We had a pretty good weekend at a CPE trial even though we only qualified twice out of 8 attempts. Lots of almost Q's. We did get first in colors Saturday for a level 5 Q and first in jackpot Sunday with a first and a great run where lots of people came up to me afterwards and said that was the way to do it. Biggest problem Sunday was sticky contacts. We did his "2 on 2 off" right at the edge of the yellow zone and I had a hard time getting him to move down the contact. I obviously did not want to release him but time really got chewed up trying to get him to release. I believe that he really does not understand to go to the bottom of the contact and I have not been consistent in trials about "making" him go to the bottom. One of my instructors says to go back to using targets so we will try that.
The barn was small and I needed to adjust my style more than I did. I did have some back jumps which were unusual. One of these was right on the #5 snooker obstacle that I need to get enough points. It was a 2 jump combo and he went around the second jump! We had one off course on a very, very difficult standard course Saturday so I was pretty happy even though our Q rate was low. I think the small barn and the fact that the judge has dachshunds contributed to courses that were not that great for long striding dogs.
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