Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Is it Friday yet!? My goodness it’s been a week already! Dang work getting in the way of my agility practice, how dare it!
On Monday I took Kashia to the agility arena for our weekly practice session. I tried implanting some of the skills we’ve learned running a sequence of like 6 or so jumps. Kashia did so great! Specifically backsides. I’ve been really practicing those and she reads it perfectly every time. She’s doing so wonderful with just the basics we learned in MaxPup Winter Camp!
I was practicing at 9pm tonight so I only had time for the Lazy Game. I’m not entirely sure I did the part 2 correctly. Maybe my jumps were too far apart? Something just felt weird about it. I definitely don’t think I sent to the third jump correctly at all. I couldn’t figure out what kind of motion I should be in to get that third jump. I was conflicted on verbals and hands because the Lazy Game started out with neither so I wasn’t really sure how to accomplish the third jump the way you did. Maybe I’m just being confusing and analyzing it too much. If so, I apologize. Sometimes I struggle trying to duplicate what you do without watching the video 10 times. Ha ha This exercise just didn’t feel smooth to me, like I was doing something off.
The Lazy Game Part 3 went fairly well, I think, if I did it right. Kashia loved the speed. She had a few bloopers but otherwise seemed to pick up on it good. Was I running too close to the wings?
Thanks for your time!
Hello!!
<<<<it was fun seeing the horse audience behind you on the plank game LOL!>>>
Ha ha, sorry about that. It’s nearly impossible to not have some type of animal distraction at our ranch. Whether it’s a horse, cow, barn cat, or dog (sometimes her dad too). I do my best but sometimes they squeak in! Thankfully Kashia is able to work pretty well through all those distractions the majority of the time!
<<<Are you training an end position separately, like stopping in a 2on, 2off position?>>>
Do you mind if I get your opinion on this? With my older dog, she was so slow in the beginning that I didn’t want to waste anytime stopping her on the contacts. Since she didn’t have speed, she had zero tendencies to miss the contacts. She’s developed into much faster than she was back then but I still don’t make her stop. I’ll tell her slow to make sure she slows to hit the contact, but that’s all I’ve done with her. I hadn’t decided what to do with Kashia. Initially, I didn’t think I’d stop her either. Then when she all of a sudden was afraid of the contacts in January, I started making her stop and sit in the yellow as part of getting the target and waiting for the reward. However, I only did that on the dog walk and the teeter. She doesn’t have any issues with the A-frame. So I wouldn’t say we’ve really cemented any behavior in her little brain yet for the two other contacts. I’ve met so many people that do different things. I hadn’t really decided what was best to do with Kashia.
<<<It looks like she is is ready for you to add more distance between the jumps! You can move them apart another 3 or 4 feet and see how she does.>>>
I did this today and she did wonderfully!!! She got it nearly every time and was so animated the entire time! It was awesome! I was so proud of her! Definitely one of my favorite games so far!
<<<she would get a little bored if you were not running fast>>>
Don’t speak too soon! She started to get this way with the Wingin’ It game. I practiced it twice between chores, 3 mins each time. The first session she was animated and excited. The second session she was willing to participate but much less animated in her gait through the tunnel. Either way, I thought she did pretty well. I think I probably moved my feet more than the one step. It was kind of hard to remember in the moment. Like it was there in my brain but it didn’t really translate to my appendages. lol It was hard to narrow this video to 2 mins since the reps take a bit longer than some of the other games. So I cut several reps out but hopefully you can still get the gist of how it went for us and give me feedback on how I can be better. 🙂
I did the Teeter game again the way you said, 1 rep at a time. I took a video of each rep and combined them all together to show you. She was excellent! Super excited every time! In fact, the last second or two of the video I included a snippet of what she’d do any time I went back into the arena. She’d go straight over to the teeter and just sit on it and wait for me, even if we weren’t doing that exercise, or any agility at all. lol She was ready for that high value cream cheese! I did 1 rep at a time in between doing ranch chores. So I apologize that in one video some of my other dogs appear. I didn’t want to put them away for a 10-15 second rep and their “stay” command outside of the camera view didn’t work too well. lol
Thank you!!!
