[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi!

I think you’re traveling today = hopefully it’s going smoothly! We’re back after a bit of a break – we went down to Texas to visit my sister & family and stopped in Tulsa to watch NAC finals on the way home. Was fun – got to see some of Jimmy’s relatives on his dad’s side, and his 2 brothers which is always cool.

Anyhow, I have been hoarding videos again. Just realized I never posted from the Karen Childs seminar, and then this past weekend, we did some more NFC at our local UKI trial. The seminar was super fun, and HEAVILY reinforced that I just need to run him like a big guy. That’s still a bit of a work in progress, but I’m getting better. There’s a lot of video from that, I’ll try to pare it down a bit and will post it a bit later.

So here I have some vids from this weekend. I entered him in SS & jumping, both days, NFC all the way. We hadn’t been to a trial in a bit, so I started out rewarding more, but he was doing so well that by the SS run on Sunday, I opted to try the whole course (still NFC). I was super happy with how that went – both on his part, and on mine, where I didn’t do anything silly – I’m maybe not the best at course design. 😐

I’ve moved him up to 20″ (gradually, we did 16″ for a long time, and then 18″ for about 6 weeks (except at the seminar, I put him back to 16″) and we’ve been at 20″ now for about a month. He’s doing pretty well, but a bit floaty and is sorting out jumping and spacing. I’m not really worried about that right now, he seems like he’s understanding it pretty well, though I’d be interested in your observations!

So, in chronological order, here are our runs from the weekend.

1. Saturday Jumping. We walked all the way back to the tunnel to avoid the broad jump, because he doesn’t really know it. I loved how happy he was to walk with me all the way there, I should have done more trick stuff (spins & whatnot) while going there, but I love his engagement. I got in trouble on this run for being weird and not running him like a real dog. And we destroyed some jumps, probably because I was being weird.

2. Saturday SS. This one had a good setup to do a longer sequence, so that’s what I did. You can hear my friends & instructor (who was videoing) telling me to be assertive. 😀 He had a little lapse in focus when I threw his leash (that’s why he skipped the first jump) but then he did a great job! I do think I moved on his release though. Habits, man.

3. Sunday SS. I thought that we could give the whole course a shot on this one, so we went for it, with a little bit of a slingshot start (and yes, I moved on the release again).

4. Sunday Jumping. This one was interesting, because I tried to move a little lateral at the start and he couldn’t take the first jump. So I improvised from my plan a bit, and then tried to work a mini-startline midway through the sequence. And I didn’t reward before that, which shame on me. But I did release without motion, so that’s something!

Overall, I’m super pleased with how he’s handling ring entries and all that stuff. And his focus during runs is so great for a young dude (just turned 18mos). Startline stays are at the top of the list for the next 6 weeks – we don’t have any trials until early May, so I really want to work hard on them so that we can then practice some in NFC with success.

<<You can start to make the stay behavior into the gateway drug for agility 🙂 You can also let him ‘train’ you for this: I let the dogs offer the stay in order to get me to release them for a sequence. It starts off easy: I look at the dog, they offer a position. It can be any position, I don’t care – most offer a sit, one offers a stand, one of the whippets offers a down (weirdo! Ha!), one offers a sit while barking at me. As soon as they are settled into position, I move away (I am not really cueing a position or stay) and release. The release comes after a step or two early on, then gets expanded into longer lead outs. I also mix in throwing rewards back to the dog.>>

I do have a question on this – if he breaks when you’re doing this, do you just go back & reset and shorten it until he can hold it? I have convinced myself I don’t know how to train a stay, which is not true, I just don’t practice them enough. I might take some video of this and ask for feedback, if that’s OK? I know it’s kind of out of the scope of this group, but I could definitely use the help!!

OK – enough of this novel for today. I think you are at the Invitational this coming week – good luck & have so much fun!

Thanks,
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi!

So, funny stories.

