So, we decided to do some training last night since we’re having to have a fairly substantial re-shuffle for Dundee this weekend. Bailey isn’t coming, Mac is off form and Dottie is still lame, we will just have 8 dogs. We took the kit down to the playing fields where we had a bit more room so we could set up 6 hurdles to help teach Faith to hurdle fast and accurately over 13”. For some reason, she runs fine over 12” but struggles with 13”…she did get 3 measures at 12” but when I went for her final one at 30 months they would only give her 13”…I really wish I’d held out and got another measure but I needed to apply for her height card before we went to Belgium so she’s stuck with it now. She is obviously smaller than Dottie and Lexie though who both also measure 13”…hey ho, I digress...
We lined up Ethan, Lexie and lastly Faith and sent them for run backs quickly one after the other to get her to power through over all 6 hurdles, this seemed to help and she was running much better than she has over 13” before but still not quite there. We than practiced Faith in on Dylan, Lexie in on Faith and Ethan in on Lexie to see how that worked and it was ok.
We then got the slant board out and did some runs with Pip and Teal over 9” and both were doing some lovely box turns…Teal is SO fast with that board in, we’re going to work on reinforcing this over winter.
Then we got Drake out and I ran him behind Pip…well…he had spent the last hour in the van whining because he thought it should be his turn and buggar me…he absolutely flew! We popped the jumps up to 12” and he was still running around the 4.5sec mark so we’ve decided to try him in the Racers at the weekend instead of Ethan, if he runs like that (which he probably won’t!) he deserves to be in that team anyway but it will also give Fi her 12” jumps. I’d really like to know how to get the cockers performing they way they do in training, in competition?? I can only conclude it is a confidence issue, cockers do tend to be sensitive little souls but how to deal with it? Answers on a postcard please!
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2 comments:
Haha!!! I think cockers are like children. They feed off our emotions. They do it just as you want in the dress rehearsal cos it's fun but the happy little cocks get less happy when the pressure of the real thing comes comes. The trick is to make the real thing fun without the pressure.I'm still workin on hoe to do this!!!
I think it is about the fun element...I mean at training last night, I let Drake out of the van and he did a full mad circuit of the field and pranced and chased and leapt all over everyone and then lined up to run! Unforunately that sort of a 'warm up' might get frowned upon in the ring! lol
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