Continued Crufts 2008 Training!

Well according to Johanna it is only 38 days until Crufts! Wow!

So I am making a concerted effort to do more training and exercise with Hex. Damn, Zen better be pregnant as I am not training her at all! I had two good days of training with Hex this week thanks to some friends. On Friday I went to Nancy's and considering her garden was UNDER water last week; it was in great condition. We set up this sequence from Jenny Damm's DVD: Sequence 15. It was a good sequence to work on for me as it had some long lines of jumps. We spent lots of time working the sequence in different ways which was really good. Karen came up with the best way to handle the beginning sequence and we were all suitably impressed that we could do it that way! I cannot tell you how we handled it as that is a secret and I would have to kill you if I told you! hehe

We followed up the training session with a nice walk for Hex and Hob-b along with the crowd of Border collies, shelties and one lone poodle. They are all so well-behaved together; considering at one time there were at least 12 dogs walking together. More good exercise for me and Hex (I won't talk about the pub lunch that I was walking off!)

On Sunday Dennis and I took a good walk with Hex, Hob-b and Pax. We met with Tim and Marion (who are the most fantastic "walk designers!) I think Tim was trying to kill me as he said it was only a gentle incline....well yeah it was gentle but it went on and on and on....I was feeling very fit after doing it until Dennis and Tim started jogging up and down the path while I could barely walk it! Geesh.. show offs! The walk was beautiful as always and one of my most favorite areas of the South Downs. Yeah we stopped half-way at the pub but Marion and I were most reserved and only had soup! We had to then watch Tim polish off the soup, bread, chips and a few beers and still be able to jog up and down the path!

Today Lisa came over and helped me set a new sequence from the Jenny Damm DVD. We actually set it up in the muddiest part of the garden which was silly of us. But there ya go! We set up Sequence 4. If you are interested in seeing the course, just note that the #4 jump should actually be the other side of the jump. This is what she showed on the DVD. I like when Lisa has off from work as it is a great help to have someone else to force me to train! We followed up the sequence training with a few jump chutes from the Susan Clothier Natural Jumping Method book. This chute is taken from the "Problem Solving" Chapter and the lesson on One-Stride Distances. I didn't want to take the time to change the chute distances for Hex, so they are set for Chi's stride length. So obviously the chute is more difficult for Chi. The heights were changed between the two dogs as Chi jumps 43 cm and Hex jumps 35 cm.

Enjoy the video.