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Hi, Tracy,
You were right. :). Getting to 6 straight poles went pretty smoothly. Of course, my throwing often left something to be desired, but at least it was low and (mostly) forward, at least when I wasn’t knocking down bars. Poor Keiko. What she has to put up with!
We didn’t get a chance to do these runs until the end of the day, so I decided to do the movement of the poles gradually, and call it quits after running the 6 poles straight a few times. We’ll toss them into sequences next. Rain due tonight into tomorrow, so we’ll get back at it when the weather cooperates.
How’s this look? ~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
We did a few more runs on the 4 poles this week, skipping a day or two. Below is a combined video from the two days we did 4 straight pole runs. She’s perky, happy, and eager to do the poles. No speed demon going in, but not slowing down, either. She’ll even go over and do a bit of weaving when I’m doing something else in the field. “Look, Ma, where’s the cookies?!”
We’ll skip tomorrow, and I may give adding 5 and 6 a shot in a couple of days. It will be interesting to see what she does. I had a set of 6 poles in the field, and she went over and weaved 4 perfectly, then popped out before 5 and 6. I think she’ll adapt well to the extra poles when we introduce them gradually, as we did with 3 & 4. Take care, ~Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
I followed your advice, kept the 4 poles straight and in one position, and did a few runs from 3 different angles – nothing too weird. ;). I had some coordination problems throwing the reward. Sometimes I did it too early, and she just bolted out of the weaves, so I tried to do it right after, but didn’t always remember, so you’ll also see rewards after the run… Too many. I’ll try to time the rewarding better next time.
On the plus side, I think you’ll agree that she did increase her trot to a lope, so we’re increasing the pace gradually. 🙂 I was also pleased to see her approach to the poles coming out of the tunnel. That was a tough one for her before, and now she seems to be more confident in her approach and entry.
She does seem to like to poles – you’ll notice as we were walking past them in the beginning, heading to the jump where I wanted to start, I impulsively tossed my arm out and told her to weave – and she did! What a good girl!
So here’s our work for today. It rained yesterday, so that was a rest day, and it’s supposed to rain steadily all day tomorrow, so she’s getting nice breaks for sleep and assimilation time. :). ~Kristie
Good morning, Tracy,
Yes, I agree with your read on her need to re-think so often. I’s easy now to leave the 4 poles in a straight line so she doesn’t have to worry about that piece. I think we’ll do a couple sessions with not too much variation on the approach and see if she starts running to the poles instead of trotting. I also like the idea of tossing the reward sooner. That always revs her up and if she sees it coming, that may speed up the entry. We’ll give it a try. Thanks!
~KristieHi, Tracy,
I took your advice and backed off a bit on the sequences and angles. The poles are straight with no gap between the sets. These are the 10 runs we did this morning. It’s a pleasant day, but not hot, and she didn’t have a class and car trip as she had yesterday before we got out to do agility.
She is thinking as she approaches the poles, so steps through, then seems to gather steam (read confidence) and usually bounces 2 times on her way out. We’ll do this sort of thing again. I am wondering if she will always prefer to be careful on entry, then speed up? Being right seems to be quite important to her (loves those toys, treats, and praise). Quite frankly, it doesn’t really bother me. She is so good at nailing the entries and doing things from all sorts of angles. She’s been this way on other skills, too. Careful to begin with, then later picks up speed to go with her accuracy. I know we still have the rest of May to work on the poles, so we’ll see how things go.
Any other comments? Thanks! Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
We took 2 full days off. Keiko did have a Basic Manners class this morning, so she took a nice nap before we went out to the agility field. I had set up a variety of small sets with different entries to the poles. The 4 poles are straight on here, with a 1 inch gap between the bases – basically 4 poles as they would normally be. I did want to give her just that little inch of space since this was the first time they’ve been completely straight.
