Catching up

Well, I think I've made a decision. I'm going to stop working on a running DW for Spry and do 1RTO. I haven't honestly gotten to work on running that much - but that's half of the problem. I don't have the ability to be able to work on it every day, or even 3 or 4 days a week. And I don't think it's very easy for Spry. She has a GINORMOUS stride, honestly. She can go from our walk up to our front door to the sidewalk by leaping through the front yard, and it takes two strides... the yard is, I don't know 25 ft maybe? Anyway, once she gained confidence on the board she started hitting in the middle and striding over the bottom half of the DW. She doesn't seem to have a natural rotary gait on the DW either which doesn't help. So basically, I'm giving up :) I think her 1RTO can still be speedy, and for her will certainly be much more accurate. I'm still going to do a running AF and will start working on that sometime in the spring.

For now, I'm going to work on the DW stop (which she already has learned the position, just have to apply it to the DW board now) and the teeter jungle gym as well as a few other things like the table and chute which I don't think I've taught her yet. Once those things are going well and she is getting the DW, I'll probably move on to the AF and jump and WP training. I don't want to start jumping and WPs until it's nicer outside and we can pretty consistently work outside. Plus, she will be a little older. Who knows how old she is... I would say at the earliest she was born Jan of '09, latest probably end of March '09. So I don't know what I'm going to say for her registrations with the diff organizations.

I have this little fantasy that somehow she is going to Q for steeplechase for nationals... which is nutso. She is just so fun to work with, I am getting excited about running her. But not too much too fast! I just have to keep reminding myself.

Speaking of nationals... Panic has her steeplechase Qs, and will be entering DAM at CCDAC with Bekah and Malibu and at BRAG with Bug and Lannie, so I'm hoping to knock that out, but we have ZERO GP Q's. And I think I counted only 5 trials I am going to... that is not good. Have to re-visit the USDAA schedule and figure out where else I can go!

Dude gets to run CPE this weekend. We're vending at the 4 seasons Washingtonville trial, and he is running Wildcard, Colors, Jumpers, and Jackpot. Cross your fingers for us it goes as well as the BRAG trial did!

Oh, and if you couldn't tell from lack of post-age. Panic didn't get either gamble at Penn-OH so still in the hunt for the ADCH. Friday night was unfortunate, she was taking the tunnel which was the 1st gamble obstacle also, and the buzzer indicating the end of the opening period went off. well, I'm trying to figure out if it went off before or after she went in the tunnel - and if we need to continue the gamble or start it over. I picked to start it over, which was correct, but I was flustered and out of place for her when she came out of the tunnel and she ran by the next jump. On Saturday, I thought we had no chance because once they came out of a tunnel you had to forward send a whole bunch, and she isnt usually so good with that unless I can really back it up with motion cues. Well, I positioned myself to be running towards her/the jump when she came out of the tunnel but I began a half sec too early and had to decel at the line JUST too early for her... she ran up to the last jump and turned around. But I was thrilled she got that far, honestly, and the opening was really nice.