[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

As it was BC yesterday (before coffee), I did not even realize I had done the spin until I looked at the video again. Out early this morning again, but had one cup of coffee beforehand! I added on to the Winging It using that center wing. I was trying to focus on turning my shoulders to get that tight turn and only taking the one step to send. I knew she could handle it after seeing her get that one jump send on Sunday going to the serp at the seminar.

Thanks for setting me back on the path with the teeter. I changed the set up this morning and we just worked on going up. I think having the table the remakes so much more sense for her than the plank to nowhere. There’s a tiny bit of give on the plank – I had to find props that were the correct size and brace the yoga mats under the one end.

Then we moved on to the lazy game. I know she just wanted to blast around and do the 3 jumps and was looking at me like why are you not running? You always run. A little judgey, but we are not the type that meander 🙂 I was not sure if you were looking for a slower type of movement. I was saying “toss” (hard to hear) which is her marker that means I’m throwing the toy/friz right to you at close range. In the time off between sessions 2 & 3, we did some bend grids, so she knew that shape meant go take them all, but I was not acting quite right.

Tonight in the nice cold basement, we did the first 2 baby steps of plank confidence. And for Dellin, this is about as much enthusiasm for cookies as you will ever get. It looked pretty normal. Edited out some chewing time, but she did have ones where she was right back. I knew if I did this outside, the likelihood of her looking for cookies in the grass is about zero (and then my Lab would spend her entire training time doing nothing but finding them). Tradeoff was the bouncing on the mats. I realize I was quiet – I was not sure what to say, so just shut up and let her chase the cookies.

Off topic and not part of class, but thanks – we now have a 12 pole wide open channel on the weaves.

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Hope you had a safe trip back to the South from what I now call the Sub-Saharan Tundra! Great to see you this weekend – we had so much fun and learned a ton! Very proud of the baby dog at her first seminar 🙂

We got out early am for baby steps on the Wing send. I think a couple of times I used the wrong wrap cue (this was pre-coffee).

Then I wanted to show you where we are at with the teeter. I had bought the Independent Study class and the first game I did was the Mountain Climber and she had a bad reaction. She did it once and then basically would not get on the plank again and quit – just laid down and would not come near it. She would still bang the end and hop on to the end position.
And she won’t eat cookies when she’s worried (or when she’s not worried, lol), so no amount of cookies at the end of that teeter was going to help.

At that point for the up, I went back to the plank in the basement. I had to start with it flat – any elevation made her instantly suspicious. Then we gradually tilted it up – on a Cato board, then 2 Catos, then something a little higher, finally working up to a 16″ table and she was happily running up and down.

I kind of abandoned the Mountain climbers after all that rehab since I knew class was going to have some teeter games. The video shows where we are at. She will work for her frisbees and she’s bringing them back and offering getting on. So I’ve been letting her do this back and forth to get comfortable since it had many elements present – the banging, some up and some down.
But now I feel like I need to get back to a plan. Some sessions, we’d just do 1 rep per some of your lectures on the effectiveness of one rep and then play frisbee. Now she’s more comfortable and it’s her choice to offer the behavior, not me asking. It’s not strictly a one rep to one frisbee toss either- I mix it up so sometimes there are a couple of frisbee throws. And I’m really trying o be mindful of not coercing her to do it and letting her opt in.

I tried to replace the 16″ table with a 24″ table and that was a bit too much. I think we can progress a little from the 16″ table, but I need a more gradual progression.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

I think it was 40 last week, now 80 and a tornado watch, so train agility! Being from the East coast, I don’t know if the watch is the bad one. LOL. We survived.

Back to the lap turns since it’s out of my comfort zone. Left in the boo boos from that first side with one wing.

When I went to 2 wings, I tried to do less running backwards! She has some serious wide outruns around those wings which is unusual for her – was my arm flinging all over??

Question on Max Pup 3 – I saw you posted that it was full. I have not signed up yet – I wanted to do basically what I’m doing now as the live dates mostly don’t work for me- so I’d watch those on video and then post my video for you. Is that still available?

