Fit Friday: High and Tight

I am so proud of my Koira girl!

Her turns last night at practice were amazing. Her first five were all high, snappy, tight turns, with a fast go out and fast return. All four feet were not only on the box, but well placed. And only one of the first five had any double hitting at all, the rest were all solid. 

Our second set of five, she had two really nice turns and three low-but-four-footed ones. but still a fast go out and fast return on all of them. I think she was just getting lower as she got tired, but since even her absolute worst turn of the night was better than her best turn at our last tournament, I am over the moon. Oh, and yes, all of these turns with with absolutely NO props of any kind in front of the box, just like we will see at a tournament.

I will say that my teammates were all very impressed. There was a bit of ribbing about the fact that Koira's turn improved so much right before I head off to run in Open, at a tournament that no one else from my team is going to. I did put some extra time and effort into training her turn, I'll admit. But, its not like I haven't been putting time and effort into it before now! I think something just finally clicked for her. Of course I have no pictures or video or anything to prove this, but that doesn't make me any less thrilled!

Lets hope she stays solid this weekend in Canada!

After practice, we set up a power jumping grid, which is six flyball jumps all set up ten feet apart. I brought Pallo in for this, and he had a blast. I had him run it four times (Koira came in and ran twice, but she is always a rock star with jumping grids). He has been off flyball completely for a full two months now. He was jumping smoothly, single striding every one, and going for his tug with wild abandon. He'll be doing some full runs at practice next week, so we'll see if some time off is the solution to our previous issues or not. Fingers crossed!

FitDog Friday: Flyball box turns and striding

Here is a striding video of Koira this week. She is still moving pretty smoothly.



And then here is a box turn video from this week. We were losing the light, so the video is a bit dark. But, her turn is very nice, tight, and fast. We used a simple PVC prop in front of the box for it. You can see another PVC prop closer to the camera- that is one of our striding props, and is 5 feet from the box. We were starting from just behind that prop.

FitDog Friday

I honestly have no pictures to post today, and no awesome fitness information to share. However, one of my favorite flyball training blogs put up a new post about jumping in relation to flyball. I thought it was an enjoyable read, and very informative.

SPECTRUM DOGS: Jumping for Flyball

I agree with her point about using gates for teaching jumping in flyball. I've always thought it was a rather cop-out method. Yes, it works with some dogs. But it shouldn't be necessary if you properly train the jumping, either the way she describes it or by doing a simple back chaining.

I'm also super interested in trying out some of the jump grids she talks about. I've never liked using extra props to get dogs to do things. Adding props means you have to then wean off of props. This is true for box jumps, stride bumps, etc. The more things you add, the more things you have to wean away from. So, if using jumping grids can help with teaching proper striding, it would be one more step to not having to use, or to minimizing the use of, stride bumps, while still ending up with proper striding.

I wish I had more indoor space to practice. My house is too small to do much- even doing basic up close box work requires moving stuff to get enough room. I'll just have to take advantage of dry days as much as possible I guess!