<<– you can run the lines harder when handling him 🙂 Yes, focus on being connected but also drive the lines. You were laying back a bit, I think, and he was not always sure which line to pick up. You can support the line more by pushing closer to each line. >>

I got yelled at for exactly this on Tuesday night in class. He was subbing for Mochi (she was having a girl’s day with my husband) and we just did one jump sequence and I was being weird and pointy and not driving lines with connection. BUT – in his ‘real’ class (his last puppy class!!!) on Wednesday night, I did a full-on blind, a rear, and some other stuff, like I was running Mo, and he. was. BRILLIANT. So a good lesson for me.

<<– when you add in the stays, be sure to face the direction you want to go, then release. On the first run, you moved and released all at once, and we don’t want to build movement into the release. The lineup and forward focus on the 2nd run was great, a much ‘cleaner’ smoother stay process 🙂>>

You’ll be happy to hear that I did do this correctly on all the nights, to the point where Shenna even cheered for me and told me she could see I was thinking REALLY HARD about not moving while I release. So I swear it’s getting through – I think it’s only like the 50,000th time I’ve needed to hear it.

Thanks so much for the ideas about stays! He’s getting loads better with these, we’ve been practicing them in all kinds of random places, and keeping them super short & easy, and he is generally getting it. He is also getting lots more excited about doing agility though, so we’ll need to keep working on it.

Thanks also for the tidbit about not running near the weaves! I will stay far away, and might just use our jumpers runs in the March trial to do happy stays, and we’ll save sequences for Speedstakes.

I have a half-day novice handling seminar with Karen Childs this weekend. I’m hoping to use it for big ring time (has been hard to get this winter) and for practicing baby stays and me not being weird. I’ll get video and will post, as proof that I truly can follow directions if nothing else. 😀

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hey hey!

We’re back, and we got to do some more NFC stuff this past weekend. We’ve been in classes, his last tweeners class is actually this Wednesday (sniff) so he’ll have to join the big kids, but we’ll continue to work on age-appropriate stuff. He’s only 17 months, and we still don’t have a DW, full-height a-frame, weaves, and I’m only just now working him up to jumping 20, which will be his final height. He also had his first “for real” massage on Friday, and he was actually the best behaved of all 3 of them. 😀

Anyhow, I haven’t been posting videos of training, but I think I’ll do some more of that, if it’s allowed. I’m working hard on stays away from agility, and really only asking for short ones with tiny lead outs in agility training – but we’re getting better!

So, here’s some NFC stuff from the trial last weekend. I wanted to go in without him being able to see the toy, to see what he’d do when I took the leash off. In the first run, he was a little interested in the dog who ran before him but I gave him a few seconds before I let go of his collar, and he stayed with me, was able to sit, walk to the jump off-leash, and do his middle (albeit with a fancy butt swing on the sit) and do a couple of short little sequences. I’m still forgetting to connect and show him some of the obstacles as much as I should, but getting there.

On Sunday, he had to run after Leeroy, a REALLY exciting dog. But he did great! He could sit, he gave me 5, and did his middle, again with a little bit of a pop. He also did a tiny baby ‘look’ at the tunnel!! He dropped a bar in the back (still jumping 16″ and I think the wall, etc., was a lot of pressure) and looked slightly shocked but kept going. The bar before the tunnel might have been excitement, because I was yelling ‘go go go.’ Not sure.

We have a month before another trial, where I plan to continue to do NFC and just make the sequences a little longer (unless you think there’s other/different stuff I should be doing?). The good news is that he’ll be 18 months then so I added Jumping too. He doesn’t (and won’t) have weaves, but it’ll give us more opportunities to practice stuff, and he won’t have to be as bored all day while Mochi gets to run.

Looking forward to your feedback!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Sigh. I did not intend to be the person who disappeared for 2 weeks and then dumped a bunch of videos the night before the last day of class, but here we are. 🤷‍♀️ Work, the holiday, blah blah blah. We did some training, I just never uploaded videos.

