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Hi Again,
Here is #2, it went much better. I remembered to “pre-cue” the #4 backside and that went very well. Actually, I was happy with the whole thing. Added the weaves (which just happened to be there) as a reward. 😉
Barb
Hi Tracy,
Here is our first try on master’s sequence #1. I walked it for 3 minutes and then warmed Enzo up and ran it. I think the issue here is not so much that I didn’t walk it “properly” but that I don’t yet know how to walk it for Enzo. The way I walked it would have been fine for Lollie or Patt but it turned out not to be what Enzo needed.
1. Basically a disaster. He blasted out of the tunnel, over the jump and into the next county, trying to call him over #5 was just silly; then he saw his beloved weaves and ran off; eventually we finished up. (play/praise cut out of video)
2. Using the same handling (as run #1 NOT as walked, see below), I managed to get him through the course. He was still wide at 4 and that made him wide at 5. (play/praise cut out of video)
Then I walked to the mic to describe the new handling idea.
3. This went much, much better through the problem area (4-5-6) but I forgot that the course didn’t end it at 9 (so that turn was the worst turn 9-10 of the 3).
But, wait, things are not going well in the VanEseltine household today. The internet is crawling, so slow! And I’m waiting and my mail isn’t coming through and I had to toto (turn off / turn on). At any rate, I watched my original walkthrough for the 100th time and realized I hadn’t executed it even once. When Enzo came blasting out of the tunnel, I didn’t “catch” him on the FC; I immediately switched to a post turn and a disaster. Then I changed the handling but never actually ran my original handling plan. So, here that is. It worked ok. Surprise, surprise.
I guess I should say that I do not generally “commit” to my handling plan. I often change it in the heat of the moment. Of course, I would prefer to have my runs look more like my walkthroughs. 😊
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
So here is the “real” zigzag session (the Friday session). We did do a bit of “reading” as well as the regular 5 and backside 3.
Although it is outside, I don’t know how “good” a surface we have. Michigan is desperate for rain and the ground is dry and very hard.
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
This is from Tuesday. We wanted to move it outside as much as possible. Looks pretty nice. I’ll do another one tomorrow (Friday).
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
First off: hurrah! You condensed the course maps to just 2 pages. A real improvement – thanks!
It really cracks me up that this is your favorite part of the course, since it is my least favorite. Walk-throughs. One suggestion: in the beginning of the walk-through demo video, could you show the course map. That would have really helped me.
Well, if the weather holds, I’ll try to get some of the sequences done tomorrow!
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
Yes, even though I haven’t been doing agility that long, I have managed to be exposed (mostly via seminars) to a lot of the people. I had a brief chat with LM at a trial once. We were standing around and watched a team have a complete train wreck; one of those where the dog was doing exactly as asked and the handler got mad because it wasn’t what she wanted (it was really sad). As that was concluding I said something to her about how much I appreciated that she figured it out and shared it. Her commend was along the lines of: I wanted to help the dogs because so many people didn’t understand how they were responding to the handler.
And another thing, as I just shared that story I realized that it has been YEARS since I heard someone come out of the ring blaming their dog. We have a pretty strong culture in Michigan of apologizing to the dog as we leave the ring (when things go bad).
Interesting that Nicola Giraudi and I invented the same thing. (snicker) He designed the UKI courses back in late May. They were very nice, as I recall.
I really like hearing people talk about training and what they are thinking about. Makes it fun.
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
You can always have more coffee!
But, yes, this makes lots more sense.
To translate into acceptable instructions…
Continue front-side zigzag drill with 5 jumps at 14. Start him close enough so that he jumps out of the sit without the extra stride. This is mostly maintenance unless something starts to go bad.
Continue with the 10,14,14 pattern looking for (what?) Since he needs to get around the jump, he can’t go directly out of the sit, so looking for smoothness? Minimal strides into it?
We’re getting closer…
Thanks!!
