Lineup!

Koira ran in a lineup for the first time in well over a year!

With the great progress Koira has been having with doing full runs, we decided today to try putting her in a lineup for the first time since her rather horribly failed tournament last January.

And the best part, Koira ran great! First time out, I ran Koira first, with Raff, a Keeshond on our team, passing into her. Koira didn't even seem to notice him other than dropping her ball once, which may have been from him crowding the lane a bit (or might have been her spitting balls for no reason). Second time out, we switched it around, running Raff first, followed by Koira. Again, she didn't even seem to notice him there, even when I was passing closer (though we didn't do any close passes yet).

Passing and other dogs in general were never a problem for Koira. She has never really been distracted by dogs in the other lane, or had issues with dogs in her lane at all. But, being able to run in a lineup is an important step in training before we can head to a tournament with her. The main issue she has is lack of motivation heading to the box, but running her in a lineup seems to help with that, if anything. Plus, we think that her desire to return to me will eventually help speed her up down to the box as well as from the box.

My next training goal with her is to run her between two dogs, with one before her and one after her. And I will throw a party to celebrate when she single strides the jumps on the way down as well as the way back to me (currently she double strides to the box and single strides back to me).

Pallo did good at practice too, except for tripping and taking out a jump. We were running him at 9", which is his measured jump height. He tapped one jump, then somersaulted into the next one, taking it out completely. Luckily, he was not injured at all. And, he loves flyball so much and has such confidence with it that he ran just fine the rest of the night, not even tapping any of the jumps.

And, just for a bit of a laugh, Pallo trying on booties for the first time.