Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Here is one more exercise, Tracy. We did the tunnel piece. We started out with the simple warm ups, then put them into longer sequences. I thought Keiko did really well. I’m wondering if I should be putting the obstacles a bit farther apart and running more? This amount of motion does save my knees, but I’m wondering if she needs more space to open up? What are your thoughts? Thanks! ~Kristie
Hello, Tracy,
Here is our second session with deceleration. We went out early so the ground was still frozen – I was right about the divots and ruts tripping me up a bit. Keiko didn’t mind at all. 😉 I think she did pretty well, though I’m not sure if I was stopping and moving exactly in the right places. On the third run, I stopped short of the jump and tried to send her on to the second jump. She just turned, took the side jump, and curved around back to me. Should I have expected her to go on to the second jump, or was I wrong handling it that way, especially since we’d been doing all this deceleration work? Thanks in advance for the feedback. ~KristieHi, Tracy,
It froze overnight, so we’re going out early to try some more stuff, and hope we don’t trip on the divots and ruts we made yesterday (when we were barely moving!)
Please let me know if it’s too late to be submitting more video for this class. I’ve completely lost track of when class was supposed to end.Thanks and take care, ~Kristie
Hello, Tracy! I hope it’s okay to still post a couple of sessions. We’re doing little happy dances here- the snow finally melted, Keiko and I waited for the rest of the ice to melt this morning, and we went out to give some of the last exercises a try. Sadly, the ground was *very* squishy, so we just did the beginning parts of the deceleration piece. I could barely move without sliding, so the stationary stance was a good one. 😉
Keiko was delighted to be back in the field and doing “stuff”. I’ll have to try to go out earlier before the field melts again, and see what else we can do.
Here’s our beginning take on Deceleration:
Hi, Tracy,
Keiko and I really miss you and class! We’re still dealing with about 5 inches of snow on our field, and are hoping it melts soon and doesn’t turn to mud in the process…..come on, Spring!
I wanted to thank you for the most recent ideas you shared here, especially regarding our tugging on surfaces. Keiko does think I’m strange, but I have a feeling she thought that before this exercise anyway. 😉
We are currently taking an Out and About class which gets her out in the community, seeing other dogs, people, and new places, but is doesn’t use up her agility energy! Thought you might get a kick out of seeing our indoor tunnel runs. We do this 2 or 3 times daily – Keiko insists on it! This clip is from the later part of a session – she’s wild when we first start. Needless to say, we are missing our field time. Take care and looking forward to the weave class,
~Kristie & Keiko
And one more…..
This was an attempt at the “try to pull me off” game. I have tippy boards, and use a large saucer (now under the snow) for getting pups used to tippying and swaying in all directions, but no wobble board. So I tried using the ramp on a slant and her lower tippy board. What do you think about how things went? I know we’re supposed to be looking for a “tip back” for slowing at the end of the contact ramps. I think we did okay here, but wanted to be sure you don’t think I’m confusing her in any way. Once we have no snow, I could try to do the tugging game on the aframe or dogwalk or even the seesaw, but right now, this is the best we have available.
Thanks as always for your help,
~Kristie
Hello, again!
Here is our take on Cookies from the Heavens! 🙂 There are three little clips here – the first, is just treats placed on my hand. In the second, she is getting on a platform just as my husband came into the room. Since he’s a big distraction, I decided to go with it and see how she did. 🙂 The last clip she did in 2o2o position. We have used that platform for 2o2o practice, so she often just goes into position when she sees the plank come out. She did love all the treats in this exercise! 🙂
Hi, Tracy,
As I mentioned in my last email to you, we’re a bit stymied due to the weather, so we’ve been working on the little indoor exercises. Here are a couple of sets from the “naked play” game. Kieko did okay with the toy at first, then was less responsive, so I switched to treats. I showed her my empty hands (hard to see on the video since it occurred when joining the clips). She did the second, farther away set well. I have found that she likes toys best when they are thrown or I’m running with them. Otherwise, treats are tops. Tugging in a relatively stationary space works, but is not high on her reinforcement list. If I change the toy every time, it’s better, but treats seem to be the reinforcement of choice for these types of exercises.
Good morning, Tracy!
