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Yesterday’s serpentines were a bit more challenging for both of us! I was focusing on keeping my dog arm back to keep my chest open, which I still didn’t do great but I’m always thinking about it and trying to magnet to her nose! Kashia was tested a bit with the sends but I think she’s made some improvement with those too! I kept the bloopers in so you can see where I errored. I’m pretty certain I know what I did wrong on the reps where she missed the jump….pretty certain my body language didn’t even cue her to jump! I forgot to pull her into me (landing spot) before taking off forward from what I could see.
I’m anxious for your feedback on this one. It took more mental focus from both of us than the last lesson did but I think we did alright for our first attempt! I wasn’t able to get ahead of her quite as much as you seemed to with your demo dog. I also didn’t get that super tight turn around the jump but I realized timing is key in this one. My other dog did better with the tight turns. So maybe it’s just Kashia still learning and having that excitement to follow me with speed around the corner?
Thanks for all your help!
Thanks for the feedback! I wasn’t sure the distance for this lesson. I didn’t see where you specified feet between jumps like you did on the last ones. What is a good distance to move the jumps to?
Should I send videos of this one again or move on to the last lesson for week 2?
I’ll still keep practicing it all. I just don’t want to bore you with duplicate-like videos if our sessions are going well. 🙂 Maybe increasing the distance will create more bloopers and we will need additional help though. 🙂 I’ll try that out and see.
<<<<<<One thought here – You can spread things out so there is more distance and more running. As the distances get bigger and even more commitment is required, you can throw her reward to the landing side of the wrap jump as you shift your connection and move away from the send. That will help develop even more speed and commitment.>>>>>
On this, I want to make sure I understand right. I throw her reward to the landing side of the jump but then what do I do? Do I keep running to the next jump or cone? I guess I’m just a little unclear on what you mean by “so you shift your connection and move away from the send”.
<<<<<<When the weather warms up, remind me to send you a like to the game where you improve keeping your arm back to the dog by running with a drink in your hand. It is effective and entertaining, but you might end up spilling water and it is way too cold for that right now LOL!>>>>>
Ooooooo yes, I’d love this! It’s definitely a bit too chilly in Northern Idaho for this right now though! I’ll be reminding you as the temps warm up…if they ever do! Reminds me of when I was a kid and learning to ride a horse. Someone lunges you on the horse with two cups in your hands, arms out like a bird, and cups full of water. The goal is to not spill any water. It’s a balance game. Ha ha Anyway, sounds fun! I look forward to learning it later this year!
Thank you! I’m just over the moon happy that Kashia is back to being excited. It was a fun lesson to practice yesterday!
Thank you for the feedback! I think Kashia and I are starting to connect a little bit better on the sends so I moved on to the next drill. Obviously, I’ll continue to practice all these drills as we haven’t perfected any of them. 🙂
Thank you for the link to commitment games! I’m definitely going to try the jump one. I have areas I can do it where the treat won’t fall in sand. I’m sure that’ll help her a lot since she likes treats, most days.
I think Kashia did really good on the shifting connection drill. Or at the very least, she had fantastic focus, engagement, and enthusiasm! I was thrilled! It’s so much more fun for me when my dog seems to be having fun too!
After watching my videos, I think I’m still closing my shoulders off to her too soon. I tried to think about it during the drill but once I watched it later, I think it still needs improvement. I turned my back to her a lot. Having that said, she read it all great. We really didn’t have any bloopers. I think one rep she sniffed and nose booped the cone when I asked her to go around it but that was it. I think I tried every sequence you showed but the very last one.
I’m very curious what you think. It felt really good and Kashia seemed to respond really well. I just need to get better at keeping my shoulders open to her. For some reason it’s hard for me to keep the arm closest to the dog back! I just need to remember the magnet to the nose mantra.
We had to use a cone because I don’t have an extra wing. I ordered one yesterday though so I will have an extra if it’s needed in the next lessons.
Thanks for your time and help!
Thanks for the feedback!