BarbTracy,
I think I can follow your instructions but I don’t understand the objective of the backside start. What you wrote when we first added it was:
“So… on 3 jumps: Send him in as a backside send to the first jump (10″ to start, just to set up success).”But I don’t understand how that sets up success. Similarly, I don’t understand why I should start him so he bounces into the grid. Why not start further back and let him figure out his striding into it? How would I know where to start him?
For example, in the most recent video, I started off with him quite close (:00 :05). For the next rep, he was clearly set further back because he was more extended into the first jump, but, was that a good thing or a bad thing (I feel like Glinda: “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”)?
When I consider the backside starts (:17, :21, :25) and compare how he jumps #’s 2 and 3, I don’t see a difference to the frontside starts (:29, :34) jumps 2 and 3. <sigh>
Also, I thought the objective was to eventually get to full height (20”). Based on your advice to take this into maintenance mode, I guess not…
Also, we had been saying to only do this once a week. If we are going to twice a week, does that mean he is doing better?
So confused.
Thanks (sorry),
BarbHi Tracy,
Glad you liked the BC from 3 to 4. Probably not my “go to” move but I didn’t see any other way to get downstream, so we went for it. Also, I was further away from 2 on a move that was mostly a forced front but, again, necessity is the mother. Anyway, after the bath we took on course #2, it is nice for you to find the good things on this course.
Oh yes, that RC at :21 was definitely in the plan! I thought he was already going long at 9 and the BC would make that worse. (I said “I thought” not that it necessarily would. 😊 ). And once you let a RC slip into your handling, you are probably behind for a good long time. Still, I was very surprised that he curled in on #13. Even looking at it now, I expect him to honor the pressure.
On the closing line, I wanted to run it clean (time, heat, tired) and so I was more careful on the threadle than I might be. I will try to work on getting more independence on those. A tremendous amount of our work is still “motion based”* versus trained. And most of it will be forever.
What a lovely review! And, I guess I know what to put on my homework list. 😊
Thanks,
BarbPs: The phrase “motion based” was used as a slur describing Linda’s handling system; I think it was Bud Houston but I could be mistaken. I tend to use it when I want to remind myself that motion IS the most powerful cue. And if you want to go counter to motion, you had better put in the training time.
Hi Tracy,
Well, happy to say that course #3 was more like what I expected. Stuff to improve but we made it through (well, I let him rejump #13 – that was savable but not important).
The temperature was 81 under a hard sun with little breeze, so I left him in the house until I had it walked and then we ran it; one re-work and came back in.
Again, there was a long mental debate about slice versus wrap on #18. I picked wrap for a number of pragmatic reasons:
– I was confident I could handle him to a wrap
– The line out would be straight and fast even if the wrap wasn’t perfect
– It was less yardage.IF I could have gotten a tight turn on 18 after a slice, then that might have been the winning line but I was very confident that wouldn’t happen. And if you drift out too far, you miss the lovely straight exit line.
After it was over (including the party), we re-worked 11-14. He did it fine but I think he was very aware of where his toy was…
Much happier with this run.
Thanks,
Barb(I never thought to ask…when I add a link, I have a choice to open a new window. Would that make it easier for you?)
Hi Tracy,
Here is this week’s zigzag work. As suggested, the toy was ahead on his line every time. I was ahead in almost all cases (the backside send from 3 jumps ahead did not work well).
1. Warmup (not filmed)
2. 5 jumps, 12 inches. Three sets
3. Rest 2+ minutes
4. 3 jumps 10”, 14”, 14” – start with send to backside. Three sets.
5. 3 jumps 14” – two sets
6. Rest 2+ minutes
7. 5 jumps, 14 inches. Three setsAs of Tuesday, I can no longer say, “Enzo isn’t even 2 yet”. 😊
Thanks,
BarbHi Tracy,
First, before I forget to mention it: I know it is more fun to design a big course in all dimensions but then it is much harder to set up a stationary camera to film it. You could probably get a similar number/type of challenges in a long and narrow course and it would be much easier to film. The “squarer” the course is, the further back the camera needs to be. If it gets really bad, then I have to go to a wide-angle lens but those are so distorting that it is very difficult to coach from such a video.
