors for me to track.

So I'm falling back on "practice weave entries that I know are difficult for her".

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