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Too many people kept asking for photos and/or an Instagram page, so I caved and made one for her!
The herding/sheep balls games are fun, and it really helps satisfy her collie instincts!
Ok, here are a couple of week 1 videos. I have a couple more week 1, but need to edit a bit first.
I think that these first two concepts went fairly well, though there’s still room for improvement. I’ve also sped up the videos by 3x just so they would be slightly less boring. 😂
Lazy Game:
Initially, it was a bit of a challenge, but it was fairly good be the end of the last session. I didn’t have to move too much for her to commit to a jump. She did, however, keep knocking the 4 inch bars, so I eventually just put them on the ground.
Back and Forth:
I didn’t have a 9 or 12 foot plank, but I had three 4-ft travel boards, so I just pushed them together. Acceptable? Here Ria kind of got on and off the plank wherever she chose.
>> and be sure you aren’t facing her, be facing away but still watching her – it was hard to see what your position was here 🙂
Whoops! I haven’t practiced this one looking away from her.
>> They are just too slippery for a fast dog and while she is doing her best to figure it out, I don’t want her to have to work that hard – I want her to find the natural feel of using her hind end to power off for the jump. Even a small patch of grass or dirt is great, she can work the jumping skill on 1 or 2 jumps if you don’t have a lot of space for all 3.
OK, I hadn’t noticed that, but I’ll try another surface soon…which may mean that I need to finally get/build my own wings. Do you have plans or resources for building agility equipment? The wings just seem like they would be easy enough to build and pre-made ones seems so expensive for what they are.
>> she was correct…the cue when starting her on your right side really was presenting the counterclockwise turn – it looks like a send to the far side of the wing to get a left turn.
OK, OK, handler mistake! I should have known! 🤣
>> The tandem turn to get her to come in would be more on a parallel line to the wing, facing the center of the tunnel, with your outside arm drawing her in as if you had a cookie, then turning her back out.
Uh…what? I’m sure it’s perfectly clear, but I can’t picture things in my mind, so not really sure what this is saying. 🤣
Overall, it seems like a lot of the issues that I’ve had during this class have been from handling mistakes and things that are probably easy to correct in the moment by a third-party observer who knows what they’re doing. I’m thinking that some in-person agility lessons would be helpful for me, just so I don’t get into bad habits myself. Do you offer any of those or know of someone in Alexandriva, VA/DC area that does?
OK, last set of videos, I think. There were a couple of activities that I did with the jumps. I varied the height from 12″ down to 6″ and the most consistent thing was that Ria kept knocking the bars, even at 6″. What’s going on with that?
Accordion, with bar knocking:
Lateral Lead Outs. I think that this went better than last time, but there was a lot of bar knocking.
Starfish. I tried a different sequence with this setup than I had done previously. I also tried to avoid the support poles, but it did result in a smaller area to work in. I had a really difficult time getting her to wrap clockwise around the first wing. An additional trouble spot was the last wing to the tunnel threadle (?). Also, despite having 5-10 minutes between repetitions, did I overdo this for a single day?
>> the ‘no pointing’ thing is when we disconnect from the dogs when they are behind us and point forward ahead of them: when we do that, the dogs only see our backs (no connection) so they lose the line and are not sure of whether they should cut behind us or stay on the line. So the ‘swoosh’ of the lateral sends are more connected and rotated back to the dog and not pointing ahead.
OK, I think that makes more sense to me now. I’ll try to keep this in mind.
>> It gets easier as you get used to it all, and the practice like you did here will really help!!
I’m sure that it does, as I gain more experience. I’ll get there!
>> On the wing that was closest to the camera here, when she had to come in next to you then turn away to go around the wing – that is a tandem turn. You can also see them in the turn aways games. They are a pretty complex move because they are not natural for the dog to do, so we have to be more careful to cue them (dogs like to turn towards us, not away). I will go grab the links for the specifics and then it will make more sense 🙂
OK, thanks, I think that I understand that now. I’ll give it another shot soon. Maybe I’ll get one more set of videos in before the May 31 cut-off date. We shall see! If not, I’m looking forward to the next installment of MaxPup!