First up are the extended sequences – this is from a few weeks ago, and I was really struggling with the backside at 12 (I think it was 12?). So we spent some time trying to fix that, but I think I just need more work on backside serps in general – I see myself stepping in and then back, which I know is not right. https://youtu.be/mubnmkHPQwg?si=pYVGo04wcbRCj1my

And then I worked entries and exits with Julie & Kristin. I felt like the entry was fine, he watched Lift but refocused on me, and he’s sticking with me when I take his leash off, and he’s able to settle & do stuff, though start line stays remain a challenge.

Exiting, on the other hand, is a bit of a challenge. He doesn’t wanna be done, so he’s wandering to go visit. He loves to tug on his leash, so I will just need to build a stronger end of run routine that involves that, I think? In this video I re-released him to go take the tunnel and then we ended again, just to change it up. More work needed here, for sure.

We have his first FEO runs the weekend of Jan 10/11, so this will be a good test! And we’ll work on our exits in the meantime.

I hope you had a great holiday and that you have a happy New Year! Sorry again to be the video slacker, but this class has been super helpful for us, so thank you!!

Thanks,
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi!

I totally agree re: disc. And while a big focus of this class is to teach them to be safe, the heights they are landing from seem… extreme. So I’m not sure I’ll go much further beyond this with it – I for sure don’t think I’ll do anything that requires vaults, giant jumps, etc. But, an unexpected benefit of this class is that they teach a lot about jumping in collection, which I haven’t done a ton of with any of my dogs, so that part is helpful.

Anyhow, we had some ring time this weekend! And I wanted to revisit the drive ahead sequences, because they were really hard last time. Especially the rear cross part (as you’ve witnessed…). I had a couple hours of ring time rented, so I was able to alternate Jim & Mochi (who finally gets to do more stuff again!) in order to give everyone some breaks. I did edit out our playtime and snuffle mat stuff just to save some time on these, but these are all the sequences we did with a bunch of breaks in between in various spots.

One thing I learned is that J does not like ‘run’ as his drive ahead verbal. He really likes GO GO GO! so he will have a different word from Mo, which I’m sure won’t wrinkle my brain at all (sigh – I’m hoping it helps stave off dementia). But the difference in his response was fascinating to me. I was also trying to connect with him more, so I suspect it was the combination of all of that, but I definitely noticed a different response to the word.

So here’s the first video, we were trying the balanced sequences – driving ahead vs. the rear cross. I was still struggling with the timing of the rear cross, but started to get it. On our last rep, he was hilarious, as he processed the left verbal in between the last 2 jumps and put on the brakes. He didn’t take the RC jump, but I was so happy with his response that we decided to end there and took a long break with some decompression stuff to help that set a bit. I hope. 😉

After that, we tried sequence 4. I think we had tried this before maybe, but I couldn’t remember. I had a hard time getting him to send to the tunnel – I had to go a lot deeper than I anticipated, which wasn’t a problem on this sequence, but was harder on the next one. I was also either late on my right wrap cue or I stopped or…? on the last one, so he pulled the bar.

Last attempt was sequence 5, and the hard part of this was not what I expected it was going to be. HA! I had a super hard time getting him to take the 2nd jump after the tunnel (so the jump after the blind). I thought I was connecting enough, but clearly not. And then the rear to the right after the blind was hard, we haven’t really done that before, and TBH I wasn’t super worried about it for this attempt.

On Sunday we revisited the more complex sequences so I’ll post some of those videos after you get a chance to look at these.

Hope you have safe travels today/tomorrow!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

We revisited sequence 3 last weekend (I was at offsite work meetings this week, so late in sending videos, and didn’t have any class time to get more videos). I forgot to bring the cato board, so I didn’t ask for much in terms of a lead out. But practicing stays away from agility is firmly on my list. 😐 I have more ring time this weekend, so I’m planning to try the send ahead stuff again along with the latter parts of sequence 3.

