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Thanks for the great comprehensive feedback on the mechanics! Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped Bailey’s Chicken Camp. Now it all makes sense. Here is a quick video of my first attempt with better mechanics for you to check. These are left turns. He is still sluggish on his right turns but I’m finding with encouragement and by keeping the reward zone low, to help keep his head low, he is starting to improve.
Looking forward to tonight’s class. By the way I don’t get the course images. Just a spacer that says “image.png” but nothing happens when I click
Thanks for the RC feedback. I didn’t realize there were so many elements involved in a “proper” rear cross! I’m sure after practicing these minimal pressure crosses, my on course crosses will be better timed and more efficient to keep me from falling behind. I’m getting such a great education at University this time around! Lol
We went back to some of the basic foundation work for Kips wraps. He seems to have quite a left predilection and his body just naturally follows his nose into a tight turn however on his right side, it is commonly a different story and not such a natural flow. Does his lead preference or how he naturally positions his body have anything to do with this? Sometimes it just seems as if he almost has to make an extra move or weight shift to turn tight right. But now with lots and lots of practice, We will keep practicing the indoor 360 for a few more days before trying it on a wing again outside.
As my old coach always used to rant: “fundamentals ,fundamentals, fundamentals, no sense doin’ that fancy crap if ya can’t do the fundamentals!And as to the 360s. Kip is turning his head for the click but still doesn’t fully understand his job is follow his head around the obstacle in question and not just flip his head or muzzle-slap the obstacle. So I thought I would do a progression of different obstacles to try to get that commitment to fully turn around the larger obstacle. I started with a noodle upright and now am moving to my trusty red pop-up laundry basket. I’m sure there are pluses and minuses to every obstacle as follows.
Hmmmmmmm
Should I ?
A. Get a smaller dog
B. Get a bigger laundry basket
C. Get a better clicker training handler or
D. Go back to the noodle upright for now.
For expediency, I selected D. And went back to the noodle upright. He flows much better thru his left turns but still challenging to keep his body flowing thru the turns to his right. He’s understanding that the head turn generates clicks/treats but is still almost hesitant to keep moving forward which sometimes creates a tight turn-back in front of the obstacle not around it.
We will keep working!!
P.S. in the background of this video is Otis, my 15+ year old “Bullwhip” (whippet X pit bull). He was my first (and fastest) agility dog, now spectator.Remedial 360 wrap work.
As suggested we’ve gone back to the 360 wrap work here using a toy. I thought he was looking more balanced as to his lefty tendencies, but for this exercise, he is much more challenged on his right wraps. Almost like he’s avoiding that tight right turn. (pain)?? Should I work more with the clicker on reinforcing just his head turn to the right? I can see what you mean about him not bending and engaging his body into the turn. I’m surprised how much effect the orientation of the wing effects his success rate. Maybe just more practice is needed for the young pup as he has to remind me how young and inexperienced he is. I think we will go back inside to work on some of the wrap basic 360 exercises using just an upright and clicker.Here is a little more rear cross work- more for me than for the dog just to get more comfortable with setting the line to the center of the bar with deceleration to create the RC turn. Still working Kips right turns more than his lefts. I even threw Apache in there for one rep just to see how she would respond since I usually use more “L” shaped pressure on her line for RCs. She read it just fine but I think she might have thought she was being cued for a wrap, lol.
Wow, there is a lot to think about in your rear cross feedback!
Yes, Kip is a bigger dog than I’m used to running. He’s definitely going to be jumping 24” in Usdaa and possibly AKC as well. Which means I’ve got less margin for timing error and I’ve got to really work on being more proactive in giving info to him much earlier.And yes, I’ve been doing my Rear Crosses with more of an L shape and controlling the tightness of the turn with the angle and intensity of the L shape. I have not really associated deceleration as a way to control the tightness of the RC! But as I think of running with Apache, if I’m going to set up a tight rear with a hard “L”, I do decelerate quite a bit to set up my hard angle drive into her line. I say she reads my mind but she is probably just very good at reading my intention thru subtle body language cues and my deceleration cues the fact that I want a tight turn as much as my angle toward her. Intention is everything and sets up subtle cues the dog can read! (They can also read our worry about an off course obstacle and thus be drawn toward it ).
Whoa, too much Sat morn agility philosophical ranting- I need to get more coffee!You are right about the wing wrap start being awkward with Kip as I have to unnaturally hang out at the wing. I think I’ll try some of the same work but perhaps with a tunnel start to give the RC a more realistic flow.
Yes I will appreciate all the help you can give me to develop a fast and tight wrapping pup. I will be a very happy handler with a dog with tight turns and great distance abilities!! My knees will also appreciate it! lol.
We’ve done some more rear cross work trying to keep my movement simply toward the center of the bar and trying to see how timing and pressure affect Kips turning. He does turn more naturally to the left so we work the right side a bit more as well as do straight “go ons” which I didn’t record since Kip has no problem with his “go ons”!
I want to do some more RC work to try to get a quicker, tighter RC after the bar. I feel like maybe the minimal pressure I used in this made me almost late creating a soft turn after the bar. Perhaps if I think more about his commitment point, the result will be a sharper turn? We will do separate exercises to try to get him more slithery on his wraps.