After watching several of my practice videos over again and really thinking about it while I’m practicing, it is very hard for me to not turn my back to the dog, apparently! I’m trying really hard to think about the magnet between my arm and the dog’s nose. That’s what I found myself telling myself over and over again this last training session. I recognized myself turning away from the dog too soon each time Kashia or my other dog would turn into me instead of going over the jump. It is definitely something I’m working on now!
I also notice that I point with my hand and arm to each obstacle I want the dog to take. I was trained that way with my first dog so it is habit now. However, I notice you and some others don’t do that. Or at least not to the same degree I do. I tried to think about it with Kashia as I was doing some reps. I tried to keep it low and not use it as much. But if I didn’t point to the jump, she wouldn’t take it. What am I cueing or not cueing to cause this? For you, it seemed like you were able to just run by the jump and the dog would automatically take it and you only put your arm out for the send. I didn’t have that same type of success. I try to tell myself to keep my arm down and only use it when I need it, which works better with my other dog than it does Kashia.
Anyway, here is another try at the sends. I think the last two reps I did a little incorrectly. I couldn’t remember exactly how I was supposed to be positioned and usually I’d just pull my phone out to watch your video again super quick. But it was about 0 degrees out so I was not about to do that. It was bad enough having my gloves off! LOL
My lotus ball toy arrived. I did two different sessions of throwing it 2-3 times for Kashia before and after going outside to train. It had chicken in it. She was super excited and went after it. After a couple throws in training, she wasn’t super thrilled. I chalk part of that up to the cold and part of that up to her still learning it. I’m going to keep trying in the house and outside and during training to see if I can’t build her drive for it more.
This video includes more than 4 reps. I was trying to show as much of the sends lesson as I could in the short time we practiced. It isn’t perfect but it’s progress, I think. She’s still slow and lacking animation but I’m not really concerned about that at the moment. I know it was largely due to the cold. I also recognize I was moving at snail speed. I was just trying to match Kashia. I don’t trust her so I’m afraid if I run faster, she’ll just follow me and completely bypass the obstacles. I think she still needs me to be close in order for her to take them. Or it’s all my incorrect body positioning? Either way, I know I need to move out and run. I do that with my other dog!
On two of the reps where we started incorporating obstacle 3, Kashia jumped on the wrong side of it twice. I was pretty certain I did something to cue that so I just rewarded it like normal. I’m just not exactly sure what I did except maybe pulling away before she was committed so she took it from the inside instead of the outside.
Thanks for all the help!
I only tried your first picture sequence of the sends game. I figured we’d have some issues and we did. I have a lot of frustrations with this training session but I’m going to wait to hear your feedback before I express much.
I will say I think I know several things I could/should have done to fix my failures. I was so overwhelmed by the notion of rewarding failures that I just stopped at our 1 minute mark and didn’t bother to get a success before ending. It was really frustrating for me. I did a lot of things wrong. I got so one track minded on the drill that I didn’t think about what I needed to do to make Kashia successful. I messed up. She was trying. I didn’t know that at the time. I was just getting upset I couldn’t get any results. Hopefully, I didn’t kill the little bit of drive she gained from the new reward.
I should have moved the wing closer and/or I should have put a target bowl out. Neither of which I thought of during my 1 minute training session. Both of which I thought of hours later as I stewed on what went wrong and how I could fix it for next time. I practiced for 1 min or less on both sides and that was it. I used grilled chicken as her reward.
I’m such a perfectionist that if it doesn’t go the way I hope or want, I just shut down and don’t think about alternatives to still create a good experience. I need to get better at that.
Oh perfect! I’m glad you take weight into consideration as well. I am very obsessive about my dogs’ weight and exercise. I take their body image very personally as I’m the one in control of it and I’m the one to blame if they are fat! It is always on my mind. On any given day, I cannot relax if my dogs haven’t been given a workout. It just drives me crazy to think they haven’t burned calories or met their “step goals”!
