We broke the course down at 1 - 7 to start, doing a front cross in front of 2-3. Although this could have been handled from behind the point of the exercise was to do the front cross. jumps 5-6 were then worked from behind allowing the dogs to pick up the weave entry independently. The main thing with the weaves was that they were going into nothing and there was a tunnel following, so this really tested the dogs independent weaves when the handlers started to peel away. We then worked on proofing the weaves by leaving the dogs to weave on their own while the handlers moved off.
The next section we worked was 7 - 11, again proofing the weaves with the handlers moving across to the tunnel. The next tricky part was the send on from the tunnel to the far jump. The really high drive dogs did this naturally, but some of the handlers got lazy and pulled the dogs off. They had to ensure that they kept their drive arm up and did not suddenly stop and drop their arm. Then the turn from 10 - 11 into the flat tunnel was another trap and the dogs were then facing both tunnels. Some handlers managed to completely block the flat tunnel sending their dogs into the pipe. They used the incorrect arm and their shoulders were pointing to the pipe, but with practice they all completely this section correctly in the end.
The last section we worked on was 14 - 18, which allowed the dogs to drive forward and really pick up speed, but at 16 we needed a tight right turn of almost 180degrees. This was achieved by crossing behind the dogs at 15, while still sending on to 16, then front crossing 17 to draw the dogs across.
When we put it all together as a course, the dogs worked brilliantly as the handlers were confident in what their dogs could do and knew where the pitfalls lay.