Thanks for the tip, Dixie! I appreciate it! My mom likes to thrift shop peruse, so I’ll ask her to keep an eye out. Thank you!
I like this lazy game. I can really see it making the dogs use their brains and think independently. I can’t say I’ve ever done a lesson that really feels like that. I like it. My older dog could really use this skill so it’s been awesome practicing with her too.
<<< I dropped the whole tin so he grabbed it, ran around with it, and ate about 10 Vienna sausages for one single rep. >>>
Ha ha that’s hilarious!!! What a great memory! I could see Kashia gobbling up the whole can as fast as possible if I did something like that.
<<< My next dog will be a whippet/malinois mix >>>
What an interesting combo! Can’t say I’ve ever see a Mal mixed with a Whippet! Sounds like a dog that will need definitely need a job or else it’ll be high maintenance! Mals are amazing working dogs but my goodness they don’t always have an off switch. At least police ones, that is.
<<< they just don’t have the same frantic movement that a lot of herding dogs>>>
My Brittanys are a cross between a sloth and a turtle compared to nearly every BC I’ve ever met…I would say they have polar opposite movements from herding dogs! We have an Australian Shepherd too so I’m familiar with the herding breeds to an extent. She’s my husband’s dog. She’s actually pretty chill except around my horses and cattle. Then she’s a piece of work.
The sun came out today so I moved some equipment to the grass to practice outside for a few days! Yay!
The plank game went fairly well. I probably started the elevation a little too much in the beginning as you’ll see her just jump over it several times. Once I showed her it was fine, she was all about it. I didn’t think it was that high off the ground but she was unsure of it. I haven’t made it wobbly yet. This was just an uneven plank attempt. So the side closest to the camera was higher than the other side but both had something underneath them. I’ve never even heard of those conditioning inflatables. I’ll see what I can find at Walmart. I’m a bargain shopper. Anyway, what do you think about her getting off the plank before she was at the end? Should I have allowed her to do that and rewarded it? I wasn’t really sure what to do there.
The lazy game went much much better this go around! Her little brain must have stewed on it over night or something! I only included a few reps on the right in the video because they all looked beautiful to me. On the left, her first couple of reps were perfect! She got every jump with no hesitation. On the third or fourth rep she skipped a couple jumps. Not sure where the confusion came from after doing some reps so well. Maybe I got too far away so the next reps I got closer and I did what you suggested, throwing the treat before she jumps. She figured that out super quickly.
These are both really fun games. I’m excited to keep practicing. They are easy for my brain but most importantly, the dogs seem to like them a lot. This is especially nice for Kashia so I don’t have to deal with boredom issues right off the bat!
<<< This game is a lot harder than it looks!!>>>
That game was much harder than I expected. Not so much for me, obviously, but for the dog to figure it out. Even my older dog was having to use a lot of thinking and deciphering. Interesting how it looks so simple but it’s really not!
When I was practicing, I didn’t even consider the heeling being more valuable. I didn’t think of that until later when I watched my video. It made total sense though! Heeling has been huge in what I call her “lifestyle” training prior to ever training agility. So it makes sense. I’ll practice mostly on the “off side” or right side to help her grasp the concept. She definitely understood that side so much better.
<<< Doing the reps one at a time like that will help her associate the teeter with the amazing reinforcement, so she will drive up it like a wild woman on that very first rep 🙂 >>>
This makes total sense!!! I would have never thought of that but it’s so simple! Thank you! Great suggestion! I obviously can’t have her afraid of the first rep since you only get 1 rep in AKC classes! lol I didn’t practice it today because I didn’t feel like I had any amazing reinforcements on hand. Hopefully tomorrow!