Anyway, I’ll try your treat ideas tonight! I would think the grilled chicken would be a hit.
I don’t disagree. I don’t think many dogs would work strictly for praise either. Some of my coworkers are K-9 handlers. So I’ve gotten a close view of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to training police dogs. No way they would work for just praise. 🙂
I think one of the top goals in life for my oldest dog is to please me. All she wants to do is please me. She also is the biggest oinker on the planet and will work for anything if it’s edible. She would have made a great agility dog. Unfortunately, Kashia and my other agility dog do not have that personality. They love mama but they are not focused on pleasing me. They are extremely independent. Maybe you can’t tell in the videos of Kashia but when she’s doing anything else, she’s happy to do it alone. She also isn’t always a piglet for food. She sometimes has very little interest in food depending on the day and what she is doing (training aside). However, I have hope your chicken or salmon or cheese tricks will work!
<<Keep in mind: you might not be able to phase out treats as the number 1 reward. After all, I am sure most employers would love to phase out paychecks as the number 1 reward for humans but most humans would not tolerate that 😁🤣.>>
This made me laugh out loud!!!!!!! Ha ha so true!!! I get it. I may always have to reward my girls with treats. I just want to get to a phase where the rewards are further apart from one another. Rewarding bigger moments rather than the super small ones. I know Kashia is still learning though so I’m accepting of it.
I will google those suggestions. Thank you for sharing! I love to learn so I’m very interested in reading up on those two ideas.
I’m game to try anything out! I know Kashia can’t be the only dog like this so I’m sure your experience can help us turn things around!
Just to clarify, we don’t use the e-collar in training anymore. This was a basic obedience thing we did through Off Leash K9 Training when she was 6-12 months. She only wears the collar for off leash walks and hikes now.
An Egg McMuffin!? Who would have thought!? I’ll try the cheeses or Egg McMuffin or chicken. I don’t want to ruin the turkey frank connection to trials. It makes my other dog go crazy and her drive is amazing which is quite a turn around from her first couple of trials. The turkey franks are what make trials worth it for her. But I’m definitely open to all the other suggestions.
Side note, do you worry about your dog getting fat or overfed on not healthy things? I know I probably sound crazy when I ask that. I’m not a hippy or all-natural everything type of person. I just worry about high-caloric treats or lots of preservatives. My dogs are naturally quite active but that doesn’t mean they aren’t subject to getting chunky too. I was taught my praise should be the number 1 reward, treats or toys second. That doesn’t work for agility so I’ve had to adapt. Even though none of my dogs have much of a toy drive nor have I tried to create one, I’m really not a big training treat person because of these reasons. I get so worried about them getting fat and only working for food. Hopefully, I can get Kashia locked into the lotus ball so I can phase out treats as the number 1 reward.
I’m going to try the first game of this week tonight and see how it goes. It’ll be hard to keep my training sessions to 1 minute each but I will do my best! I definitely want to create drive and motivation so whatever it takes to get that. I’ve always just assumed my two agility girls are just slower than many other agility dogs. I didn’t think or know it was because of a stress response in the training environment. They are so chill in all environments that I thought it was just their nature to be slower. But they really aren’t slow dogs. They run the pastures like speed demons. They just don’t run the courses with those speeds. It’ll be fun to see them pick up speed and motivation in agility too!
Hey Tracy,
Thanks for the great feedback and taking the time to address so many different points I made!! If I’m being totally honest without sounding like I am a know-it-all or unaccepting of suggestions, I do not think the value of my treat was the epicenter of my issue. At least not 100% of the issue, that is. I’ll explain why I think this and try to not ramble too much in my explanation.
I typically stick to 3-4 different rotating treats for agility training only. Sometimes there is more variety but the treat I use for agility, I do not use for any other training or activity. Trick training has completely different treats. Obedience training has different treats. “Goodbye cookies” when I go to work are completely separate cookies. I want my training treats to have high value, as you mentioned, so I try to keep them “special” and limited to specific training.
