Agility in the mountains!

We spent the weekend in beautiful Durango, Colorado playing agility outdoors. The venue was gorgeous. Nice grassy ring surrounded by lot's of trees. The area was surrounded by 350 acres of woodland and meadow so lot's of off-leash hiking with the dogs in the evenings.

Summit had two blazing runs on Saturday to earn a Double Q with two first places. Sage dropped a bar in jumpers that morning but then had a very nice run in standard for a 4th place.

Sunday, again Summit had two nice runs but he dropped a bar in each class. Sage missed her dogwalk contact in standard and earned a third place in jumpers that afternoon.

There were a LOT of bars coming down. The ground was a bit uneven with some dips. The judge ended up replacing the triple jump with the broad jump because the area where the triple was supposed to go, the ground was very uneven and he decided the broad jump would be a better choice. That is the first time I've seen a broad jump in the Excellent B class. It is legal, it is just something you never usually see.

Training:
I'm noticing that Summit's occasional dropped bars are when he's jumping with extension (straighline or soft turn). So I've set up a fairly straight line of 5 jumps with a box at each end. I'm working on discriminations in a box with Sage. Focusing specifically on using lateral motion to push or pull to the correct jump in the box. The lateral motion is subtle and I begin setting the line at the first jump (not as she enters the box).

I'm doing the same thing with Summit but also practicing keeping the bars up while I'm racing down the line with him. I've been using a timeout for ticked bars as well as a dropped bar.
I'll mark it, then stop and put him in a down while I reset the bar (or we go back to the beginning if it's a tick). Sometimes I'll not send him all the way into the box, instead taking the opportunity to mark and reward for nice jumping form.