[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi Hi!

We missed yesterday – I did do some platform sits, but didn’t video. We got back to it today. I did a couple short sessions – sitting on the upgraded platform and zig zags on the flat.

>>And watch the cat’s expression in the background, so much judgement LOL!>>
ALWAYS. He just wants the food. 🙂 He was back for more tonight.
Anyhow, here are the sits. She did better keeping her front feet on when I stayed closer, for sure. But I think there are a couple reps where her bum is hanging off? It’s hard to tell with all that hair. I tried to fix it if I saw it. Also tried to get her from both sides.

We also did a few zig zags on the flat. She’s pretty solid with these, I think? I was able to move the jumps together to about 4′, she didn’t seem to have any issues.

We’ll take a break from the tight sits for a day or so and will do some more this weekend.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

>>You can also slow your motion way down to get her to respond faster: walk only as fast as you would walk if you were carrying 2 very full cups of coffee 🙂 Your speed will be barely past a shuffle 🙂

So funny story, Mochi and I both like to move fast, as it turns out. 😐 I SWEAR I thought I was going slowly yesterday and again tonight. But I watch the videos and… nope. I definitely need to slow it down, because she’s going fast enough for both of us!

Tonight we tried some beginning organizers. I think speed is causing us some challenges here too. I couldn’t figure out if the first platform was too small because her front feet kept coming off. But I tried it with the Cato board and it happened there too. I’d like to hear what you think of these – in the meantime, we’re going to go back to motion overrides in slow motion for a day.
Here’s the tiny platform: https://youtu.be/F5nipplGsEk
Here’s the Cato: https://youtu.be/pqtPf3d4oXM

And then because I was curious, I wanted to see what would happen with a wrap beforehand. You’d think I could have predicted it… But it was very hard for her to 1) stay straight and 2) stop. 😀

I suspect we’re going to have to work this for a bit because she is sooooo motion responsive. But I think it’ll be good for both of us.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback! I will continue to work the double wrap a bit – will be a good indoor exercise for inclement weather (which will soon be all weather here in MN).

I’ll try some zig zag and/or organizers tomorrow, but today we had a trial and did a little bit of training between our runs. We did the motion override. I started with a toy which was too hard, I think? She kept stopping, which was awesome, but I was asking for a sit, which was hard. I switched to some cheese (2nd half of the video) and that was better, but this game in general is HARD for her. Questions:
1. Should I be repeating the verbal (I was saying “sit sit” – I repeat my verbals ad nauseum in agility, but I also am hearing the ‘only ask for it once!’ refrain that I always heard in obedience. Thoughts?
2. The release is just tossing the reward, correct? I wasn’t using a release word – I hope that’s OK.
3. Does the behavior need to be a static one (sit or lie down) or could it be something with movement? I like the sit or down because it’s clearer, but is another obvious behavior (spin or something like that) OK?
Anyhow, here’s the video – sorry about the wind and weird angle, we were improvising.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

We worked on some of the foundation stuff today.

Head turns:
So it turns out I am not good a double wraps. 😀 The good news is that I think Mochi is pretty good at leading with her head in general. I tried for some double wraps but it was… not pretty – lots of awkward luring. Do I need to work more on that or is she OK?

The moving target also went fairly quickly, though she does love to drive into the ground. We did it from scratch, and then added a hillbilly jump. Her toy is also the sad jolly ball fragment that she loves to carry around, so no judgment please.

The last thing we did today was some jump proofing. I set the bar at 12, and she had zero issues. I felt like I was being pretty dramatic and trying to do the stuff that causes bars in class/trials. But we’ll revisit this some more. If I can’t get her to drop anything at 12″, should I move her up to 16″ (her comp height)?

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hello hello! I am slacking already, sigh. BUT – we tried the independent weaves skills, and I was super impressed with both dogs! This is high on my training list – both Badger and Mochi like me to be nearby when they weave, so I’m so excited to do this. Hoping to get my hands on a teeter so I can practice that too – especially with Mo.

They were out together, helpfully providing distractions for each other… And both took a couple turns (this is recorded start to finish – just cut out the goofy play bits in between).

