Courses

Here are the courses I set up at Spring at Shuttleworth. First, small grades 4-7 agility. About 90 dogs in this class. No wait was needed, but without it some handlers mis-handled jump 4 to the A-frame. It otherwise looked fun and exhilerating to run. I worried the night before that it was too straight-forward for the grade, but at the end decided it was OK! Not many people who ran down the left hand side of the dog walk managed a tidy turn away to the next jump, but it was not too hard to put a switch in before the dog walk, either by running through to the end of the tunnel, or sending the dog to the tunnel and picking it up between jump 9 and the DW. A few people sent their dogs on after the long jump instead of steadying for jump 12, and this made the weave entry harder for fast dogs.

There were about 300 dogs in the large grade 3 agility. Only one handler pre-curved jumps 1 to 2, but this made a much nicer and faster turn for the dog. This course didn't need much of a wait but without it the turn 2 to 3 could end up being quite wide. Many dogs also went straight from A-frame to tunnel if the handler hung back too much to help the dog get the contact, or missed the contact if the handler ran forward past the A-frame, so it proved a slight test of the contact training! (However, you could also cross behind the A-frame!)