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If you could send it to my email: aussiesandbcs@gmail.com
I will get you some video tomorrow. Thank you!!!
Hi Fei,
First of all, that is not bragging, THAT’S PROGRESS!!! Great work! You have every right to be proud and you are absolutely perfect in your line of thought that you expect Zoe to give you her full attention in the ring, so you gave it to her in class. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!
The pros, haha! Don’t ever get hung up on the idea that you are not as great as the rest of the dog people out there. Just like believing your dog is awesome, you have to believe you are too! I worked for one of the very best cutting horse trainers in the nation. I used to prepare his horses for him before major competitions. My very first major event I freaked out a little and told him I was really worried I didn’t do it right. He laughed at me and said “Kim, it’s just one run, at one event in 2 minutes and 30 seconds of your life. If it falls apart, no one will remember it except you if you chose to”. I think the same applies to dog agility except we do it for less than a minute! That was a valuable lesson for me. I have literally had thousands of agility runs. I honestly do not remember a bad run (lol except the two that I fell down in, but that was more because my dogs looked at their crazy human and wondered what they were doing – more laughing). Take today and replicate it over and over, that will become the new norm for you!!! Have confidence and have fun!!!
Depending on where my dog is in training, I always give them the day before and after a trial weekend off. There’s nothing your going to fix in one session/day. Rest needs to be part of the process. When we have a week/weekend at home, I will train 4-5 days a week with at least 2 days of rest. We do some conditioning and hopefully a hike.
You are SO welcome!!! I love seeing the progress 🙂Oh, and GREAT work on shortening the course!!! I love it and wondered if I could use it as an example for future courses? If so, do you happen to have a copy of the map you could email me?
Hi Susan,
I will get you some video of doing a blind on a wrap. Just based on what I have seen on your videos, I would suggest you do as many blinds as possible. I am also going to send you some video of working on wraps and how to make them fun with speed. Remind me again what is the highest value reinforcement for Loa?YAY! It was a game changer for Jack! I am not sure I could have ever gotten him to run a full course without this!!! Happy you find it helpful!
Hi Charmaine,
So right at 1:18 when he bonked his nose, I would have actually happily taken him right back to the beginning of the weaves and had him do them again (not giving him the chance to think about what just happened). If it is still an issue, I would do something else for a bit, then come back to the weaves. Watching your whole video, I actually think you did too many reps in the weaves. I think after 4, I would have stopped. The other thing (watching your videos from this past weekend), is I would like to see you do more handling and speed into your weaves. What is the dimension of your yard? Rarely do we see the weaves in novice as the second obstacle. I think Tails needs to be moving and you handling as he is headed to the weaves. Does that make sense? Also, I think less is more with the weaves. It is SO easy to create stress in the weaves, so that is one of those obstacles where I want to quit while I am ahead.
On the hip flexor stretch, absolutely! That is perfect! With his contacts, have you generalized the behavior? I have the student I see in person do 10 “items” unrelated to agility per day in the 2o2o position. This really helps strengthen the behavior. I make them text me photos 🙂Hi Tatjana,
He’s a smartie! When we talk about motivation, it always impresses me how well dogs can read between the lines. I think with Max you are absolutely right, it has to be real. Your pre-trial motivation looked more like genuine play in the videos, it was good.
Drill 1 – This looked really good! The tunnel he missed on the first try was simply because you didn’t cue it. The rest was nice. You played well and he was happy to play.
Drill 2 – This one kind of confused me…. I would lead out with the dog on the right and they are going straight into the tunnel (it looked like you were sending him to the other side). Then there was a push to the backside and some great creativity. If you were working towards a little more technical handling, let me know and we will go from there.
Ideas for handling more aggressively with space and distance would be for you to go deeper into pockets so that you can drive the line out of areas for your dog. Can you send me some examples of you and Max on video and if you have the course map, that would be fantastic. They I can help you see what I am talking about.Hi Susan,
With the weaves, you might play around with the 2×2 as a channel and see if you can build more excitement for them. In week 6 lesson, I will talk about how to build weaves and contacts into your speed circles, so that will help.
