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Hi Barbara!
Thank you so much for sharing!!! I am so glad that you are getting the happy agility vibe!!! It feels good to say “sorry, we can’t play right now” vs “please play with me”!!! Great work!Hi Laura,
This looked really good!!! I would have MORE energy and be MORE excited with the toy 🙂 Especially when she is fast and gets the weaves correct!Hi Susan,
Yes! This was great! I like how he got excited and then you sent him over the jumps then to a reward! This was perfect!!!Nope! That’s perfect!!! He has some nice independent entries!!! I like it! I mentioned to another team her they can replace two jumps or a tunnel with the weaves for the drills and work on weaves in a sequence. I feel that from this video, he understands to drive to the poles and entries, but at trials where he has to take in a lot more distractions this job becomes harder? Do you feel it is environment or your motion, or both? This week, I would like to see the weave somewhere in your drills. He also LOVES whatever food you are using 😊
Hi Char,
This looks really good. I would like to see your crosses just a tad quicker so that you are completely rotated when she takes the obstacle. That is being nit picky, but the drill looked really good! Have you had an opportunity to work her somewhere else?Hi Susan,
I am thinking that the first and third video are the same? If you can send the other one that would be great! I think with some dogs you have to be careful with repetition. They aren’t crazy about it. This may be the case with Raven.
The drill was nice and you had nice movement and enthuasium there!!!
If he is not with you, I would do some active trick and get him back into play/work mode, then end the session. I wouldn’t end the session with him not working, but get him engaged again, then quit. Does that make sense?I would agree on the stress though it seemed he was more “settled” during the last run that day. Perhaps it was a multitude of things.
Sounds good on the weaves! I think a chart is a good idea. It will be interesting to see how he handles the longer trial. Look forward to hearing about it!
Thank you for the catch! I have contacted CRCD4 because I changed computers and my product key code expired. I will get it fixed this evening. Funny that not one of my student mentioned that in the last class that I ran 🙂 Thank you again!HOLY COW!!! That is hysterical! Do you have a pool at your house that the dogs can swim in? My border collie Keen has the same feelings about the pool. I have been working hard on his running contacts and if he gets overly thoughtful, I will use the pool itself as a reinforcement. Ask for the DW + Great hit = we run to the pool and he gets to fetch the ball. Last week, we probably ran to the pool 5-6 times! It kept his enthuasium up and excitement level up. I swear he tried harder and harder every time.
Hi An,
I would shorten the sequences and reward more with the lotus ball in the beginning. Pasha does a really nice job going from obstacle to obstacle, but what we are looking for is more confidence from him. So when he has speed and confidence on a couple of obstacles, that’s when I want to reward Pasha. The verbal reward is what we will use later, but for now he need the “best” rewards.
Yes, I understand the use of his name to get his attention, but I want you to try to just use the obstacle name (this is where the drills will be important for independence). I have several students who have the same problem and I explain it to them like this: If I tell you to go over to the neighbors house and get some tea, but as you walk away I say things like “An! don’t forget to knock on the door,(you move a little closer) An! make sure you say hello when they open the door,(you move a little closer) An! remember to smile when they open the door”. Or the other thing I could say is “An, please go to the neighbors and get some tea, knock on the door, smile and say hello, okay, go.” Everytime you say thier name it brings the dog into hander attention. If I want my dog to go as fast as they can to an obstacle, I am going to let the have 100% attention on the obstacles. So to keep the attention on the obstacles, I will continue to reward the obstacles.
For the drills, I would simply stand near a jump and say the command for jump and see if he will take the jump (rewarding on the other side). Same for the tunnel. I do a drill where I move around the clock I start at the 12 o’clock position and the jump or tunnel is at the 6 o’clock position and ask for the jump. Then we move to 11 or 1 o’clock and so on. My dog can take the jump from any position, then I add distance and directionals. It is really amazing what the dog doesn’t understand if there is no motion from the handler. This will really help your verbals. Your goal is to reward A LOT!!!
The sling shot is simply starting with the dog at an angle that is legal in your organization so that you are a little more down the line. Some of this depends on what your organization calls a refusal plane. Another thing that you might consider at the startline is a count down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and “go”. If your voice will keep him engaged, then it might just be verbal support he needs as you are leaving him. Try it and see what he does.
