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Hi Charmaine,
So, great attitude and take-away from the weekend!
1. The hang up on this course was not the weaves, but what happened was you went pretty deep into #5. This made it hard to get the front cross before the weaves, so there was a lot of acceleration on your part and therefore his. On your front cross, your rotation was slow. I want you to be sharper and fully rotate. Keep in mind that when you plan to do a cross, you typically have to plan 2-3 obstacles beforehand to set that line. Just solely based on the video, I may have chose a blind before the weaves. I think the handling choice to make the cross before the weaves was smart just based on the location of the jump after the weaves. I also think I would have blinded between 12-13 or 13-14 (that would depend on how it walked and the dog/handler path). In order to set the line to the last jump with him on your right, you would have had to have been pretty far ahead of him.
2. This was a nice run as well!!! LOOK AT HIS SPEED!!! You also do a very nice job staying happy and motivated with him. I think with the weaves that it is something that needs proofing and will come with time. I have some drills in week 6 that will help with that. How did you train the weave poles? Also, go back and watch your video on the weaves. I believe you are marking the entry and also, you pulled away at weave pole 3 (I watched it in slow motion from I believe 0:46 to 0:48). Again, I think this will get better with proofing. Also, depending on your marker system, Tails might be reading it as a release “yes” or “good boy”. I went through a phase with one of my dogs that the marker “yes” inadvertently became his release word and he came to me for a cookie.
3. Yes and no. It really depends on the dog. If you are getting a head check every time you say his name then, yes. Also think about things this way. If I said “Charmaine, could you walk to the end of the driveway and check my mail”? Then as you left, every 5 steps or so, I called to you “Charmaine”, pretty soon you would either come back to me, you would leave the task all together, and/or get really frustrated, right? Well, think about what we are asking our dogs to do when we are saying their names. If you tell them to do something and they shouldn’t question it, they should go do it. If we get too “chatty” then we lose the ability for them to trust us when we give them a task. Does that make sense?
4. In JWW, as mentioned, I think it was the need for a cross on the last line of jumps. For everything that was happening in the last run, I thought he handled it well (sirens and helicopter overhead)! What is his contact criteria? Is it 2o2o or running? I think you were just behind him on the dw and that will naturally pull a more handler focused dog towards you. If the dog misses an obstacle because they just want to go around it, I will have them fix it. However, if it is a handler error, I will let it go and tell them what a good dog they are.
5. I think the table behavior is pretty normal for a novice dog and as I mentioned, there was A LOT going on for that second table.
Overall, I think you should be super happy with his debut. Now you have homework. Some things that you need to work on. When is your next trial with him? Great job!!!Hmmm, does this behavior happen at all startlines, or just when you are trialing?
What sort of mental management exercises do you do to calm your nerves? Do you take deep breaths (I use some yoga breathing before my big events). Also, do you handle the course in your head? I find the use of handling the course in my head SUCCESSFULLY really helps. Do you smile at Endo and tell her how awesome she is before the run?
Pepper was a scratcher on the startline and right outside the gate. One thing I did was scratch her neck for her and massage her neck a bit (even if it was on the startline – usually before the dog in front of me was finished). This connected us at the startline and helped relax us both.
Let me know what your thoughts are on these things.Hi Fei,
I think that was fabulous!!! Going back to your night in class, she was doing more obstacles with speed between them and was faster. I went back and found this video of you in class:
https://youtu.be/ASxWO3xelrk
She was MUCH more engaged and came back to you much faster than in class. I would be SUPER happy with this. Remember this is a process and all we are looking for is tiy improvements along the way. If we keep building on the small things and small successes, you will see her confidence grow!!!
I am VERY pleased with her today and I think your choice in handling the course the way you did was great!Hi Annelise,
Thank you so much for sharing!!! I love that you went in there with little in the way of expectations except for having fun. What a great experience for her and you made it happen!!! Super job! And so good of you to recognize that she needed confidence around the tunnels and if she made a mistake, it wasn’t the end of the world! This is great and I am glad that you feel you two are making progress. Some day you will look back and realize that it is all the little things we reward that color the big picture! I am very happy for you both, keep up the good work!Hi Diana,
How does she feel about being in your arms? Can you carry her into the ring? Would this make her more or less comfortable? From there you can briefly put her down and run with her. What about the startline make her nervous? Is it worry about breaking the startline? The stress of the environment? I would like to get to the root of the problem in order to work on it. What’s the history behind the stress at the startline?Hi Kerrie,
So glad to see you both. I cannot express how sorry I am about all the fires there. It’s been all over the news here….
