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We should be back on deck tomorrow. I have been sick, mostly in bed, with a cold/flu, then we had our Club agility trial this weekend, 1 of only 3 I attend each year. Sassy was just not keen to do the 3 jumps I tried to put her over NFC in a couple of runs which makes me sad because she is so good at everything, having done this course. I’ll try again next year and she loves practising meantime. Maisy raced through all her courses and, as usual, I was too slow to prevent the inevitable off-courses, except the one jumping round that ran like clockwork and I actually got a time on (7.3m/sec) over a flowing 130m course, 17 seconds start to finish, 2 knocked bars.
Maisy’s big problem is weaves: she weaves beautifully at home and at the club but never in a trial – she is 7. I’ve tried raising her arousal with mad tugging sessions etc but it never seems to translate to a trial. In her 3 agility runs, she got the entry once but ran straight through and galloped off. I did NFC to try and get her back in – 3 attempts and no weaves, just straight through whichever gap she chose. We have 2 more trials: one in May and one in September (in which every course has weaves). Any advice? She will do your latest trends course starting in June.We need to do a bit of work on startlines, especially with the moving toy but she tried her hardest and did well. This was the 26/28″ spacing and I am wondering if it is still a bit tight?
I am not sure I am cuing correctly? ie early enough (I know, I had one job!). And do you use a left cue plus a wrap cue or just the wrap cue when you want them to come out of the tunnel and wrap the jump? or both? Ditto, the “go” cue if the jump is straight ahead but they then wrap it?
We did the wrap proofing. She has a lot of value for the wraps, the tunnel not so much (oddly). I also think she might have been a bit reluctant to leave the toy/treats…much quicker to access reinforcement if you wrap? Anyway, it is a work in progress. I didn’t think putting the tunnel further away would help. This is our 2nd session. We had one yesterday that went pretty much the same ie a bit of a bobble on the way to the tunnel without help.
Wind in hair went better with a lot more distance this time and no avoiding the jump although I stupidly ended up facing the wing the same way, giving the wrong cue when I moved it, duh! And no-one is going to pay me to throw anything. Toy needed more heft.
Yes, the noodle distance was shorter – I’d guess about 24″ rather than the 28″ we decided was a good length the previous day. That’s what happens when you don’t want to make another trip inside to retrieve the tape measure!
I increased the distance to the jump for the wind in hair and threw the toy sooner – she tended to run around the jump to grab the toy so we will keep working on this.
Today we did some smiley face… my question is: when you do reverse spin, what is the cue? is it a “left/right” or a wrap cue? I used it to send her to the other end of the tunnel so not sure a wrap cue is appropriate.
I used half a pool noodle for the set point and a low bar. Not sure if this made a difference but the big bumps were harder to negotiate for her.
We started on wind in hair – not sure why I thought a pre-placed reward was a good idea…
We’ve been absent on here for a month but working our way through…Grace had her big girl op and I had an eye op and life… she is now 8mo and full of sass still.
We did the baby level of Strike a Pose yesterday inside, and today we ventured out for the advanced level. I was pleased she stayed engaged with me (rather than hunting this morning’s bones out there) and did her stays – I think she got tired for the last two or maybe more rewarding! I always panic about stays at about this time and feel I haven’t done enough work on them. Still switching happily between food and toys (bonus!)Happy New Year! Working our way through Package 5 – no real issues for her. Filmed some parallel path and backward sends to the barrel but the latter disappeared or wasn’t filmed after all. So here is the parallel path, indoors as it is 100 sweaty degrees out there.
I was a bit worried she might think the tape measure was a tug so we started with an SSC session… I guess you’d say it is “novel neutral” (at last!). We did turn n burn using the tape measure. Earlier we did a session in the garden with the wheelie bin – I think she is getting the idea of committing to go round.
We did some turn and burn with the toy in my pocket and that worked. I will put the lines out in our next session. I think she is getting the hang of it. Tried the 2 barrels just to see and it went ok. Still finding novel items that are too tasty or too novel!
Dream was playing with his squeaker toy in an attempt to disrupt class.
