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Iowa!?!? That’s nearly half way across the country! I enjoy your trainings but I’m not that dedicated! Ha ha ha Utah could be doable. Still a long drive but if it comes to fruition, I’d consider!
Yes, Kashia’s place cue is done without motion a lot. It just means get on something and sit, whatever is in front of you that I’m asking you to place on. Sometimes I point, sometimes I stand close, sometimes it’s just the obvious thing in front of her, it just depends. Either way, it’s not with much motion. I also realized I didn’t make her follow through with sit when I told her place….whoops! Bad mama training.
So with the teeter game…I watched your video over again and I didn’t get the explanation I need so I’m going to ask. Hopefully it’s not too dumb of a question. How does the target play into this long term? I love that Kashia understands to paw her target before she gets a treat but I don’t know how I’ll possibly translate that to the teeter in a course environment because I obviously won’t stop to reward that. Is it just teaching her where to target her feet and eventually the target is phased out?
Also, with your suggestion of starting to slowly walk when she gets into position, where does the target and rewarding come in? Is my back turned to her but face watching her? When or where do reward if I’m slowly walking a couple steps past her. What you are saying makes perfect sense in my brain. I just can’t picture where the rewarding comes in. Essentially this skill is teaching her to stay on the teeter until released even if I’m in motion, right? Do I use any verbal like stay or just let her figure it out and offer it? I’m actually really enjoying these offering drills. It’s fun to see the dog really have to use their minds to figure out what I want!
Thank you for always giving great feedback and advice. It’s been so wonderful. I hope you know how appreciated you are. 🙂
Speaking of which, my friend who recommended your classes to me said you sometimes travel to teach seminars. Do you happen to have the west coast on your travel list this year? I’d love to take a lesson in person one day!
Today we did Contact Foundations: Beginning Discriminations and Teeter Foundations: Angled Entries. These were actually great timing because I wanted to be a little easier on my girls so having stationary type drills was great!
Also, Hot Sauce is adorable!
Contact Discriminations was wayyyyy harder than I expected. One, I’d never done that before so I didn’t know what to expect. Two, I think Kashia is still unsure about going ahead of me. Three, she also seemed confused because I had no motion. Either way, the first “tunnel” took over 1:30 to get her in. I kept getting closer and closer until her head was basically in it. I didn’t include that rep. lol All of the reps in the video are in order. I just edited out some short and long ones to condense it as best as I saw fit. Many of the “blooper” reps took 30-35 seconds to get her to respond to the correct word. I only included a few but in between those bloopers, she’d do pretty well. Why do they back track like that? One minute we get 3, maybe even 4, good reps and then all of a sudden it’s like we are back to square one with not knowing which to do. I didn’t get frustrated with her about this. I’m just curious about that. It’s her first time so I don’t expect it to be cemented in her brain yet. It just seemed like she’d understand well and then revert back to not knowing at all. I could see her trying though. Many times she just looked unsure if she was supposed to run ahead into the tunnel without me. This was a really fun game though. My girls need some work with discriminations for sure!
Teeter Foundation: Angled Entries went well, I thought. Kashia loves this game now and doesn’t seem to have any issues with it. I tried to get her excited several times to distract her but it didn’t work really well. lol I may have only included one of those reps. I didn’t figure you needed to see me bouncing around like Tigger trying to excite her. I just realized I only practiced it from one side. I’ll make sure to incorporate the other side tomorrow.
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I personally think this is the correct way to begin a young dog’s trial career: one day here and there, and one SUPER FUN class only 🙂 Build it up as something really fun and then slowly add in the other classes.
>>>>Agreed. She won’t do more than one a month this whole season, if that. I plan to keep her in just Fast for now. We may eventually add in jumpers but not for a while. I think one class a day is perfect for her. And I never trial more than 2 days in a row. 3 days is just a lot for me with everything else I have going on. I have too many other hobbies anyway to be going to agility trials every weekend too. lol I can’t neglect my horses!!!! Or husband! 😂😂
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And a few NQs would actually be good because she is going to move up to the higher levels pretty quickly and a little more time on the lower levels is a good thing 🙂
>>>>This is definitely a benefit to AKC! I kept my older dog in novice all year last year even though she qualified for open. I just knew we both needed more time at novice courses. Plus I’m not chasing titles. I’m just doing it to have fun and build on our skills! I definitely don’t have any desire to have Kashia move up fast in UKI. Doesn’t mean I don’t still like getting Qs though! For entirely different reasons than titling though. Just because clean run feels like an accomplishment for all the hard work we put in at home each week!
