January 28

I need to catch up big time with Morgan's training log. We've done quite a bit of training since our lesson last week and then we had our third lesson today. So I will take it chronologically. After our lesson, I really didn't train at all on Friday but on Saturday, I set up the 2 weave poles and we practice doing them with me rotating 180 degrees around the poles. She was able to dive through the middle no matter where I was standing and as long as there were cookies involved she was happy going after them. We did the jump chute with me NOT dropping my hand and she did it well. We also started doing it with me moving and I was able to get all the way to jump 3. She did great. We did it on both sides and then quit.

On Monday, we went to Tom's house again to practice and he had us drive by the house and Jake was a very good boy and didn't even look up at us. We drove by 3 times. Good boy! After that I took Morgan in and we practiced the teeter. She is way past that part of the training but we still don't have the 2o2o to proceed. we did the weave poles and I tried to use the kix which were kinda yellow but they kept getting lost in the grass anyway. I'm going to need big pieces of something for her to really see the cookies I throw in the grass. That didn't work as well as I had hoped.

We did the pinwheel jumps. Tom says that I wasn't back chaining, but front chaining and I get what he meant. I was doing the first jump over and over. I'm not sure that is what she really wanted me to do but it's what I remember but maybe it got jumbled up inside somehow. To back chain is what we did with the jump chute. We did the last jump first so I think I was really doing it backwards. But, hey, it worked. She was jumping through that pinwheel, bouncing away. I didn't try to get much distance but that is what I'll try to work on this week. I'm not supposed to jump her again tomorrow but on Saturday I'm going to try to back chain it for real. Meagan had us do something completely weird and different today (she called it the devil jumps) but I'll get to that when I write my 'lesson blog.'

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we practiced backing her up on the steps, helping her get in touch with her back feet. I forgot to practice with a ladder but will do that this week. We also have the platform we can use. On Wednesday she was really beginning to 'get it' Tomorrow we'll work those props with her as well as the 2o2o travel plank. The last thing we worked on is 'side' I am trying to teach her to go to my right side. She was beginning to come to the right side when I pointed to it but the left is her default side.