[Brittany]

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!

[Brittany]

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

[Brittany]

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?

[Brittany]

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.

[Brittany]

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!

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