Today we practiced wingin it double blind crosses again and next level threadle wraps again.
For the double blind crosses, I moved the wings closer together to make it more challenging. Kashia also decided it was a day of more cantering than trotting so she also made it harder for me which is a great thing! I didn’t do so well with her on my left. I nearly ran her into the wing every time. She figured it out and dodged to the correct side every time. But I felt bad for my mishandling. Did I just not connect with her soon enough between the two blinds?
The threadle wraps were a disaster! I’m not sure why it all fell apart this second video attempt. Hopefully you can give some insight! Remember how I thought going to the left was her stronger side? Well not today! We had a blooper nearly every rep. There may have been more environmental distractions than usual but I still don’t understand why she just kept squirting forward instead of wrapping the wing. On the first rep, I was discombobulated and I messed up the second wing. On the other reps, I don’t know what I did. I finally ended on just the one wing rep for that left side because I was getting too frustrated. The right went much smoother. However, both sides she didn’t get a super tight turn. Her speed was definitely faster than the first attempt where she just trotted most of it. I can appreciate her enthusiasm tonight. It was great throughout most of our training. It also made it more challenging than the first several practices since she was so much slower in those attempts. What was I doing to not show her to tightly turn around the first wing? I know I’m to blame for all of her mistakes even when I don’t realize it. There are times I still felt like she was not paying attention but from what you see, what was I doing to confuse her to not wrap the wing on that left side?
Thank you so much!!! That means so much to me! Even though I’m hard on myself, I always always always want a trial to be fun for my dogs. I try to never show my frustration to them if I happen to get frustrated. I don’t normally but we all have those one off runs. Hopefully I’ve showed Kashia how fun trials are and her excitement will continue to blossom!! I was just so proud of her for the great run!! But I was most proud of how happy she was! That just made me so excited! She was so dang proud of herself afterward. You should have seen it. It was so cute!
After reviewing my video later, I’m a little embarrassed at my poor handling in areas but oh well! I ran Kashia before my other dog so I worked out the kinks with Kashia and was much smoother with my other dog. Kashia’s speed truly caught me off guard though. Physically I could keep up with her but mentally, my brain was playing catching up the entire time so my cues weren’t great! Overall, it was a super easy course. There were only two handling areas that were challenging. The one was at the beginning where she did fabulous. For both of my dogs I wanted to make it super clear that they were to jump and immediately come back to me. What a weird way to start but I didn’t want there to be any temptations for that other jump that was super close to the start jump. The second was the cross in the corner by the purple tunnel. I’m still kicking myself at my poor handling right there where I had to call Kashia off the tunnel and turn right. I’d practice a front and a blind right there and in the moment, I did a sloppy rear which didn’t show Kashia I wanted to turn right so she went towards the tunnel. If I’d done my plan, we could have saved a second or two. It was so sloppy of me! I ended up doing a front with my other dog and it worked nicely but I bet I could have gotten the blind no problem too. At least I was able to call her off the tunnel! Isn’t it amazing to see how much she likes tunnels now!? Thanks to your class they have so much more value!
I also don’t know if I decelerated quite enough on that second to last jump before the tunnel and the end. She had to take a hard right coming over it. That’s the first time where I’ve realized a collection cue would be useful. My other dog is easier to collect kind of naturally so I never really considered teaching her a collection cue. But after that, I’ve thought about doing it for Kashia or at the very least, exaggerating my deceleration better.
How cool about the arousal and performance lesson you mention! I’ve seen several webinars and seminars advertised for arousal performance and how to work through it. Not to say it’s not great stuff to learn but my other dog has never had an issue with that so I never have dived in. I have a friend that has a dog that used to have extremely negative arousal behaviors in trial environments and she’s told me about how much she’s had to work through that. It got me thinking about Kashia which is why I said what I did. She gets more amped in the trial environment but in all the positive ways, so far! Granted this is only her second trial competing and she’s only done one course per day. But still, she seems to thrive off of it. I mean I’ve never seen that kind of speed and focus from her! It was amazing! Not the Kashia I practice with at home but I mean that in the best ways! Ha ha
I truly believe exactly what you mention that scientists are proving. I mean why does my oldest dog get so scared and nervous every time she goes to the vet if she didn’t have a memory associated with it? They aren’t dumb. They remember these things. I’m doing everything I can to keep it fun for Kashia! And I always go into the ring with the mindset you taught me, just run and have fun! No fixing things or putting pressure on any of it. Just let Kashia run and have fun! I don’t declare NFC because I don’t think she needs that. At least not in Speedstakes. She doesn’t like toys enough to make that worth it for her. For us, it’s better to just run it and see how it goes and either way, I keep it happy and light for her! Now I know next time I need to mentally prepare for her to activate the turbos once we get going! Ha ha ha I don’t want her to go flying and leave me in the dust!
