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Lora Abbott
ParticipantInteresting session working with the angled approaches to the teeter plank today. I learned that Gallican jumps have a right way and a wrong way to set them up to prop up a teeter! Whoopsie! (She didn’t seem all THAT bothered by that though). What did seem to bother her were the cavalettis poles I used to create the approach cone. She was like “I can’t get on with this in my way”. She’d stop right at the bottom of the plank and look at the poles like “how on earth do you expect me to work under these conditions?” Once past the bottom of the plank she happily charged up to the end, so I don’t think it was the height or the fall that was getting to her. It definitely helped if I was stationary as she loaded, and I could move once she got on no problem. Just wanted to get your thoughts that it was the poles guiding her that she had questions about, and to help her through, just keep my movement to a minimum until she’s happy with it? Or would you change the setup?
Lora Abbott
Participant“The line went well at 2:35 and even better at 3:05 – did he miss the DW on those?“
From what I could see he only hit his first one, the one he turned the wrong way on the jump after the dog walk. The rest were misses.
“Did you originally teach it with a mat or something?”
His mat was on the dog walk for this. His dogwalk has been “retrained” several times, but nothing seems to stick. We’ve had so much else to fix that the dog walk misses haven’t been a big deal (though he missed 2 agility Q’s last weekend in RI to missed dog walks, so maybe we’re at a place that it’s worth fixing that up).Lora Abbott
ParticipantI took the weekend off from trialing (the FOMO of missing out on the Cup in Barto 2 years in a row is REALLY tough, but I picked up my new to me van this weekend so there’s that!)
So we did another course training. I had my comfy chair in the shade, a big bottle of ice cold lemon water, all ready to do mid training session video analysis!
This one felt really tight after I built it, especially the opening. Didn’t help that the pool limited my start line set up options. When I started building I thought I had plenty of room in that corner and built that part last, but then realized I was a little close to the pool. Since I usually set him up close to the jump, I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but the angle was also not quite right. But he really struggled with 1-2 with both ways that I tried handling it. Then the jump-dog walk, I had to really hang back and hold him, which made the push off the dog walk hard. I couldn’t figure out a way to run the other side of the dog walk to rear the jump after it. He missed a bunch of dog walks, but pushes are a weak spot for him, as is anything where I’m racing him, he’s much better if I just sort of jog. And if he really doesn’t know where he’s going after the dog walk, he will also miss, and this was sort of a hope and pray scenario. He found the jump each time, though turned the wrong way once.
He got the weave entry on the first attempt, but on subsequent attempts I had to stay dog on left and not rear cross until he was out of the tunnel under the dog walk. If I crossed before that, he entered at pole 2. It’s hard to tell from the angle, but the way I built it, the poles really were just a bit to the left of the tunnel exit so I really thought it would be better to cross (shallowly) before he went in so he would know not to come out turning right? I was surprised how much support he needed to take the jump after the a frame too.
Lora Abbott
ParticipantDid some tunnel exit work this evening. Old dog was being extra in the way, he even demanded a turn in the tunnel! He’s often loose when I train, but is never this pushy. At his age he gets what he wants and she doesn’t seem bothered by him being around any more. It did affect my handler path on that first rep going the second direction at 0:44. And then we just couldn’t get it (not all failed reps included). I stopped the session to watch the video and troubleshoot (click, treat), and as I did the solution occurred to me to try starting more lateral and using some convergence to keep her going straight after the tunnel which worked great. And I think this was the first time I’ve ever rear crossed a tunnel with her and I could definitely see her slow down and think REAL HARD as she went in the tunnel… “WHAAAAT?” If only the camera had been set up to see her face!
Lora Abbott
ParticipantThat part where she was sniffing her butt is actually a wee bit sad. She’s been getting a little freaked out about things touching her hind end and belly, like long bits of grass or even water dripping off of her. I think she probably got stung by a bee in the past few weeks and now she’s worried there are bees everywhere! Well, not everywhere, but little ticklish things just give her the heebie jeebies now. She did have a rep before that one where she COULD NOT POSSIBLY WORK. Toys and play will get her to stop thinking about it so it’s not too bad, but a bit sad to see. 😔
Lora Abbott
ParticipantTried some serp work for the first time in a long while, probably not since max pup 2. This was a huge struggle for her before but she seems to be figuring it out! Once I added the jump wing I was hesitant to do much more than walk at first, but that made it hard to be in position. The second direction I got a little braver, ran a little faster and she did way better because I was in the correct position.