>> On the lateral lead outs, you don’t need to wait for her to look at the jump. You can totally use your dog side arm and leg to send her to the jump, though – release and then give a big swoosh/step towards the takeoff spot to indicate the jump. Your arms/legs were generally stationary so she was confused as to whether she should come in to you or go find the jump. So it is total perfect to sue the arm & leg send: think of it as bowling LOL!
Last week you told me not to point so much; this week you’re telling me to point more! Which one is it?! 🤪
>> And you can also set a timer for the session: 8 minutes is a really long time and we tend to lose their brains after 2 or 3 minutes. So even if the first couple of minutes were not great, you can give her a break, regroup, see if there is something to tweak in what you are showing her, then bring her out again later on.
This is a good reminder for me. There is a tendency for me to want to get a lot done because of the limited availability of using space/other people’s yards. One thing to mention here is that the videos are often pared down, cutting out a lot of the down time, and in some cases there are 5-10 minutes between tries. Is that a long enough time or should I be letting more time elapse?
>> you were doing a GREAT job of spitting out all of the verbals! (There are a LOT of words on this one, right? LOL!)
Thanks! Yes, so many words, and so many things to keep track of! I could barely keep in mind what the course was that I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t get to the ones with like 11 steps. How am I supposed to remember all of that? 🤣 I did walk the course like 10 times before I tried it with Ria so that definitely helped! The owner of Wholistic Hound came through at one point and commented on how many verbals I was using, that I was repeating them for a single behavior, and wondering if that was causing Ria confusion/over-excitement.
>> When you do the tandem turns when she has to come into you then turn away on the wing, you can pretend there is a cookie in your hand (or you can actually have a cookie in your hand LOL!) and draw her in then turn her away with big hand motions. Those hand cues will be pretty slow so she can read them clearly as they are pretty hard.
Hmmm…I guess I’m not sure which turns these are and/or what you mean. It’s probably perfectly clear to a more experienced handler, but I don’t quite understand.
Thanks!
Lateral lead outs: Lots of broken stays and lots of driving to me rather than taking the jump. Should I be waiting for her to look at the jump? It seemed like if I waited for her to look at it, then she’d just break the stay on her own.
Starfish: Lots of confusion here and no commitment to a wing unless I’m right by it. Even then it’s questionable.
My thoughts: I probably need to work on a lot of the fundamentals: What do “check” and “dig” mean? Can she commit to a wrap at a distance? Can she commit to a jump without me being right beside it? Things like that.
The consult definitely went well. I just picked up some of the meds so we’ll see how things go!
Putting it together! Are we there already? Am I ready for that?! 😂 I only see two options, a working spot and auditing. Dumb question, but do I have an auditing spot in the current class? I thought that there was something in between and just wanted to make sure that I register for the same option that I already have. While the classes are on Saturdays, I won’t have access to the facilities to do a working spot but definitely want videos to be reviewed.
Arms: I can’t help but point! Something in me makes it a natural response that I need to work on. Any tips to keep myself from pointing?
Backsides/reward placement: I was thinking that she was supposed to run between the jump and the tunnel after landing the jump. Am I wrong on this? This confused me about where to put the reward.
Jump height: Admittedly, I don’t really know what I’m doing. 😂 Do you know Pam Schiffleger? She has suggested that Ria could do higher jumps in general than the 8 inches that I had been doing though she wasn’t specifically telling any this jump grid and has suggested that her competition height would likely be 20”. I’ll keep the smaller jumps in mine for the grids! I also assumed that she should start 6’ away from the first jump, the same spacing as the other jumps. Good to know that it should be much closer! And depending on the direction they I go, I could managed 15’ away.