When I ran out of treats half way through the session, I went into the tackroom and got some cat kibble. Cat kibble is not something my dogs ever get. I think I’ve only used it once or twice when I was in a pinch during training and too lazy to go to the house to get more dog treats. Having that said, my dogs think cat kibble is absolutely delightful and they are always trying to steal it from the barn cats. When I put the cat kibble in my pocket, Kashia was jumping up and down and very excited to get some. As soon as we walked into the arena to start practice using the cat kibble as a reward, she immediately lost interest. When I went to let my other dogs out and gave them the remaining kernels of cat kibble after our session, Kashia got ecstatic for it again.
During obedience training when she was littler, I had the exact same thing happen. I tried what felt like hundreds of different treats (exaggeration but it was a lot) to see what would excite Kashia during in-person classes. Nothing worked after the first couple of minutes or couple of sessions depending on what class it was. Yet I could take that same treat into my house and practice with her and she would be bouncing all over waiting for the next command and so enthusiast and sharp with every command I gave her (to test the value of the treat). She had the same bored behavior with my instructors in her e-collar obedience class as a 6 month old. They told me it happens with some breeds and/or dogs. They are so smart that they get so bored very easily. Kashia is this way. Treats and praise wouldn’t excite Kashia. Her reward in puppy obedience ending up being permission to sniff. My older dog that I always reference, she had the exact same problem at in-person rally and obedience classes. I tried all different kinds of treats with her with the same result. We can practice at home in the house and the behavior is completely different, same treats being offered (to test if it was the treat or the dog).
I only practice agility with Kashia 5-10 minutes at the maximum, once a day at the maximum. I don’t think (hope) I’m over stimulating her. I also don’t practice other things before or after agility. The different sessions, while not always daily for each, are hours apart. I think she truly just got/gets bored. I did the same type of exercise for nearly a week without breaking it up or doing a different exercise. I think I should have done a different lesson some of the days maybe using our tunnel or teeter so she wouldn’t get bored. She is just so highly intelligent that she gets bored with repetitive training. While treats may have played a factor, I think Kashia just wasn’t engaged that day because it was the same exercise we had done the last 5 days. When I practiced these exercises with her, I only did 2 reps in each position on each side unless she had a mess up.
I’m not sure about the echoing in the video. The weather was mild, calm, and just a light intermittent snow that evening. 🙂
With all this said, I’m still open to different treat ideas!! I’m always happy to try new things! I’m certainly not saying it won’t help. I’m just saying I’ve been here before. It’s my fault and I didn’t recognize it initially. I had to vent to my husband to realize I’ve been here before with Kashia and I should have known better. I should have broken up her training so it didn’t seem like the same exercise several days in a row. She doesn’t love or have the confidence for agility yet like my other dog so too much repeitition isn’t great for her. I mean Kashia will get bored going on walks after too long if I have her leashed…that’s how much she likes to use her brain to explore and sniff and such…and how ungrateful she is. LOL She’s not a crazy high drive psychotic dog that can’t sit still. But she is a dog that needs mental stimulation. I have tons of puzzles for her for the days I cannot do a lot with her but still need to challenge that brain of hers. MOST dogs would be elated to go on a walk!! My dogs live on a 10 acre ranch where they roam free and I take them everywhere with me except work. They get so much activity that it gets harder and harder to entertain them and stimulate their little brains! I’ve done this to myself! Ha ha ha
Anyway, the treats she got that night are Full Moon All Natural Beef Savory Bites and cat kibble. My other go-to agility treat which I usually only feed at the practice arena, are the Nutri-Bites Freeze Dried Beef Liver from Costco (cut up into tiny pieces). I only use string cheese and turkey franks (common treats to use by some people I’ve met) for agility trials. They hold extremely high value right now because of that.
