[dashalin]

Lots of new fun for the week, but again sketchy weather ahead. We did get to play before the rain came in today though.

Tonight I am sending just a couple of quickies on lead outs. One using a BC and the other a FC and a lead out centered on the jump. She is usually really good about letting me lead out. The one problem i have with lead outs is when I mover to the side rather than go straight out. If I do that she wants to turn and face me sometimes taking the first obstacle our of her field of vision. Any suggestions you can give me to help with this would be great.

I had to do my own filming today, so hopefully it is ok.

PS: I had a bit of a scare with JJ yesterday in Jen’s class. She took the dog walk at a bad angle turning wide and thinking she should take a different obstacle at first. She corrected her choice, but that created a terrible entry to the dog walk and she was scrambling to hold on until she could jump off of the dog walk “safely”. All in all it was a bit terrifying. I am glad that we are working on safe entries to the contacts this week. JJ is usually really good about her entries, but in this case she did not make her 180 so she did not have time to reestablish a good line before getting on the DW. The good news is that she was not hurt and that she was not afraid to get right back in the saddle. The odd thing is that she can be skittish at the littlest thing like moving a tissue box on a table at home, but on the agility floor she shows no fear.

[dashalin]

I did not know that there was a Max Pup 4 I am so glad to hear that. I had planned to take her to some CPE trials this summer. There are no weaves at the lowest level and the atmosphere is so relaxed. The dogs do not jump the same heights as in AKC. You can do FEO there too if you want. We played a bit with the wrap and tunnel game on Friday. I have some video, but realized that somehow I had not gotten all of the stages on film.

I watched these again after I got home, and rewatched your videos and thought of a bunch of ways to make this smoother.

The first video is the straight send out. I did not have enough time to reintegrate this between the other times which I regret. It was raining all day at home so we could not redo this today and tomorrow we are heading to my folks for Easter…so maybe Monday.

We worked on the soft command right left wraps and this worked well, but the video I got was where something was happening in the back of the building and JJ got very concerned about it. I really want to do this part over more so that JJ understands the wrap part. JJ’s Mom was distressed in the background.

We did try the RC with this, but I could not get to the end of the tunnel fast enough to direct JJ. I tried backing it up a bit, but did not ever get to where I needed to be to support her. Maybe a shortened tunnel, or a better send to the tunnel would have worked. I look forward to your input.

JJ was turning the correct way, but not wrapping

One last clip trying to back things up a bit

I hope you have a Happy Easter!!!!

[dashalin]

Thanks for the information. I am sure that you are correct about my decel being off. I will try to get video. I am usually really good at getting people to video me during class and was really bummed that I did not get the video of the tunnel to serp pic that I tried to paint for you. I got video today but am exhausted so I will post that tomorrow for your eval.
I am curious as to when you would typically begin to trial a pup. Jj just turned 18 months old today and I do not have any plans to get her in a trial at this age or even near this age, but I have a number of people that are already bugging me to get her in a trial. JJ does well with 12 weaves, but only if I have wires on the first and last part of the weaves. When she is going fast she does not see them as an obstacle at all unless I have the wires on the weaves. I want that to be more solid before I would consider putting her i a trial. She has such lovely skills from all of the work that we have done through the Max Pup series and for that I will forever be grateful, but I want to be comfortable trialing with her when we get started with that.

[dashalin]

No video today, but I need some help. I do not remember where in the courses we worked a lot on tight wraps ( I think it was more than one spot) anyway, now that JJ is getting faster, she is finding that actions that may make her think more and and collected better are getting worse so I want to go back and review these things with her.
By the way in J’s handling class on Wednesday, there was a serp (Glad we have been working on them.). JJ did well on it if she started right in to it, but the actual course was coming through a tunnel which shot out a bit to the right, but the serp was in line with the opening of the tunnel to the left (only a couple of feet to the left of the tunnel opening) and I had a really difficult time getting her over the first jump in the serp. I was trying to be down the way for the second jump like you told me to do in class, but the jumps all made a straight line to the left of the tunnel (parallel to the tunnel opening) not in a line straight out of the tunnel like in Max Pup so JJ needed to make the correction on a verbal since she could not even see the jumps when she exited the tunnel. It was really tough for her. The slower dogs did not have the same problem making the corrections to the first jump in the serp. JJ kept going through the space between the two jumps. we did back chain it and she was able to make the jump but when she was another obstacle back she still could not make the entrance over the first jump in the serp. I probably just needed to continue to break it down more, but in class there was only so much time. I do not know if my description makes any sense at all, but if it does and you have any suggestions please let me know. If I get a change I will try to duplicate the angles at home so you can see it better. It might have just been above her pay grade, although this is a class for young dogs.

