Sunday, March 11, 2007

Sunday March 11th 2007 - guests at another team's practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

First we did head-to-head lineups with Lucy running after a big handsome chocolate lab. Well, aside from treats, tall male dogs are Lucy's favourite thing and the first time he ran past her on his way back from the box, she had to go flirt with him instead of go down the lane. After that she got back on track but still she had some trouble peeling her eyes off of him. Then we did a speed drill using two jumps: someone else holds her and I'm up close to the box facing her, I start running and call her name as soon as she passes me. The boxloader said she was definitely picking up the pace, particularly on the way back. We ended with more head-to-head lineups, this time with two different dogs in our lineup, Lucy running second, and in the left lane with a different box. She fumbled the ball without picking it up several times and I imagine it's the combination of different box, being in the left lane with nothing to block the view of the other box, and running with two new dogs. But also the captain noticed that Lucy catches the ball in the air several inches in front of the box rather than putting her mouth over the hole, which increases the chance of bobbles. So, I'll be doing some work with her with an unsprung box to get her to better position herself.

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