Our Manuever course for today.

This is the course for today for both Novice and Open dogs.  Novice: Wait patiently for permission to enter ring(far lower right corner). Enter on leash, set up in a stationary position facing to the left. Heel forward, right turn, fast, normal, about turn, slow, normal, left turn. stop. Take off leash, leave dog and walk back near the ring entrance to where your cart is positioned (H-H) on the map. Call your dog and hopefully your dog comes to you and takes some sort of stationary position near you.

Then on to the map and the maneuvering course.  At (H-H) you harness and hitch your dog to the cart still off leash from the recall. The judge will inspect your cart and harness once the leash goes back on the dog. Then they will tell you to move forward and proceed with the 360 right (around the obstacle, in this case a tree with pine cones strewn under it) and from there uphill slightly to another tree to do a 360 left.  Coming out of your turn, turn left at the flower pot obstacle and come up to the steward that has a package for you. You must shake their hand, and take the object from them, and put it in your cart and make sure it is stable.  From there you pass another flower pot obstacle, turn left and proceed to the narrows. After the narrows pass the next flower pot, turn right and someone will ring a bell as you pass them, and as you take another right around a flower pot.  A slow will then be called where they look for change of pace and control, and then normal again before you make a right around the next flower pot.  Back downhill to the steward, where you return the item you carried, and where they ask to pet your dog. They pet your dog, and then you proceed at a diagonal across the ring to the backing exercise.  You set up your dog, and they place a marked stick at your axle. You must back up one foot in Novice, three in Open.  You then proceed still sort of diagonal towards the ring gate to the moveable object, in this case a cart with a bunch of stuff in it. You stop your dog, move the cart, go back to the dog, and head past the cart and out of the ring.  You are then done until the long stays!

The only differences in Open are that while you also enter the ring on leash, you place your dog in the H-H area and go get your cart yourself ( no steward delivery, darn it). From then on, the entire maneuver course is leash free. We leashed back up when we start the dog forward after the moveable object, so that we exit the ring on lead.

The long stays are 3 minutes, in sight for Novice, out of sight for Open.

As soon as you are done with your stays, you head out in catalog order for the freight haul, pairing up with a steward that watches you as you come out of the ring and accompanies you along on the freight haul.  For Novice, the haul is on leash, Open it is off leash.

For Novice the dogs must carry twenty pounds, regardless of dog size. This put Brick and Kieran, both around 24-25 pounds, at a disadvantage, as they were pulling their full weight for the freight haul.  For Open, it is a minimum of 60 pounds, so that is what Charlie, who is large but mostly made of hair, had to pull for his Open run.

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