Lora Abbott
ParticipantThanks! Yes, it seems I was a little too quick in the walkthrough in the opening, then he seemed to catch up with me in the weaves (I even remember feeling like “whoops, gotta hustle” when he was weaving) then it seemed like we were pretty even. How smart of me to wear that hat for the walk through only!
Lora Abbott
ParticipantSent!
Lora Abbott
ParticipantI like the “treat myself like a student” thing. It goes beyond just the rote “be kind to yourself”, which just doesn’t feel genuine. But to treat myself like a student is to acknowledge that I do know things (the teacher side), AND I’m still learning things! Again with the badly needed inspiration!
My goal is to run courses twice a month, July was odd that there wasn’t a chance to do any. Leaving a course for a whole month is tough because I have to move everything to mow any way, at least up until about this point in the summer. From here forward the grass isn’t growing as much and I can mow around the big stuff. Usually July I can get down to mowing less too, but this year was quite wet and we’ve had fast growth throughout. I think it’s slowing now finally. I’ve got one more trial I’m entered in this weekend, then up in the air about any more for August.
In other news Pick’s home fell through, so once I sort out my feelings about that (sooo much inner conflict lol) he may return to some agility training as well.
Lora Abbott
ParticipantFiles sent! Thanks for doing that!
The terriers certainly don’t go by the “no killing things” rule here- rodents are FAIR GAME! Would make my life pretty stressful trying to stop that! But there is a “no leaving work for critters” rule- crittering is either done during off hours or when cued! Off hours, I can’t really control (ugh, I once found Kraft picking baby bunnies out a similar nest in the yard, walking 20-30’ away to quietly crunch on it in the shade, then wandering back for his next victim, totally non-chalant as if he was just snacking on donuts he found in the work break room!) I think the babies don’t have that much scent to them, he was way more interested in the momma’s chunks of hair. But he certainly knew that hole was INTERESTING!
The mental things are certainly what get to me with Roots. In a training session, I tend to get one thing wrong and then spiral into thinking we are terrible! Or that I’m overtraining and not getting any where. At 9, I’m trying to learn to be smart about repetitions and stop and look at video more (and feel like I should be doing this their entire lives but the guilt of doing too many reps is stronger when they are older, sorry bout that blind cross on a wing session Beat). Maybe one of the things I lost/changed when I stopped taking in person classes? I used to watch video between my turns so I could see what went wrong and what to change. So maybe I’ll try to emulate that aspect of in person group classes. I’ll even plan it into the session, have a comfy chair ready (instead of the ground) and a cold beverage and maybe a snack. Yay inspiration!
As far as how often I run full courses? Not very often. I trial about two weekends a month (July was pretty heavy at 3, plus being away camping for July 4 weekend, so no agility then). During the week I do small skills usually before work (rotating dogs throughout the week), Friday afternoons I mow the agility yard and build a course if we aren’t going to trial that weekend, then run it one of the days of the weekend, and take the other day to do something not agility related (but will squeak in some agility if I can). I’d worry about running full courses before work with wet, dewy grass, but could try to do course work on some afternoons? I got away from doing full course work very often because it felt like we were lacking so many smaller skills 😔
Lora Abbott
ParticipantFirst off, I’m so sorry about Voodoo 😔
We kinda have hit a plateau with these blinds on a wing, especially going from right side to left side. Very last rep I tried putting the toy in the right hand to force myself to connect more, and it still wasn’t great.
Lora Abbott
ParticipantRoots and I earned some major click/treats on today’s session! I did one of the agility courses from package 2. I videoed my walk through (click/treat #1 for me), haven’t watched it side by side yet (I’ll probably have to use two devices). I ATTEMPTED to use a bunch of verbals he doesn’t know yet, slapping them on (click/treat #2). I wasn’t perfect in actually saying the right ones when running, but I tried. He’s probably never gonna actually learn them, but at least I still moved well enough to cue the things physically, something I struggle doing successfully in trials (splitting brain power between using verbals and moving well). Click/treat #3 I guess?
We hit a little snag (ok, it had the potential to be a HUGE snag). As I was walking him out to the course, he discovered a nest of baby bunnies RIGHT WHERE THE START LINE WAS. I left that part in the video in fast forward. Since we’ve had some struggles with mental distractions on start lines lately (a timer that started by itself breaking my focus, and on another run a dog having a meltdown screeching right outside the ring scaring the crap out of Roots) I decided to see if he and I could recover and keep focused on the course. I panicked slightly for the safety of the babies when he broke his stay while I put his leash aside, but we both recovered relatively well! (Click/treat for us both!)
