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Week 3
Did a lot of work with the lotus ball this week. The more I use it the bigger his enthusiasm for it gets.
Had fun with the Forward Focus game. Had a little confusion with between the legs. We have not done this trick in a long time and I think he was confusing it with his rally commands… but I really like his enthusiasm here.
Forward Focus: https://youtu.be/-7KZ_dPFVJM
Drill 1: https://youtu.be/1QaySFLHvs4
Drill 1 take 2: https://youtu.be/t3FkQHlLetcWe integrated the Opposition Reflex work with Drill 2.
Drill 2 24″: https://youtu.be/h-YTsHWtQVY
Drill 2 Take 2 12″: https://youtu.be/IK1gnmuqWOoTrial report: we did a one day AKC trial yesterday. Max only had two runs. We did QQ but neither was particularly fast. Sadly, I didn’t get either on video. JWW was first. I tried to wind him up even more than usual. We did catch the cookie in the air game right before running and I tried to be more animated than usual at the startline. He had a slow start because he kept looking over at his BC “sister” who ran right before us (almost got a refusal, as a result) and got extra rev’d and very noisy when she heard me trying to wind up Max. When “dad” left the vicinity with her, Max picked it up and we had a much faster second half. We did not make the same mistake in standard and he had a more respectable run, weaves were kinda slow, but I think we picked up 15 pts.
So many thoughts about this week’s lesson.
First, I want to put it out there that I don’t train agility often with Max at this point in his career. He’s older and we’re pretty insync handling-wise. We’ll occasionally do a quick session or two a week to clean up an issue that crops up in a trial (eg. missed dw contact, slow weaves, poor table performance) but I try to keep that to a minimum. That does not mean we do not do any training. This time of year he’s doing some dog sledding (8-12 mile runs, weather permitting), fitness work with fitpaws equipment (2-3 time per week), and rally training (2-3 times per week). For this class, we’re trying to get in daily practice with the drills w/o equip and then once per week we’re doing the equip drills (we are a little limited this time of year since it’s to frozen and/or snowy to work at home). We’ve been on the “less is more” plan for awhile so I’m trying to be cautious about how much I dial up our agility training.
Alright, onto this week’s lesson. We’ve actually been living a lot of the points you brought up. Startlines: we abandoned those a couple years back after Max started getting a little sticky, he honestly seemed a lot more happy and engaged when I started running with him and wind him up at the start (we often do the “gonna grab your tail” game). He’s never had an explosive start so I’ve been able to make handling choices (mostly blinds) that allow me to do that by running hard myself off the bat. Of course we tried to integrate some startlines in practice this week. They didn’t translate well to our trial day yesterday but more on that later. Reinforcement station: we already use this technique a lot. I use clear Talenti pint ice cream containers with chicken, liverwurst, even kibble with me. At trials we always have them before our run and as we go through our warm up and I always let him see me put it near the finish line so he knows he’ll be rewarded after his run. He’s always looking for and running hard at that container at the end of our runs. I’m hoping to build on both of those techniques based on some of the tips you suggested.
Drills
We started with trying the startline techniques and jumps at 12″ on Drill 1. He did seem to like to lowered jump height. https://youtu.be/NYvamelO4Ik
Here’s us using his usual reinforcement station with a the second startline technique: https://youtu.be/aveuxibL8sA
The “lazy bastard game” was interesting. Not a lot of interest in obstacles but he looked pleasantly surprised when he got rewarded for taking one. We’ll try this one some more. https://youtu.be/8hXe-Mx9J68
After a long break we started drill 2 at 24″. This shows a prolonged perhaps more animated version of our usual trial startline routine with the “get your tail” game. I tried very hard to maintain good connection out of the tunnel. https://youtu.be/CAwZV1Z_b2w
Finally, drill 2 at 12″ for speed comparison with the 2nd startline technique from this week’s lesson and trying to run out that ending. https://youtu.be/hEh4n_hcz-w
He rarely knocks bars and then usually only because he wraps too tight and his tail hits a stachion. Ironically, I did try jumping him 16 in practice and in comp as a vet for awhile about a year ago and he got super lazy and dropped a lot of bars so I moved him back to 24 or 20. I need to be more mindful of keeping his fitness up in this “in between” season. I’ll try 12 next go and see how that goes.
He loves to catch treats in air. Will use that more too. We used cheese balls as a reward in the past with good results (easy to toss, easy to see, and sits up off the infill on the turf), will try that again too. Thanks for all the tips.
Max is very chatty at trials before his runs. So noisy, that it sometimes bothers other competitors. I need to get over that, lol.
Here are our sessions with equipment from this morning. I felt like I was being very animated but upon reviewing thre videos I do look kinda boring. Food for thought… I also think I probably didn’t reward enough and maybe need to shorten the sessions even more. Looking forward to feedback.
1. https://youtu.be/DUq437smnLY
2. https://youtu.be/21kGIEojpNASuper funny, because I ended up posting the videos in reverse chronological order. The 3rd video was the first one filmed in that training session. So, got it, I need to be moving more.
As for tricks, it’s also interesting to think about because Max has never been very good at shaping exercises. Several of my other dogs are free shaping machines, but Max is more likely to sit there and watch me rather than offer behaviors. He does do backup and hand and nose touches on command but usually not with a great deal of enthusiasm. One structured activity that he does seem to get amped up about is working on some of the fitness equipment (peanut, donut, fit pods). Oh and he loves to talk. And talk and talk and talk… I’ll keep thinking on this some more.
Excited to try the speed circles tomorrow.
I’ve started posting this week’s drills in a YouTube playlist starting with the drills w/o equipment. To be honest, I was expecting a little more excitement from Max. He definitely gets more wound up at times, I need to start trying to figure out what factors lead to him being more aroused. I also need to figure out how to make myself more exciting…
There is definitely a course dependent aspect to his speeding up at the end. If the ending is straight forward without a lot of handling, he will almost always gain a lot of speed in the last 3-4 obstacles. If the course ends with a lot of handling or a tunnel he is a lot less likely to speed up.
He is food motivated. I haven’t been able to generate a lot of toy motivation n him but he definitely keen on a lotus ball or other treat containing toy.
Here is a video from this past weekend. It was just barely a Q, a fraction of a second under SCT. There was a lot of trotting in sections and the classic speed up at the end.
Video: https://youtu.be/3lgKInP6460