Ha ha ha I should have known most of the dogs had some Border Collie in them!!! It seems like everybody super involved in agility has some sort of BC mixed into their dogs if not a purebred. You definitely can’t deny their amazing talent when it comes to agility. I’m personally not a fan of BCs but the local trainer I learned from and still practice with has 4 of them. I’ve run two of hers. There’s no arguing their speed and ability is pretty fun to handle! A little crazy for me though! I’ll stick to my Brittanys. I’m a runner. I love running but I also love that my Brittanys are slow enough to allow me to make mistakes and still recover from them. Ha ha they are more forgiving because of their lack of speediness in comparison. You have quite the array of pups though! That’s so awesome!! I think it’s great! It shows how versatile you are too! 🙂
Here’s the plank game. I don’t have any fancy plank but I found some random board in the barn that seemed pretty close in shape and size. Kashia didn’t seem to have any issues with it! Unless I’m missing something, she seemed to pick it up well and go through the reps nicely. Let me know what you think!! She picks up the association of board and treats quite quickly and gets excited to get on the board for the treats! She kept repeating the exercise even when I was done practicing and cleaning up. lol I only did this exercise for 3 mins. I chopped up my video just because I didn’t think you’d need or want to see all the reps and I wanted to keep it at 2 mins per the instructions. 🙂 Otherwise, they all looked the same as what’s on the video.
Thanks so much!!
Yes! She needed those days off. It was also her first time staying in hotels so she was extra exhausted from that new environment.
Last night we did contact games and teeter games.
The Lazy Game did not go so well. Kashia’s behavior was confusing to me. I know Kashia is smart. I know she picks up things really fast as I’ve taught her a million tricks and she learns them all so quickly. This game though, not so much. I’m not sure if she just couldn’t figure it out, didn’t like it, or was confused. Afterward, I thought maybe she was thinking more about “I have to heel next to mom” than she was “take the jump next to mom” but I really don’t know. We’ve done a ton of heeling in her short life so that is a natural position for her now. But you’d also think she knows how to take a jump with as much basic agility as we’ve done. You tell me. Her clockwise reps were the first ones we did and she never got all three jumps in a row during all reps. You stressed no verbals and no hands so I tried just looking at her with normal connection and I tried walking close to the jumps. Her counterclockwise reps were nearly spot on every time. I know you’ve mentioned she clearly has a strong side so maybe that’s the case here? I did the exercise only once for under 3 minutes so I don’t think I overstressed it.
After the Lazy Game, we tried the Teeter Game with my much smaller teeter. A little back story. Kashia has been doing a teeter (and all other contacts) here and there since September-ish. She LOVED the teeter when I first introduced it in September. I wasn’t really even training her on it. I was training my other dog and Kashia would just copy it to get treats. She had no issues with it, my small teeter and the competition size teeter. We hadn’t done it for probably a couple of months until about January when I took her to the arena during a week they had all the contacts out. All of a sudden she was terrified of all the contacts. I was baffled but I recall reading something about puppies and young dogs going through phases of fear of things they once were not afraid of. So I choked this up to normal behavior? Anyway, long story short, we’ve been working on contacts a little more consistently since then. I only have a small teeter at home but when the contacts are out at the arena, I practice them. You’ll see the first rep how timid she is. That’s part of that fear still lingering in her little brain. By the end, she was trotting up it before I even asked her in anticipation of getting treats. She does this a lot during our teeter practice. First few reps she’ll be timid and then the rest she is doing them even when I’m not looking because she just wants the treat. That behavior is how she used to be in September. Where the fear comes from, I have no idea. She scales hay bales every day. She climbs up my giant haystack for my cows that’s at least 20 feet high. She’s not afraid of heights. Maybe it’s just the small platform that makes her nervous. Either way, there you go. I enjoyed seeing her fear turn to excitement after just a couple of reps.
By the way, I love that you have less common dog breeds as your agility dogs. That’s so wonderful to see and honestly makes it feel more credible for me who also doesn’t have a common agility breed. Although your little Electra, who is VERY animated btw, seems to be more on the Border Collie side. Super cute and spunky, nonetheless! But your big dogs aren’t the common ones I see in my area and I love that! What breed is Contraband (cool name by the way!)?