Yesterday, Keiko and I gave the “volume dial” game a try. As we got ready to play, I realized (with chagrin!) that Keiko has limited tricks. As a former “Tricks and Games” instructor at a local dog training facility, I would normally have had her in at least one class, and done other tricks at home. Can I blame it on the pandemic? The brain just isn’t in “normal” gear….At any rate, we had a few things we could use, and this will spur me on to develop more little focus and fun tricks with her. She’ll probably get a kick out of it all, too!
Her focus, especially in the confines of indoors, is really good, and she likes treats and toys. Usually, when we’re doing a longer session with agility equipment, she tends to prefer the treats from hand, tossed, or a lotus ball. In this video, I think she is a bit more revved for the toy. It was brand new, with skins and dangly things, so she was really interested. What do you think?
HI, Tracy,
The ground – and much of the agility equipment – is under 10″ of snow. Unfortunately, there is no 2-3″ rain storm in the forecast like the one that rid us of 9″ of rain a few weeks ago. So your “off week” #8 with these little indoor exercises comes at the right time for us.
Keiko and I worked on the “magic word.” I already use “reaaaddy” with her, so trying to train the word and get her distracted so she’d react to the word was tough. She cracked me up. I’d say “Ready” and then she’d look at me and then glance around to see what she should be ready to do. I left in a couple – she went around the camera one time, and through the tunnel another time. After I tried doing exercise 1 and exercise 2, I could see she was happy to give me attention, but rather confused about what I wanted. So I finally decided to toss a toy she really likes and then say “ready”. That worked well, and you’ll see that in the last section of the video.
We’ll do the other little exercises, but I don’t know if I’ll have a field to do any of the more involved exercises I wanted to re-visit, or anything you give us in the last week. We’ll see.
Take care! ~KristieAnd one more. Here is our work on tunnel threadles. We didn’t do any tandems – or at least, it doesn’t look to me like we did when I watched the videos. Hopefully, we’ll get to those sequences when the ground is clear again. I thought Keiko handled the “far” verbal well, and her pace picked up as we went along. Any suggestions? Thanks as always, Kristie
Hi, Tracy,
Knowing there was snow due later today and all day tomorrow, Keiko and I put in a longer session than usual to try to be sure we tried everything for this week. I hope we end up with usable ground again soon, and we’ll work on some of the things that need improvement. I know next week in a “breather” week, but we’re due for more snow then. So we had some fun with the sequences and also had several ring toss and chase breaks to keep things happy. 😉
This video is of our work on the Serps and things sets. I sort of combined a few things here and there to keep variety going. Keiko figures out quickly what’s being asked of her, and then charges ahead. Since I want her to remain focused and connected to me, I try not to do too much identical repetition. She did pretty well on these, and handled the serp section in both directions. 🙂
Good evening, Tracy,
Thanks for the insight on Keiko’s turning preferences on the elevated board. We’ll give the old lured right hand turn some work – once the snow melts. Yes, it is snowing and there is some talk of a possible icing glaze before this quits. So we may be doing some indoor work…Your video of Contraband on the raised platform was excellent, thanks so much for sharing. Keiko and I can certainly do something similar. She’ll love the high rate of reinforcement! Finally, once things clear up, we’ll give the serp grid bounce some work. When I put her reward far enough away so she had to run through the grid, that seemed to help her bounce, so we’ll experiment and see what we can do with this serp grid. I’m assuming you don’t try to do a bounce with the jumps completely flat and lined up? That sounds tricky….Take care and I hope you’re having decent weather. ~Kristie
Hi, Tracy – one more for today. 🙂
Here’s our work on the Serp grid. She didn’t have any trouble, though she trotted through it. I didn’t think you wanted a “one bounce” in this set up. When I started angling the jumps straighter, and went with her on my left, she did seem to go faster and with less steps. We only did these few since, as you pointed out, this is work and we don’t want to beat it into the ground. Are we supposed to keep going straighter until the 2 jumps are lined up and still touching? We’re almost there in the last couple of runs. Thanks, ~Kristie
Hello, again!
Here’s our work on the Contact Foundations/Banana mat exercise. I varied toy and tossed treat since Keiko really prefers the food (unless I’m running with the flirt stick…). Actually, her favorite thing is to chase and catch the chuck-it disks and flying squirrels, but those a rather tricky to use as a reward in these agility exercises. At least, they are if I want to get something done! 😉
In the video, you’ll notice that I fold the mat in half, and then in half again so she has less space to connect. When it was in it’s smallest shape, we were trotting and she jumped over it twice. When there was no reward, you’ll notice she made sure to hit it the next time. She is quite the communicator! 😉
