[Barb VanEseltine]

HI Tracy,

Excellent point about my physical cues for “out to the weaves” versus “come in to the tunnel”. I wanted to watch…

My next few sessions for Enzo are going to be refreshers on the contacts and start line stay. I will spare you looking at that!

This is 2 sessions: Wednesday and Friday. At about :55 I wrote on the screen. Basically, this is the picture I think we are going for (head down, drive around wing). If so, I’m in pretty good shape. If not, I need to understand why not. <grin>

Question: doing a complete circle on the backside is pretty unusual in AKC. Mostly a backside wrap is: go, do it and return. I did a few of those. Comment?

Thanks,
Barb

• This reply was modified 1 day, 2 hours ago by Barb VanEseltine.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

First up is Enzo working on the tunnel/weave layer and discrimination. He would much rather turn wide and out to the weaves than wrap tight to the tunnel. We worked on that a bit.

Also, we moved on to #4 but didn’t have the map for 5,6,7,8 with us. So we did 4 and then modified it by sending out to the weaves. That proved to be very tricky, since he REALLY wanted to pick up that jump on the way to the weaves. So we worked on the “through the box” skill for a while.

I don’t feel like I totally understand the plan for Casper. The front-side wraps look pretty good to me whether with the toy or food. So I did a couple of those and moved on to the backside wraps with the food bowl out and toy in pants. See what you think. I forgot about trying to pair the toy with the food until about halfway through but I think it worked pretty well.

Then I left Casper float out to the weaves on the other setup.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for being so patient.

My oh-so-cheerful doctors have estimated between 6 months and a year before I fully return to my previous state of agility-ability due to the broken leg. That seems grossly unfair but based on my rehab progress, I do believe it. Enough of that…

Plan:

By remarkable good luck, I noticed a long, narrow Cato board in my TV room and, in the spirit of good dog training, decided to take my one jump exercises outside. Although we almost never trial outside, it does automatically increase arousal and I thought that was a good idea. I thought we could do a quick review of everything and start adding more motion.

<sigh>

Execution:

I did a couple of things which were not in our best interest. I mixed up toys and food, even though he really loses interest in food once a toy comes out. I also moved along much faster than I should have – I had had high hopes of quickly getting to where we were in the barn. Alas, just getting a sit was a challenge. At any rate, here it is.

I think I need to go back to just the board and work on a quick sit and release in the presence of food first and then the wonder-toy.

If the weather isn’t too dreadful and I get back some energy, I hope to set up the layering exercise for Enzo later today.

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

OK; will do. Should I leave props in for BOTH front side and backside jumping?

I have trouble with props in agility. I almost never used them in obedience because of how hard they are to eliminate (although I did put out toys to help straighten Bidder’s go-outs: he would tend away from the tempting toy <grin>).

My experience with props in agility has been pretty negative. I have used them to try to create better backside jumping without much success – perhaps because of removing them too soon (?). I am pretty afraid of baking the prop into the behavior. OTOH, of the 4 dogs (including Casper) that I have tried to teach backsides, none of them have good, strong ones. Enzo’s are “best” in the sense that he can keep the bar up and understands wrap versus slice (although he generally does a slice and corrects to a wrap on the ground, when needed).

I expect that working through these backsides with Casper is the best summer activity I could be doing. Although if the weather cooperates, Enzo is going to do some of the switch away to layering games later this weekend/next week.

Thanks!
Barb

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by Barb VanEseltine.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Just Casper today. The weather is brutal again and I couldn’t muster the energy.

I included a bunch of the jump work; looks pretty darn good to me.

On the weaves, I worked on entrances.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I have been resisting sending to #1 with 2 arms because I can’t make that work in my head. I’d have an easier time spinning it. <grin>

I totally agree on the wrap exit: he had quite a loopy turn. Honestly, I was surprised at how well he did the “go straight” one. No hesitation, just go. Obviously, this contrast drill needs more work.

