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So I couldn’t pass up the chance to do something after work today- I just did part one , not sure weather will permit 2 and 3 within the week but we’ll see…
Anyway. wondering why the wing is offset from the jump? I guess serpentines don’t have to be adjacent wing to wing but in trials there is usually the familiar 3 jumps all lined up straight.
Does this make it easier?
Both dogs were enthusiastic and it was lots of fun. Some good reps and some stinkers. I don’t think my line was flat enough and reward placement was iffy at times. I also did a blind cross a few times with Desi as I ran from the camera. That is often the way I do it at a trial and hard not to!
Also, I have no illusions that my dogs know the words left or right. I am sure they are responding to motion.
That is what I wonder about this course- yes the ultimate goal is for the dog to respond to our verbal cues no matter what crazy things our body may be doing but- wouldn’t the real challenge be saying the verbal while not moving at all?I know we are supposed to progress from walk, trot , to run faster but when they don’t know the verbal yet, they are just responding to our movement, same as before.
I’m thinking this class will be most useful , at least for me, once they know the directional cues like left, right, circle and around regardless of my movement.
Does my question make sense?
What would this look like with a dog and handler where the dog knows 100% what the verbal means? Could the handler jump up and down, stand in place or do anything at all while saying those verbals?Libby:
Desi:
Sorry these videos are lame! I don’t know where the week went but here again in the 11th hour, the weather is nice and I rushed to do some training with Libby and Desi. I could not find the deeply bob to fit my iPad to the tripos so my trusty employee , Rhonda , stayed after work to video!!
It does not look too awful but I know there is no way they know left vs right even though they get it correct on most reps. I suppose it is their starting position on the side of me that lends itself to taking the wing or jump on the correct side.
Desi still does not have a solid “go- go -go” or “go out” as you can see on the balance breaks- Libby learned it by osmosis- I can’t remember ever training her and I guess after 5 years of agility, Desi has not learned by osmosis! She has always been more prone to head check with me than does Libby- that was evident in the trial video I sent you last week!
I will have to find some instruction somewhere for that- with all I take, it should be somewhere!Maybe with luck, this weekend will be nice and since I pulled off a trial waitlist, I am home!!
Libby- why are my neighbor’s screaming kids always outside when I work my dogs!??
Desi-
Could you post the video and/or instructions on how you teach “left” and “right”?
You mentioned it in the chat last night but I can’t remember what you called it!
I’ll just call it – training left and right!! 😉
OK- so I just had the one day this week where I had time and weather to do this outside…..and that day was yesterday—-
So I did all the week one lessons with both Desi and Libby and just the wing with Kiefer ( you’ll see why!!)Rather than editing and splicing all dogs on drill one and so on, I edited all drills for each dog into one video.
What I noticed is that if verbals are the goal, I think the dogs work on my motion more than what I say- how do we ever hope to have verbals beat out motion? Libby is better on verbals without so much motion especially on the “go-go go” or “get out” to take the second jump in extension.
And oddly enough, for the little bit I did with Kiefer, he seemed to take the correct direction around the wing with no or little motion and just a verbal…But I know we want to work up to motion while saying the verbal, thus the name of the course!~But it got me to thinking, the more we move, aren’t we by definition using our body language to cue what we want rather than the verbal? I see some handlers say nothing and have beautiful clean runs based 100% on motion. I see other chatty Kathys who have unclear motion signals but shout , shout, shout the verbal to their dogs- some succeed , some don’t!! LOL!So here is Desi-kinda weak on verbals, esp on the “go out” verbal!
Here’s my very enthusiastic Libby- not too bad on verbals but I’m guessing still relies on motion too much? Should we be doing drills with just the verbals and no motion? I saw a world team member at a seminar just say the word “push” while we were all sitting on the ground eating our lunch and her dog took the backside!
And here is head case , Kiefer- the barking is better than a few years ago and like I say in the video, a lot of agility people tolerate lots of barking and even facilitate it which IMO, makes it worse. I have tried overlooking his barking just to see what happens and it does escalate bad behavior to let it go. The barking increases , he runs around , takes a few jumps, comes back, jumps on me, circles me- you name it. If it was just a little urp like you see in these videos, that would not bother me- but if I did not “reset” him each time and get him to focus, he would be barking constantly , circling me, jumping on me etc…
This obviously does not work in agility and even when I tried it FEO in T2B ( I tried to make him do one jump , stop and quiet to reset), it did not work- he instead took off and circled back around me! Trials are so arousing as you know!But I’m impressed that he mostly understood the verbal with little or no motion. Oh sorry I blocked the camera in a couple of views- you missed the funny ones where he ran thru the verticals of the purple wing because the PVCs are far enough apart for little dogs to scoot thru. I doubt most people have this problem!
Here is the mini clip for Libby and Desi from last Sunday jumper class.
Libby ran first ( 8 inch preferred- makes me so sad that she can’t jump 12 inches anymore but she is older and slower and finally listening to me!)Desi ran later in the order- much faster and does not save my mistakes like Libby does
I hate- hate- hate pinwheels and some judges use more than one. Fortunately, this judge had just the one. I did love this JWW course though, I love serpentines and the 3 jumps near the weaves was a serpentine we ran in both directions!!
Anyway, hope this clip works for the chat Tuesday night! I am not above being embarrassed!! 😉
Hey Tracy! So this is where we do the back and forth with you correct?
And upload our video to Youtube and share the link here for critique? 😉
It is Saturday and I am want to get out in the yard with Desi before spring turns back into winter overnight!!
Anyway, looks like new week is soft turns? Can I submit the very short part of the trial video where we were doing the pinwheel and I screwed up and Desi got the refusal? It is very short and wonder if out would be good for the Tuesday night chat or just submit here on my class thread. ( There is not a FB page for this class is there?)
And non-sequitur with this class if I may…..- Nathan Chen is simply amazing!!! I used to be a skater but not good enough for my family to sacrifice everything and sleep in the car for me to train!! LOL!!
But I have attended many National Championships and International events including Skate America and the Worlds……
It is a different world- Much like someone would walk into any dog performance event and notice language they would not understand nor the training involved to perform that spectacular 35 second jumper’s run, same with figure skating.
I enjoyed attending practices more than even the competition- that’s where you see the true meaning of an athlete in that sport. Numerous repetitions, no glittery spangles- just all work!
I saw Nathan practice many times- he of the black pants and simple monocolor shirt. He does not need fancy clothes – his skating is all that he needs!!
And aren’t we lucky he plays for our team!!??
