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Hi Tracy,
We tried the accordion ladder and lateral lead out drills. Ronan did elevator but a little bit. We did some throwbacks to work the start line but I didn’t include it in the video.
Mike
We can definitely flip the grid direction around so he isn’t jumping into the fence and I can place the toy 15 feet away. Ronan is my first big boy (~20.5”). My other 2 agility males were toy breeds so it’ll be a learning experience for me. Even our other BC Jax is only 18”. Admittedly I am super sensitive to bar knocking because Jax has ETO (Gina Day Dx as alternating strabismus) and I spent some time trying to “fix it”. Ronan seems to have a better natural jumping style than her and is more rounded already.
Back to some more ladder grid fun!
Here the spacing is 5 1/2 feet (6” height) and I used mostly the stationary toy. When I tried to set him a little bit further back from the first bar he took that extra little step before entering the grid so I went back to putting him very close to the first bar.
Some observations: He struggles a bit powering over the first bar (at 11 months old, not enough muscle mass yet?) but quickly adjusts and jumps nicely by bar 3 when he can use momentum. Also, at 24s it’s interesting what he does with all 4 legs. It seems he’s thinking about the best placement to get over that final bar as it’s really close to when he lands.
Karena
We will give your suggestions a try! It did feel awkward mainly using my upper body and looking back at the video I can’t help but LOL at how we look! Karena
Thanks for the comments on the ladder jump grid. We will try spreading them a little bit more and see how he handles the change.
We also completed the zig zags with the bars. The video is below, anxious to hear what you think! These were tough! Should we spread them a bit more? It was hard to react as he was charging towards us 🙂
Today we went back to Jumping Foundations 3, Beginning The Ladder Grid. Last session we had left off with 3 jumps and hadn’t yet tried any angles. Tonight we added a fourth jump and some angles. We mostly used a static toy. Jumps were spaced at 5‘2“.
Today I (Karena) tried the smiley face: tunnel threadle game with Ronan. He was anticipating the tunnel but I may have been too late to cue the opposite side (“kiss kiss”). I was trying to follow your advice to Mike and let him finish the wing wrap before moving to the threadle but obviously I’m not doing things exactly the same as Mike so I just went with what felt natural after those couple tunnel sucks. It was definitely easier when Ronan wrapped a wing/handler did FC before doing the threadle.
Hi Tracy,
I gave the smiley face a try tonight. Ronan was a bit rusty lol. He remembered pretty quickly and ended up having a good session. I will work on it again tomorrow with more speed. It got too dark to work more tonight.
P.S. after posting this I rewatched the video and realized a few things I was not doing correctly to help Ronan on this drill. The biggest was not walking towards the tunnel opening I wanted him to go into. I am goino go film a bit more today.
Hi Tracy,
A bit of work on turn aways (with distractions at a trial) and mission transition. I had some difficulty with Ronan turning away from me in the mission transition. I am not sure if I was pressuring his line or if it was the front cross timing being too early. Welcome your thoughts!
Tonight after our agility trial (yay longer days) we did a quick session of Rocking horse turn aways, advanced (threadles). Earlier this week we practiced threadles with a single jump upright in the living room and he was awesome so I was quite pleased to see it transfer to outdoors so nicely :). Karena
My question is whether any other online class dogs start to recognize the “Tracy video voice” after a while? Ronan starts to get excited and will scream when the lesson music comes on and he hears you!
We worked on the get out drill and had a little bit of trouble with it. My get out cues were sometimes late. He seems to need it while wing wrapping. I wasn’t always running in a straight line either for the get outs so added the flagging tape to help. I was using body pressure to get him out. I also tried using the outside arm and that felt awkward. When I used my dog side arm to send him out it felt better since that is what I am used to. There weren’t as many reps with the dog-side arm so I couldn’t assess whether the arm made a difference.
We went out tonight and tried the rocking horse turn aways. We did 1) simple lap turn around 1 wing, then 2) send around wing followed by lap on the second wing (DOR > send to wing followed by right arm lap turn), then 3) wrap the dog the other way around the first wing (DOL) followed by lap turn and finally, 4) we did the 2 FCs followed by the lap (send with left arm > FC, send with right arm > FC, lap with right hand). We also did the racetrack but I wasn’t sure which arm to use for the lap turn after completing a few laps around the racetrack. Does it matter?
Should I be facing tue dog/wing a bit more when doing the lap? I learned these (OMD) a while back and so am patterned to face the way I am in the video vs turning more towards the dog/wing as they do the lap turn around that wing. Hope that makes sense.
KarenaI wasn’t really sure what to made of these sessions doing the ladder grid. Mike started session 1 with a dead toy and no handler movement and switched to flirt pole and some movement. We thought he wasn’t supposed to be taking an extra little step before taking off so we set him up even closer. This seemed to cause him to “fall forward” a bit over the first bar. I did see that in your videos you had some reps with an extra step before takeoff. Is that OK? Ronan didn’t look comfortable (he was really stretching) in most of the reps in session 1 and session 2 so I moved the jumps in a little for the last 2 reps of session 2. Should we be using a “dead toy” or is movement using the flirt pole OK? How does the spacing look between the jumps? Is that extra step before he takes off OK? Curious to know your thoughts.
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for the feedback on the rears. I still need to work on that drill! I have not been paying enough attention to when I get on the RC line. karena is more aware of that than I. Here are a few clips on the Serps and Threadles drill. Ronan liked these quite a bit but it was more challenging for him at the small angle position than at the steep position.Mike
Good morning. We started the rear cross work and here are the first 2 sessions. As I might have predicted, he had an easier time turning left. I had the jump too close to the wing for the first session and so I wasn’t really able to drive to the middle of the bar and then cut over. For the second session there’s a 20 foot spacing. I also did a few advanced push backs and he read it well! Since we didn’t post it previously, here are also a few diamond racetrack reps.