The course was set up differently from last time, and we had particular challenges with the jump before the tunnel (#7, I think?) , I think because it was kind of a push out for him to go get it and come back to the tunnel. And there was a lot of pressure from the wall. All that to say I didn’t fight hard for that jump when we missed it, as we had other challenges to focus on.

Here’s sequence 3a – it took us a few tries and still wasn’t perfect. Our setup was way down in the corner opposite the entrance from the ring, so I didn’t do a ton of entrance work. And I think I forgot to do some of the volume dial stuff before each run, sigh.

In our 2nd session of the day (I had shared ring time, so he had a good break in between) we tried to continue on with 3b & c, had some challenges here with #10, I was having a hard time getting in the right spot to negotiate the jump + pole.

Also, and I’m not sure if you want video of this, but it’s cute, so here’s some engaged chill. We are taking an everything you need to know for disc class (to see if I actually want to try disc, because he really likes frisbees, but disc scares the bejesus out of me) and it’s a lot of conditioning, working in arousal, and foundation tricks to help with disc, so it’s a good blend of physical & mental stimulus for him to work though, that’s slightly different from agility, and is in a different space. Anyhow, here we are working on it.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!!

I was out of town last week and came back on Sunday ready to nail the sending sequences. That is unfortunately not how it went. 😐

We had a little more space, so the line was longer and it was hard, even with a toy placed at the end. And funnily enough, this time I had it set up reversed, and tried to rear him to the left, guess who would only turn right?? Somehow I’m cuing opposite rears only.

Today we did some of the extended sequences along with having the toy out of the ring and stuff. Start lines continue to be vexing, so I opted to not fight that battle today. We weren’t perfect in the sequences for a variety of reasons, but he did some good work, I thought. We did sequences 1-3 in these vids. The course was reversed and a little mashed, so some of the handling wasn’t exactly perfect.

More in a couple of days, when we have some more ring time.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi Hi,

Thanks for the advice re: startlines at the FEO trial. They are totally a buzzkill and are still hard for him, so it completely makes sense that I wouldn’t want to do that! We will work tricks, tugging, taking a jump/tunnel or two and call it good! I’m excited – I really have not done much of this with my previous dogs, I just sort of tossed them in. Which explains a few things. 😐

Anyhow, we had a couple of different slots of ring time this weekend. I focused mostly on getting the send sequences. Interestingly, I had a hard time with the setup in the first session (due to the way the ring was set up, and I didn’t have it in me to schlep tunnels around), so instead of setting up the whole sequence I just put 3 jumps in a line to do the backchaining. Every other setup was putting the last jump too close to a wall or whatever and I was worried about pressure.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well he did with this – as much with his ability to leave the placed toy as taking the jumps to get there. We had one little blip on one of the sets of 3, but these were all our reps on this.

After that we did a little messing around with leaving the toy outside the ring. I think he did pretty well with this too, I didn’t ask for much from him because we were both tired.

On Saturday, I had some shared time with Julie & Lift, and we made a modified version of the sequence, with a tunnel as jump #3 (which feels a little like a cheat, but it’s what fit, so we went with it). All throughout these, I was doing something stupid with the backside send – I feel like I wasn’t connected enough and/or I was flicking at the jump, so I pulled him off it or got a bar. But again he sent ahead well and was great about not leaving to go get his placed toy! We did both sequence 1 & 2.

After a break (a walk, some snuffle matting, some down time in the car) we tried sequence 3. This one was hard. I think the setup was a bit of a factor, in that I was asking him to jump into the wall. I was worried that trying the rear on the 1st jump after the tunnel wasn’t quite right for the point of the sequence, so I modified the angles a bit and tried to do it after the 2nd jump. Hilariously, he would only turn left (his VERY weak side). I’m sure I was not doing something, but I didn’t want to drill it, so I just did a rear to the right and we called it a day. Overall, I was super happy with his go-forward stuff.