WOW! That was a superb recovery!!! I am impressed!
I ABSOLUTELY love that you made the handling choice to put in a speed circle. That is fantastic and that makes me very happy! I think you made a good choice for Loa. Have you worked on blind crosses for some of those areas that are a bit more technical? Depending on your handling “system” you may or may not chose to do blinds in more technical places. HOWEVER, when I have a dog that is more handler focused and needs some pressure removed, I will chose to do blinds.
In fact, some of the local agility peeps here made a bet on one of my runs as to how many blinds I would do on a particular course!!! This is a great way to alleviate the pressure your dog may be feeling. PLUS you put your dog into “chase mode” rather than “why are you staring at me” mode. Does that make sense?Hi Charmaine,
1. If you rewatch your video, you will see that you take a big, sharp step towards #5. I would say that might have thrown him off? It looked to me like he clipped it with his front feet?
2. Yes!
3. On the agility course, I would say the only time I should say my dog’s name is when I want them to come into handler focus. One thing you can do is look at your course map and write down all the places you should have your dog in HF and on your walk through, that’s when you practice them.
4. Yes, and be sure to generalize the behavior. I have found that if I have a student generalize the behavior on 10 random, non-agility things a day, their contact come along super well!
5. haha! Darn humans!!! 🙂
6. I would just go with the flow. When we start talking about all our the things we wish we could fix, then we move away from the things we love about our dog. A good instructor will be able to see things pretty quickly. There’s also the fun in possibly having Tails surprise you!!! And the instructor may be able to offer you some suggestions. My take away from a seminar is “if I can take home 3 good things I would like to work on, then it was worth the money”. If the instructor suggests something other than what you have found works, you can try it and see, but you will have your back up plan.Hi Susan,
Thanks for all the info! In watching your video, it was nice, speedy and she was having fun. I want to mention (since this is a handling class) that your front cross could’ve been a tad earlier. Watch 0:36 on slow motion for a couple seconds. Ideally, I my dog to know how they are taking that jump as they commit. Meaning if they take it in extension or collection (in this case). So you can start your rotation, which puts pressure on the dog to collect much sooner. That will indicate the turn and get a tighter turn at the jump. Again, nice work! The motivation looked great and Loa was moving nice and fast!!! Do you know how to watch your video in slow-motion on YouTube?
With the distraction at the startline, is she doing it before you lead out, as you lead out or when you have lead all the way out?
lol! Pepper is the same way, just opposite. She loves her toy, but pre-run, she wants cookies. After her run she will take cookies, but prefers her toy! I say if you have both for training, I would go with the flow on your pre/post trial runs.
For the weaves, if you have access, I would go try the channel method to generate speed. If you have 2×2 (enough for 12 weaves) you can use them as a channel. (Let me know if you need an example as to how to do this).Hi Fei,
Your homework after from this day forward is to write down 3-5 things that went well with any training situation. Nothing bad, just look for the good. 🙂Hi Kyle,
I LIKE THEM!!! They both work great, but by you being behind her she stays a bit more engaged with you. This could be super helpful with a very distracting environment. So play with both. What you might find is when there is a lot of distractions on the course, you back up (also acting as a buffer between her and the stress behind her) and I would release her as you run past her. If there are little distractions as you line her up, you can simply run with her. But as I mentioned, practice both. Nice job, she had a nice pop off the startline!!!I think that is a good question and most people are not willing to abandon their runs. This is hard to do when you have paid money to play. In tomorrow’s lesson (or later today for you), you will see a long section where I talk about shortening the course. This was a HUGE part of the success I had with my dog Jack at trials. Rather than abandoned completely, I would try to engage first, then yes, you could inadvertently reinforce disconnect by allowing your dog to run the course when they are not engaged. Make sense?