[dashalin]

By the way, I was at the club today and it is a standard week so the contacts were out. We had a course with a tunnel right next to the A-frame. I tried the discrimination game with JJ on that and it was a not as beautiful as the cot vs the tunnel. (By the way the cot I used has really high value due to the fact that the dogs have to go on their individual cots or tables when someone comes to the door or after they all come in the house after going out for final potty time. They are then treated on their obstacle each time that happens). JJ really wanted to just go in the tunnel not up the A-frame. I did not have a lot of time to work with her on it, but when I get a chance I will try something like this again. It was super interesting. JJ was also higher than a kite today and did not seem to want to listen really well. I think that she is going through a phase where she thinks she knows more than me.

[dashalin]

Oops here is the 3rd clip

[dashalin]

We did this additional video yesterday so I will post it today. It is a yucky rainy day out here so I am glad that we were able to continue with the tunnel on the serp work yesterday.
First time with big angles to make the work easy for JJ.

Second clip reducing the angles a bit

Third clip straightened lines

Last clip other side after working through the big angles and closing the angles as we went.

Most of the time I did about 2-3 runs at each angle for the jumps, but most looked similar so I edited out the extras last night thinking I might send them then. These are really short because of that. I hope that this gives enough of a look at what we were doing.

[dashalin]

Well, we had snow until today with a short warming trend but tomorrow the rain is coming in all day. I was glad for the time to catch up on other things lol. today when we went out to work a rogue dog entered our yard, We only have a small area fenced, and we were working outside of the fenced area. JJ went bonkers chasing and barking at the dog. I believe it was a Huskey from one of the houses down the street. Once we were able to corral JJ we took her in and then worked in the fenced in area for a while. Later in the afternoon we went back out to do a little more serp work. So if things are a bit different than you had planned that is the reason.
The first clip is from the beginning discriminations activity. I thought this went well. Her cot was a higher value at first, but it did not take long to get the tunnel command too.

The rest of our session was focused on the serp work. I will post the part that we did in the fenced in area today, and post the tunnel part tomorrow. The first part is review and then using two winged jumps.

The second part is what I called step 2. Adding a bit of movement at the start.

Step 3 I had 3 jumps at angles to make the movement through the jumps easier for JJ.

We then worked at reducing the angles

And finally trying a straight line.

JJ seemed to move through these nicely. I noticed that I need to only use the one arm and keep the other one out of sight. I look like i have helicopter arms in some of these video clips.

[dashalin]

I know that this is mostly a timing issue, but I have shown you a few quick little videos of some of my attempts, some good others not so much.
These are from side 1 at the start. Slow and not fast enough and i need to remember to keep moving better here.

Side one continuing on. Missing the third wing was super common.

Side one A little improvement.

Side one Starting with FC

Side one FC to BC

Side 2 just starting This shows one of my struggles

Side 2 continuing and last run before quitting for the day. This shows the other struggle.

Thanks for all of your insight on the last bunch. We continue to be a work in progress. In J’s class today we had a tricky tandem turn and I was glad to have had the recent practice with it in your class. 🙂

We have snow on the ground yesterday and today so no practice outside until it melts off and it is not so slippery.

[dashalin]

Well, we did not have any more rain, but today we got snow so the ground is once again covered with white.
We were able to get out for a few minutes before the snow came this morning so I do have some new footage for you to preview.
I was wondering What cue do you use for the threadle? …and for the tandem turns. I have a hard time deciding on these things. My first agility dog never had many verbal cues so it is a new ball game for me.