Only mistake on our first try was the wrong side of the threadle wrap. Click/treat to me for not losing it and feeling like a failure for messing that up! Another click/treat for me STOPPING THE VIDEO and going to sit in the shade and actually watching it back before attempting the whole course a second time. Pretty sure it was my feet turning towards the front of the bar that cued the front side. Then I removed the bunnies from the nest and put them in a box outside the fence in the shade. He had already shown he could deal with that distraction once, he didn’t need to do it again. And I didn’t really want to feel guilty for dead bunnies! Second try, I was trying to get him to be more clear about focusing on jump 1 before releasing, to me it looked liked he was looking at jump 2, but he self released and took 1 any way, probably because he DID know which jump it was and was like “get on with it, I know where we’re going”. Next attempt I never really gave him turning cues on 5, I was still saying go on go to cue going straight after the a frame to the jump, never gave a verbal or physical turn cue really. I was trying to think of the verbal cues for the next two jumps, one spot where the verbals did affect my physical handling. (No click/treat there, but I AM trying!) Last try, nailed the whole thing, though with a bunch of wrong verbals on some things at the end of the course, but again, still handled decently. (Click/treat for me, pool time for Roots!)
Lora Abbott
ParticipantAnother session I thought went very well, other than nearly breaking herself at the end. Grass was wet with the rain last night, but it was gloriously cool. I was even in a sweatshirt!
I was especially impressed with her practically fixing herself on the wrap that she pulled off of. I didn’t do much other than shift my gaze back to the wing (where I should have been looking any way) and she was like “oh yeah, that”. Didn’t have to show any motion back towards the wing, bit of a big girl moment in my eyes.Lora Abbott
ParticipantAs far as Roots having an “extensive history”, well I’ve tried teaching this a bunch before, starting when verbals were starting to be a thing when he was 4 or 5. It never really gets better, or maybe nominally better once I realized that he needed to hear the word before being presented with any visual cues (which includes being able to see the obstacles). And so far Beat does not do much better at this. Her success with the wing vs tunnel game is still pretty low. While, I haven’t done this sort of thing with agility training much with Pick, he’s probably the most verbal of the 3, as I’ve done other auditory discrimination games as a stepping stone for some of his other behavioral issues (prey drive and arousal related things where I need him to respond to verbal cues even if he cannot break visual contact with what he’s hyper focused on).
That said, in today’s session I helped Roots a LOT and it went much better. I was actually impressed that he just didn’t do anything on “hup” since he doesn’t actually know what that is yet, just been slapping it on in trial situations, haven’t even had any trainings at home to play with it. Pretty sure since my arm was sort of up at my hip/bait bag he was like “you want me to walk beside you?” As soon as I dropped it down he was able to take the jump.
Since I feel like I’ve already tried “fading my movement” and making it more neutral, and he just gets more and more in tune with the nuance of where my feet and chest are pointed etc, how about if within a session or over the course of sessions I just move the obstacles closer and closer until the motion really could be cuing either one and the verbal cue becomes the more helpful cue? I really can’t remove my motion altogether without sitting down or standing still, and even then he might use my feet or chest laser as a cue. I can’t think of another way to make the verbal cue the most salient thing.
Lora Abbott
ParticipantSuper busy couple of weeks and the boys haven’t gotten much training in. Hopefully I’ve got some work life balance back and we will be trialing a bit less the next few weeks.
And in other news, Pick may have a fabulous new home soon! So I may work just Roots going forward unless it falls through.
This was the exercise I was dreading. I already knew doing it with no motion at all and from a stay or a restrain would be a huge failure. I thought the show and throw start would be better so he’d hear the word before seeing the motion, but not in this instance. This dog is NINE years old (literally, today is his birthday, happy birthday buddy you get to do discriminations!) and this exercise never gets any better than this no matter how hard we try. He’s just cuing off my feet I think. I’m also not sure how to approach the other side since he doesn’t actually “know” “hup” as a cue, I’ve just been “slapping it on” but that doesn’t feel fair to expect him to know it in the context of a discrimination? This whole exercise just seems like something to test how well he knows the verbal cues, but I already know he doesn’t know them and I don’t know how to actually teach him. I thought I’d taught him tunnel vs jump cues well enough to be passable at this level, but clearly not.
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