When agility also includes a trip to the eye doctor.

Like I would take her to a dogpthamologist? And make her wear prescription doggles?

I know. I bitch because I'm too busy to train the dogs, then 5 minutes later I'll tell you about training the dogs. I just want more time to train the dogs. See one thing of dog agility is, you meet some retired folks. They are genuinely, positively, retired. With enough money somehow to take their rv somewhere like a vacaton, train the dogs, go out to lunch, pretty much whatever they want and not go to work. This is the lifestyle I aspire to! The retired person lifestyle! Except for the little issue of, being self employed and all, I might be working my fingers down to milkbones like forever til I kick it. With my boots on.

I would be a very busy retired person, just would not have to constantly ensure that people are writing me checks on time and for ideally large amounts of money. I would actually probably do all the things I do now except with way different hours and proportions of time allotted to things. Like my ranch would be at my house and I wouldn't have to have a gazillion customers, just a few that are nice. And dog agility would be at my house so I could practice whenever I wanted. And the art studio is at my house and clean so I can go in there and work on projects and always find the fresh xacto blades. And so on. And so forth. I just didn't do the right prep work to be a retired wealthy person, like I am picturing here. Let me go watch the Secret again.

But I did practice with the dogs some today. And 2 of the dogs kept hitting a double jump, from wherever we were jumping it. Otterpop is bad with spread jumps, aka oxers for you horse folk. She is just not scopey. Ruby just leaves long and exuberantly to cause her bar knocking. Otterpop is just plain old not built to jump. If she were a car, she'd have big fat hotrod tires in back and little teensy tiny ones up front and purple fur on her dash and little pompoms jingling and candy apple red glittersparkle paint and a shiney chrome chain steering wheel better for her hippity hop otterpop down the road. Yeah, you make that clear those spread jumps without knocking a rail every time. A scopey horse feels aethletic, and has an arc and a great hind end push off the ground. Otterpop is just a solid little tank built for low to the ground for speed but not really jump style. I'll speak to my breeder about that.

Ruby is now and always has been a chronic bar knocker. I did a lot with groundpoles and spread jumps in our younger days and nothing really helped except moving her down to Performance. The switch from being the tiniest 16" dog to an average size 12" performance dog helped, and my ego is pretty much over that switch. Let's just say it all together. There is nothing to be ashamed of having a Performance Dog. She is a lot happier with lower jump height and rarely knocks bars (but sometimes does). She just always has left long-like there is another stride left in there and she doesn't take it. That's what I'd say if she were a horse. Jim never could figure it out. He always asks how her eyesight is. Damned if I know. Like I'm going to get her glasses? If I remember to regulate her pace (ie, slow her down-sucks) I can sort of get that stride in, like when it is Very Important to Get Out of the Ring Clean. But if she is just hauling ass and I sorta forget this, chance of bar. But way less chance as 12". And in Performance, no triple bar!

The horse trainer has the dogs that jump bad. Fantastic!

I can't really say much about Gustavo's jump style. I keep the bars really low right now and he either does little grids, learning to look forward and balance himself (my little pony) or is learning to focus ahead and hold a start line stay then DRIVE at a single jump that he has actually looked at. That's all he's doing. We go REAL SLOW with my special ed pup. It will work, and he will be fantastic but just have to pick one thing and work that til he gets it before moving on. And I guess you could say I have a bit of a bar knocking paranoia now so this fella is going to have a little bit more attention to how he jumps.