I have some video of wingin’it tight blinds to wraps two ways.

#1 side 1. First attempts

#2 side 1 adding the tunnel at the start.

#3 side 1 two wings

#4 side 1 two wings blind to blind

#1 side 2 I guess i forgot to upload my attempts on this side with just one wing.

#2 side 2adding tunnel at the start

My usual issues still were evident at times. I really tried hard to make sure that JJ got her toy after every run, even when I blew it and made her less than perfect for what I had intended. My big issue with that is that my brain wants to begin to analyze what went wrong first rather than saying to JJ what a good job she did. I guess that I need the reminders so that she feels good about reading me even when there is an error in my handling causing the issue I am trying to figure out LOL.

[dashalin]

So today I am sending our first time working on the threadle wraps on the wings. The one thing that i saw as I reviewed my videos was that I did not always continue to walk past the wind after sending JJ around it. I need to go back and work on that. Again I wish i had instant replay in my head so that I could work on these things immediately. The second and most common theme is that I am not always doing a great job at connection, although I often realize it when working with J and try to do better in some of the clips after I figure out what I am doing.

Clip 1 is side 1 getting started. We did move further away as we practiced this.

Clip 2 is side 1, adding in the tunnel send

Clip 3 is side 2 clip 1 getting started

Clip 4 is side 2 adding the tunnel

Clip 5 is side 1 adding a second wing Threadle to backside

Clip 6 is side 1 threadle to threadle

Clip 7 is side 2 Threadle to backside

Clip 8 is side 2 Threadle to threadle

I still need to keep moving on so many of these clips. I think that it is a trust issue for me. I think that J would simply step up to the plate and that the wraps would be tighter. I will work on that later this weekend. We again had rain today even though it showed no rain in site for the day.

[dashalin]

I had this all written up for Tandem turns and then tried to post it and lost it, so I might not have as much dialogue this go around.
When I first started doing this on the first side near the wing, my body was not facing correctly so JJ had really mixed messages. I did not see evidence of this until I came in and reviewed the clips. As J got farther back and i had movement forward this cleared up a bit, but i had to remember to trun to the tunnel after the turn so she did a tighter turn.

Side 1 first attempt

Side 1 from tunnel exit. Here was a bit easier with more movement.

Side 1 putting it together. I needed my body to face forward rather than face her out of the tunnel. She understood the back side send well.

Side 2 first attempt no connection vs connection and poor body position vs connection and better body position.

Side 2
From tunnel exit and then tunnel entrance. From tunnel send I should have called her name earlier.

Side 2 no connection vs connection

Side 2 putting it together

[dashalin]

Thanks. All of the things you mentioned are things that are much easier to see when reviewing the videos.
Today it rained all day so no videos outside. We had class at night but we’re working on different stuff there. I always need to work more on my connection. I need a little reminder in my ear at all times for this. I agree that the more I do these games the less I have to think about what my movement needs to be and can focus where I need to so I can keep the connection with J. Hopefully we will have video to share again tomorrow.

[dashalin]

I am struggling with the wing games. I did ok with one jump and then when we went to two jumps I just could not seem to get the patterns down. We did some work on these, but then went to the 3 wing ladder. This was a bit easier, except that I wanted to put in blinds at times when I was supposed to put in a front.
I can definitely see issues when I do replay hours later (right away would be better, but my schedule does not always offer that up).
So here goes. I know in watching the video clips that I did not do as much sending as needed rather i started to work the wraps from the start side which made them less efficient. I also wanted to put a blind at the end of wind ladder when I was trying to do all fronts. Not sure why my body wanted to keep doing this.
3 wing ladder BC’s:

Tunnel and 3 wing ladder BC’s

FC’s side 1:

FC’s side 2 of ladder. For both sides, I struggled and needed to break it down for both me and J.

Adding the tunnel with FC’s

BC’s side 2. Not sure about the start, need to review your instructions, but the rest felt a bit better.

[dashalin]

Quickly on teeter foundations. Not sure if I remembered what to do so if not let me know.

PS. I struggled on getting my body to correctly do the wraps on tunnel to Two wings. I will try again tomorrow.

[Author]

Posts