Here’s the session I told you about the other day. It was super short and I realized afterward that I was supposed to have the wings in line with one another, not in a triangle. For Kashia being tired and sore, she was quite spunky during training! I was pleasantly surprised!
Kashia did so good today! It’s amazing the positive arousal that comes from a trial environment for Kashia. Arousal has never affected my other dog. Besides being a little more curious/sniffy about certain areas, she doesn’t act much different in trials than she does in practice. But in the first two trials of Kashia’s career, she gets more excited! She unexpectedly kicked in the turbos! I was not ready for that. My timing (and plan) was all off because she totally caught me off guard with her speed! She was faster than my experienced dog! This little bugger might actually have some speed (for her) once she gets experienced and confident! Two Qs and 1sts under her belt despite just going out there to have fun and see how she responds!
So I watched the BB Double Crosses video, normal speed and slow mo for the demo. That was an excellent video. So your “close, close, close” command is telling the dog what? To collect, come in close to you, prepare for another jump, and then jump? Without doing a threadle since I’m at work and not with my dogs, I think I usually face them in between the two jumps. Like I cue the first jump, face them, pull them into me with my outside arm, and then send them over the second jump. I think. Is this wrong or less efficient than the double-crosses? The double crosses definitely seem faster. I also don’t have fast dogs at the moment so if I’m being honest, time is never a consideration for me. I’ll never be a Border Collie type run. LOL I focus more on a clean run than I do a fast run in my experience so far. However, I’m always open to more efficient handling! Blinds seem to always be the harder option for handling crosses but I do them as frequently as I can because if they are executed right they feel super smooth. Plus I’m fast so it’s not that hard for me to run ahead of my dogs when I need to.
I watched the Exie Jumpers in slow mo too…..you did those blind double crosses so dang fast. I’m not sure I would have ever caught those if I wasn’t looking for them. I also don’t know if I could ever get those smooth enough to do so seamlessly in a course! Wow! Nice job! Also, side note, that was THE SMALLEST course dimensions I’ve ever seen!!!! Did you walk the course knowing you would do those or are they second nature so you just naturally executed the blind double crosses where they were needed? If I identified the blind double crosses correctly, they were used on more than just a threadle, weren’t they? My paragraph above is a loose description of how I’ve done a threadle. That description wouldn’t work for some of the instances you used blind double crosses in this video. Thank you for digging those up for me. It helped me visualize it. I still question whether I can execute it or not but practice and experience will get me there eventually! lol
Kashia was panting a little bit in the video. She seemed fine behavior-wise though so that’s why I kept going. 68-70 degrees is hot when you are used to 30s….ha ha ha Way abnormal for us in March but I love it. Anyway, it is about to cool down again so we will be back to our usual temps. She’d just gotten a crap ton of exercise yesterday and was outside with me basically all day from 9am to 6pm. So she was a tired little girl but she offered to practice agility when I got the tunnel out so I let her. My other dog on the other hand was too exhausted for it so I didn’t make her do anything.
<<<So since these are going so well… time to choose a verbal! I scrolled up but I don’t think we talked about it yet: for the tandem turns, the verbal will depend on if it is the front side of the jump and she turns away (that can be the left/right or wrap directional) or if it is the backside of the jump. A tandem turn can be used on the front or back of the jump.If it being used on the backside of a jump, then it is a threadle wrap so uses the same verbal. My threadle wrap verbal is “in in in” which is different from my threadle slice verbal (which is ‘close’).>>>
I’m not really sure what you mean in the last sentence of the above paragraph. I heard your “close” command in the BB Double Crosses video. I don’t really know how “in, in, in” applies. Do you use the word “switch”? I hear a lot of people use it and I’m just wondering if this is one of those instances where that word is used on the front side of a jump when you are wanting them to turn the opposite way of the handler (but not wrap the jump wing). I think I said before that I was trying to teach my dogs left and right commands, most specifically with wraps but also just to change direction on a course like maybe where I’d do a rear cross, but I get my left and right so confused, even when I practice and walk the course, that I think it’s not a good idea for me to use left and right. I guess I just can’t really visual what “in, in, in” would look like once a jump is set up. Do you have an example video? I feel like you may have taught this in the advanced level during one of the exercises in Winter Camp. I think it was one of the weeks that advanced track was too hard for us so we did the Max Pup Track but I vaguely remember something about it or similar.