I thought the drills looked good for the space you have. I would love to see some video of the verbal drills for you and Pasha. Do you have directionals such as a turn left and turn right?Hi Laura,
Thank you for the videos! I thought your drills and play sessions were great! Lots of great mechanics and she was fast and happy. Do you have weave poles at home? If so, you can substitute them for a tunnel or two jumps in row on the home drills. After seeing her video at the trial, I would like to see how she weaves at home.
I do think she is tired towards the end of the day and for a dog her age, I would tend to move on the side of caution and just run her in 2-3 runs per day. That way she can keep playing agility as long as she can.
Here is the info for the backing up. Let me know if you have any questions.
Backing up.
Planes of motion: Medial/Sagittal. With this exercise we are warming up the muscles in
their hind end – hamstrings and the glutes and increasing rear-end awareness. Some
key points are: In the beginning it is especially important to reward ANY weight shifting
backwards. Then ANY foot movement backwards. One of the big mistakes handlers
make is to ask for too much too soon, reward the little steps/parts. When I say reward, I
mean mark then reward. That said, MARK WHILE THE DOG IS MOVING BACKWARDS
and better yet, reward while the dog is still in motion (cookie placement in a minute)!!!
For years, I was rewarding my dogs when they would take 4-6 steps back, then stop for
the cookie, so I was rewarding the stop. They got VERY sticky!!! Which brings me to
reward placement. I try to throw the cookie in between the dog’s front legs to generate
a few more steps backwards.
• Try to reward on the ground rather than from your hand. In the video, you can
see a distinct difference in the dog’s head position (translating to other parts of
the body) when I reward from my hand.
• Right now, I am not concerned with whether my dog is backing up straight (I can
fix that later). Your focus in this lesson should be in teaching the dog to back up
in proper position (head NOT positioned up and arched back).
• Remember to use your nose touch and/or reset cookie to reset the dog if
needed. Or you can bring them in for a game of tug!
As I mentioned, there are several different ways demonstrated on the video. You can
try them all if you want but find one (or more) that works well with your dog and
then go from there. The video cut off and in the end with the x-pen set up. You will
want to move your target further back to fade the x-pen out and just have the dog back
up to the target. Please let me know if you have questions with this and I would be
happy to post another video.
Video: https://youtu.be/EVHLmQ_wDV8Hi Margaret!
Sorry for the delay, I have been visiting family and we were busy all day today!
YES!!! This looks FANTASTIC!!! I love what I am seeing and ALREADY a BIG difference in your handling!!! Great work! Yes, at 1:37 that is the “pink panther” move and she does LOVE it! I was also pleased at 1:57 where you rotated off the jump a little early and she took the jump anyway (thank you LBG)!!!
Yes, I think you are getting some really great drive for both!!! This looks really good! I am super excited for you both because if you go back and watch your earlier videos, your “play” and “reward” mechanics have improved signaficantly!!! You are working hard and it really shows here!!! Very, very nice work here!!!
I would love to see the dock diving videos!Hi An,
I am glad that Pasha is okay and that you discovered the problem with his ear. Thank you for the videos and it is nice to see you both working so hard to do what you love!!! I think what you and Pasha are doing is wonderful and think that it will all come together with some time!!!
Couple of things that I see from the videos. I think that Pasha likes to practice outdoors more than indoors. This only means that when you are working indoors I would reward Pasha more that normal to help build confidence. I would also like to see you reward more in general. Meaning that there are many times that Pasha is trying so very hard to do the right thing and to do what you want. He starts to speed up because he gets it right and he doesn’t always get a reward. I think you are waiting too long to reward him for a job well done. It is EASY to do for many people. The other thing is that remember that if I want Pasha to go to an obstacle, I really want to just say the name of the obstacle rather than the name of the dog. I am not sure of the language, but sometimes it sounds like you are saying Pasha’s name when you should just be saying the name of the obstacle. Does that make sense?
I like the idea of you using another dog to get Pasha excited as long as there are no problems between the two dogs. This is a great idea.
Overall, there was some great work here! Have you worked much verbal independence at home with a couple jumps and tunnels? I can give you some drills with that if you would like?
Please let me know if you have any questions (especially if you do not understand something). We have lived in several foreign countries, so I understand the language barrier and will do my very best to explain things when needed. Thanks
