Different Is Good

Sadie had a really good class tonight. She hit all her contacts and stayed (mostly) focused. There were a few bars down, but not too many. One was apparently a bit of an oh crap, dogwalk moment and she adjusted in-flight for her dogwalk approach. Another was a handler check-in on the end sequence of jumps. I thought she was out of that habit, but oh well.

I am finding that the new instructor very nicely compliments Mr. Trainer. I get very different advice from them, but on completely different aspects of the sport. For example, Mr. Trainer has me thinking about optimizing her path through a course to get faster times. My Tuesday instructor talked to me at length tonight about her physical capabilities. In particular, her lack of core strength. She offered a few suggestions to help with it, and encouraged me to have Sadie evaluated by a specialist that visits the club regularly.

Of the suggestions, one was to get balance dome for her to stand on. It forces the dog to use their core muscles to balance on the tippy surface.

The other one I loved... You get a boogie board, put it in the bathtub with a few inches of water, and get the dog to balance on it. That's right, hang 20, doggy!

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There has been some interest after that teaser post. Never fear, more teasers are coming! I'll probably post them once a week for the next two months or so. Guesses and thoughts are welcome in the comments!