As far as slice versus wrap on 11, Robin Anne and I walked both and debated. Because of Patt, I tend to ALWAYS want to slice. 😊 In this case, we decided to wrap and avoid the extra long path on the slice.
As far as the end, we don’t have a subtle lead change away. There is “switch” which is a 90 degree turn away. And there is what we did. 😊 My intent was to set the line so that I was pushing on it as he went into the tunnel. In that case, the go-on was just “don’t turn back”.
Then there was course #2…
On jump 2, we actually warmed that up a number of times but he couldn’t keep it in his head for even one lead-in jump. I should try again with more of a step.
As you pointed out, the rest of it was mostly a goat rodeo.
Hope to try #3 tomorrow.
Thanks,
BarbHI Tracy,
Today we decided to move on to the courses. I had a friend come over the train (first time I’ve seen her since March – we did masks and social distancing for the walk-thru’s and then ran without masks). Her dogs are multi-MACHS and she would expect weaves and contacts. Also, I feel like Enzo and I are too far along for novice. So, I chose the masters courses but they really blew us away.
We did the first and second one. I’ll wait for feedback and maybe be able to do the third one on Friday. In all honesty, I didn’t feel too bad about the first course but the second one was too much. I couldn’t even get the nice wrap I wanted on #2 without trying every trick in the book. <sigh>
Also, I think I got 1 legal contact out of 4 or 5 tries. But, the weaves were brilliant. 😊
Thanks!
BarbHI Tracy,
The first thought I had, once I had the course rebuilt and I was looking at it was: if I’m going to turn before he exits the tunnel, I can do a front. Just as easy and I can keep an eye on him. So that was the first rep. Also, as I said, I was pretty confident that the cue given to the dog-in-tunnel was not a good plan but Enzo proved me wrong.
So on the first rep, he came out of the tunnel looking for the backside. Good dog. And I left really early. Good handler.
On the second rep, I did the blind so it was in progress as he exited the tunnel. On the second tunnel, he exited the tunnel on a line to the backside.
The third rep was the anti-patterning rep: with a front-side at both backsides. He did them very well.
Final run back to the backsides. It certainly is fun to find out a new thing and it really works. I will remember that he can remember a cue for after the tunnel when given before it. 😊
Thanks,
BarbTracy,
Thanks for all the Monday morning QB’ing!
On sequence 3, let’s talk about the tunnel exit. My thought was I can’t start the blind until I see him see the jump (#4). Then, when I see him see it, I can blind. I agree the second time through was better. So, at :21 I see him exit the tunnel and see the jump and at :22 I start the BC. I suppose in theory I could whip my head around faster on the blind but I don’t think that’s a good plan (balance and repeatability). So I reconnected at :23 as he lands. If I do the blind before he exits the tunnel, then he can run around #4: taking a straight line from the tunnel exit to the backside #5. In fact, I think I would want that (blind would put #4 behind me; at least in theory, if the exit from the tunnel was very sharp).
On #8, I might be able to leave sooner, except for him aiming at the front side as he exits the tunnel and needing to be kicked out to the backside. I was stuck there until I could see him take the backside cue. Then I disconnected at 31 for a stride or two and then reconnected. I’m looking at it in slo-mo and I don’t see that as too sharp a turn…(?) I complete the BC in time for him to be on the correct side. ?
This setup came down because of the UKI 40×60 jumpers runs but I may set it back up. I have always figured that shouting at a dog in a tunnel was futile (noise echoes around in there) and after one or two tries, it would be patterned. But I’m up for giving it a try…
I can leave earlier in training because I’m braver in training. Of course, I haven’t trialed since March, so who knows how brave I’ll be when I get to show again. And Enzo hasn’t ever been shown except the UKI home trials. Tomorrow is his second birthday. 😊
Thanks!
Barb