Thank you so much!!! I have your amazing support, encouragement, and teaching to thank for our progress the last 5-6 weeks. If you asked me in December if I’d try a class in a trial environment with Kashia this soon, I’d tell you that you were crazy! I can’t believe how far she’s come! By no means am I going to start trialing her every weekend or anything but to stay so connected and to have so much fun for her first one, I was elated!! I’m so proud of my little girl!
Her second run was nearly the same except a puppy moment at a tunnel. It was a little 10 footer as #2 obstacle. She was so excited to be running that she skimmed right past it on the outside and then in through the exit side! Silly girl! But like we chatted, I just kept running and praising and pretended nothing silly happened. She completed the rest of the course flawlessly for a young dog! I was proud of her but most importantly, she had a ball. She had the cutest bouncy prancy gait ever. It was so amazing to see after how unenthusiastic she can be in training at times.
UKI definitely has weird courses. The whole start line obstacle 1 jump away (opposite direction) from the second obstacle and then make a sharp turn into the wall for obstacle two is super weird and new to us. AKC doesn’t do that. It confused my older dog quite a bit. Or more so distracted her quite a bit. lol
Thanks again for all your wisdom! It’s been amazing! You were just what Kashia and I needed to get a good foundation started together. So thank you!!!!
I know this isnt’t part of class but since we talked about it, I couldn’t help but share. Especially being it’s Kashia’s first trial ever. Hopefully you have a little extra time to watch it just this once. 🙂
The course was super flowy so I decided to just run it with her without declaring NFC. My plan was to just give her lots of praise if she lost interest or needed encouragement. I also planned to just run and hope she did the obstacle. Well she did great and only lost her focus the first jump. Easily fixable and off we went! I was so proud of my little girl! First time in that environment and on turf too! Little moments like this remind me that it’s worth it going through her dud moments like earlier in the week. She did significantly better than my adult dog even!
Thanks for all your training, help and encouragement! We’ve really enjoyed our time.
Okay, here is our last video for you until MaxPup 3 next week! We are excited!
I just wanted to practice a few reps with the tunnel to see what you thought. Pardon my redneck tunnel set up. I recently got some tunnel bags but I didn’t have time to set them up and I’d only planned a few reps to see how it worked. I thought it went fairly well. Her motion still isn’t like my older dog or any of your dogs but it was definitely better I think. We only practiced for 4 mins with an hour break between the two sessions. I kept getting my verbal and my physical cues mixed up. I blame it on tiredness. I’d tell her close but signal for backside. She figured it out most of the time but I rewarded her either way cause it was a super obvious handler error! lol
Thanks again for all your help! It’s been such a fun class! No doubt next class will be just as great! I also look forward to your summer camp so I can enroll my older dog in some training fun as well!
Ha ha I love this. Thank you for reassuring me she had some good moments! All night long I jokingly nicknamed her dud because she just felt like a dud when we were practicing!!! I did notice that the long stretch between wings got her more amped. I tried to run a little faster to get her excited without running too fast to be at the wing before I could even cue the “around”. The speed of my gait is just a balance because I don’t want to be on top of each obstacle before she’s anywhere close, stopping all my motion, but I also want to get some movement from her going forward and fast.
I had thought about a tunnel for this one since you mentioned that last time too. But I decided not to because I wanted to try it out just like you had it to see how it would go….obviously I should have gone with the tunnel! She is by no means a tunnel sucker and occasionally will skip a tunnel entry too but I think overall, tunnels still get her some speed so I’ll definitely be incorporating that next time!
So with the threadles, I tell her close to bring her in and then I run towards the wing and meet up with her on the other side/landing spot to teach her that close means come in and jump all in one verbal?
<<<6 dogs training/competing in 2 different sports? It is insanity LOL!!! The hardest part is the conditioning. I admit to keeping spreadsheets to help remember their training needs. And I also admit to calling them the wrong names on course sometimes LOL!>>>>
Oh my gosh!!!! 6 dogs!?!?! That is crazy!! I don’t know how you do that. You’d have to have spreadsheets to remember all that!! I have 4 dogs but only compete with 2 and I thought that was a lot! lol What other sport do you do?