Plans:

Enzo: Pop Out #3.
Lead out to #2,”IN” to confirm the correct side of the jump, spin for the tight turn to the tunnel. Send to tunnel with brake arm, little or no motion. Call over 4, send to 5 with “PUSH” and FC to 6.

Pop Out #4
Ohhhh – isn’t this one interesting. How about this plan:
Lead out to #2, “IN” to confirm side and immediate FC. Send 3 to 4 while moving past #3. Turn #4 towards the tunnel with a FC to delayed post-turn type thing winding up with dog on left. Slice backside at #5, Turn away “Switch” at #6 maybe with a spin – I think he might cut through the weaves. I’d prefer not to spin because it might be too tight for the layer of 3/5 on the way to the tunnel.

Casper:
Backside with organizer (hurrah!).

Results:

Enzo. Sigh. He had a seizure early this morning (only his third in 7 years). I’m not sure but I think he was a bit sluggish because of that.

Pop out #3
First, when I saw it on the ground, there wasn’t a question about which side of #2, so I didn’t worry about the “IN”. Enzo’s backside wraps have never been brilliant but they apparently lost most of their tightness while he’s been out. After the first try, I did some refreshers. Enough to keep the bar up but not enough to get a brilliant backside wrap.

Pop out 4 required 2 tries because of inadequate walk-through. I had trouble with the FC to delayed post-turn and had to practice that piece. After that it was ok, complete with bonus jump on the way to the Frisbee. Well, the “SWITCH” turn away wrap was pretty wide but there is a lot of “crispness” that he needs a refresher in.

Casper
Oh wow! He really “got” the organizer on the backside. The bar was still up from last time and I forgot to lower it. In the course of one session, I let his sit almost completely deteriorate. <sigh> It’s a good thing I have video….

Also, the weaving was brilliant, if I say so myself.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

HI Tracy,

Busy day with PT but we hopped out to play with the setup a bit. I meant to do this with Enzo before but forgot.
(A) Contrast straight, right and wrap out of the tunnel
(B) Weave with me running with toy in hand.

That was pretty fun! I think the wrap could have been tighter. If I do it again, I’ll put the camera where we can see exactly how he exits the tunnel.

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

LOVE the story of SG and MEB with plastic knives and cream cheese! And I totally agree that it is genius.

I asked my rehab vet about the sit/sit-pretty thing. She has listened to both sides and doesn’t really find the haters or the lovers compelling. She doesn’t recommend it but doesn’t forbid it. Her more favorite exercises are the sit/down/stand (in any order) on a narrow plank. This is hard. And doing it with one foot elevated is very hard. We have also been working on balancing on 2 feet. First the diagonals and then both feet on one side. And crawling. Enzo crawls forward pretty well; backwards not yet. <grin>

I decided to move along to the section 3 standard pop out (it includes weaves!). Looking at the maps, I especially like the first one, since it helps isolate “find the weaves” from “grab what is nearby and then find the weaves”.

Plan (Enzo)

Pop out 1: Lead out well past #2. Turn right on #1. Send to tunnel, layer #2 on the way to the weaves. Call “right” at tunnel to prevent taking #1 again.

Pop out 2: Lead out well past #2. Turn right on #1 (DIG). Turn left (away) on #3. For Casper that would be “CHECK” but for Enzo it is “SWITCH” since he’ll be on my left. Turn left at #5 (“CHECK”).

Plan (Casper)

Review wrap with sit and motion. Review slice with sit and motion. Continue weave proofing.

Result (Enzo)
I ran pop out #1 twice; once without layering #2 and once with it. Both seemed ok.
For pop out #2, once I saw the course as built, I was less afraid of his going 1,2,3,tunnel. So I ran it the first time as planned and the second time with a right wrap on #3. I think that should be faster, since the dog stays on the same lead all the way around and it was: 9.5 seconds versus 9.1 seconds by my reckoning.

