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Hey! We are still here! Hate it when life gets in the way of my dog training fun. Played with the Deceleration Game today. Hope all is well. How’s HotShot doing?
Hope you’re staying warm! Coldest few days for us so far this year and they’re predicting real snow on Tuesday. 🙁
You are not kidding when you say the ZigZag grid is difficult. I played with it with Mags who might just be one of the nicest/smartest jumping dogs I’ve ever known and it was hard for her. She’s a 22″ USDAA jumper and I had her start at 14…..kept lowering until we were at 10″ before she was really “comfortable” with it. Giving Sly a little bit of a break from it and then we’ll play with it again.
Played with Lap Turns this morning. I tried to incorporate all your suggestions…..got most of them but still need to work on “me” some more! For Sly I added the complexity of a bar for him to see and figure out what it looks like when he should come to me and what it looks like when he should take the jump “normal”. Definitely made him think, but I thought he figured it out pretty nicely 🙂 Tried to keep the rest of it simple with just a come to me and chase the ball away. The one thing that I didn’t feel myself doing when I was doing this but I saw it when I edited the video was I wasn’t stepping back when I turned him away….did it all with my hand. When I learned these way back when I was taught to back up into them and I think that allowed me to move and “finish” with that backward step as part of turning him away. Not backing up into it is definitely getting a really tight turn but do I need to “reteach” myself to take that one step back with the dogside leg as part of the turn away? Does that question make sense?
Hi Tracy,
I think you missed my last post. It looks like it was loading at the exact same time as you were responding to posts and that it ended up getting missed. No worries….didn’t get to play today anyway..had to “adult” 🙁 But hoping to play tomorrow!!!!! 🙂Continuing with the Zig Zags grid…. Should I put a short bar on both jumps? And I think some of the variability comes from where I set him up. I’m setting him close to the first bar so he’s got to come off his rear and I’m setting him up more or less parallel to that bar but I’m not sure where along the length of the bar? I assume for this game it should always be the same place? Mid-bar? Or closer to the take off wing? Does that question make sense?
And we also played with Turn Aways sometime in the last couple of days.
No idea why I stopped moving through the serp…duh??? But he is figuring out the jumping 🙂 And bang game is going well…using his MM to help him focus forward. I’ll post video next week sometime 🙂
Hi Tracy, thanks. We played with two more of the serp sequences yesterday afternoon before I read your feedback so didn’t angle the second jump. That’s not the first time he’s not quite understood the mechanics/timing for the middle jump so some games directed at that are going to be great for us! I mixed up some startline stuff with the serp sequences which was fun!
And then we played with Mt Climbers again… just these 2 reps at the same amount of tip as the last time we did this… a couple of weeks ago. Loved how on the 2nd rep he was like Got This!! My question is should I do something different on the 1st rep so the movement doesn’t surprise him?
Put my be a “good dog trainer first” hat on this week and did lots of really short sessions making just one thing more difficult at a time…..with a plan! Focused on startlines and one and two jump serps. Put both together in two of the short sequences yesterday.
Serps….. left out of the video several reps in the middle where I tweaked the two jumps. So if I remember correctly what’s in the video are the first 3 reps, maybe one in the middle and the last one (or maybe two)
Startlines………going to do this one from the other side this morning…I hope 🙂
Hi Kristie, It’s a couple of pieces of thin Lexan sheets rolled up in a cylinder and taped together with clear packing tape. 1/32″ x 2’x4′ Lexan sheets that I bought on line from a place called ePlastics. I use them for all sorts of stuff 🙂 Good to see you too!!!!
Makes perfect sense ….hadn’t really thought about how especially with him doing a running dog walk it’s totally back chained. I’ll play with this a few more times and then let it sit for awhile. I’m really happy with his understanding and confidence with this 😊
And yes, everything you said in regards to the Serps makes sense as well. I’ve got a theoretical training question for you. I’m noticing that I frequently have a tendency with him to take too big a step from the call it the beginning steps review to the next exercise. I think it’s because he’s really developing such a solid foundation… like with the serp over one jump that I assume he’s ready, or I don’t recognize the complexities of the next thing we try… in this case 2 flat jumps, toy, etc, etc. I’m pretty good about recognizing that it was too big a step too quickly and backing up to a successful spot and we usually work through it pretty quickly without him getting frustrated, although not always. My question is would it be easier for him to learn and build/maintain his confidence if I was more careful about this and was more careful about taking smaller steps? I suspect I know the answer but just wanted to hear your thoughts 😊
Had a dogwalk plank on a table this week for our RC foundations stuff (we graduated from the flat to a plank) so while it was out we played with entries a little bit a few different times. Here’s today’s short session with the 24″ table. I didn’t think jumping off the 24″ table was the best thing for him to be doing (although he was more than happy to do it!) and I wasn’t sure just how much I wanted him running up the ramp and slowing to stop on the table. I really liked how he was getting this one and having fun doing it 🙂
Also revisited Serpentines. Rocked the one jump, but two got interesting….
I think the standard increments for adjustment are 2”, but I just moved it in a little bit from the end and had just a little movement. He definitely noticed! He worked through it but never quite as confident as with no movement. I moved it so it tipped a little more to see how he responded. Definitely noticed but seemed to work through it a little quicker…but still has this “crouchy” stance at the end. He’s a dog that usually if he sits on something that he has concerns about for a day or two when we come back to it he’s totally fine with it. So it will be interesting to see how he responds in a few days.