I’m traveling for work this week (wish I was traveling for the Open…) so won’t be able to do much until Saturday/Sunday. Jim is going to go stay with Ruth and Trouper, so he will have the best week ever. Good luck and have so much fun at the Open! I’ll be tuning into livestream when I can.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

>>But the puppy did spectacular things yesterday and his ability to focus and DO THE THING while other dogs are running and in front of a crowd at only 9 months old? Super happy-making. And Contraband got to race against the fastest dog in North America and he thought it was the Best.Day.Ever. (Also, flyball people have a lot of wine and snacks.)>>

That’s so fun! I’m glad you had a great distraction and now next week is the Open (which I swear, one year I’m gonna not have an injured Mochi and we’re going to come to that!!)! We are all doing a little bit better this week, trying to turn the rage into action, and mostly successful. Jimmy also went herding last weekend and ate (and then barfed) his weight in sheep shit which was disgusting, but also kind of hilarious and definitely distracting.

Training so far this week has been great – we went to a mini-seminar on Sunday that was way above our pay grade, but we broke it way down into bits and the little guy did great! He for sure has more skills than any of my previous dogs at this age, even if he still looks a little perplexed about how he got from point A to point B sometimes. 😀

I don’t have specific video of this, but we have been doing the ’empty hands’ for a while, mainly because I am not good at running with a toy in my hand. So it gets put elsewhere (and I really need to switch to smaller toys because his giant holee roller octopus thing makes my pants fall down). But he’s pretty solid at running without seeing the toy at this point, so I’m not sure if we need to do anything else with that.

We did do some leash off/engagement on stuff at class last night. I worked in the little warm up area, and also in the big ring when I brought him in to do his teeter sequence. At this point, he won’t look away from me, because we’ve been doing this ever since you told Ruth about it in Iowa. So I think he’s pretty solid on this too, and can do it even when there’s other stuff going on with dogs in the adjacent ring.

I have a bit of ring time this weekend which is great because weather is lousy, so we’re going to work on the send-ahead stuff because he tried to unalive me at class the other day – he’s speeding up, but then he’s turning around to see where I am and coming to a dead stop out of a tunnel. So this will be perfect for us!

Question for you. I have the opportunity to enter him FEO in a trial in January. My thought was to try that and to just work on some of these A.R.E toolbox exercises. Would that make sense? Or should I give him more time? I have zero interest in trying to actually run a course at a trial, I just want to play with startlines and whatnot. Too soon? Or do you think he’s ready to test some of these behaviors in a trial environment?

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi!

Well, the world is burning and I had to take the day off to avoid potentially murdering anyone at my male-dominated office. This is after spending Wednesday & Thursday in pretty much a fugue state. 🙁 I hope you’re hanging in there – thank goodness for dogs.

The good news is I snagged some ring time today and was able to work the tunnel sequences and a handful of other things. We did have rest time with short sniffy walks outside and/or snuffle mat time between these sequences, so he did get down time. I didn’t record all the in-between stuff (partly because I kept walking off-camera) and I sped up some of the other in-between stuff. He continues to crack me up on a regular basis.

I tried to make sure I kept going and rewarded everything, and I think I was reasonably successful? He was a very good boy all the way around! So here are a few videos:

First up was tunnel discrimination sequences 1 & 2. He was brilliant on #1 so I didn’t repeat it. #2 took us a couple of tries, but he was super good on his skip!!

Then we tried #3 and he read the left turn like a pro so we didn’t do more reps.

#4 was hard for me. 😐 We did do it right (ALL the obstacles) on the last try, but of course I didn’t hit record on that one, and I was already trying to squeeze a questionable amount of work in, so we didn’t repeat it.

We took a break from sequences to try the remote reinforcement thing. I realized I was calling him on some of these (after the fact, of course) so I’m not sure we did it quite right. I also wasn’t sure about how to get back to the toy – we kind of raced there, and he often got it before I did – is that OK?