I really don’t have any toys that excite Kashia enough to use for agility training. The soccer ball is the only thing and we already mentioned it didn’t do much for her the first time I tried it. She only likes tennis balls if she’s stealing it from my other dog. Otherwise tennis balls are boring. My lotus ball toy hasn’t arrived yet or else I would try that. Rather than locking Kashia in a stall when I practice with my other dog, I’ll leave her out in view like I normally do. That seems to help her because she gets jealous and anxious to work and receive cookies.
We will get through this! It’s handler error by not mixing it up. I was so worried about perfecting it that I did not think about how boring it would become for Kashia. It’s my fault and I appreciate you letting me talk through it with you! I just needed to “think about it” to understand why she was being that way. Silly me to forget this is normal for her! Noted for the next set of games! I appreciate you and all your great feedback!
Thank you for the great feedback! I was really excited to try the combination sequence, but I feel like our results were kind of disastrous again. Please tell me what I’m doing wrong.
It felt like one of those days I probably should have quit training from the very beginning. After just a couple reps, I couldn’t get Kashia engaged, motivated, excited, nothing. She was just lolly-gagging along with the motions. It was extremely frustrating, if I’m being honest.
I had to do SO MUCH cheerleading with my older dog when we first started. When you train with fellow students that have border collies, it can be disheartening to have to cheerlead so much. My older dog is finally over that and 98% of the time we practice agility, she is amped and excited and always willing to please. I rarely have to cheerlead her or get her amped up anymore. It has been really encouraging because a disconnected and unmotivated dog is really discouraging. I wasn’t sure we would work out of it, but she did, thankfully! She loves it now!
Anyway, now Kashia is at that point and I’m feeling these feelings all over again. Is it me? Am I doing something wrong to shut her down? Is it just my dogs’ personalities? It seems like nearly every dog I meet is excited and ready to practice agility. I haven’t seen too many dogs like mine that just lolly-gag. I’ve seen plenty of dogs lose focus and get distracted, but that isn’t my problem. My problem is motivating them. I tried to run ahead of Kashia to see if that would help but it didn’t seem to do much.
Is Kashia just bored of the games? We only practiced for about 6-7 minutes at the very most. I felt like her first couple of reps were good and then she just shut down. Boredom? Uninterested? Not happy? Confused? I’m not really sure. I have hope she will work out of this phase like my older dog did. Meanwhile, training days like this can be discouraging. She did some good stuff, so I’m certainly not completely displeased. I know she tried. I just don’t know why she wasn’t motivated. I worked with my older dog after this to bring my spirits back up. She actually drives forward and wants to run so it was a good reminder that Kashia will get there eventually too.
Also, why in the heck would she not go around the crates (wing)? What was I doing to miscommunicate with her? She did it a zillion times in a row. Then once I got her to go around them, she basically walked before deciding to trot once she got to the jump. The only time she picked up some speed was coming back over the first jump after the cross.
I know we all have our good days and bad days. I know this was probably just a bad day for Kashia compared to the other days where she seemed happy to be working. I almost didn’t share this so I could try again tomorrow on maybe a better mood day. But I figured these are the days I need help with. Granted, I try not to work my dogs if one of us seems to be in a bad mood. Kashia seemed excited to work prior to working. It wasn’t until we got started that she decided to stop putting effort or motivation forward. I’m certainly not saying it’s her fault. I may have caused the behaviors too. I just need to know if you see anything I did wrong to cause that. Nothing excited her today. I even changed treats to see if she needed a different reward. It didn’t seem to help.
I’m trying not to get too down as I know it’ll get better. I know Kashia has great talent and capabilities! It just sucks going through this cheerlead phase again with a different dog!
Thank you for the feedback and encouragement! It is really helpful and appreciated! All I want to do is learn and get better. I was pretty frustrated at myself after round 1 of exit line connection. It just felt like a disaster. I appreciate you building me up and motivating me! I really appreciate your positive feedback. It is really encouraging to have the positives outweigh the “things that need to get better”. Obviously we all make mistakes and want to know how to correct those mistakes, that is why we are in this class! But it sure helps encourage us that are hard on ourselves when your positivity outweighs the “critiques”. I’m open to critiques, of course, but thank you for reminding me to be more forgiving of myself. I need that sometimes!