One question – I only used 6 weave poles (to save bodies) – does it make more sense to use all 12 for this? They both did 6 with little trouble and a fair amount of distance from me (but not a lot of motion). I am pretty sure 12 would be harder to stay in, so I probably need to practice that? We don’t do huge amounts of weaving practice, so I’m OK using all 12 if it makes more sense.

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Oof – the mother-effing lap turn is killing me. I tried very hard to stay still and wait until she got to me AND not move my leg. I had moderate success at following directions. 😀 I swear I’m doing it in my head and then I see video and it’s not even close. And I am the queen of running backwards. My class instructor yells at me at least once a class. BUT – I kinda did it on some of these reps? She’s definitely doing the lap turn more, but it seems like she’s still deciding to do it a little late (I’m telling her late), because it feels bigger than it needs to be?

And then we also tried sequence 3, which was, um, challenging. I’m jumping her at 20″ (we’ve been working up to it slowly over the past several weeks) and in general she’s doing pretty well, but tight stuff like this is hard for me to give her what she needs when she needs it. I feel like there were some good spots here and some not so awesome. I feel like I have to be super connected to her as she’s jumping, or she pulls a bar. This has kind of always been true for her, regardless of height, but is maybe more obvious at 20″? I will definitely go back to the jump proofing stuff – we haven’t done that yet at 20″.

Weather is GORGEOUS today, so hoping to do some more good stuff this afternoon.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi! I was all excited to make up our time during break week and then we got 6″ of snow. 🙁 The good news is that it melted over the week, and we’re back to having access to the backyard for at least a little while longer.

Anyhoo, I have a bunch of videos that I’ve taken over the last week & 1/2, I’m a little behind on uploading.

First up – we did find #4, and that was fairly straightforward, I thought? I’m sure there’s stuff we can improve, so looking forward to feedback:

Then I was playing (or fighting) with lap turns, and I’m finding them to be a bit of a challenge with her. We were just screwing around here, I was trying to slow it down (at least in my head I was…) but still struggled. You can actually see her skidding to a stop near the jump, so clearly I’m not getting her the info she needs at the right time, or she isn’t understanding it?

We did sequences today and the first one was great, the 2nd one got us on the lap turn. She always wants it as a throw back. So I actually got Badger out, and he reads it. I can see him set up for it, he doesn’t turn as tight, so he actually swings out a little bit to prep for the wrap. I don’t see that with her, so again, I think I’m not communicating it the way that she needs.
Here’s Mo:

And here’s B:

And yesterday we started playing with getting out. She has no problems going out, but has more trouble staying straight. Not sure if I’m too turned towards here on the recalls or what, but we had to do some tinkering with this to get the recall vs. just taking the jump every time.

We are supposed to have decent weather this week, so I should be able to get some more work done in an attempt to try to catch up a bit! I am loving this class though, it’s really helping me think about connection in chunks, which is good for my wrinkled brain.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Khamsin Giedd.

[Khamsin Giedd]

Oh, I’ve been a slacker. And camp is almost over!! 🙁 But we did some stuff and I have video now!

I’ve been trying to practice our walk-through stuff in class. I’ve always kind of brushed off walk-throughs, thinking I’d figure it out in the moment, but it’s helping so much! Especially with Mochi, who is a very different animal from Badger. There’s no moment for me to figure stuff out in – I can’t think quite that fast. 🙂

We haven’t done threadles in a while, so I tried some of that – she did super great with the basics. Like surprisingly well, considering how long it’s been since we’ve done any of it! Was pretty awesome:

And then we tried the first sequence tonight. I don’t have quite enough space to do all the options I wanted to try, and then as it turned out, we only got through the first option anyway. Sigh. But it was good stuff for us to work on. I am still struggling with how responsive she is. I find it amazing how late I can pull her off or send her to the wrong thing. But we’re getting there (I think??). She is definitely going to do her best to make me a better handler!

We’ll try some more tomorrow and I will hopefully have video tomorrow night!