Lastly we tried 2 reps on the mid-course sequence 2, to try to run through the box and get all the jumps. The setup was obviously a little different, but we did get it on the 2nd try when I was doing connection the right way.

We’re doing some herding (or “herding” as it is right now) and barn hunt this weekend, but we’ll probably try some more of the remote reinforcement stuff here and there.

Thanks!
Khamsin

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by Khamsin Giedd.

[Khamsin Giedd]

Yargh – I’ve been hoarding videos again. I also had a bunch of ring time this weekend, so got to do a few different things – part of the reason for the hoarding.

First up – opening sequences 3, 4, and an attempt at 5.
I was having the hardest time getting him to take the #4 jump on this with the blind. I did my super connection (arm across my body) a few times and got him, but I’d love your input. I didn’t have any trouble getting him to take 5 as the jump vs. the tunnel.

Sequence 5 showed me a hole we’ve seen in a few other spots, so we didn’t get too far. I’m having trouble with slices with him, he wants to run by or around the jump – depending on front or backside. This showed up in class with backsides at speed this past week.

We did a little mid-sequence find my face, I thought he did a good job with this!

Today we tried the mid-course sequences. I messed up the first few reps and sent him the wrong way over #1. Fixed that, and he did great! I couldn’t get him over #6 in sequence 2 to save my life. Might have been the pile of tunnel bags (we had to improvise a bit with the space available) or more likely I was doing… something.

I did speed up some of the non-sequence stuff, LMK if you don’t want me to do that.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by Khamsin Giedd.

[Khamsin Giedd]

Happy Halloween!

Swinging your arm up and down makes him twitchy because the release comes on the next arm movement, and we don’t want to desensitize the arm movement as the forward focus cue. Lifting your arm first and well in advance of/ separate from the release will help you be able to cue the forward focus on a jump without getting the release at the same time.

Funny story – I was trying this last night at class, and we had beverages at class which was not helping my word choices, so I kept saying the wrong thing while pointing at the jump and he eventually got so confused that he lifted his little foot to point at the jump (to wave, really) and we all died from the cuteness. I did not get that on video because I was having the worst time with thinking I was videoing stuff and either not turning on my video or cutting half of myself off. And I honestly only had part of 1 drink, so I can’t blame that.

I’m excited about the focus forward stuff, because I seem to have taught him that we have to make sustained eye contact while he’s in his sit stay, and while it’s adorable, it doesn’t really set either one of us up for success. So we’ll be working on that. 😐

Try not to use any “yay” as info for him on course – it causes him to look at you (“what does that mean, human?”) and caused a drop bar (seq 1 and seq 3) or he went around 4 (seq 2). Stick to information of either “keep going here is your next cue” or a reward marker.

So I’ve started to pay attention to how often I do this and, um, it’s a lot. I say ‘yay’ and clap like a weirdo. Need to reprogram to give a marker or the next cue – I will work on it!

We did a couple of things that I got on video last night. We also did a lovely volume dial session in the ring that I *thought* I videoed. Sigh.

Here’s a little bit of volume dial + decompression while we were waiting to work on our 2×2 thingy (still working on just the 2 poles). He came into class super hot, and I liked the change that I saw after the tricks + decomp. Not sure if it shows up here all that well, but I noticed a less frenetic arousal – he still wanted to work, but wasn’t off his rocker.

A little later we tried some find my face outside the ring. Worst camera angle ever (I swear I wasn’t drunk) but you can see him reorient to me. We did this for about 2 mins total, but the latter half was all out of frame so I just cut that out.

Hope the candy is good tonight!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi,

Busy week and my yard is too small for sequences, so I had to wait until I had some ring time. Julie & I shared today, and my goal was do to a few of these sequences, depending on how it went. Happy to say, I found some holes (also found some at class, but that’s another story for another day).

I did do a little editing on these, just sped up some of the play time/down time, I didn’t cut anything out. All sessions were right around the 5-6 minute mark, which was coincidental.