Kashia was a D.U.D. – dud – last night!!! Ugh! This little girl just loves to test my patience! She’s consistently the best little running buddy. She’s the best snuggler on the entire planet. But when it comes to agility, she has a mind of her own. Sometimes she loves to work and other days she apparently doesn’t.
She gets excited when I untie her after practicing with my other dog. But as soon as we go into the exercise she just loses interest. Either way, here are a few attempts at the combos. I kept the sessions 2 mins and I did other things in between. The only other thing I know to do is just stop practicing when she has no motivation. This is our first time practicing this so it should be “newish” but she was clearly unamused.
I’m not sure what I did wrong on the last rep to have her not take the backside? Not enough extreme connection?
<<<<It is truly a high failure sport!!! A “good” Q rate is 30% in AKC. And in UKI, a good Q rate is more like 10% LOL!>>>
WOW!!! That’s incredibly low!! Maybe I don’t want to join UKI if it’s that low!!! Ha ha just kidding. I love a challenge as long as it doesn’t feel like an impossible one. UKI isn’t popular in my area so I’m just getting a feel for it to see if it’s worth traveling for a few trials. I’m not looking to be anything amazing. I just enjoy the sport, enjoy some trials each year, and enjoy the bond with my dogs. I’ll leave the crazy titling and high-ranking stuff to the professionals like you and so many others. ha ha ha
<<< if she misses an obstacle, keep running, no fixing>>>
Yes ma’am! I do this in practice when I try a course with her at the practice arena. I’ll usually try it once all the way through and if she misses it, we just keep going. 🙂 After that, we do sequences but I think Kashia enjoys stretching her legs for 10-15 obstacles every once in a while since we never do that at home.
<<<Get another dog! LOL! Just kidding >>>
Ha ha two dogs is challenging enough since I’ve only ever had one in training at a time until I got Kashia. I don’t know how you can possibly keep all the dogs and their little quirks separate!
<<<< I have always found that setting goals for my performance with very specific things>>>>
You are right. This is great advice. Thank you! I sometimes (a lot of times) forget about the little things and just look at the big picture. If the big picture isn’t great, I’m usually not pleased with myself (initially). It isn’t until way later in the night or the next day when I’m re-watching my video(s) a million times that I start to see the little victories inside of the run. It’s so funny because I think I’m really great at helping other people see the little victories and celebrating the smallest of wins when they are discouraged about their performance. But I’m absolutely atrocious at doing it for myself. Pretty typical behavior, if I had to guess. lol
Thanks for the great reminder!
<<<<Agility is really hard and so giving yourself feedback is a great way to make improvements from run to run and bounce back when things go wrong (because things go wrong for all of us in agility ALL THE TIME LOL!!!)>>>>
You know, it’s so interesting you say this because it could not be more true. It wasn’t until last August that I’d ever gone or participated in an agility trial. I had NO CLUE how many NQs people got. I was flabbergasted at how few people, especially in excellent/master courses, actually get Qs. It truly shocked me. It was super humbling though and helped with some of the pressure I put on myself. I come from the horse world of showing which is far different than dogs…while also having some parallels but in weird ways.
No doubt I’ll experience this when I start open classes this year. Weaves will forever be my nemesis. I’m sure there will be plenty of runs that my older girl messes up her weaves. Sometimes she’s fantastic and starting to get some good speed and other times she forgets there is 12! LOL
<<<<if you enter NFC you can make up your own course. You can decide that when you see the course – if it looks fast and flowy, try it as designed. If it looks Stooooopid? Or too hard for her? Make up your own course 🙂>>>
Oh!! Great to know!! I did not know I could do my own course if I enter as training. Great news! I have my older dog in Speedstakes too and Saturday runs tall to small. So I’ll get the chance to run it with her before Kashia to get a feel for it. That should really help! But either way, we will just go in there and run, run, run, and have fun. The faster I run the more Kashia will stay engaged, hopefully!
