[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 4 months, 3 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?

[Julia]

Sonnet is all healed and very happy to be back!

These are the last sequences for Package 3.
It was very hot here this afternoon and I was in a hurry to set up so I think my jumps may have been a little off but I tried to tweak them slightly as we went.
The rear cross was a bit hairy but we got there.
I was too much of a chicken to cut across her line for a serp on the next one so I stayed lateral and did a threadle slice with 2 hands to cue some collection instead.
On the last collection at jump 5 sequence I was really pleased with her. This is probably my nightmare scenario – collection on a line of straight jumps at speed. I have been removing the bar and just using a wing or a very low bar on these in sequence and this was the first time in a few months she has seen the bar at full height on these. The first time she pulled off which I was also happy with as her usual M O would be to ignore me and blast past at full speed.
I know her turn could be tighter on the next one and I could cue it a bit better but I’m still super happy with what she did. 6 months ago her turn would almost have been off the video screen and now we seem to have the beginning of some decel.

[Julia]

Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely try to get closer to the jump for the backside, I agree that could have been tighter.
Sonnet tore her paw pad a week or so ago so we are having a couple of weeks off. She has an appointment on Friday to check everything out so hopefully next week we can get back to it.
We’ve been playing some variations of remote reinforcement game around the house using a toy. No video but she is really enjoying that so looking forward to getting it out on the field when we get back to it.

[Julia]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I was thinking that a K Turn/Spin on the first jump may have tightened her turn a little. I’m not a huge fan of throwing these in on course just to tighten turns but for her I think maybe that is something worth exploring in some scenarios?

Playing catch up a bit as I had my dogs at a seminar last week. Sonnet did well in novice – the course was way above her pay grade lol but she tried so hard. There was a big emphasis on straight tunnels followed by tight wrap away/rear cross and she was actually adding strides which hasn’t been a thing for her before so very happy.

We had a go at the first few sequences of end of course – she loves this as she really knows the joy of driving forward with no turns.

I probably needed to call her while she was in the tunnel on the last sequence to try and get a tighter turn out of the tunnel but she was a good girl.

I’m interested to really up the game for the remote reinforcement out on the field so we might try that next.

[Julia]

Thanks Tracy
LOL damn toy obsessed BCs with inbuilt sonar detection devices for every potential place they may be hidden. Yes for sure when food is offered in the context of agility she is a lot more excited to eat it.

We had a try at the tunnel threadle sequences. I’m not going to lie, these have pretty much disappeared from courses here (although I’ve seen twice this year with visiting NZ judges) so I haven’t trained them in a very long time -After having worked through these sequences with all 3 of my dogs I can see the value in working on timing with them though as I found it hard to get it right with different dogs running them one after the other.
Sonnet was a good girl, I wasn’t sure if she would remember but she actually did.

[Julia]

This is so helpful again and I can see what you mean watching the video back.
Timing is definitely a big goal at the moment with her – just when I think I have it worked out she finds another gear lol. I will keep trying to be more timely with cues as I know she needs and I want to get it right with her.

We had a go at the remote reinforcement with both food and toy plus a quick find my face on the agility area with obstacles.
She is pretty good generally with not having reinforcement on me. The food tries were interesting. I took a toy out earlier and hid it under a box so that I could film both together. She didn’t see me hide the toy and I put it in a place where I haven’t ever put it before but she seemed to know it was there. On the video she keeps glancing over exactly where it is which made me laugh watching it back. She is definitely one toy obsessed BC

[Julia]

We had a quick go at the mid course sequences today.
The rear cross on the second one messed with my mind, lol. I ran it with Groove first and he is so experienced all I had to do was give him his rear cross verbal and move off and he had it covered. I forget at times that Sonnet is still a baby and needs more support with my body as well as verbals.
I’m literally just standing there and expecting her to do it, poor girl.
Even though she got it the second time, it was very late and she was intending to go the other way and then responded to the verbal. We will keep working on doing rear crosses from different angles as that is probably a hole in my training as well.
She had a lot of fun on these.

[Author]

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