[Julia]

So many things to catch up on but we skipped ahead to the Lateral lead outs today as I’m starting to work on building more lateral distance with him. I also find this set up so interesting with the walking out and putting body pressure (sort of) on t6e dog.

First time he wasn’t sure but he picked it up pretty quick. I started using my jump cue as I’ve also started teaching that to him. Although I won’t use it on every jump I thought this might be a good place to start.
I also found it helpful to wait him out if he didn’t look at the jump. I’m also teaching him a verbal to mark the first jump but it’s not trained well enough to use it here.
At the end I also tried it on the tunnel so he could finish the session with some extension.

[Julia]

Oh my bad last time on the tight blinds, lol. Yes, I was doing a K Turn on the wing lol. I’ll fix that next time I set up that exercise.

This is our first try at layering on a jump. He’s done a lot of layering on the flat to a dead toy, with scrunched up tunnel, stick in the ground poles, etc. but not on a jump before.
I used my weave poles as they were already set up and he has no idea what they are as yet, or any interest in interacting with them. Net time I’ll use the tunnel. I had my husband throw the toy in so I didn’t hang it up on the poles with my crappy throw and cause any issues.
I think it might have been easier to rotate the wing and just have a 90 degree turn to the jump, but he was a good boy and I liked the way he was seeking the jump out. I need to start getting my verbals more consistent now, I think because I haven’t taught all the ones I want to use yet, I’m just saying anything at times. So that might be a good focus for this month.

At the end I added a tunnel after the jump as it was already set up there and then let him so a straight line for decompression.

[Julia]

We played with the diamond set up for the first time today. This one was lots of fun!

[Julia]

Here is our first attempt at beginning the Ladder Grid and also first try at the Minny Pinny.
I’m only using my turn towards me verbal at the moment and also helped him out a little with my body and at the end a toy. He hasn’t quite got the idea of jumping through the bend grid yet but he’s getting there.
Would you change the spacing to try and encourage a jump or it doesn’t matter at this stage?

[Julia]

A very quick session with finding the jump. This was the second time we did this, the first time the jump was closer but my tripod blew over and I didn’t notice, so no video.

He did well the first time so I moved the jump a little further away.
The last repetition here I did put the toy on the ground for him to make up for 2 sessions of my crappy throws.

[Julia]

We redid the set point with a little more distance, hopefully this was better for him.

We also had our first go at the tunnel turns. I haven’t taught soft turns at all yet but this is what I will use for soft turns towards me so we went with that.
We’ll keep playing with this set up until I think he is ready for some more sequencing on it. I was pleased for a first try.

[Julia]

Thanks Tracy, yes I totally agree about the distance.

Last lesson I gave him the full 6 feet and this time I moved it in probably around 5 and a half feet just to see what difference it made.
I think the other change I probably didn’t take into account is I added a bar behind whereas up to now I have just used 2 regulators.
He’s only seeing low bars very sparingly at the moment, but I have noticed a big difference in how he jumps with a bar compared t a regulator

I’ll do this one again with the tweaks and see how it goes.

[Julia]

Our first try at the set point with moving target.
I sat him up a little closer to the regulator this time, but not sure if it was too close or not?

Grin really enjoyed this.

[Julia]

Oops I didn’t realise I was so close to the wing on those wraps, will definitely fix this, thank you.

Now speaking of fixing things, here is our first attempt at the Pill Bug Game (We call them Butcher Boys here, no idea why)

This was hilarious, not just because Grin had lots of fun but because it was so hard for me and I wasn’t expecting it to be.
At the start of the video I’ve left in me standing there thinking about what to do as I think it sums up my whole session,
I couldn’t get my heard around having to toss food, have a toy in my hand as well, which hand to have everything in, not to do a front cross after the food toss which was coming naturally, where to run to and then trying to connect. Poor Grin. He was a good boy as he always is.

I’m so used to just doing and not thinking with my more experienced dogs, this was a really good exercise and it also made me realise that I don’t have the connection with him yet that I do with them, which I wouldn’t expect to have but still something to be mindful of at times.

I ended up with the toy in the hand of the side he was coming to rather than the opposite hand, will fix that next time. Blind Crosses are late, we only had one go at the double cross which was super late but at least I get the idea.

We will definitely be going back to this one, in fact I’m going to run it with Sonnet as I figure if I can get the timing right with her then Grin should be easier next time lol. Is it possible to do this one from a stay or a wing wrap so I can take one more thing to think about out of the equation. He’s not a real foodie, happy to work for it but toy is King.

[Julia]

Here is our smiley face tunnel game.

