Lure coursing and flyball

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This week we lucked out and had practice in two sports, both lure coursing and flyball. We headed out for a very small group lure coursing practice on Tuesday evening, with a total of six dogs there to run the lure.

I ran each of my dogs by themselves twice, then, just for kicks, ran them together for the last one.

I had someone else release my dogs for me, so that I had a chance to get some pictures of them. My conclusion is that I need a longer lens to get seriously good lure coursing pictures. And that Koira is WAY faster than Pallo (at least in lure coursing, since their times are about the same in flyball). I did also act as catcher for the two whippets who came out to practice (the other two dogs were a miniature Poodle and a shepherd mix puppy).



Watching those whippets run is always pretty amazing.



Then, on Thursday, we headed off to our regular team flyball practice. Since I learned a lot about my camera's settings while at the flyball tournament last weekend, I decided to try for some new pictures of the dogs using my new knowledge. I think there is a lot of room for improvement still, but that these are way better than the ones I took last time I pulled out the camera at practice.

Team dog Joy, still learning her box turn

And, of course, the highlights of practice are some basic achievements. Pallo ran steady. It is basically just expected of him now.

Tank, a solid team dog

Koira, on the other hand, had some awesome work (which for her is worth remarking on). After racing on Saturday at the tournament, I got some great advice from a couple of very experienced flyball trainers about how to work on Koira's box turn. I tried it out for the first time at practice, and I have to say, it looks like this may be the method we needed to find.

Zip, a slightly crazy but ultimately loving and adorable team dog, who has become way more reliable than anyone would have thought possible a year ago. 

Basically, Koira didn't have a single double hitting issue. She wasn't super solidly amazing every time, but her turns looked good, she snapped off the box quickly, straight to her tug, and she had NO double hitting or readjusting of her feet. Hopefully with steady training sessions she will be able to relearn a proper box turn this time. One that sticks!


PS: You may have noticed a slight change in the sidebar, if you are observant. Yes, Pallo earned three new titles this past weekend, his first U-Fli titles. Way to go little man!