Result (Casper)
We did both the front side wrap and slice, I think they look pretty good. We’ll move along to backside wraps next. I left in the last weave runs; if I carry it in my outside hand, he has better success than in the nearside. We’re working on it.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

HI Tracy,

Yes, I have loved teaching weaves ever since a friend showed me how 2×2’s work. In the early 2000’s, she came home from Susan Garrett’s and used her fingers to demonstrate how to start with a “tunnel” and rotate the sets-of-two in order to develop the weaving motion. I was SO EXCITED. My previous dog was taught on channels and never totally understood. All subsequent dogs have been taught with 2×2’s.

Plans

Enzo
We moved along to pop out 2. Using your suggestions from pop out 1, I created this plan:
– wrap cue at #3
– FC at #6 trying for a send and go to create a tight turn.

Casper
I have to laugh about trying to use things that don’t make his head explode. He will work with minimally acceptable energy for food, so he learns something but not in a totally useful way. Almost any toy raises the stakes to “pop your head off” as demonstrated by failure to return with the toy. Although, to be fair, it is getting MUCH better.

What happened?

Enzo
Well first, once I reminded Enzo that “Dig” meant wrap a jump (not just U-turn to the right), I was very happy with pop out #2.

So happy, in fact, that I added pop out #3 on the fly. That was not the best plan, since I tried to get down for a FC between 4 and 5 (disconnect, skipped #3, not going to make it anyway). Big fail. I had to do the turn from 4 to 5 as a flip and that needed a little practice. I think it is interesting that he totally knows he is going to “wrap” #5 but chooses to slice, land, turn.

Casper
Well, it took me a while to figure out the slice setup. I was slow to realize I could just take one of the jumps which has a removable support and create a nice tight setup. Casper was pretty funny but he caught on. I included a few “good” ones. ALSO, I realized he is quite weak in his core, so I’m starting the sit to sit-pretty exercise. Not sure why he doesn’t know it. Previous dogs have known: sit/sit-pretty/up/and back down under control. All while staring at a cookie, of course!!

Today’s weave challenge was dog weaves north while handler walks south. I have actually used something very like this in a trial and I really want to have it. We have a pretty good beginning. On the last rep, he shocked me by being successful even though I was holding the toy instead of having it planted ahead.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Here is some random stuff from my training. First, Enzo doing the section 3 pop out #1. I did it two ways, the first time using a flip for the backside, the second a more typical backside. His flip was very wide and I was LATE with the “left” cue on the second to last jump. The second time was pretty nice.

Then there are the two best examples of Casper doing the organized front wrap.

Finally some weave training with Casper. This is in here just for fun – we like to train weaves. We are working on “go left to weave right”. Casper is starting to develop some mad weaving skills!

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Well, I took a look at the Handlers’ Toolbox Independent jumping skills. I think I’ve started working on these exercises at least twice but I didn’t get very far. I’ve only done it independently but I think I had a pretty good head-turn going. The course goes pretty quickly from “drag toy on the ground to try to pattern pretty jumping (head down, back rounded)” to “crazy proofing”. I’m pretty sure I haven’t done too much proofing on jumps like this although I know I’ve done some. Also, I’m pretty sure I did some of the random sit work.

I’ll try tomorrow and see how it goes. If the weather stays nasty, I can go in the barn. It is air conditioned (just saying).

Looking ahead, I am confident I never progressed to using a sit box – it is so much like an obedience front game, I’m sure I would have remembered playing it. A nice game to play with a bum leg; that’s for sure!

Well, the sit box thing was so exciting that I grabbed some handy Styrofoam pieces, cut to size and put them together with vet wrap. Then did some sits in the living room. Both Casper and Enzo found that to be pretty easy – it aligns quite well with the rehab exercises. So that was skipping way ahead but was a fun indoor game.

Thanks.
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I try not to be a complete jackass when receiving criticism/advice, since I know that is not a strength, but I would find it much easier to believe “Casper doesn’t understand backsides” than “…because you had not yet told him where to go next”. (And, of course, I’m struggling with rehabbing the broken leg, if I need an excuse to be so needy.)