The first time I tried to keep him on the outside of the wing he cut in. He’s used to me front crossing only and then wrapping the next wing so I helped him out with more body cue the next time.
I think I wasn’t sure what I was doing on these as suddenly I wasn’t sure what verbal I should use but we got there and he was a good boy.

[Julia]

Question firstly about the set point – would it be better to put the reward on top of one of those low witches hats instead of the ground?

Here is our first session of proofing wraps.
I didn’t edit the video as it was a very short, sharp session and it’s still hopefully within the time limits.

I was actually amazed he did as well as he did here. I’ve done a little bit of proofing with wing and tunnel but set it up a bit differently and it was definitely easier for him than this way. I enjoyed this version and will be doing it this way from now on. Next time we will try the other side.
I forget he’s a baby at times and I still need to help him out, I think I didn’t help enough and released him too quick on the one he missed. Super pleased with him though.

[Julia]

Here are the first 2 games.
Hope it’s OK to combine them in the same video.

For the set point I didn’t do the breaking down with stays first as I know he will stay in front of an obstacle. I can film that part of it if you want to see it. I only did these 2 reps as this is the very first time he has done that exercise. Just want to make sure everything looks OK in regard to distance/set up before I do it again. I tend to be a bit conservative with repetitions on these as he’s still a baby.

For the next game, well I don’t think I should be left unsupervised with anything that involves throwing but I didn’t get it over the fence with the distraction sheep that were there so I’ll take that as a win.
In fact probably a hole in my training is that I don’t throw the toy enough and I do want him getting used to it coming from different places. Bit of head checking here as I’m too slow but we did have fun.
We then went on to the toy on the ground part which is much more comfortable for me.
Grin thought that exercise was the bomb.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Julia.

[Julia]

Here are our pre games.

OK I’m confessing, I teach all my directionals as turn towards and turn away. I totally understand the rationale for doing it as left and right for the dog and I did try to convert during Sonnet’s foundation training. However for me it was a disaster. For some reason my brain just doesn’t work that way and yet turn towards and away comes naturally.
I figure if I ever get a course where my dog can’t read my position then it’s my bad and I am willing to suck it up.
So having put that out there lol, I am only doing turn towards at the moment. as you will see in the video. I have done turn away on the flat with Grin but I usually don’t start with turn away on an object until I am on a jump with a bar and he’s only seen one very low bar to date. So it’s coming, just not yet.

Apologies for my bad video once I moved outside. I filmed a couple of wraps very briefly on that jump before I went to the pre game and forgot to move the camera back. So I chopped off his lovely stay, which I was very pleased with. I do a lot of work with toys on the ground with him and I noticed that once it’s in my hand he wants to grab the toy higher up closer to my hand. He’s not a real ball man but off the ground he’s better at grabbing the larger part.

[Julia]

Thanks so much for such a great course. It was the perfect blend of training,handling and fun.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed doing your Feet Forward course with Kite years ago, if you have any plans to redo that one I’m in lol
I will definitely be recommending Max Pup 4 to others when it comes around again, we loved it and learnt heaps

[Julia]

Thanks so much for all the detailed feedback, I really appreciate it.
I’ve started writing each point in a notebook and over Summer I’m going to try and design some short sequences to work through each point, as well as work some skills in isolation too.
This has been perfect for us.

The weather has been crazy here, hot and wet so not too much training but we managed to work through the sequences from the last package.
This is 3 really short sessions over 3 days in the one video, hope that’s OK – wanted to get them up before I run out of time to submit.

First day we worked the first 2 sequences with different handling for the second one. I forgot the Blind Cross at the end of the first one, so on day 2 I repeated that first.
Day 2 was especially hot even early morning, so that session was super short.
On Day 3 we tried to put the whole thing together and she did it first time so I stopped.
Not sure what was going on in this one with her turn at 10, she was actually running towards the fence to a jump wing that was there, and I had to call her to continue on the right path. Not sure if she thought the tight turn verbal meant she was going to wrap the wing or not.

Overall though I am so happy with how she is working. She does seem to have become more thoughtful over the past few weeks. The tight turns will be a work in progress for a bit but I’m OK with that.

We have no more trials coming up here for a bit so a bit of a forced break which is good to work on things. The great news in my state though is a new local rule coming into play for next year. NFC runs here have been up to individual clubs to offer and the majority of trials don’t have them. New rule is that NFC has to be offered in every class at every trial next year which will be wonderful. I will definitely mix up these runs with ‘for real’ runs rather than only getting to do NFC when I go interstate or very rarely here.

Planning on trying some of the games from this package when I get a chance, I’ll try and get video up. Love the look of the 10 tunnels game. Would it be good to do this and then ask for a tight turn on a jump immediately afterwards?

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