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Perfect! And I had to laugh that your video title was BS Serps, because while my adult self knows you meant backside, my inner 12 year old giggled about it being Bullsh*t hahahaha

This 100% sums up how I feel about backside serps right now, though I think we’re getting better! We did some more work on this, and we are making progress. Though we then tried it in one of the sequences, and… sigh. Baby steps though, right?? Here’s what we did:

We also worked on walking the “course.” My knee is feeling really good, so it was fun to try some sequence stuff. Interested in your feedback. We did the 2nd sequence too, but that one had the BS serp, which went… not awesome. 🙂 So here’s the first one, at least, along with a side-by-side of our walk along with the good run (where the bars stayed up):

Thanks!!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi hi, I’m back! Knee surgery went well, though they found a few extra bits in there and also evened out some cartilage, so I was pretty sore last week. I’m not up to running quite yet, so we worked on the default backside serp skill. I’m worried I’m still too far across the bar to get the push to the backside, but she did great when I dropped the toy at the right time (and in the right spot). Also, I was able to really work in keeping my eyes on her little laser beams, and holy cow does that make a difference (duh! – how many times have you told me this??). 🙂 I am not moving very fast (cuz I can’t right now) but that meant we had a ton of success, which is good! I threw a couple of wraps and a straight jump in there too, because she’s brilliant at patterns.

Very interested in your feedback! We’ll probably need to stick to some more stationary or slow moving stuff this week, I’m hoping to get to moving a bit better next week. Fingers crossed!!

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

So, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday on this whole backside challenge (I did spread these sessions out, so I didn’t work her into the ground!). Pushing her on my left side continued to be… challenging, so I tried a bunch of stuff. And now I’m theorizing that the small slope in my backyard that was on the left side might be a contributor? But I also suspect I’m doing *something* different, but I can’t tell what it is, even from the video.

Here’s the rundown:

First, I tried to connect less on the 2nd skills sequence. I felt VERY disconnected, but looking at the video, I’m pretty neutral, and kind of looking? Is this enough disconnection? She didn’t knock any bars, so I am suspicious. 😉

Then I tried the 3rd skills sequence and had similar issues to last time:

So then I just tried backside slices, but had pretty shitty toy placement, if her bending/twisting is any indication (and of course she JUST had a massage…):

By then I was frustrated with pushing to the left, so I tried the next skill and pushed to the right. And damned if it didn’t go better…:

So I decided maybe the slope in my backyard is the issue, and flipped the push so that we were more on the flat part (I try to only use the flat part, but I think she runs up on the slope a bit):

Very interested in your thoughts on this whole thing!!

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi Tracy!

I gotta say, I am so loving camp! This was a perfect year for me to start (minus the stupid knee thing) – we are getting to do so much fun stuff. I’m loving finding and attempting to fix all these details before we compete. The one (tiny) upside to the pandemic, I guess? Might be a bit of a stretch…

Anyhow, we worked on some of the 3rd package stuff. Well, a combo of the 2nd and 3rd, I guess.

First up – some backside wraps from the custom skills. Little miss “I-run-behind-you-when-you-try-to-push-me-to-the-left” caught me a few times. It was weird, she needed WAY more support on that side. Maybe it was my position? I didn’t notice anything in the video, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there… 🙂 Also – I was really rewarding her for taking the jump & turning, since we had some trouble with that – not sure if I should be rewarding here somewhere else?

Here’s the first novice skills set – this went pretty well, so we didn’t do a ton because it was hot & muggy. I’m not sure if I disconnected enough, but she kept all her bars up on the way to the tunnel (she did tick one on the first rep, but was all clear on the 2nd!).

So on the 2nd one, I swear we had a few reps where she had trouble with bars – particularly jump #3. She did OK with the first jump out of the tunnel, but would then hit #3. Unfortunately, I can’t find video of that, so I suspect I forgot to record it. But I did get one decent rep on film – I am pretty sure this was the last one we did.

And the last video is a hot mess. We were both hot and messy, and probably should have stopped on the previous sequence, but I was greedy. I couldn’t find the sweet spot between holding her long enough to get the backside and getting my ass out of the way. She needed lots of support on this, similar to the backside wrap up above. We’ll try this one again as soon as it stops raining.