EXCEPT – I totally forgot to hit record for sequence #3. Julie summarizes it nicely in the one clip of video I did get (where of course I actually executed the blind and got the red jump) but it was clown college at first – I set him up in a slice and tried to lead out too laterally (hole) and then I kept running too deep at 3 for the blind. At one point I lost him and then I threw the toy into the tunnel (why, you ask? I’ve no idea). But I can confirm that we spent no more than 5 minutes on it in total.

Anyhow, here are the first 3 sequences. I did have decent breaks between these, but I think doing 3 in one day was maybe too much and *could* be why we both fell apart a bit on sequence #3. 😉 But he was a VERY good boy!

I have some volume dial stuff from class too, I’ll get that uploaded in the next day or two.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

He’s hilarious – he LOVES Shenna, so has a tendency to look at/for her. Like he wants her approval or something, it’s too funny.

He would use a snuffle mat, of course I forgot to bring one last night, but I was sure to do some big treat scatters in open spots for him to find stuff after he worked. I didn’t get those on video, but I did get one part of his sequence work, after we did our pattern games/tricks.

I videoed the pattern games/tricks, but it’s nothing too exciting – very similar to the previous videos, so I won’t include them (unless you really want them). He was doing great with his tricks, but holy cow is he one-sided on his spins. He can go right so much more easily (i.e. with more distraction) than left. It’s fascinating. I think you’re dead on that he gets over the pattern games easily – it’s a great way to start out, but I will need to watch to make sure I don’t bore him by doing too many.

Anyhow, here’s some video of him doing his baby sequences in class last night. There are some elements that are kind of similar to the sequences posted in this class, but I had to use the course that was there, so it’s not the actual sequence (we’ll try the first of those this weekend). This is just so you can get a feel for how he’s doing with other dogs in the next ring and all that jazz, after he does his games & tricks.

To me he feels engaged and ready to go – he turns to me for his toy when I take his leash off, and he’s snappy to line up and do stuff. Start lines are still very hard, but we are taking baby steps. We also had some teeter fun in this one, I think he scared himself a little bit with the first one, but he got right back on there. So we’ll keep working teeter stuff separately.

And OMG toes. I hate them so much. I didn’t know you have a whippet toe vet! Mochi might need a visit. We have a wonderful rehab vet here, and she’s amazing with toes, they just take for EVER.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

I have a couple of videos – totally unedited, so sorry about some less than spectacular camera angles at the beginning and end of the videos. 😀

I think you know that J & I have been working pattern games for quite a while now, I use them at least weekly in class and other settings. So I opted to video what it looks like when we first come into class and he’s super excited. I don’t think he was overfaced, especially in the 2nd video, but I’m curious if you think we should back it up at all.

This first video is over on the equipment side of the ring at On the Run. The ring was split, and the dog in the ring nearest to us was running up by the front of the ring, but the dog in the far ring was running (you’ll see him pick up on that… ;)). I thought he engaged really well here, for just tossing him in the deep end of the pool. But he had a few moments of having to look around so I went to a less busy spot (behind the desk) for the 2nd video and added some tricks to that one.

So here’s #1 – we literally had just walked in the door and went to back & forth and then up & down.

And here’s #2 – we had been in the building for a little bit, and went back behind the desk area to do more patterns and then threw some tricks in there too.

I have to say, I am so grateful for these games. The first time we went in the big ring for class he almost lost his mind – and that was only a couple of months ago. Now he can work outside the ring and he can run baby sequences and work individual skills (teeter, etc.) when another dog is running in the next ring. He has figured it out so so fast, and I can see how much this stuff helps him. It’s so frigging cool.

Mochi is on IR for a bit (another dumb motherf*&#$ing toe) so I’m taking him to one of her classes and we’re just doing outside the ring stuff, start line work, and tiny low sequences to get him some exposure. It’s such a great opportunity to practice the low volume stuff in a high volume environment!

Thanks!
Khamsin

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