I’ve never done Time 2 Beat. I’ll have to look into that. Besides the send in FAST, I love/loved using that class to expose my dog to the environment and let her be silly if need be because I really didn’t care about Qs in that class. We just used it to train without actually declaring FEO. So far it’s worked out really well and there’s no pressure for off course! It’s just go out there and pretend it’s the practice arena!
<<<Quality to quantity! That is my mantra>>>
Yes! I know this! I’m glad you reminded me of that!!!! I preach the same, especially with horseback riding! Sometimes I’m glad dog training sessions only take me a few minutes each night between each dog and other times I just want to keep practicing and wish their little brains could handle more! lol
Was it okay I added the bar on the last few reps? I thought that might help change it up a bit or challenge her a bit. For my other dog, she can lose energy if I keep it “too easy” for her. I’m all about keeping bars down or low but the older dog needs a jump bar at times to get her driving speed.
Thanks for all the help! We are excited for the next class!
<<<<The beginning courses *should* be relatively straightforward. But since there are so many new elements for you and Kashia, it is better to run FEO/NFC so you can focus on all of the other elements and not the Q. Make it fun for you both!>>>>
Ha ha I meant more for my other dog. I try to always make fun my priority no matter what….but I do put some pressure on myself to perform well for my dog. My other pup has enough experience that she should be able to handle it all well, hard or not. She knows her job and doesn’t stress out like I do…But given all the new elements we are going to experience, I’m nervous. I’m pretty hard on myself when I know my capabilities. I don’t really give myself leniency for mistakes. Now, please don’t think I put this same pressure on my dogs, because I don’t. Dogs are dogs. Unless they go off on a sniffing adventure, I’m always pleased with their efforts.
As for Kashia, I’m not worried about any of that. I want it to be fun for her, no pressure at all. No doubt I’ll still be extremely embarrassed if she does something wild or crazy…but I’m going to try to just let it be and keep it fun for her. She **usually** has stellar recall. But I do worry about the bird dog instincts in her and that little sniffer catching something and totally going off on her own free sniffing adventure! That’s actually my biggest “fear” with both of them. Which is silly because my other dog has rarely done that…I just know bird dogs too well.
<<<I just do jumps and tunnels at first – no stays, no contacts, no weaves because those are highly likely to go wrong and I don’t want the dog to be wrong in the early trial experiences.>>>
I totally agree. This is actually the only reason I entered her in speedstakes. I just want her to have an experience in a trial environment. Our first AKC show is in April. I may enter her in FAST for the same experience. Just to have fun and get experience working in a trial environment. We aren’t ready for weaves or contacts with her. I always jump my dogs preferred/select anyway so Kashia will be at 12″. 🙂
<<<<In UKI, you are allowed to throw rewards in NFC runs so you can try a ball or toy she might like?>>>
Hmmmm, I’m not sure a ball will entice her in that environment either. The lotus ball has been great but only with food. Even if I don’t have a toy, I can do FEO and just give her lots of praise and pats, right?
<<<Might be too many reps of the same thing, so if you get two or three correct reps, change it up to do something different.>>>
This is so hard. I kept it to 3-4 backside reps with a straight through running rep in the middle and the end. I really don’t feel like that should be too much but I know I’m also comparing her to a mature dog. It’s just hard quitting after 2 reps because it feels like hardly any training! Like it feels like it would take a century just to master something at that rate. lol
<<<I pulled out my foundation plank yesterday.>>>
Great! I will task my husband with making me something. 🙂 I’m sure we have the supplies around the barn somewhere. Thank you for keeping it bargain prices for people like me. 🙂
Here is our second try at extreme connection. We had a few mess ups. I’m not really sure what I did to cause them. When I was practicing, I felt like I was pointing directly at the wing I wanted Kashia to go behind but in the video it does not look like that at all…I’ll try to be even more exaggerated when I practice next time.
I will video us trying the combos on Tuesday and then I think we will be officially done with all the games!
