I m p r o v e Yo u r Handling Skills at Home Backyard Dogs By Karen Holik This month’s exercises include some challenging jump sequences, but also some that are just plain fun. They contain some difficult threadles and also some fast serpentines. In Figure 1 try keeping your dog on your right throughout the sequence until doing a rear cross at the #8 tunnel. Meet your dog at the exit of the tunnel and do another rear cross before jump #9. Figure 2 is very similar, but this time you have to direct your dog past the off-course jump before the entry to the weave poles. You could again try keeping your dog on your right for the entire sequence. You will notice that it may be difficult to keep your dog in the poles since the poles are so close to the edge of the ring. Reward your dog when he is successful. This can be a challenge designed by the judge and you will probably see it often. In Figure 3 I would suggest a front cross on the landing side of jump #2. If the weave entrance is too difficult, you can try moving jump #4 to the left. Figure 4 has a difficult off-course trap going from the #1 tunnel to jump #2. After that, you can keep the dog on your right until jump #7, where you’ll need to do either a rear cross or a front cross before the jump. 1 2 5 4 4 6 10 7 9 1 2 8 5 9 3 8 3 1 6 10 7 2 3 5 6 4 3 7 4 10 4 7 11 6 2 8 9 1 3 1 5 8 2 10 9 8 Clean Run | September 07