[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Today we did some set points and ladder grids – old school with the spider. Set point started at 16 and then up to 18 and we were messing around with adding a jump after.
Dellin’s brother had stolen her toy several times, which made her stay a bit challenging, so I had an assistant stay with her and give her a cookie on the ladder (started at 6′ spacing then Terry changed it to 5′ after 2 or 3 reps).
I’m pretty sure she does not like that spider on the set point, so I don’t know how much I will be using it – I think for her, it’s a lot of pressure.

We have enough room in the yard!!! (everything behind the camera is snow). Best day ever 🙂 So we did The Wind. 2 refresher reps on each side with me walk/jogging, then 3 with me staying back and waiting for her to clear the wing and go by me and then 3 of me sending her and leaving while she’s wrapping. I had a toy at the end, but it’s out of the frame. When I look at the video, I’m not sure if my distances were all that varied in terms of the wait vs. the send, but I did try to leave early while she was starting to wrap the wing on the sending reps… Or it could be a case of “I was doing it in my head”.

Distance from wing to jump is 25 feet, jump at 12″.

The weekend weather looks glorious for here, so hope to play some more games.

Thanks,
Joan

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by agilitywawa.

[agilitywawa]

Good morning,

She has been doing 8″ at class, but I think it’s probably time to start moving it up a little – the space is a square, but quite small and the matting is Comfort King, but not the same as at OTR (more like Fusion if you have been there) and I do see her slip sometimes.

I’ll make some adjustments to the set point. I believe she has seen a set point at 12 and 16 – it’s the one thing I have space for. lol. She’s 16 months now, so probably safe to start adding some height.

The wind in your hair – I will add some height to the jump and try out the variations which sound fun and I’ll really be able to get some good info from those.

The smiley face – I froze like a bunny and could not get my words out half the time, so that’s why you don’t hear them! You are correct – I was not sure how the racetrack part would go (it was her first time doing that one I think) so I did get too close. I will stop that as I’m not going to be escorting this dog to every obstacle unless I get motorized shoes.

It has warmed up and things are starting to melt – in a few days I may have a space close to the house where we can do something which is SO exciting.

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

We got our training time today in the bigger space so we did all the things!

The set point – much longer lead out, slow movement of toy and it looks like the pounce is gone. There was only one questionable rep and I was a lot closer to her on that one. Bar was locked at 8″, so probably at 6″ in reality. The 2 jumps are 5 feet apart.

The we did some wind in my hair. When I watched the video I saw that I got all messed up on the second side, which is typical for me – I have a difficult time with spatial things 🙂 She did not seem to care. She was doing fine with me walking, so I started to jog a little. I did the first couple of reps with some toys that were too bouncy, so I had a few trial and error reps that did nto make the video.

Then the Smiley Face – whoa, she thought that was the BEST THING EVER.

At the end, I tried the wrap discriminations and she was getting tired and I could not get her to stay out of the tunnel, even when I moved the wing farther away and tried more motion away from the tunnel, but she had done a lot of work by that point and our rental time was up. I may need to start with something less attractive than a tunnel (?) or a lot more space.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,
Yes, she does have a tendancy to be a bit pouncy – we saw that when doing the puppy bump grids too.

I did a quick set point with the moving toy – let me know if you think it’s less pouncy.

I will get back to the wind in your hair tomorrow in the bigger space. Dellin and I are going to audit a young dog herding seminar today.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,
We did the baby set point – that’s about all I have room for at this point. 5 feet between the jumps. Dellin has previously done the baby grids with bumps, so she is familiar with what to do. Sorry that the toy on the ground got cut out of the picture for the most part.

We tried to do the baby step of Wind in Your Hair and I really don’t have room for it – she was turning to look for the toy – so just a couple of reps so you can see. If I can modify by placing the toy out, instead of throwing it, I can do that. I have rented some space on Monday so we can do the games properly.
I did leave in the brilliant return of the toy to hand for more tugging! This piece has taken some time to get.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hilarious video! Is it wrong to look forward to the daily “10 Homes We Think You Will Love” e-mail? 🙂

Hopefully I can get back to a little rental time in the next couple of weeks to do a little more on this before the next session starts.

In her class, doing very short sequences, I was able to practice the sprinkler, a tunnel threadle and a dig dig (right wrap). And while the sprinkler and tunnel threadle are newer so that I don’t know how much she is reacting to the word, the dig dig she really seemed to know. There was an offset 180 and at first I said “right” (which she does not know) and she did not collect and blasted straight ahead. Terry is in class and he said it’s a check (he uses same work both ways), so when I told her dig dig, she immediately knew to turn tight and she even got the next jump of the 180. Proud mom moment.

Even in a short sequence, I have no time for the big arm swish on the tunnel threadle, so I think that will die off fast! I’m not sure where my feet were pointing (likely toward the correct entrance), but she did do the threadle correctly. I will try to remember the feet for next time. Baby steps for both of us!

This puppy room is quite small (it’s not at OTR), so she can have a lot of success with the smaller distances – it’s a nice transition from the basement and back room at OTR. When Dellin tagged along to one of my lessons with Nancy (mostly to do some teeter games), we tried a couple of short sequences and the bigger space was hard – I had to run and then she was like RUUUUUUUUNNN!!!

Thought you too would like to hear some real world success from puppy class!

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

We rented some space today – so much fun to have some room. I think we need to move 🙂 And Zillow is my other hobby now.

Sorry for the video dump, but we did a little bit of a lot of things. I did plan and review what I wanted to work on before we went, but I may have forgotten how to reward some of the things in the moment (throw the toy vs. toy in hand).

