So we're on week 6, sequences on medium height. A week of that then up to standard, after another week large and after that we can introduce 6 weaves and some contacts.
I've always made sure we warmed up before training but now we've got a good routine; a brisk on lead walk up the road and back, some cavalletti and some race to the toy. Warm down is more cavalletti, stretches and a walk up the road and back.
I've got some TTouch harnesses for Sixx and Who and when we're at shows I'll use the double lead to walk them to the rings to get them thinking about proprioception.
Every other day I do strengthening exercises with both dogs, sits to stands on wobble cushions and rear leg stretches.
Sally the physio recommended a very interesting book to me - Jumping from A-Z by Christine Zinc. It's full of info on conformation, the mechanics of jumping and different jumping styles. It's really given me a deep appreciation of the amount of skill that our agility dogs have to learn - adjusting their stride according to conditions, our q's, their level of experience, confidence, so many things! I feel I've really taken for granted just how incredible our agility dogs are and how much we ask and expect from them - especially when a lot of them haven't even had specific jump training!
One of the issues I've always had with Sixx (a minor issue btw!) is that she would never really power off the start line but after a couple of jumps she'd really speed up. I've always thought it was related to her wait - that I'd somehow caused her to be tentative about the release. From reading this book I think now it could be more to do with her confidence in finding a good take off spot for the first jump. Apparently it's a really common problem. This is something we'll be working on!
