So last weekend Enzo started missing his contacts. We had a run last Saturday where I did a hard push off the aframe and I don’t think he liked that. He growled at me and left the aframe a little early. So then the next day he missed his dogwalk contact, flew off the teeter, and took a flying leap off the aframe. So we worked contacts a lot this past week and I was hoping that would help. Nope, yesterday he missed the dogwalk contact and did another flying leap off the side of the aframe. After the aframe I kind of yelled at him like “hey! what are you doing?” and paused for a few seconds. It seems like that may have made an impression as he was really careful on his contacts today and hit all of them. Unfortunately he knocked the triple so no standard Q but I was really happy about his contacts. Last weekend, he only got 1 JWW Q but first place for 40 points. This weekend again only 1 JWW Q for 28 points. Hopefully that doesn’t put us too far behind for invitational points. Especially since Labor day weekend we’ll be going to the USDAA SW Regional.

Tooney did a flying leap off the dogwalk yesterday so she got a scolding too and made her contact today.

Oh and last weekend Tooney got her 6th double Q for AKC nationals so she’s qualified now too!

So Enzo had another pretty good weekend and got about 100 more points. Enzo got first in Saturday’s JWW. Really nice run and nice turns which he ended up running in 6.2 YPS. Tooney knocked the first bar and another one later on. The first bar was because she broke her start. Not sure why the other one did except that I went pretty far lateral to get a front cross in.

Standard was pretty tricky with a zig zag sequence that presented a lot of off course possibilities if you zagged when you should zig. Pretty much had to handle it with a double rear cross which is tough with Enzo because I usually can’t get around the jump in time for the second rear. Tooney with her left and right commands got through it smoothly. Enzo on the other hand was really wide on all the turns. At one point he was headed off course and when I called he just stopped for a split second and looked at me like huh? where do I go? He came off the off course chute and finished the course clean. Tooney actually won the class and Enzo came in 3rd place! Tooney hasn’t beat Enzo in a while so he really wasted a lot of time there. This really reminds me that I should work on his lefts and rights.

Sunday’s JWW, Tooney ended up knocking a bar because I decelerated too much before a wrap and she just landed on top of it. Enzo did the wrap nicely but ended up stumbling in the weaves and skipped a pole. These weaves have a little higher base and he’s tripped on them before.

Standard had a pretty tough opening but we had actually practiced almost the exact same thing in class on wednesday. It was two jumps to an 180 turn and then you could either post turn and then push between the two jumps or front cross on the other side of the 180 and wrap to the outside. We timed this in class and enzo did better with the wrap to the outside where he stayed on the same lead so that’s what I did. He was a little wider than when we did it in practice but it was smooth. With Tooney I was going to do it the other way because I didn’t think she’d let me lead out far enough but she ended up staying long enough and I could do the front cross. Enzo ended up getting 2nd place and Tooney got 3rd. So far Enzo’s quick (er..self) release contacts are working. Tooney is doing a running dogwalk in competition now and hitting them most of the time but she may miss them a lot more in USDAA with the shorter contact zone. I prefer that to the really slow dogwalk though.

So another really good weekend for Enzo and Tooney but I really wish I could get Tooney’s double Q’s for nationals.