RC’s to the left:May 7, 2021
RC’s to the right:May 7, 2021
In reference to your comments about leading the wrap with his head; We did the max pup exercise where you click when the pup turns their head in the new direction to lead the turn around the upright or barrel; if that’s the exercise you are referring to. However, we didn’t do very much of it because Kip quickly got the idea that his job was to turn his head and touch the upright with his nose. Classic exammple of unintended behaviors being trained. He still does that sometimes on wraps to this day. Should we try more of this exercise perhaps without the clicker?
Thanks so much for your awesome RC feedback. I love the way you also explain the concepts involved as well as the performance. Kudos to you! I want to work some more on these rear cross exercises as I think I’ve taken RCs for granted with my more experienced dog, who is so good at finding the next on course obstacle that I need to work more on the basics with a puppy.
In the mean time here is a video on the “find the jump” game with Kipling. He absolutely loves charging ahead and this is his fun, no pressure game! I’ve never had a pup so comfortable with distance and working away without disconnecting. Yea for that! as I need the distance now while still waiting to get some foot speed back while recovering from knee and back injuries.
I’m primarily working the initial wrap in these exercises as Kipling is still trying to learn to wrap tightly and use his rear power to blast out of the turn.He is a very sensitive ,but not soft, dog who doesn’t like to feel he’s wrong or like he is not “getting it” and will show a bit of learning stress in that situation. I see him grabbing grass sometimes now which I think, is at times, a stress release behavior for him. So my job is to always always always be positive and fun with him! My three dogs are all so very different in this regard.
Here is some of the beginning rear cross work. He seems to be reading the pressure well- still slightly prefers left turns but much less “lefty” than when we started.
Here is a bit of work with the get out game. I used first the trailing arm cue with a bent arm as well and then just the trailing arm and verbal cue. I’m so pleased that Kip has now learned these cues from all the zig zag work we did. I like having the bent arm cue for added cue strength when needed! We are still working toward tight wraps and powering out of tight turns so we are doing more “wind in your hair 2”
I do appreciate the way your lessons come in layers. Also, I did enter the 031 class so now you will get to meet my crazed, adrenaline junkie Pyr-Shep Rik/Rik
We have been doing lots of short simple reps with the three wing Zig Zags and I feel that it is all coming together for Kip. Here is the latest work where we have tried then line of 5 wings after he was perfect on the no handler movement on 3 wings and starting him at and parallel to the start wing.
Interestingly I ran my other two experienced Agility dogs on this exercise and it also took bit of work to get them to take the trailing arm cue since they had been trained with an outside threadle arm cue. Hmmmm. Am I correct in my understanding that by training this slice serp/theadle with just the trailing arm cue allows the bent threadle arm cue to be used in addition to the trailing arm when a stronger cue is desired?
With more of the ZigZag work, kip is starting to show a better pattern as long as I don’t lead out past the third wing. If I do lead out any further, he will run past the first gap no matter how much I put into the cue. I’m starting to slowly move down the line so I can be in position to cue the third turn thru the fourth gap. I assume at this point we are still trying to actively cue each turn or should the dog be starting to pattern the turn rhythms with little or no active cuing motion ?
Also, while I’m thinking of it, what is the next course in the max pup series? Is it the 031 that is now posting? Thanks for your awesome feedback- sorry I’m dwelling so much on this exercise but it seems important for Kipling
Kipling and I are still challenged with the simple Zig zag exercises. He does not seem to respond to subtle handling cues so I’m having to use grossly exaggerated cues. I’m also realizing how early he seems to need the info if he’s going to follow the cue. Not much margin for error with a bigger younger dog than I’m used to. Maybe it’s his BC instincts at play but for this exercise he doesn’t seem to be nearly as cue responsive as he has been in many of the other exercises we’ve done. So we will keep working on it. Am I correct in thinking that we are trying to teach/establish the come in/ go out behavior as somewhat situationally habitual as we move forward with his agility training?
Thanks for the feedback on the Zig zags, yes I do tend to overlook how young and inexperienced Kip is since is such a mature and balance puppy!! More basics with less movement.
After last nights class, what a wonderful revelation with the tight blinds!!I guess these were not really in my handling arsenal as such a simple cross feels so contradictory. Definitely need to form some new movement patterns. So I just started off practicing a single tight blind. It feels so awkward at first because I really feel a strong disconnect with the dog at first. It helps me to think of it as a post turn (wrap) to a blind. I also keyed on my dog side(toy ) hand as almost like a golf swing follow thru where the outside (toy) hand leads the swing all the way across the chest finishing up almost under the opposite arm pit which really spins the upper body and pulls the head to the new side. This upper body movement seems to be what Kip is reading even more that the toy presentation. Here is a video of the initial training this afternoon after the snow melted from last nights storm
Here is video of training the tight blind in the other direction as I start to get some more confidence. On the last rep, I let Kip run his much loved 2×2 channel into the course as I see he starts to slow down and lose enthusiasm with too many boring reps. And we certainly don’t want that!!