This evening I was going to post our second, super short, attempt at Wingin It Tight Blinds to Wraps when I realized I didn’t have the wings set up right! Is the middle one supposed to be in line with the outside two? Apparently I didn’t scroll down to see your little course maps because I definitely didn’t do that the first session. I had the middle jump out ahead kind of like a triangle. Was the intent to have short spacing between the middle and end wing so the maneuvers were harder? Hence the word tight, I suppose! You never said anything but I just caught it when I was editing my second video. Whoops! This sequence still gets me. Once again, second attempt, I had to stop a billion times to make sure I was doing the spin right. It just confuses the heck out of me for some reason. Anyway, since I had the wings incorrect, I won’t post my video. Sad though because Kashia actually cantered most of the reps! She was feeling good! I’m not going to practice anymore sequences this week because we have another trial on Friday. I entered Kashia in speedstakes again just for the fun of it. She’s still pretty tired from yesterday even though she pretends she’s not when we are outside. So I’m just going to let her relax the next two days and try to keep her quiet. Nearly impossible because she just wants to play “ball” anytime we are outside…🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Wingin It Double Crosses. This was so weird to me. I can’t think of an instance where I’ve ever done these before. I obviously listened to your video so I know you talked about real world application. I’m a very visual learner though so I can’t really imagine where in a course I’d use this or if I ever have used it in a course. Either way, we gave it our best shot. I forgot to do the front crosses so I’ll try again tomorrow to practice both crosses.
The Lazy Game Contacts Position. This was an 8:39 video. I obviously edited it for posting but I say that because the video will show the evolution of Kashia figuring it out. This was the first time we’d tried the two on two off in a seated position. Prior I’d just done standing, if you recall. I wanted to make sure she could do that before trying the target. She wasn’t sure what to do. She’d just sit and stare at me and then when she got bored of that she’d stare off in the distance. It took several minutes of this. I had to prompt her several times until she started to offer the behavior herself. Once she figured that out, she looked extremely confused when I put the target out. She didn’t know what the heck that was for. Again, I got a lot of stares and questions. It didn’t take too terribly long until I got her touching the target bowl though. I’m surprised I stayed so patient and stuck with it for 9 minutes. Ha ha but by the last couple minutes, she was touching the target bowl with both paws. I was quite proud! I hope that’s what you wanted. It was honestly kind of hard to tell from your video. So let me know if I am off track.
These two practice sessions were after Kashia spent all day outside in our unusually glorious record setting temps of 70 degrees. We went on a 4 mile run and then she went on a 7 mile horse trail ride climbing a mountain. By late afternoon, she was quite pooped but she still gave me this effort so I was quite pleased! I wanted to keep it light and if she wasn’t feeling it, I was going to stop right away. But she was interested in training so that’s why we did a little bit. I just wanted to give context as to her speed or lack thereof in the Wingin It game. I also need to respond to your previous message still because I need some clarification on the verbals. More on that in the morning.
Thanks for all the help!
Next level pup tandem turns. I thought this went fairly well. I’m guessing you’ll tell me to keep my hands and arms much lower. I had them pretty high after rewatching my video. I did the same thing in the Winter Camp when we did this exercise.
Next level pup threadle wraps. I forgot to do a blind on the second wing going to the right. Not sure why. This entire evening I really struggled trying to figure things out each time I switched directions. I blame it on lack of sleep working two 14+ hour nights in a row…so you’ll see this video and the next video, I’m all discombobulated and tired. Kashia is tired too but I needed to get the practice in so we pushed through.
