More Contact Work- ASCA Trial

Busy weekend, obedience yesterday and agility today!  There was an ASCA trial  this weekend and since they take day of show entries I decided to head on down with the boys and train their contacts in a trial environment.  I was a bit bummed the contacts weren't rubberized and the aframe was taller than Lance is used to.

Lance
I entered him in two rounds of open standard.  The first course had the dogwalk in the beginning and the aframe at the end which was perfect for us! He is much more likely to do his 4 on the floor in a trial on the dogwalk and he did it perfectly in his first run today.  Middle of the course goes smoothly, even does his very first set of 12 poles in a trial, and then we get to the aframe.  He gets to the top, stops and stares at me.  I repeat his command for floor, and Lance takes a few more steps down, slowly, looks at me again and then gets to the bottom and lies down immediately.  I praise him and we do the last jump and run for our treats.  While I'm not thrilled about the creeping, at least Lance was thinking instead of launching.

In the 2nd run the Aframe was the 4th obstacle so I planned on leaving the course after I was satisfied with Lance's performance, whether after the 1st attempt or several.  His performance wasn't horrible.  No hesitation at all on the aframe and he did down, but still took an extra stride on the ground than I would like.  I put him back over and he did a perfect 4 on the floor so I praised him and left the course to give treats.

Vito
I thought it would be good for Vito to get some more dogwalk practice in a trial so entered him in two rounds of novice standard. Since I'm debating about whether to enter him at 16 or 20in at the NADAC trial in a few weeks I entered him at 20 today.  We jump 20 in practice but since he has mainly done CPE shows he has only had to jump 16 in a trial setting.

 He was crazy amped up for the first run, even screamed and stood before I got one foot away from him on the startline.  I resat him and released him to the aframe as 2nd obstacle and dogwalk as 4th.  Both were drop dead sexy!  Acceleration with each stride on the dogwalk with foot placement all the way to the very bottom of the plank.  The judge even made a Wow comment as we ran.  Rest of the run was Vito's fastest running in a trial so far.  He did knock 2 bars which I'm not thrilled about.  Also hesitated on the teeter with only 1 foot on the ground so I waited until he got to his 2o2o position.  Weave poles were good.

2nd run Vito wasn't as psycho and the dogwalk and aframe were right at the end.  It was another gorgeous running contact which lead to an off course.  I was totally expecting it though as there was the aframe/tunnel discrimination 1 jump after the dogwalk and the extension of running the dog walk put him right on the tunnel path and I didn't pull him off it.  Teeter and weaves were good.