I thought she did well. Of course, the iPad stopped recording for some reason, so I don’t have the first 4 runs we did. I really don’t know how they compared to what I re-taped. She was not quite as fast or bouncy as she was in her last session a couple of days ago, but she nailed the entries and kept a good pace going, even though this was the first time in a while doing entries from various locations. How’s it look to you? One more session like this, or can I go ahead and add poles 5 & 6 at 3 and 9 o’clock positions? Thanks, ~Kristie
Hello, Tracy,
Well, we were out in the field this morning, so hadn’t gotten your latest feedback yet. So I based our session on your comments from the other day, and nudged the poles slightly before we started. As you can see, Keiko didn’t seem to notice. So, after the first 3 runs, I nudged just a touch more (maybe 1/2 inch). Then we did the last two runs. The final piece shows you where the poles are now. We’re almost there. 😉So I figure next turn I’ll follow your suggestion above and do things from different angles and places around the clock. Assuming that goes well, we can move to adding 5 & 6. If you have different thoughts, holler. Thanks so much! Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
Followed your plan. :). First run on old set-up. Nudged the poles a bit closer, then next three-four runs in both directions at the new set up. Took a long break, chased squirrels (the chuck-it kind) and a long walk in the woods. Then nudged the poles again and did the last runs. She seemed to like the angle from the jump a bit better than the angle from the tire (she stepped that one a couple of times) but she quickly got into her bouncing rhythm on each run, and seemed happy. Tired toward the end. I should probably not do more than 4 or 5 runs at a time to keep the enthusiasm up. ;). Final shots show the current status of the poles and how they look from the tire and from the jump. So, we’ll take a day off (or whatever the weather tells us) and then nudge them some more. Do I want to make it so her approach to straight poles is straight on, or is that not an issue right now? She always seems to find the entry, even if she slows to think about it. She does seem to prefer seeing the poles at a bit of an angle. Can’t say I blame her – straight on they look like one line, not individual poles. I thought it was interesting that on some of the runs she ran with me then veered out to the poles and then did a “go on” for the rest of the sequence. Let me know what you think. Thanks! ~Kristie
HI, Tracy!
The rain came, it went, and it’s a beautiful day – perfect for weaving. 😉
Here’s our session. I moved the tunnel way back and curved it, and put the tire where the exit of the tunnel used to be. The tunnel doesn’t show in the video, but you can hear her running through it sometimes, and it is there. 😉 It seemed to make a difference, and we got some nice bouncing.
Before we started, I nudged the poles an inch closer than 2 days aga, and we did 2 runs (one in each direction). Then I nudged the poles again, did 2 more runs, then one more nudge and the last 4 runs. She was slower at this point, and did a bit of trotting on the last run. I figured it was getting harder and she was tired – so we ended there. She did seem to check with me mid-course (near the poles) if I was behind, but was fine going ahead when she saw the end and knew what to do. The last 3 clips show the poles as she saw them on the last runs (coming from the tire or the jump) and a close-up of how they are currently spaced.
So, what do you think? More at this positioning? Start here and close up more? Open a bit first, then close up again? I was pleased to see more bouncing and less trotting. Let me know what you think. Thanks! ~KristieHi!
Yes, makes lots of sense – it was really what I thought we should do next, but I like double checking with you, since your eye is so good a seeing things. I figured the tunnel poles entry just wasn’t exciting/pushing her enough so she was only trotting. (or it could be the sun, etc as you mentioned). We’ll give it a go, and nudge the poles slightly, on Monday after things dry out.
Hi, Tracy,
We took a day off, and are expecting lots of rain tomorrow, so today seemed perfect for giving 4 poles in a sequence a try. As you can see, one end had a curved tunnel and jump before the poles, the other end just a 10’ straight tunnel. The first 4 runs all had the poles in the same location, about 2’ apart. In subsequent runs, I moved the poles closer every couple of runs. These are all the runs we did, in order. Once again we’re seeing bouncing when coming from the curved tunnel and over a jump, trotting when coming from just a straight tunnel. Interesting. There was definite bouncing when she was faster, sort of a mix on the slower runs. Should I repeat this, or work on getting the poles straighter when we get outside on Monday? Other suggestions?
Thanks! KristieHi, Tracy,
We gave your suggestion a try, and it seems to be going well. Here are sets from 2 different days. The first day, we did pretty much a straight line with curved tunnels and one set of poles. Day 2 we did mostly straight with 2 sets of poles in different spots in the sequence. Then I made a curved sequence, also with poles in 2 places. She seemed to do better on day 2, even with poles appearing twice. She’s still thinking a little, but the speed has picked up and she certainly looks happy with it all. What’s your take? Thanks!Hi, Tracy,
Glad to hear Hot Sauce is doing well! Always makes everyone happy.Here is a video of some runs on a mini course: curved tunnel, jump, tire, pole, tunnel. As you can see, she had a ball! You’ll also notice that each run I nudged the poles a bit more to straight. The last couple of runs, including one in the opposite direction on the course, the poles were straight on.
So, what next?
Thanks! KristieHi, Tracy,
Love the idea of a sequence with just one base tossed in. We’ll give that a go and get back to you. Will have to wait until I get back from PT with my 7 year old. BTW, how’s Hot Sauce doing?Take care, Kristie
Hi, again. I just wanted to ask a question about the next class. I went to sign up (the class sounds great, by the way) and I saw the question about a coupon. I don’t think you said anything about us having one, which is fine. I just couldn’t check the email you sent a while back about the class because my computer with all my saved emails is in the computer hospital getting emergency service.
Just wanted to check. Looking forward to lots more learning for me and for Keiko.
Thanks,
Kristie