Round 2 felt like it went much smoother. I was wayyyyyy less focused on the dumb ball in my hand and more focused on the mechanics of the game. I felt like I was really connected with Kashia and she was really starting to understand what I was doing. We had one blooper that I knew immediately why it happened so I almost left it out but figured I better include it to make sure I’m learning. I don’t want to appear like I’m perfect or anything so best to include the mistake reps as well! That was the only hiccup rep we had. Kashia did really well! The last rep on the left side she started to disengage a little bit. My husband was near her ball in the alleyway so she was concerned he’d kick it and she’d miss out on the fun. But I was able to bring her back to me and still good a good performance. She just didn’t have the same “pep in her step” that she had in some of the other reps.
Overall, I was pleased with the results. Hopefully you will be as well. I did my best to think about the cross rather than the hand that should have the toy since that seemed to confuse me the most last time. It seemed to work well assuming I did them right? Our footing is too deep and sandy to throw the treat for Kashia which is why I tried to feed her from my shoe mostly. I don’t want her to think my hands mean food so I’m trying to get creative in ways to still reward her. Hopefully the lotus ball throw toy I ordered will arrive sometime this week.
Thanks again for all your feedback and positivity. This has been such a wonderful training environment and experience, and we are only in week 1. I couldn’t be more grateful for this class. It’s been a wonderful first online agility class for me and my girls so far!
I don’t know why but the exit line connection game was very difficult for me. For some reason, I really struggled to wrap my brain around how to move my arms with the toy/ball in one of my hands. I like to think some of this I already naturally do with my older dog but when it was broken down into little steps like this, I got completely fumbled. I felt like I had two left feet and two left arms.
I walked it first with no dog like you said. It was still not clear to me. I had to watch the video several times while walking it. It feels like an easy concept but it was difficult for me to emulate. I was getting really frustrated with myself, not my dog, at how and why I could not figure out how to do it. After walking it several times, I tried it with my older dog since she allows me more mistakes since she knows what she is doing. It took several reps but I felt like I was starting to understand it so I decided to try it with Kashia. It didn’t get any better or easier with her. I felt just as confused. Luckily, I have very chill and understanding dogs so they did not get frustrated or mad at me. They just played along as best as they knew how.
Anyway, I was afraid to even watch my video back because it felt so horrible in real-time. I’m ready for the critiques. It’s 100% handler error. I don’t know how to explain it but I just couldn’t figure out how to do the crosses with the toy/ball. I was so focused on trying to move my body and feet correctly that I totally forgot about connection or what I was doing. I just couldn’t put it all together today. Everything you explained made sense but trying to do the movements threw me off. And it’s not that I don’t know how to do blind or front crosses. I do and I understand them. I just couldn’t figure out how to place my arms with the toy/ball in my hand. And you’ll see I didn’t even use the ball as Kashia’s motivator or drive. After the first couple of reps, I forgot to even throw it. I was using it as a tool for myself to figure out my arms more than I was using it for the dog. She also had no interest in it. I chose a “dead” ball and that’s not nearly as enticing as an inflated one apparently. lol
After watching my video a few times and watching some other student videos, I think if I had just focused on doing the crosses, I would have been so much better off. I was so focused on how to manipulate the ball in my hand that I completely brain-farted everything else. If I had just done the cross and not thought about the dang ball in my hand, I would have been so much smoother I think. I was just so focused on the ball in my hand that I forgot how to do everything else. I honestly forgot all about the cross. All I thought about was where was my hand supposed to go in relation to the direction I was supposed to turn. I’ll definitely not overthink it for round 2 and just do a cross like I normally do but with a ball in my hand (plus whatever advise you have). LOL
Here’s round 2 of the connection exercise! It was really hard to include the “bad” reps as she had only a few “bad” reps and so many more good ones. I could already see such an improvement from yesterday on some of her good reps! But I’m reminding myself this is a learning environment so the best way to learn is to show the “bad” things so we can learn how to prevent or correct those things from happening again!
