I am about to be a very vocal advocate for dog agility equipment safety

I will write more, but I wanted to get this picture public! I can't tell you how upset I was when I saw this.  It was my failure to not spot this, but I am not the only one who failed in this situation.

The top picture was taken by Ken Gee Photography and posted with permission.

It was well worth a year of effort!

It was about a year ago that I said to my coach "I want to change my handling and timing for Tangle".  Of course I had no idea I was on a year journey, but really it didn't matter, I just wanted to do what it took for us to be the best team we could be. 

It was about 4 months ago that I said "I am going to try to love standard" (I hated standard). 

Not that we have "arrived", I don't think that you ever truly "arrive", but we are to a point where I believe that I have accomplished a significant portion of the goal.  My handling is better, my handling choices are SO MUCH BETTER, my cueing/timing for Tangle is much better, and I am now neutral on running a Standard course (I don't think I will get to the love part, but that is OK).

The work in the last year has involved so much focused work on:

• My timing, trusting my training, cueing and going.
• Learning better ways to cue
• Hearing "your late" over and over
• Timing tons of handling techniques to see what is the fastest for Tangle
• Teaching Tangle greater commitment
• Hearing "your late" over and over 
• Learning how to cue lines, not obstacles
• Increasing Tangle love to chasing me
• Hearing "your late" over and over 
• Focused retraining on contacts
• Verbals
• Proofing weaves

It feels like the list could go on and on, but I think those were the biggies for us.  I am proud that I am a better handler, better training, and I believe that it is making me a better teacher.

Here is our Standard run from today.




Also, so Hoot isn't left out, this clip shows how she has benefited from this hard work.  I trusted my training!!