Wingin It Tight Blinds to Wraps. This was so confusing to me when it came to the spin. I’m not sure why but it was. You’ll notice the shift in sun throughout the video. That’s because I had to stop every 3 mins to rewatch your video because I couldn’t figure it out. It made our session somewhat long but with multiple breaks in between. I had so many videos on my phone from having to start and stop. Poor Kashia was a good sport during it all. I mean she clearly had no energy but she still gave me some effort while I struggled through trying to figure out my right and left. It just felt so different in both directions that I could not grasp it. I’m not even sure I did it right but here’s our attempt.
I’m attaching this video in response to your feedback a few days ago. I’m not sure what it is but Kashia does not understand the back up game from a seated position. This is why I haven’t done any seated. This went on for over 2 mins. You’ll see me cut to right when I stood up, she instantly got it and did great at offering the back feet on the board. She did this for 2-3 mins straight which I didn’t all include in the video. I hope this positioning is okay. Is there any reason I need to teach her from a seated position if she understands it this way?
Here is Wingin It Tunnel to 3 Ladder game. I tried to think really hard and lean in instead of out when going around the wing. I made an improvement but there were still some reps were I leaned back. It was much better though. I tried my best to really emphasize the lean forward but watching my video back, I can still do better on exaggerating that. I didn’t feel like I was pulling her with an invisible rope like the time before though.
I tried to change directions just at the exit of the tunnel like you did and it confused the poop out of Kashia and me. My brain doesn’t like those things. So I opted to switch to just moving the wings for the ease of mastering the more important skills. I tried Kashia’s right first to see how she’d do. She had better energy than the day before but I still feel like her confidence is stronger on the left side, despite energy levels. By the end of the session, she was dragging on the left but again, I still felt she was stronger on that side.
I had a couple bloopers. I did pull her off on one rep and I did miss a cross on one of the last ones. She did a blind when I was trying for a front.
Well, I found myself not trusting Kashia again on the Wingin It: Circle Wrap Ladder 1 drill. Same exact thing I did on the Shifting Connection drill from Winter Camp. I guess I don’t trust Kashia to go around the wing so I subconsciously step back or at the very least lean way back to kind of pull her around with an invisible rope…ugh! I didn’t do it quite as bad near the end but I still did it. That’s going to be a hard one to break. Especially since my older dog commits much less than Kashia does so I pull her off the circle nonstop if I don’t exaggerate way back. I never pulled Kashia off the circle but I also delayed quite a bit by making sure she went all the way around before I started moving forward again.
I did the exercise from both sides, 2 reps each handling technique. I’m pretty convinced Kashia is a lefty. Anytime we go to the right (aka me on her right side) she’s like handicapped and so much less confident and even maybe slower to understand the concept. She seemed the same as she did the last drill I mentioned this on. Very interesting.
<<<It was hard to see your position, but you can make it clearer for her by sitting on the ground or in a chair, so you are nice and close and her head is lower.>>>
So I tried that first because you had suggested it once already. I did not feel like it went well at all. Perhaps I was impatient or doing it wrong but as soon as I stood up, I got so much more motion and offerings (I didn’t try the sitting position once I thought of moving the turf mat under it). I’ll attach the video from last night where I sat in front of it. I noticed again I was delayed on some of my rewards. I’ll take credit for that mess up. I was so focused on two back feet that I didn’t reward her properly for trying. Either way, it felt way better standing. I was standing just out of view of where she was. Was I maybe kneeling too close to the teeter in this video making her feel too much pressure? Sitting just felt like she wanted in my lap to eat the treats and didn’t think about the task at hand. I tried luring her to the teeter to show her what I wanted but that didn’t seem to work well either because she was just following my hand for the cookie and not paying attention/understanding what I wanted. She was trying but it didn’t seem to translate to her little brain very well.
It makes sense dogs would have a stronger side and weaker side, like humans and horses and probably most animals. I’m not sure what her stronger side is. I’ll have to pay attention more. I know the heel side definitely presents more challenges since she’s had so much training on heeling on the side.
Kashia and I played several games today. I decided to be adventurous and try the back up game with the teeter. Teeter Foundations – Back Up. The first attempt didn’t go so well. I videoed it but I didn’t include any of it in this snippet since things got better the second attempt. The second attempt I changed it up and put her turf mat (which I originally used to introduce the game) underneath it and that helped her correlate the two but she still probably wasn’t quite ready for the teeter. I also was a little late on rewarding at times because I got stuck on back feet only when I should have been rewarding anytime she got on it. You could see her thinking super hard about it. She just didn’t like the idea of backing up to put those back feet on it. I think she did an actual back up on only one rep and after immediately putting her foot on the board, she snatched it off like it was hot lava. It was funny. It’s weird to see her so apprehensive about it. Once again, my older dog picked up this game super quickly, in far fewer sessions than Kashia. I make Kashia watch so maybe she’ll learn by visual. lol Anyway, I was proud of her efforts but I acknowledge I probably asked too much of her when she wasn’t fully solidified in the skill on a training plank.