Thanks!

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Thanks for that – on the serp, I could definitely see the problem especially with the toy in arm in the serp hand.

Today we did the baby steps of the Lap Turns – one wing, then 2. She did not have many mistakes and I could see that I was crowding the jump when it did happen.

Then we revisited the lateral lead out. I did a couple of refresher reps to start with just the wing. Then we used 2 jumps. She did really well, so I tried the next step of me moving towards the middle of the bar. She did well on those too.

My issue was trying to keep straight which arm I was supposed to use (I did watch the video again and then I get outside and can’t remember anything). I think some of my problem was the toy and trying to hold it in my throwing hand. When I did the throwback at the end, the hands made more sense…

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi!

UGH, Sorry- here’s both sides of the serp dialed way back. I have a tendency to get stuck in training and not make things harder, so here was the one time I moved too fast. Redo on both sides:

We also got back to the Get Out -bar on ground is 10′ from jump. I started a little closer and tried to stay out.

We tried the lap turns this morning too in the basement which went well. We’ll try them outside tomorrow.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy!

It’s finally decent here. I got out tonight and worked on the backside proofing on the left side. I had the wings at an angle and put the bar down with one wing. She did great and I guess I did not hit record, so no video.
Then I revisited the serpentines because they really need work 🙂

First 2 reps were easy, so I adjusted the jump, then 4 reps there and I adjusted it again to pretty close to straight. That’s when she started to run by on some of the reps. At the end, she was starting to get it. Not sure if it was just too much motion – I felt like I was looking at her and connecting over the bar, but motion is hard!! I think we have made some progress – letting it sit for a while was good.

Sorry about the camera angle not being super wide – hopefully you can see enough. I was mostly throwing the toy since it was hard to see when it was just dead in the grass.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

I tried to get out between rain showers and it started to rain on us. lol

Thanks for the description of the classes. The teeter one sound like it would be appropriate for us at this age.

I wanted to make sure I got the set up broken down correctly for the backside proofing and that I’m walking in the correct place. She did much better – only got me once where she cut in front of the wing.

We tried the countermotion in the basement early this morning and it went much better, so I tried it outside. I’m still moving slowly, but changing my focal point helped a lot. Good grief, I was all over the place with toy throws – hit her in the head, knocked the bar down… Despite all of that, it went better than yesterday.

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

I left the blooper reel out on that lateral lead out – she was coming on the diagonal to the wing without taking the jump on that one side. I’ll have to get back out to see if it’s all sorted out.

Today I beat the rain by an hour and managed to do the Backside Games. I left some of the ugly in there for you to see – we have the BC outrun by the jump without taking it as well as taking the front side. I thought I had pretty hard connection with her, but it seemed like, at best, I could only walk the path ring to the wing. If I tried to move at all in the direction of the center of the bar, she took the front side.

She did ok on the counter motion, she got me once, but I felt like I had to go in slow motion. I could probably do this one again the basement right now since we aren’t really moving.

Question about Max Pup 3 – how much of the teeter process does it cover? Just the beginning steps? I was thinking about doing the independent study teeter class during the downtime (like there’s downtime with a puppy – haha). She’s going to be 18 months old has been exposed to the teeter when younger, had no problems, but it’s time to start doing some actual stuff and my window is small to try to get things done (if the weather ever improves). Can any of the beginning teeter games can be done inside?

Also wondering if there was any luck finding my “old” classes – was hoping to get access to the running dogwalk class that Didi took.

Tomorrow’s supposed to be a wash out, so fingers crossed it does not rain all of Sunday too.

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

It’s been another challenging weather week! UGH!! And it’s supposed to rain all weekend, so trying to get some quick training in. And yes, still wearing a down jacket in April 28th. Seriously.

Here’s the baby steps of the Lateral Lead Out. She did great on the first reps when she’s on my left. She really struggled initially on my right, so I had to dial it way back and only go about halfway to the wing or she would not take the jump. By the end of the session, she had worked through it and I was able to stand at the wing.