I got a little frustrated at myself on the first set of left connection exercises. I thought I was recording when I wasn’t. Kashia had 3 perfect reps on the left when I saw my phone was not recording. I tried again and that’s when we resulted in several jump 2 bypasses. She bypassed the jump like 4 times in a row. The first time she got distracted by a barn cat and that just kind of shut her down, I guess. I put my other dogs up as requested but I never expected a barn cat to interfere! I got one clean rep and then stopped. I revisited the exercise with Kashia again after practicing with my other dog. That next time she did much better. She didn’t skip the jump and her focus and drive were back. I don’t want to blame a barn cat walking by on being what totally changed her focus from jumping the second jump like that though. Do you see what I may have done wrong to cause that behavior again?
On the right connection, I saw a rep where I pulled away from looking at her and I didn’t have my “throw the treat” timing on point. I’m guessing that’s what drew her to me causing her to knock the bar? She had pretty consistent reps on the right side after I fumbled the first two trying to figure out how to throw treats. I ended up just showing Kashia the treat in the bowl before going back up to the start. That seemed to work best to get her to drive to the bowl that was beyond jump 2 without me fumbling with throwing a treat. Was that okay to do it that way? Just putting the treat in the bowl ahead of time so she is anxious to run back to it once we start the exercise?
Thank you for such great feedback! I’m so excited to be learning in this environment! I’ve been so anxious to get Kashia started but I didn’t really know where to start. Your games have me very excited! Plus it gives me things to work on with my other dog too without having to come up with my own lessons. 🙂
<<<Her question was when you were a little behind her:>>>>
Is this just because she is still learning and gaining confidence in how to drive forward ahead of me? This is one of the biggest differences I noticed between my dogs. Kashia didn’t drive ahead of me like my other one did. My other dog made it look so natural to just take the next obstacle in front of her and run ahead (even without a treat/toy target). Kashia didn’t do that as smoothly and needed me right with her. I remember my other dog being that way too in the beginning. I just figured I’d ask for clarification. 🙂 When I watched your video, you were not up at the second jump with your dog when you started right at the wing. I had to be at each jump to keep Kashia going so I wasn’t sure if I was getting quite the same result. I recongize Kashia had less speed and drive than your demo dog though…as well as some of the others in class! Speed is not a factor with my Brittanys so far! Ha ha ha that’s okay though. I like running with them. Distance is coming with my older dog so I know Kashia will get it eventually too.
I understand the target placement to get them to drive ahead and not look back at me for the reward. I will try round 2 with a treat target since that is all I have for now. I did just order a lotus ball braided tug toy. Hopefully I can convince Kashia that it is the best toy she’s ever seen! LOL I tried to use a tennis ball in the beginning but that didn’t do anything for her. She plays with toys in the house all the time but nothing that she is crazy for. She has to be in the mood. The only toy she is obsessed with, day or night, is a soccer ball. So much so that it would be an extreme distraction while I’m training. I will have to learn how to use that soccer ball drive to my advantage when training. For now, I’ll try the treat target and then the lotus ball when it arrives in the mail. Kashia is very treat motivated so I have that going for me for now. My other dog is not toy motivated in the slightest so I’ve always had to use treats with her which is why I just continued that with Kashia.
I think I figured it out! Hopefully! Excited to learn and train with you. Looking forward to your feedback! I think Kashia did pretty well on this first game but I’m not sure what I did wrong to have her skip the jump on the left side. She did that two times in a row until we got back into rhythm. I thought maybe it was my hand not pointing to the jump but I’m not sure. My other dog did this exercise great so I definitely miscommunicated something with my younger dog. Being so new still, it is sometimes hard for me to remember how to go back and forth with dogs at different skill levels! Kashia needs more basics and I forget that. Thanks for all the help! I’m very excited to have help creating a solid foundation for Kashia!
