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Hi, Kim,
Just wanted to drop by and let you know it turns out nothing’s torn, separated or broken. I’ve ruptured a Baker’s cyst. Home treatments and PT should set me straight, though it may take 1 – 3 months. Hoping it’s less rather than more.
Take care, have fun with Sly, and I’m sure we’ll be “seeing” each other online sometime soon.
~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
Well, the good news is I haven’t torn, snapped or broken anything. :). The bad news is I’ve burst a Baker’s Cyst, and my whole knee area is filled with fluid causing inflammation and making walking painful. Ugh. :(. So I’ll be doing PT once they can fit me in, and following a list of home treatments (ice, compression, elevation, rest – the usual) to get the swelling down so I can do something.
This does mean I won’t be finishing the last exercises in this cLass, but I hope I’ll be on top of things enough to join in some of the topical short-courses you’re planning on offering next.
So, take care and let me know when new classes get posted. Thanks for a great class – Keiko really misses her “Tracy-class time” in the field.
~Kristie
HI, Kim,
Thanks for your well wishes. I’m hoping I get good news.
I’ve enjoyed popping in now and then to watch you and Sly work and run together. You two are such a great team already! He looks like he’s so much fun to run!
Hopefully, we’ll see each other in some more of Tracy’s classes. Take care and all the best to you and Sly.~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish out the last exercises. While running with Yuki at an agility trial today, something popped and gave way in the back of my right knee….Will be seeing an orthopedist on Monday. In the meantime, limping painfully with a cane and icing like crazy. Unfortunately, the agility field is off limits.
Keiko is going to go crazy….we both are.
Hope I’m in agility shape in time for your next series of classes. Keep me posted.
Take care :). ~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
5 inches of rain in 48 hours…..We’re still seeing puddles in places, and the agility field was a mud pit for a while. Lots of sun and pleasant temps dried things out enough that Keiko and I gave the Switch Away warm ups and sequences a try. You’ll notice in the Warm Ups that I started with placed reward, then threw treats and/or the lotus and finished up with the discs. One of the problems with throwing her discs is she sort of loses her head and will just skip parts – or sometimes all – of the exercise just to get the disc thrown. Of course, that doesn’t work, and we have to try again. However, I do wonder sometimes if that defeats the purpose of getting out her highest value rewards?
Since she seemed to grasp the “away” cue & verbal, we did the sequences. I put in the tire and changed things a bit so every rep wasn’t exactly the same. These are the 3 we tried, and I was pleased (I ignored things like a by-passed jump to keep momentum going.) I think she did well. 🙂Here are the Switch Away videos:
Warm ups:
Sequences:
Hello, Tracy,
We have the promise of 2 days of solid rain (and we’re really hoping they happen, because we are way behind in rainfall here.) So Keiko and I went out to do the ESC sequence that we hadn’t done yet – #3. Keiko started out well, though she got twisted around at the end of the first run and made up her own ending. 😉 I”m really not sure what happened – perhaps I needed to go closer to the far jump? Did I do something strange with my hand that made her take the jump on the wrong side? I just treated it as though it was correct and she seemed quite happy.
On the second run, her daddy came out to watch, and she wasn’t able to stay focused. Or perhaps I started moving laterally and signaled with my arm too soon? It felt to me like I was doing it the same way as before, but perhaps, with him watching, my timing was off for both of us? He left, and we tried one more time.
I substituted the tire for a jump to make it seem a bit different. You’ll notice she by-passed #4 for some reason, but I chose to ignore that since I felt her enthusiasm waning. I think I should have chosen to run the final line of jumps with her rather than try layering the tunnel. I want to keep her happy meter going. I think she likes it best when I’m running along with her. She will do layering and distance, but I think sometimes she’s saying, “Run with me, too, Mom.”
Looking forward to the Live sessions tomorrow and hope we’ll be able to get to them after the rain. How long do we have left for posting and feedback?
Thanks! ~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
It is so interesting that you mention above that I should have turned Keiko right over four rather than the wrap to the left. When I looked at the video later, it seemed to me also that the right turn would have been a better line. So I decided to revisit this sequence, and do it with Yuki first. I wanted to see how she’d handle turning right over the slanted jump.
Interestingly, Yuki’s default was to wrap to the left, just as Keiko did. Since I’m using my “Turn” cue, it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve actually trained their turns on a slanted jump – it’s always been straight on. So, I did a little training with the jump straightened, then slanted, and Yuki picked it up just fine. I’m posting a short video below showing how this part went. She did barrel past the tunnel for some reason – she keeps me guessing….and on my toes!