I hope to watch the class video and do a little more homework before the rain comes.

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Good morning,

In between rain showers, we got out for a few minutes yesterday.

On the grids above – she must have weight shifted – she did not break any of her starts – I am so far away that it’s impossible to hear anything. And its hard to see from the end of that one long grid! I try not to let any obvious vulturing go on at the start.

We have done several of the foundation bending grids, but probably jumped ahead too far. That spacing might not be right for her. And the ground was not perfectly flat either. I need to go back to the minny pinny too for the work on the directionals. The weather has been a huge impediment this term.

Threadles – The other day I was using the wing wrap verbal – too windy to hear me I think.

We tried the threadle again – still hard and there were errors. I rewarded everything that did not involve going into the wrong end of the tunnel. On the reps that went better, I did remember to keep moving. When we had too many incorrect reps in a row, I sat her at the exit to the wing to cut out that bit of motion. Work in progress – I feel like she does not know the word yet.

Hopefully we can get out a bit later today and try some other games.

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Finally! a day that is not raining, snowing or blowing 30 MPH wind. Back to rain tomorrow apparently.

We had some grids in the yard, so I took advantage of that. Set point (14″), what was supposed to be variable distance grid, but I left the final jump 15′ from the grid, bar at 14″ (6′ between regulator jumps), and a circle grid (jumps at 10″). I know the circle is hard for them – this is the first time she has seen it, so we had some mistakes, but I did not want to do more than 4 reps.

With the exception of the circle, I’m like a mile away dragging a toy on a leash.

Set Point:

Grid:

Circle grid:

Then I tried to do the Smiley Face Threadle Game. Yikes. Motion kills. And she was probably a little fatigued, so I had to dial it way down – she kept going in the tunnel in front of her. I left in some of the mistakes for you to see since I must be doing something wrong (it looks like I am not moving on the incorrect ones) or maybe we need to be at a no motion step – after the first couple of incorrect reps, I just sat her at the exit of the wing and worked from there. If I send her around the wing, she does not slow down because I am walking.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Got back out again today. I tried to clean up the transitions and stay outside the wing and really slow down earlier. She did much better turning to her right. The left turns looked like they were set up ok, but then she was going really wide (for her). Maybe I was going too deep to the wing? That side felt more awkward for me too.

Then I did the other side of the Get Out Baby Steps. She had some difficulty at the start and I found I could not move much or she’d run by the jump. Then she started to catch on and I could move (although I was moving at a slow walk).

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Agility U tote bags!! Brilliant!

Yay! I need some time to work on these games more before session 3. Maybe it will stop snowing by June.

When it’s 40 and the wind is down to 15 mph, you rush outside to do some homework. Don’t let the chirping birds fool you, it was f*&^%ing cold out.

Transitions first. I may have been turning the wrong way, but she made some tight turns… I am the worst with one jump.

Then a little get out on one side. I actually put a leash down as a line and it perfectly aligned with the upright on the wing, so you can’t see it at all. I’m off to buy a lottery ticket…

More rain/snow in the forecast. May be able to get out early tomorrow for some more games before it starts.

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Even funnier than me doing that planned RC at class – one of my “classmates” was like – where did you learn THAT?? Oh you know, on a tote bag in the basement.

Question on that Lap Turn game – should I be using the backside wrap word with Dellin? With Mari, I use her threadle word, but I’d be facing the jump and also using the arm away from her, so it looks different than this set up with my back to the jump. I don’t think Mari and I have done it this way.
Or, when done as a threadle, is it a different skill (kind of) and I should have both?

Other question – this is week 6 – where do we go from here?

Hoping to get outside if the wind would die down. It might get to 40 tomorrow (vomit emoji).

Thanks!

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

No outdoor work due to bad weather, but a success to report from class. We did our first rear cross in a mini sequence! On purpose. LOL. And we did the first 2 jumps of a serpentine (I adjusted the second angle to make it easier since that’s where we are, but still did it in a class environment). Cool to see her remember her things “on the road” 🙂

Joan

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