So on run one, I think there where a few things happening. One, you did a great job with engagement at the startline. What I saw was 2 things regarding the disconnect, one was the leash area. I think she was running to it to get reinforcement. The other thing is you very briefly looked up as she was exiting the tunnel (probably to see where you were going) and at that moment, she disconnected. Personally, if I disconnect on a course and something happens, I own the mistake. When I disconnect on the course and my dog saves my bacon, the dog gets extra cookies. Pepper and I went through a stint this summer where I could not connect with her out of tunnels. It cost me a bunch of runs. When I deliberatly connected with her out of the tunnels, our runs changed.
On the second run, do you think her running off was as a result of the guy walking through your course?
Third run was good! This looked really nice. Have you read through the posts with Fei and Zoe? I thinking maybe a quick Jackpot session before you run. She seems very food driven and perhaps she needs access to her cookies before the run begins? Let me know if you have and questions.Absolutely! I think so much of the young overthinkers has to do with mental maturity!!! I agree that it will come, but you’re also right in the sense that this is a critical time and we either encourage our dogs or discourage our dogs (which determines their love and excitement for their agility career). The best advice I have to offer is take the emotion out of it. It’s hard! We invest so much time and effort into our dogs. I can literally shut down my two bcs just by an over emotional “no”. They are both soft. So that is never part of our training vocabulary. Now if they are doing something super naughty in the house (trash can gets knocked over and we need to keep them out of it) I may use it there. But I work very hard to keep the emotion out of it. Also, if you make a mistake, reward the dog (you did in the last video). They start to save your butt! I love your reward system and the fact that it limits your training. This helps so much with quality training as opposed to quantity (not overdoing it)!
Drills 1&2 – These look great! She is fast and motivated!!! One thing I want you to play around with is your use of her name. When you say her name, she doesn’t seem to drive as hard as when she goes back into obstacle focus. What I want you to do is free her up a bit from too much handler focus and see if that helps. Just simply whisper her name or don’t use it at all. If you are doing something more technical (wrap or something that requires a lot of handler focus) you can use her name, but when the path is obvious (blind out of a tunnel), let’s see if she really needs it.
On the last video, you handled the mistake very well. There was a bit of disconnect on your part and that gave her permission to cut behind you. This is one of those places where MORE connection is better (one thing that really helped me with cueing backsides). Ensuring that she is on the line to the backside of the obstacle. If you get a lot of this, then I would work the backside with independence, but also reward handler focus before the backside 1-2 times, then try again. Does that make sense? Overall, nice work! She really is a nice little dog! I think you have a very bright and fun future with her. She definitely is a talented little dog!Hi Fei,
Thanks for the videos. For the opposition reflex, you can move your hand out further from the her to draw her out, or get rid of the food lure all together and wait until she is pushing against you (like she does on the dw with your helper).
Dog walk – this looks good. I want to see more of it. Two things we are working on here and a couple things I would like for you to change.
1. We are working on her driving hard and fast across the dw. Using opposition reflex and backchaining the dw will work both.
2. We are also working on reinforcement for you being in front of her. However, I would like for you to change your position so that she is chasing you and not coming into the pressure of you. Does that make sense? I want you to start about 2-3 feet in front of her and RUN!!! Have your reinforcement ready, but the idea is for her to chase you off the dw. As she gets more comfortable, move her further and further back. Once she is going fast across the dw, you can raise it a bit more. Does that help?For the fun run, you can attempt the course a couple times during your turn, but don’t over do it. I know that Zoe has to warm up a bit before she really gets going. I would try to leave with her in an excited state. If you have to work for excitement, then you get it, it might be tempting to “try one more time” but you have to quit while you’re ahead. Also, for the first run or two, I would stick to jumps and tunnels.
For the teeter, there are lots of different ways to teach it and unfortunately sometimes just one bag experience can set you back. One thing you might add to my last suggestion is getting her to run to a small at (the width of the teeter and about 30 cm long) and to lay down on it (this is taught without the teeter). Once you have a ton of value for the mat and the behavior, you can add it to a board that’s flat on the ground. Make sense? The teeter is one obstacle in essentially 36-40 obstacles (if you count JWW and STD). You can spend a lot of time on one obstacle or you can focus on speed and confidence (more obstacles involved). I’m not saying don’t work on the teeter, I am just saying don’t let that become your sole focus. That’s great with the wobble board!!! Great idea!