Then I went out and did the same little jump lesson with Keiko. She was happier and more focused today. That’s the second video below. I changed the sequence a tad to avoid boredom. She seemed to pick the idea up, too. I’m sure my body motion/pressure helped make this clearer to both of them. Obviously this is something I need to work on so it’s smoother all the way around, and so I don’t have to put as much pressure and motion into the turn. 🙂Here’s Yuki:
Here’s Keiko:
Yes, I love the idea of a seminar with skills and sequences to try. Are you thinking of doing a series of 2-week classes or will each class have more than one zoom + 2 weeks piece? I think this idea would work well, and I suppose people might pick and choose which topics fit best for them.
I’ll be watching for these – sounds like the perfect thing for my red girl and me.🙂
Hello!
A lovely weather day, so we got out to do sequence 4. (I missed 3 for some reason and will do that next). Keiko was really into playing for a bit first, then the mail person came up the driveway (you’ll notice in the second run Keiko was checking out the driveway to see what was going on.) Though slightly distracted, she stuck with me, which was great. 🙂
My walk through could have had more umph – better energy and more specificity – I think. The first run here was going fine until I disconnected as she went over #8. Eek! Never lose sight of your dog! She saved me – they do that for us sometimes, don’t they – but I wanted to re-run and work on connection. The second run is when she checked on the mail person, then got back on track.
Though not over yet (I can still drive Keiko crazy with this set up) summer camp is drawing to a close. What do you have coming up on the horizon? Hope there’s something Keiko and I can join. 🙂
~Kristie
Oh, yes, here’s the video:
Hello, Tracy,
Well, here’s sequence #2. I was not as happy with my walk through as in sequence 1. I didn’t set Keiko up for doing the beginning layering aspect well, and it showed in the first attempted run. I rewarded her for trying hard (in spite of her handler) and then we gave it a second go. That went much better. In the second run, the place I really flubbed up was when she was in the tunnel and I didn’t give her a verbal for turning toward me soon enough. I didn’t cue it particularly well in the walk-through, either. She did well, but I could almost hear her thinking (would have been nice to know about this turn earlier….). Yuki would have told me out loud. ;).
Otherwise, how does this look? I am really enjoying working on walk throughs and trying to be able to do a one-and-done. Great class – as always. 🙂Hi!
Here’s our first ESC sequence from pkg. 5. When I first tried the walk-through with verbals, Keiko left her exploring and came over to do the set. I had to throw several discs to get some of her yayas out so I could do the walk-through out loud. 😉
Here’s the final walk-through and the one-and-done. My verbals were not exactly the same, and my enthusiasm is better, I think, when there is a real dog. 😉
Okay, Tracy. Here’s me loud enough for you to hear as I walk the course. I walked the course twice, then ran it twice. When Keiko missed jump #6 on the first run, I looked at the walk thrus – and saw that on my second walk I had a high arm there and didn’t work at getting her to the front of the jump – sending her around the back with my handling. So run #2 I focused on that piece, and then didn’t give her the handling and cuing she needed on #9 so her turn was wide. It was much better on the first run in that spot. I’m sure you can see other things I need to work on. Did you see a positive difference between these walks/runs and the ones I posted yesterday? It felt quite odd to be talking loudly in the walk through – and Keiko was a bit bewildered, then decided I’d just lost it…..;)
Here’s the video:
Hi, Tracy,
Thanks for the insight. I did say my verbals as I walked the course. I always do, but pretty low volume. For some reason, it feels weird to say the verbals loudly as I would when actually running a dog. Since your suggestions make sense, I’m going to have to get myself to talk louder and pretend like a dog is actually running with me. It will be interesting to see how Keiko reacts to me moving & talking to an invisible creature. 😉
We’ll see how it goes as I work on this.
Thanks,
~KristieHi, Tracy,
We decided to give the Live stuff one more go-round so did the first course – and added a bit more at the end of it. 🙂
I treated this as a walk-run-done. I think the run part went pretty well, and I tried to be thinking of placement and handling on the walk-through. Keiko seemed to enjoy the whole thing. :).
I was a bit late on my “turn” verbals. Sooner would have helped her be set for the turns better and turn tighter. Gotta work on getting those verbals out earlier.Here’s the video:
