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Ugh! I wrote a whole message then it deleted itself!
Let’s try this again!
<<<< A European designer might mean that the courses are a little extra crazy hard LOL!! But they will be FUN!>>>>
Oh don’t say this! I’m already super nervous for this being it’s my first UKI trial, first indoor trial, first trial in this new facility/environment, and first trial on artificial turf. I have a lot going against me, I hope the courses aren’t also hard!
I agree with FEO but I have a few questions about it.
1. When do you start trialing your dogs? Do you have a minimum age you wait until or does it depend on their skill level?
2. I’m nervous about the lotus ball because Kashia only likes it if there is food in it. I’m afraid the first time she goes to get it and there’s no food, she’ll just be disappointed and disengage with me.
Tonight I practiced the backsides again. I’ll attach the video tomorrow morning for whenever you check back on. I think they went fairly well. She sure loses interest quickly. The beginning reps she had bouncy excited sends and by the last couple she was quite slow. I tried to break up the session with weaves and the teeter but it didn’t help much I guess. I also only practiced for 6 mins broken into 2 segments. She’s just a hard dog to keep engaged. My other dog is not like that.
<<< Homemade or borrowed stuff is the way to go especially for foundation stuff because you won’t need it for that long. And the foundation stuff you can purchase is soooooo expensive. There is always a way to do a homemade version of it.>>>>
Thank you for saying this. I feel like there is so much pressure to use the fancy name brand stuff or the competition style stuff. It really starts to make me feel like the sport is unaffordable for me. I appreciate that you can recognize homemade stuff can fulfill the same purpose and it’s not all about the fancy brands and such. I’m sure all that stuff is nice but for the minimal uses I’ll get out of it, it’s just not practical for me. Thank you for being open to homemade or borrowed.
Also, quick question for Max Pup 3.
Equipment needed (working participants only):
3 jumps, 3 jumps bars or bumps (ideally wing jumps but can be wingless jumps), 1 tunnel (10 feet or longer), lots of tunnel bags, contact training mat, access to a teeter or wobble board, travel plank, occasional access to a long plankCan you help me out with what a contact training mat is? Can I just use like a yoga mat cut in half or something similar?
I have a teeter but it’s not competition size. Will that work? I do go to an arena to practice courses but I’m not supposed to move their stuff so I only may sometimes have access to a full teeter.
What size travel plank? Is this like a Cato Plank? Can I make one if I don’t want to spend $100 on one? I’m quickly learning how expensive agility can be so I try to bargain shop if I can.
What size is the long plank? I’m thinking the plank of my teeter would work for this.
<<<<Who is the designing judge for the UKI trial?>>>>
For the first UKI trial we are going to the Officiating Judge is Torka Poet and the Course Designer is Marko Mäkelä (Finland). I entered Kashia in Speedstakes just for the experience. I haven’t decided if I’ll do FEO or just go in there and give it a stab. She’s completed some At Home Speedstakes courses (unofficially since I didn’t enter her) and she did them beautifully and cleanly! Either way, it’s just great exposure for her. She’s gone to many trials with my older dog as morale support but this will be the first one she gets to compete in. 🙂
<<<<We want to keep it basic where we can so we don’t over-complicate it for the dog (or for us humans haha!)>>>>
It’s funny to me you say this right above the paragraph where you explain several different wrap commands, all by using different noises essentially…..that seems extremely complicated to my novice brain! I know another handler that does the same thing and it blows my mind. I can’t imagine ever getting to that point but maybe someday! For now, we are keeping it basic. 🙂
<<<<The next step to backside development is to add a bar back but still only have one wing. It will basically be the wing you had here, and a bar on it but the other side of the bar is on the ground (no wing). That way it only kinda sorta looks like a jump, so she won’t have the natural draw to the front side that she would have on a real jump – that will make it easier for you to show her the backside because she won’t be automatically locked onto the front side 🙂>>>
So the bar would be on the inside of the last wing, right, between me and the wing? I know that’s a dumb question because if it was on the outside, that wouldn’t be a backside jump. But I like to clarify things to make sure my mind is imagining them correctly because sometimes I get them screwed up….for as book-smart as I am, you’d be surprised at how much I mess up left and right. Random dyslexia kicks in sometimes. LOL
Thank you!
<<<<You totally can! It is a matter of what you prioritize, based on where you think you will focus your competition in the future. If you are going to do AKC regular classes like Standard, JWW, and Premier, then the super independent backsides are not a high priority. If you are planning on AKC ISC class or UKI, then.>>>>
Ha ha well this isn’t totally useful for me! I started in AKC and it’s what is most common around me but I’m dipping my toes in UKI at the moment too. We have our first UKI trial (besides the at home ones I have done with my older dog) in February. I probably will focus more on AKC but strong skills for both would be a good goal to have!
<<<<<– backside slice is specifically meaning ‘go to the other side of the jump away from me and jump the bar’
– The exit of the backside slice involves coming towards the handler (for the most part) based on the handling of the exit line
– Backside slice may not involve a lead change (it might, or not, depends on the course design)
– get out is specifically a front side cue (never a backside cue)
– Get out always involved a lead change away from the handler to go find the front side of a jump that is not on the line
– And the exit of the get out cue involves staying on the line parallel to the handler and not necessarily coming right back to the handler (but also depends on the Course design
It might add more differences after I have more coffee 🤣😁>>>>>>>Awesome explanation. THANK YOU. That is 100% more clear in my brain the way you broke that down. Some of these things are so similar that I struggle to know how to differentiate them to the dog. Like for a while I just assumed I could use “around” for a backside too because the dog was “going around” something with the jump back to me being implied since it was in front of them. I understand the two aren’t the same. Now I try to just use “around” when I’m sending them around something. But in my brain, I didn’t know how to differentiate to the dog. I understand better now with the way you’ve broken it down and the way you break down the sequences. I’ll probably still have dumb questions but it’s helpful. Keep in mind agility is its own form of a language. I’m still learning that language! I haven’t grasped everything even though I’m familiar with a lot. Thank you for speaking in basic terms. 🙂
Although that brought up another point. A wrap. Do you use that term and if so, in what context?
Thank you for the recommendation! I definitely want feedback. You can’t know how badly I was seeking help with getting Kashia started. No one was doing anything in my area and I’m so new to the agility world that I didn’t know who else to reach out to. Your lessons have been a game changer. The ladies I practice with are absolutely amazed at how much connection and growth they can see in Kashia in just these short weeks we’ve been doing it. So thank you kindly. 🙂
This video is our first attempt at extreme connection part 2. I noticed many reps I didn’t look at Kashia until I was ready to give her the “back” command. That was incorrect, right? I should have connected with her immediately after sending her around the wing? I think my subconscious was still on the disconnection lesson for the initial send around the wing and run away. I didn’t realize my connection wasn’t great in the moment but watching the video it looks awful in the first several steps. I didn’t include my straight runs but we did those every 2 reps. She lost energy on the last rep which is also where I ended the lesson. Too much repetition in one training session for her! lol
Oh okay, phew! I was worried I was going to miss the privilege of getting feedback on the last couple games. Thanks for clarifying for me!
Also what words are you using when you want the dog to come in for the threadle? I can’t quite make out what you are saying! Thank you!
Since this is my first online class, can I please have some clarification when class ends? Is this Wednesday the last day of your help? I saw there are two “catch up” weeks. I just want to make sure I understand when those are. I’m a little panicky that I won’t be able to get the last two lessons in game 4 done by Wednesday!! I’ve been trying to stay diligent and on top of each week but I’m a day or two behind this week because of being out of town! Thank you!!
Okay, so I watched the competition track for deliberate connection. That makes more sense. The Max Pup track is just the basic basic basic foundation of the backside in motion. I also can’t imagine getting that skilled. lol Right now my older dog can do backsides but definitely not as I continue to run forward to a different line like you did. Just gotta do a lot of practice!
I think I know the answer to this question but I’m going to ask anyway just to talk it out. So the “get out” command wouldn’t work here because it doesn’t tell the dog to jump after going around the wing, right? I know the “get out” was to get the dog to kind of move away laterally and take whatever obstacle is out there. It just seems like a very similar movement. Obviously, when we said get out we weren’t having them go around a wing and then jump it. So I can differentiate between the two. I was just curious because they also seem similar.
In these videos, I was using boiled turkey! I got a whole bunch of turkey and chicken to cook and freeze. I was rotating between those chunks of meat, string cheese, and deli turkey meat. When should I use lower value like freeze dried liver and when should I use higher value like cheese or meat?
The hard part for me is, my older dog I started agility with just 1 year ago as a new 5 year old. I did other things with her as a young dog but those things are so far removed that I don’t remember the teenage brain phase. I also didn’t experience the same learning curves with her that I have with Kashia since she was already mature, had already done some other disciplines, and caught on pretty quickly. Don’t get me wrong, she was by no means perfect and we had our struggles. It was just different struggles because she was mature during her initial agility foundation.
I see two more of your classes posted! Knowing what you’ve seen for Kashia’s skill level, what class would you say is best suited for her?
Thanks for all the help!
Your feedback was great!
So this time on deliberate disconnection 1, I threw the toy by the first wing like you said. I rewatched your videos but I’m still kind of confused what we are trying to get out of this exercise? It just seems simple? Or like I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to accomplish long term? I mean I know what a backside is. But I’m struggling to correlate it exactly. Should I be telling Kashia “backside” so she gets used to the command?
Deliberate disconnection 2 went fabulous today! I originally wasn’t going to practice it today to give Kashia a few days to stew but then I said, “eh, why not! I’ll give it a short go to feel her out.” It’s just like you said! Something in her little puppy brain clicked and she did it great! I broke it down like you said and we went really slow. She caught on right away and did awesome. I kept the reps light so I wouldn’t screw anything up and she did good every time! I had a few silly mistakes in the sends around the cones but I just got a little complacent in my handling there. I knew how to fix that right away.
Anyway, all the reps are sequential even though I edited the video to keep the fluff out. I thought Kashia did really well!
I’m also attaching a video of the extreme connection take 2 after some of the advice you gave about the speed circle. I think I only did a total of 4 reps but Kashia did good on all of them! It was hard to keep my verbal praise down but I did my best and she seemed to read it pretty well!
It’s so funny how she has such drastic days in her training attitude. Obviously we all do and they are no different than humans with good days and bad days. It’s just a little harder with a puppy who has a little bit less consistency than the older dogs. lol And yes, you are correct, she’s 18 months on Tuesday!
Thanks for all your help! I’m really going to miss this class! It’s been so fun having lessons and getting feedback!
Help! I need help! I’m not sure what went wrong or if I just totally bombed the exercise all together!!
Game 1 felt too simple. Like I was doing something wrong because it was too simple. I didn’t do it much because she seemed to get it unless we did it wrong??
Game 2 started out good but then her second rep of her left side just went to crap. I have zero clue what I did to cause this but she went to the outside of the wings to go around them before running straight to get her toy. Even though I edited out the lollygagging in these videos, they are all still sequential. I started with the poles set because I figured it would be it more fun being she’s been jumping. Once we started getting failure reps, I moved it to just poles with no more success than before. The right side she did great. No issues. But the left was atrocious. Please help me! My other dog did it right every rep so I can’t figure out what I did wrong with Kashia. I ended up going slower and pointing at the jumps to get her to go through them. Which that’s obviously not disconnection but I wanted some success and to be clear that she can run between the two wings.
Thank you for your help!
Hello! Thank you for the feedback!
<<<<<You were starting to add in a lot of praise and good girl moments, but I think that confused her: she was not sure if she should come to you or keep going. Yo can see it at :58 for example.>>>>>
Interesting observation! I definitely didn’t think about it like that. I was just thinking lots of praise and talking would excite her more and reassure her she is doing good and it’s fun! I guess not if she’s acting more confused than excited! lol I will tone it down! Stick to the facts!
<<<<<This is good to know – Kashia likes info and facts, not praise LOL! So make sure you are using verbal directionals and obstacle names rather than praise.>>>>>
So for the speed circle, when you are simply running around the wings, do you use any verbal command? This got me confused because both dogs looked at me like, ‘what do you want?’, when I started running the circle. It’s like they didn’t know if they were supposed to go on the outside of the wing or follow me on the inside of the wing. Is there a verbal for that? Or how do I tell the dog the outside of the wing being we’ve never done a drill like this and it’s clearly not a jump. Is it just my hand and body positioning that should tell them that?
Kashia had great energy today when we went to the agility arena to practice contacts. So I think it was a combo of boredom and being wiped out! She sure keeps me on my toes having to change the lesson every day!
<<<<I think she was conflicted: get out to the wing, or stay with the reward near you 🙂 So to help her want to leave you for the wing, you can toss the reward to the other side pf the wing rather than feed from your hand.>>>>
Duh. I can’t believe I even had to ask this question! Your video clearly shows you throwing the reward to the wing. I’m not sure how I missed that or why I brain farted on that! Such a simple concept that you’ve done in all your videos! HA! Sorry about that silliness. I’m still getting used to throwing a toy so bear with me as it still feels very handicapped at times! Thanks for the gentle reminder when it was clearly a no-brainer!
Thanks for all the help! It’s been so great! I’m loving the learning!
Today we dabbled with combinations. It felt like a discombobulated mess! We started with extreme connection and she did fabulous. I then did a little bit of turn aways and those too were great. So the second and third session of our training I tried combos of all sorts.
I started confusing myself so that was the initial problem. By the end Kashia was either tired, bored, cold, confused, or just uninterested. I felt like I lost a lot of enthusiasm and engagement by the end. Not making excuses but she was shivering cold earlier while I was doing chores before we practiced. Then once we got inside for the night, she didn’t want any dinner. None of this is necessarily unusual. I just mention it because it’s characteristic of her being tired and not food motivated. She was food motivated at first but she lost interest pretty quickly. No reason she should have been tired today as my husband and I worked all day…either way, it was a bit of an off day for her compared to the last several training sessions. Hopefully she’s better at the end of the week!
Having all that said, I still think she did some really good things. Some of the reps we got great “get outs” on the left. Some she still came in. She’s starting to understand the turn aways really well in this particular exercise. Putting it all together didn’t go quite as well as I would have hoped but I still think it was positive. I think it was just her lack of energy levels at the end that really threw a monkey wrench at me since her energy levels have been great otherwise. Hopefully it was mostly tiredness and maybe an overtrained brain in that moment. I took a lot of breaks and did a lot of different exercises to break it up but maybe it was still boring or over stimulating for her.
Hello!
I am pleasantly surprised that our first time trying extreme connection seemed to go pretty well! I had to implement some of your baby dog techniques which worked great. By that, I mean I kept the training sessions short. So I did about 2-3 minutes maximum with Kashia before switching to my other dog. It really helped motivate Kashia this time. She got super jealous and pouted the entire time I was working with my other dog. As soon as I let her off the tie, she was bouncing up and down and anxious to go! I was so pleased with that enthusiasm.
I rotated between dogs for 3 sessions each. Here’s my take on the sessions. I clumped all the sessions together in the video but I’m sure you’ll be able to recognize the evolution of the three as the video plays.
On the first session, I helped Kashia figure out what I wanted by going a little closer to the wing by crossing the imaginary straight line from the first wing. This seemed to really help her grasp the concept.
The second session she did super great to the right but we had some struggles to the left. I’m not really sure what I was doing wrong. I did *sorry* ignore your advice and tried for a third rep after two failure reps. She got it well enough though so I gave her lots of praise and immediately switched dogs. Switching in what seemed like the middle of this session is really what lit a fire under Kashia’s butt! She was just dancing around (for her) by the time I untied her for the third session. Besides not having great forward momentum, I’m not sure what I did wrong on the left side. I’ve watched my videos several times and I’m a bit perplexed. At any rate, tying Kashia up after that really motivated her to work *better* the third session!
On the third session, I thought she did all the “get outs” quite wonderfully for our first attempt at the lesson! I was so proud of her!
I was a little unsure how she would react to the “get out” command since I kind of use that already. When I walk my dogs at 4am on our private road unleashed, I’ll yell ‘get out’ or ‘stay out’ if they are trying to wander on my neighbor’s acreage. So she was familiar with the words and she knew they meant to move away from wherever she was but it didn’t necessarily mean move away from me. She seemed to catch on quite quickly though.
I did straight-through runs about every 2-3 reps. I did not include those in the video because I figured you didn’t need to waste time watching me run forward and Kashia follow. You have too many videos for that! LOL I also practiced some turn aways after this and she did great. I’m amazed at how strong she’s reading those cues already!
Let me know what you think! I’m anxious for your feedback whenever you get back online from your travels! Hopefully the east coast travels went smoothly! Thanks for all the help!
I’ve heard people use all those verbal cues before. Whether in the same or similar instances. I’m definitely not at that point yet with either dog, I don’t think, but maybe eventually! For now, I wont introduce a verbal. I’ll just follow the Max Pup examples.
I practiced a few short lessons since my last video. Kashia seemed to understand it a lot better this time! I also emphasized it a ton with my hands though. Either way, I was pleased with her performance so I decided this was a good one to share. Hopefully we are ready to move on to the next lesson! Of course, we will continue to practice this sporadically as to not bore Kashia but continue forward progress.
Thanks for all the help!
I knew turn aways were going to be challenging for us…but I didn’t realize just how challenging they’d be. I watched your video several times. You made them look relatively easy in positioning. But it didn’t feel that way for me. Not sure why. The mechanics aren’t overly complicated but getting that hand motion with my eyes felt hard.
I decided to do it in my house since you said speed and distance didn’t matter initially. I wanted to stay warmer. 🙂 Even going at snail speed, we struggled. Or more like I struggled.
My dogs and I have practiced a lot of front crosses in the same pattern as this sequence so it was very hard for them to go straight to perform a turn away after the first front cross. Kashia and my other dog kept wanting to do another front cross.
We had a million bloopers. I cut a bunch out that were repetitive as to not waste your time. I don’t know why this was challenging except that I’ve never really done it before. It was hard to shift my eyes from the dog to my hands. Kashia spun away from me but didn’t always make it completely around the wing. I rewarded her anyway since she still did the spin, like you said.
Was I doing something to have her pull away from me to the other side of the wing to set up for a second front cross instead of a turn away? Was it muscle memory for Kashia since we’ve done a similar exercise a lot or did I not pull her into me enough?
What can I do better? This felt very sloppy and messy.
Do you ever associate a verbal cue with a turn away or is it all just in the hands? I watched your competition track video again and I’m just amazed at how that hand motion automatically tells the dog to turn away from you. That feels like an impossible skill for us at this stage! Lol
Thanks for all the help!
P.S. I just realized my video has a lot more reps on one side than the other. I promise we didn’t practice it that one sided. I just edited out the duplicate mistakes and forgot to make it a little more balanced on each side practice. I blame my long day tiredness. 🙂