You have and are working hard with Zoe, keep it up. Agility consists of people and dogs from so many sides of the spectrum. Just because in one person’s eyes she “doesn’t have the legs for it” doesn’t mean that’s to complete truth. It depends on your goals. Do you want to have a great time with your girl doing something fun? You’ve got this then! If you told me you wanted to be on the world team with Zoe, I would say we have our work cut out for us then. Find people who support you and the dog that you have in front of you. I had some pretty nasty comments about Pepper. Friends that couldn’t say anything nice about her. You can surround yourself with those that support you, or those that discourage you. Find the people that will support you. Mental management is a BIG part of agility. This is a BIG part of mental management.Hi Louise,
What is her MOST favorite thing ever? Food-wise? I personally would also maybe feed her half her normal meal so she is a bit hungry. Also, let he sniff to her hearts content (stay in a small area with her on leash). As soon as she offers to look at you, TONS of jackpots with her favorite cookies. Don’t ask for her attention, wait for her to offer it. Give her a few minutes to check things out with her nose though. This is very similar to the acclimation work, just the dirt is the “environment”. Does that make sense? The more you can do this the better. It can be on any dirt, not just where there is agility obstacles present 🙂
Video 1 – I would actually like for you to do this again and take out the jump between the tunnels. You did a great job running to the first tunnel, but then it was hard to get the blind in there. I think if we take the jump out, that would free up the space. She missed the last jump because you didn’t connect or address the jump. Be sure to connect (after tunnels especially since the dog cannot see you) and point to her take off spot on the jump.
Video 2 – You almost had time for the cross (see how you really had to decelerate for the tunnel)? Much better connection and addressing the jump after the second tunnel.
Video 3 – This was nice!!! I am very impressed with your use of space!!! Everything looked good! You engaged with her ahead of time, stayed happy and motivated her during the run and went back to the reinforcement station. Nice!
Video 4 – same here! Great connection after your blind after the tunnel! Great work!Hi Fei,
Personally, I wouldn’t give her access to the teeter like that (as reinforcement or have it near the course for reinforcement). It is great that she is starting to love it, but as you said, we don’t want her to think that the teeter is the place to be on course. That’s too funny though that it was such a strong draw?
For the teeter, what is your criteria? My suggestion (if you want her to drive to the end), it to prop the teeter up on one end (with it low) and have her go all the way to the end for the reinforcement. You will pick her up and take her off at the end rather than let her jump off. Do this until she is driving to the end, but also work the bang game so that she is being reinforced for the bang. Once she is driving to the end, I will then help it drop and eventually let it drop on it’s own. If you miss one of these components, it is hard to get the desired behavior. If you are still competing during the retrain, it is hard and can kill a dog’s confidence on the teeter. You could bait her at the end of th teeter. Much of this depends on how you originally trained the teeter.
On reward placement, what I mean is don’t wait until the dog is headed to the end to reward. We humans have a tendency to reward after the last obstacle. I would like for you to drop the reward in the middle of the course. This is similar to the concept we talked about early on with the contacts. If I reward ON the contact (literally) I am building value for that obstacle. If I wait to throw the reinforcement when the dog EXITS the contact, I am rewarding them for leaving the contact. (This applies to the “learning phase” of contacts – with my beginning students when I am trying to build confidence for the equipment I reinforce ON the contacts). The same is applicable to building value for the course. For instance, on lesson 4 drill 1, you could throw the toy after 3 towards the tunnel. Does that help?
I would absolutely go to the fun run! I would jackpot her before you go in and JUST run a speed circle. The first round maybe do 3-5 obstacles and jackpot again. Then if that goes well, add to the number of obstacles. If that does not go well, keep it short to 3-5 obstacles. TONS of rewards before and after, not matter how it goes.
In lesson 5, I am going to give you guys an example of my warm up routine. There is a section for shadow handling in there. Let me know how the weekend goes 🙂I understand. Do you think that he is better if you limit the number of runs that he does in one day? Can you just enter him in the classes that you are trying to title in/finish? I know you said one more FAST leg and then JWW and STD in AKC and STD in USDAA?
Remember that these things take time. Sometimes a break is a good thing and takes the pressure off of you both. You might just run him in 1-2 runs per day.
Jack is my soft aussie and he has had long periods of time off of competition and runs at the house, then we would enter a weekend here and there. He was awesome! I would start with one class on Friday, then maybe one or two Saturday and Sunday. I also decided I wasn’t going to worry about titles, but that our goal was to have fun! He did really well, then we had a foreign exchange student who wanted to run him. I put him in preferred novice at 16″ and that’s where he has stayed. He will run for anyone (including my 5 year old and 7 year old kids)!!!
It’s okay to take time off, but keep working on the speed circles and the “fun”. It’s easy to compare your dogs, but do for Max what Max needs. I think you should keep working at it 😉