This past weekend, Tricia Lude had some kind of jumps course setup at her place. Jump jump tunnel, blind cross jump jump tunnel, jump jump tunnel, blind cross jump jump tunnel, jump. I didn’t get it on video, but we gave it a try. We messed up a couple of jumps and in some cases ran way out after a jump before heading into a tunnel, but it was kind of a first experience of sort of feeling like a real handler even if it wasn’t 100% perfect.
At Wholistic Hound we also worked a very small amount with Pam on the A-frame and teeter. Just enough to give her a bit of exposure and hopefully keep her from bad practices on the A-frame that she seems to be sucked into.
I’m a little behind in my homework, and I just realized today that we’ve finished the class! 😱 How long do we have to submit videos, and what’s the next step? (I’m guessing that you answered this somewhere already, but not sure where to look for the info….)
This is the homework that I’ve gotten done so far. I’m trying to space out things a little bit after our consultation with Dr. Overall. She gave a lot of good advice and a good treatment plan. In any case here my videos!
Tunnel threadles:
The last round, I kind of lost track of what I was supposed to be doing, so I know that the ending isn’t so great. And I realized later that I should have been using “left” and “right” instead of “check” and “dig” when going along the outside of two wings. Oh well. Lots to learn!
Backsides:
I think that this was ok-ish, maybe?
Accordion:
Since Ria is 17-months now, I figured that I’d try the jumps at 12 inches, but then got greedy at the last one and tried for 16 inches. I think her competition jump height will be about 20 inches. The jumps were 6 feet apart with the last jump at 6, 9, 12, 9, 6, 6 (with the 16 inches). Also, did we get the number of bounces/strides correct? I’m not quite sure if I am counting correctly.
PS. I’m not trying to advertise for Wholistic Hound…it’s just a convenient space for me to use and when I’m already there to help with a class, it’s a convenient time to be there.
Rear Cross Game:
Wow! This was not easy. I almost tripped over Ria a few different times…
Transition:
Hmmm…She seemed to want to stick with me and not commit to the the jump. She didn’t want to go forward without me.
Zig zags:
This one seemed to go better, not perfect, but better.
Get Out:
I was shocked that she remembered the “Get Out” cue. I messed up my physical cues multiple times, but she did great.
OK, so we’re scheduled with Dr. Overall for May 13. We’ll see how it goes! It will be Zoom-based and I’m getting lots of videos and text together.
OK, that’s fair. Maybe I should just give in and introduce the A-frame to her since she seems to like it already. Both Tricia and Leslie suggested a consultation with a veterinary behaviorist with Tricia suggesting Karen Overall and Leslie being less specific. I’ve done a lot with AbsoluteDogs, and Tom Mitchell is a veterinary behaviorist as well…Not sure who or what or if I should look into this, but it’s at least something to think about.
Random outside human exercise equipment agility practice!
Wind in Your Hair. I kind of forgot which verbals I was supposed to be using for wraps versus turns. There was also a bit of a trip up at first! (Edit: For some reason, there’s a blank part of the video that was supposed to include the trip up. Essentially, I tripped over Ria as I was doing the blind cross. She kept looking back at me.)
Serps and Threadles. I got a little confused in my handling. Not sure if this looks ok or not.
Ladder grid. I think that this went well. The spacing was 6 feet and the height was 10 inches.. Was this appropriate or should it have been further apart? (PS The offending A-frame is also visible here. She’s had to climb over/around things to get to it. She didn’t get up on it today, though.)
Tricia and I have talked a lot about Ria and about her dogs. I wrote up the most recent series of reactivity events and sent it to her and she forwarded it on to Leslie McDevitt as well. So I’ve had some replies from both of them so lots of work going on in figuring this out! The Control Unleashed course last night went well, no reactions to other dogs or people walking around.
Random question, when I have Ria at the training academy, she will run around and play between classes and she just loves running up and down the A-frame. It’s shoved in a corner, I’ve never introduced it to her. One day she just decided to go check out and has been having fun going up and down it since. Anything in particular I should watch for or just let her do her thing for now until it’s actually introduced whenever that might be?