At any rate, this is the entire training session we just had. It is just starting to rain and the ground is very slippery. I was attempting to test your theory that he doesn’t know where he is going, looks at me and drops the bar. I mostly used a FC, since I can signal it more easily.
:32 FC – bar down
:45 FC – bar up
1:02 FC – bar down
Et cetera

The one at :45 was not “at speed”. It was the only time he kept the backside bar up. At 2:17, I tried to show the serp, also without success. If I could do it again, I guess I’d say, “stuff the toy in your pocket”.

Obviously, I’ll repeat this when the weather is dry. I rushed it in today because on Saturday my mower-man does the training yard and everything gets changed around. I wanted to retry it with the exact same angles.

Barb

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by Barb VanEseltine.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Speaking of Casper rotating away from facing jump #1 but taking it anyway…. I was just watching the 4-Legged-Flix video of the EO individual finals. Mine isn’t the only dog who rotates to follow the handler but still takes the correct jump when cued. <grin> I saw fewer slingshot starts this year than I remember from past years. And the weave entries were mostly very, very challenging. I wish I could set up the Intermediate finals course just to mess about with that weave entry. I can’t find a course map for the run but I have watched the whole thing and think I could build it (well, I would know how, not capable right now).

Moving along to the next set of pop outs. The weather is back to dreadful and hot, so I tried to work quickly.

On the second run of pop out #4, I used a lap turn 4 to 5. I don’t think I normally would but my mobility continues to be challenged.

On pop out #5, he obviously doesn’t know how to set up for the backside on a flat approach (#5 to #6), so after a couple of tries, I put in an aid and just moved on. Also, IRL, I would like to turn #7 to the outside but my position was not good so I let him take the line he was on.

It is 94 degrees, so we weren’t going to get to #3. (Since I can only do “one thing” a day and this was today’s thing, I thought I’ll just send it along and see what you think.)

Thanks!
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I thought I’d move along to some of the pop-ups. Since I’m not very mobile, they also become a series of discrimination exercises. <grin>

First I set them up and ran the first three with Enzo with lowered jumps. He didn’t have much trouble and was happy to get to play. I didn’t include his runs on the video.

Then I went back to #1 and worked Casper. $%^&^&%$#%^ I forgot to turn on the camera. That is really disappointing because I learned something which I thought was kind of interesting. At #3, the dog has to turn back on his line to get to the #4 tunnel the most efficient way. With Enzo, I used the verbal “switch” which (apparently) I use to mean “turn against the way you want to go”. [It is supposed to mean “turn away from me”.] At any rate, Casper didn’t get that at all. With a bit of practice we decided to use “dig” which is his right wrap verbal and makes sense. Once I figured out the video wasn’t running, I went back and re-ran #1. Of course, that run was perfect.

However, never fear, we had lots of struggles with #2. As you can see, my lead out at an angle is not very good. He understands “look” but if the angle gets too steep, then he won’t stay in the proper position. I suppose I really should go back and re-teach his stay. <sigh>

Casper probably won’t get to do #3. My mower-man comes tomorrow and will rearrange the yard to suit his mowing purposes. By Monday, I may be up to work on 4,5,6.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Good day today! The temperature dropped from high 80’s to mid-60’s, although the humidity is still very high. I was in a good place on the pain/meds curve and we had a great time!

Here is Casper. I did a couple of DW to jump/tunnel discriminations. Since he has a stopped DW, there isn’t too much excitement with this, except reminding him about the correct way to stop. I also did a bit of one jump discrimination work. In theory, all of these should be “in play” on a verbal: 90 degree left, 90 degree right, wrap left, wrap right, switch (turn away), backside wrap, backside slice, threadle wrap, threadle slice. I think Enzo is well over 80% on the left/right and backside wrap/backside slice; he is working on the threadle cues. Casper is working on all of it…

The whole tape was only 10 minutes but most of it was me walking to various places. For example, the first full minute was us walking out to the far end of the DW and me taking a lead-out. I am very happy with today’s training.

Thanks,
Barb

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