Wingin’ It: Tunnel to a Wing. This game seemed relatively easy and straightforward. I’m not sure I had the best handler positioning watching back but Kashia read it all right anyway. She gives me a lot of grace sometimes! lol My older dog does especially.
Wingin’ It: Countermotion. We played this game again for a second attempt. It went much smoother this time around! Kashia seemed to love it too. She’d start out slow but then picked up good speed and maintained that speed the entire time. I was impressed. She read the counter motion even when I was out of alignment with the jump. Again, she’s giving me grace. Lol I think it’s a fun one for her despite how hard it started out. lol I kind of did random patterns just to see if I could keep her engaged. So we went a little off course from your demo but same exercise.
Motion Override. I included a video just because I think she’s made improvements. I still have to say sit twice but it’s better than the first video. I’m excited to master this at a trot and show you by the end of class! That’s our goal! We work on it a little bit almost every day because it’s one of those that’s easy to do so and she likes it so far.
<<< I think it was just a new concept and she was like WHOA THIS IS HARD. Her brain had to process the “chase the momma” versus the “find the jumps” which is really hard for any dog bred to work. So, you can revisit it and see if latent learning helped!>>>
So we’d already done this exercise once but from the other direction. Are dogs like horses in that switching the direction can seem like a completely new exercise to them? I figured she’d catch on super quickly since we’d already done it once. I did not anticipate the bloopers we had when I set it up as the same course but approached it from the opposite side.
<<<she trains just like my whippet. He did the same thing the first session of me getting way ahead: went nice and fast and took zero jumps LOL!!! >>>
Ha ha ha well I’m glad I’m not the only one with those annoying moments! These dogs keep us on our toes, that’s for sure!
<<<so you can keep throwing the reward to the landing side of the RC or FC wrap jump to affirm that yes, moving ahead of you is a good thing!>>>
I always forget to do this because I get so focused on finishing the cross. So for a RC to her left, I should throw the treat/toy to the landing spot which would be the left side by the jump standard? Will she finish the RC if I do that or will it just be telling her that she was a good girl to jump ahead and bend left as if she was turning around the left standard to come back to me? It seems like I should reward her if she makes the correct turn towards the left but I understand you want me to reward her before that so she knows going ahead of me is okay. I just want to make sure I understand it.
We did the backing up game again today. It’s her 4th session. Wowzer. She is FINALLY getting it! I’m so spoiled by Kashia because she’s so smart that she normally picks up games/exercises/tricks/etc super quickly. Like much quicker than some other dogs I’ve seen or even my own I’ve worked with. She’s wicked smart. So for her to take so long to figure out the backing game was so hard for me to mentally process. I’m just so used to things being quick for her that I could not understand why this one was so challenging or what I was doing to not make it clear to her. Anyway, she did so well today! I did not take a video since it’s not technically part of the class. Once she did well on the turf mat, I moved to our little travel training plank my husband made me for this class. It’s about 3 inches or so off the ground and like 3 feet wide. Even with the step, she figured it out so quickly! She’d jump on the plank and then walk her front feet off. She never offered actually backing onto it……Now that I say that out loud to you I’m realizing she never actually “backed up”, is that okay? I mean she understood she needed to get her two back feet on it only but she didn’t really back onto it except maybe a few reps. Was that wrong? If so, I’m going to be so deflated. LOL I was so excited at how fast she figured out the plank but it didn’t even dawn on me that wasn’t backing up. So I guess I need to know is the concept backing up or is the concept just knowing how to put the two back feet on something?
Either way, I might try the teeter tomorrow to see if she can figure out how to put her back feet on that.
We are still struggling a bit with the motion override game. She enjoys it but she is still having a hard time sitting on the first command and sitting when I do more than a slow walk or walk in place. I was hoping she’d be to a speed walk by now but she’s not so I haven’t sent a second attempt video yet for that exercise.
Thanks for all the help! Happy Monday!
