Sunday October 8th 2006 - Fun Match

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Walter and I had a great day today enjoying the beautiful weather in our third fun match together. Going into it, my personal goals were to give commands earlier and to properly study the course from a handling perspective to know where I need to be and when. Today's courses were standard and jumpers (without weaves, yay!) and I decided we'd try both the starters and advanced courses in each. Walter was on his game today and even got an imaginary Q in the starters jumpers! (It was our first fun match course that didn't have weaves in it, so it was nice to be on even ground with everyone else for once.) In the standard, he displayed very nice control on the teeter both times and did a good flip from the frame to the tunnel, but he was slow to down on the table. He didn't knock a bar all day (22"). His start-line-stays definitely need more work, but compared to previous fun matches where by the last run he seemed to have had enough, his concentration seemed to last the whole day this time, despite the warm weather. I noticed today that if I focus him just before entering the ring by saying "wanna go play agility?" in a perky voice, it really gets him excited and thinking about the task at hand. From watching the video afterwards, I would say that I improved on giving commands earlier and I feel I'm getting better at mentally picturing the course and therefore remembering my path while doing the run. It was a wonderful day and a great way to end the fun match season.