First the tunnel threadle and the game from a couple of weeks ago. Did a couple of reps of just the threadle then went into the game – send to tunnel, then threadle into same end.

Then back to “the Didi” – with bars. I decided that for this type of soft arc, I will use the sprinkler. I’m going to use Left and Right for sharper turns.

Then some value for the wing revisited with added turn and burn. I tried to work on leaving earlier as we progressed.

Then we ended with some decel and some lateral lead out.

Dellin has not done done much formal jump work – puppy bump grids and 8″ jumps – so I locked them in at 8″ for the last game, which was fine. I’m hoping to organize a jump grid class or seminar in the near future so she and her brother can start some work. I have volunteered someone in the house (who is not me) to teach that 🙂

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

I’m sitting here laughing at my inability to visualize the exercise – if there are not 2 wings and I’m not running, I have a serious inability to do these exercises! I think that’s why I get all messed up in the rocking horse games.

I redid this to get the front side of the jump. I may have been a little off in where I was standing, but she did the front of the jump 🙂

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi!

I tried the decel again with some adjustments – it looked better. We did lots of play in between reps to keep her energy up. I have also taught a new toy marker this week ‘ “toss” that means I am throwing it to her and she catches it. Avoids some of the awkward bouncing around of the toys in the small space, so I sue both chase and toss and then we do some tugging. I thinks she’s happy with this arrangement and she is bring the ball type toys back to me 🙂

Here’s the decel:

Then we did the start of the lateral lead out which she had no problem with. I’m kind of out of space, so if I should add more distance, I’ll need to go elsewhere. I thinking about renting some space on Tuesday before my masters class to get back to some of the rocking horse games and tunnel games.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

I will watch that threadle arm!

Here the beginning of the Decel exercise. I realized after I watched the video that my position was causing a wide turn, but she did seem to pick up on the concept of the decel. I post this just in case there are any other mechanics I can clean up before I go back for another session. I did all of the positions – straight, the turn and throw the toy at her at the start (which was new to her, so probably took her by surprise).

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Ha! I don’t think she has a reward marker for taking food from my hand because it’s never been much of a thing. She has a marker for thrown food (search) and on the floor/remote (dish). Some of the other dogs have the food markers for me bringing it to them or putting in on the ground. I guess it’s time for Dellin to get some additional markers now that food is more of a thing that looks like a reward.

Today we got back to the threadles. And at the end I tried putting in the beginnings of motion. Then we did a few serps at the end of the session. I had changed to the very highly prized frisbees then and found that I needed to back off a little on the difficulty. She previously had some trouble going back and forth in the same session with these 2 different concepts (threadle and serp), so I was happy with this.

Can’t believe we are entering the final week! We’ll be signing up for the next class -it has been lots of fun!

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

I thought she had pretty good value for the wing, so I tried to incorporate the food first then toy as reward. I felt like her response was kind of middle of the road – not as fast as when I used only the toy and not as slow as when I used only food. And I had to pause to make sure she swallowed the treat, so I felt like that kind of interrupted our rhythm.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,
I forgot to add that I at the class I did use my verbals – left and right and check and I did have to walk the 5 obstacles saying my words!

I had a few minutes this morning and got out the wing for the baby steps of transferring value to the wing. I started with cookies and she was like OK, and her response was not that great. When I switched to the toy, she was like game on! She could be the poster dog for using the reward that your dog finds rewarding 🙂

I figured we’d be ok on the floor for that first step, but I won’t do any turn and burn on this floor. We’re still ok for threadles and serps here, so I can work on those.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

I’m leaning toward the sprinkler for the softer turns and keeping left and right for sharper turns. Some of this is because I have a hard time getting it all out on course. With Mari, “Check check” is for wraps to both sides, and I find I’m having trouble with Dellin remembering which is which, even when we are going around a trash can, so I figure it won’t get easier at speed 🙂 But this is still a work in progress, so I may change my mind. I have not yet introduced the sprinkler, so I guess my mind is not made up yet.

She had in person class last night (we do baby sequences – tunnel and a few 8″ jumps) and I could see her looking for her jumps and not looking at me – it was so exciting (the instructor commented on what a good job she did looking for the jumps). Anyway, to my previous point, I could barely remember what words to use on these tiny sequences! And she really has no understanding of the words yet. LOL And I was also having a proud mom moment looking at my puppy do things. She reminds me of Burst at that age, so there’s really no time to admire her while working.

Her whole at home training yesterday was meh – just an off day (then she was awesome at class). Not coming in season that I can see. This morning I went back to the serp and she was herself again, pouncing on the dead toy and even leaving early and bypassing the jump to steal the toy, so she just wasn’t feeling it yesterday (and I noticed that with the little bit of obedience we did yesterday too – just not that into it).

I need to do the threadle work separately – if I mix them in the same session, she thinks everything is a threadle. And yes, I use the cross arm for threadle so that should eventually help her.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

“It sounds like the sprinkler is more generic and the dogs path is somewhere halfway between a go and a left/right?”

I think that does sum it up. A pinwheel type arrangement or arcing turn (less than 90 degrees) would be an instance where Burst would get a sprinkler cue.

I tried to start the serpentine with a little motion today. I started with the MM and did not get too much excitement, so I switched to a toy and she still was not really feeling it. Not sure what was up with her but she very clearly did not feel like doing any training, so I cut it short when I could not get her into the right state of mind, even with some toy play. I have a couple of reps here, just to see if we’re on the right track.

I don’t know that the threadle is ready for motion yet – I have started to use a verbal, but there’s really no understanding of it yet.

Thanks,
Joan

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