Concept Transfers Attempt 2. This started out interesting. If you can’t notice, I switched sides this time so I was working on Kashia’s right rather than her left like the first time. The first several reps I tried to run ahead of Kashia on the GO lines like you said and she completely bypassed the jumps. For a few reps she’d skip the first jump but do the second one or the other way around. I didn’t include all the bloopers because I was struggling to keep it close to 2 mins but I did include a few so you could see. What was I doing wrong to cause her to bypass the jumps? She did this in Winter Camp too on the straight lines. I want to say it was the same right side but I’d have to verify that by watching my old videos. She figured it out eventually but it was annoying it even happened.
I included some bloopers where I again pulled her off the jump during deceleration. We tried the rear crosses this time and they actually worked out better than I expected. Not super smooth on either of us but she figured out what I wanted so that worked. We did have a blooper with this which I also included. Her speed was great throughout most of it. Watching my full video back, I didn’t realize I had two cats playing jungle gym around us the entire time. Even though I cut a ton of reps out, I think the cats will still appear a couple times. There were a few snippets where they were in the tunnel when Kashia came through or they were at the jump standard when Kashia jumped. It’s like they were waiting to pounce on her but chickened out last second! Ha ha Sorry about that. They are always extremely interested in agility practice!
Backing Up. This is the third time we’ve practiced and she FINALLY started offering some behaviors. It wasn’t great or strong at times but it was there so I considered it a victory. Did we do it right? During the time when she sat, I cut the video off because another dog came into frame but I basically had to reset from that position. So I just made her walk around a tiny circle and then come back to the mat.
When we have those “staring contests”, what is the correct thing to do?
Also, when I try this on the teeter, what kind of indicator will tell Kashia to put her back feet on it vs going up it like she’s used to? Anytime I go near the teeter out now she excepts cream cheese! That one rep high value drill was a genius idea except now she expects that very animatedly and I’m not sure how I’ll translate that to the backing up drill.
<<<Her brain was working hard, so she probably got mentally tired by the end! I swear that on a couple of reps that she looked at you as if she was saying “this is NUTS” hahahahaha>>>
This made me laugh so hard. I’m sure you are right. She probably thought I was crazy doing those. Heck, I thought I was crazy. That was by far the hardest exercise to understand at first. Once I got it, it wasn’t so bad but my goodness I struggled to formulate it in my brain for a solid 15 mins.
Backing Up. I watched your video again and attempted to do just as you did. When I tried to drop a treat behind me and have her go underneath me and then back out, she just did a really tight spin. I never really got her to back out from under my legs. This is probably one of the most frustrating drills I’ve ever done with my dogs. Not frustrated at them, just that I wasn’t getting the results and I didn’t know why or how to fix it. Neither one of them really offered backing much. If I said “back” or leaned into them a half step or so, they’d back onto the mat. But if I should stood there, I didn’t really get the backing offered to me at all. Maybe every several reps with my older dog but not with Kashia. If I stepped into her slightly she’d do it no problem though. I don’t really understand that since the concept is similar to the wobble board. I know backing is harder for dogs but the whole “do this behavior and get a treat, repeat” concept was easier for her on the wobble board. I don’t understand why it’s not translating to the backing up mat. She doesn’t even offer to go on it, front or back feet, unless I give that slight pressure leaning into her and then she’ll back two feet on it.
Teeter Foundations 2. I added some soda cans and a plastic container underneath. She did well with it. My cows came in wanting more treats again. LOL
Wingin’ It Countermotion. The first attempt of this exercise was a disaster. I didn’t even include it in the video. Despite walking it with an invisible dog, I still couldn’t figure it out on my first attempt with Kashia. She had no idea how to send behind me and I couldn’t figure out the body positioning at all. That’s probably the most complicated exercise I’ve tried in a while. I was going to give up but decided I’d see how my older dog could do it. She caught on super quickly which actually made me figure it out as well. I started to catch on and together we got the flow figured out. Now I know to practice with my older dog first so I can figure it out before asking Kashia to do something I can’t even do yet. lol Kashia and I were much better the second attempt once we kind of had an idea of what we were doing. I don’t think I went all the way to step 6. I didn’t want to risk more confusion to end the night so I figured I’d build up to that step. Plus Kashia was losing steam quickly as you’ll see in her gait. I didn’t include the racetracks to save video time but we did them.