Thanks!!
Khamsin

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Khamsin Giedd.

[Khamsin Giedd]

Hi Tracy!

Thanks again for the great feedback!!

Between time at the lake, the heat, and Hamilton we haven’t gotten a ton of training in. BUT – over the past couple of days we squeezed in a few reps.

First off – the tunnel turns. I think my timing was a little better, especially on the rear crosses? I think I still need more space between the wing and the jump to be able to show accel or decel a little better?

We did a little more sequence work. I’m happy to say the tunnel send is strong with this one and I had about half an hour to do the blind cross between 3 & 4 on the first sequence, which I liked better than the rear. Had some bars on the last jump, partly I think because I had to duck under the tree. Something to add to our jump proofing! 😉

On the 2nd one, I tried really hard to show decel before 4 – I *think* I did better? I get really jerky, so I have to remember to run into the tunnel and really think hard about slowing down vs. jerking to a stop.

The 3rd sequence was tough to get through without bars, but we got better each time. Realizing now as I watch it, I didn’t lead out to the best spot – I think I’m still outside her line a bit. I also have a hard time getting the tight wrap on jump 5, I didn’t feel like I could get in there to show decel for the wrap? I also tried the push to the last jump – had to hustle to get there, but we got it!

I found out this week that I get to have my knee scoped on Thursday next week (there’s a ‘loose body’ in there, caused by Mr. Badger running into me at full speed while on a walk in March – he’s lucky he’s cute). So, I’m gonna squeeze in as much as I can the first part of this week, and then there might be a lot of stationary (for me) skills stuff for a while. But we can always use that!!

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

OMG verbals – can I just say, I am pretty sure I screw them up at least as often as I say them right? Especially on right/left wraps. The poor dog has to think I’ve lost my damn marbles.

Thank you for the feedback on the tunnel skills stuff. We will definitely do this again later this week (at the cabin now, so limited in what we can work on – plus, off days are nice. 🙂 ).

But before we left, we did take a crack at the sequences. I’m sorry my camera looks like it’s in another county, hopefully you can see what you need to – if not let me know and I’ll try a different angle. We had to work around the giant tree in the backyard, so we might disappear for a few seconds.

For the first one, I tried to push her out to the last jump like a noob. And then I realized maybe a RC would be a nice thing to try here. Sigh. She read it really well!

For the 2nd sequence, I had a hard time getting the timing right on the wrap. But I like the last one (I think?).

The 3rd one was hard to keep all the bars up without a lot of connection, but I feel like there were some good things and some back-jumpy things. :/

I know you are on vacation tomorrow – enjoy your day off! We might work some more jump proofing, or we might just swim all day. We shall see. 🙂 Have a fantastic 4th!

Thanks!
Khamsin

[Khamsin Giedd]

Ooof – life got in the way of training for a few days there – we had to move my dad to assisted living over the weekend (a good thing, but time consuming), and then we had a few rainy days.

Thanks for all the awesome feedback on the sequences – I will have to get back to these, especially the backside wraps, because they are hard!

We did work on the jump proofing and the 2nd skill set. I need to get more creative with the jump proofing, I think – because I know I do a ton of stupid stuff when I’m running. 🙂 One question – do I always leave the bar low or do I gradually raise it? I thought she did pretty well with this, but she did have a bar and a wing bump that I could not reward, so that was good. I can see her thinking a little more about some jumps, which is way more than she used to do!

On the skill set, I think everything went pretty OK, not sure if the wraps were as tight as they should be? I tried to give her a decel cue going into the tunnel (along with the verbal) but I still felt like she came out pretty hot. And for the rears, I REALLY had to put pressure on her tail to get her to turn, but I think she read it really well once I figured that out. Sorry that the camera angle doesn’t let you see what she’s doing on the right side of the tunnel – I’ll fix that for next time. And we did have a rope on the ground 6′ away from the tunnel – it’s just hard to see. I actually found that I had to give her the cue way ahead of that – her tunnel drive is solid, but she needs to know what’s happening early early early, it seems like. I’ll be interested to hear what you think!

Thanks!!
Khamsin

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