[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
BTW, YES we had a fabulous extended stay in FL, missed all the snow back home. Still riding high from our (so far) lifetime achievement! A dream come true for me.

Brioche is absolutely in need of a group class. He had the hardest time with the name game of all the things we did in the first class. Responding to his name with all the distractions. So I am going to be doing a lot of that game this weekend at the agility trial.

Here the games we did today…outside…in the wind (wasn’t crazy wind but enough). He was particularly distracted when coming out of the right end of the tunnel. I expect the more we work outside, the better this will get. We supposed to be getting snow over the weekend so outdoors it was today. The other thing he needs to work thru is ignoring the toy if it is in the hand that I am sending him with. Since this was all new, I tried to keep switching the toy so he didn’t have to deal with it in his face while I was trying to send him…however with the long toy, it’s hard to finagle that at times. After watching the video, I see that I was on his line and therefore blocking his sight to the tunnel. Trying to manage his distraction and keeping my handling clear was apparently difficult for me!

As for the discrimination, with zero practice ahead of time, I thought he was brilliant!

We are leaving for a trial in CT tomorrow afternoon so this completes our work for the week unless I get some time in the morning to maybe try the set point again or something.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Yes, the squeaky sheep was tied to the holee roller but he was not interested in the roller so I took it off and he liked the sheep on its own. Good to know. That toy was “invented” for Benni who also loves to have a party of one to this day…

Set point exercise. The hardest part was getting Brioche to sit close to the bar. He tends to back up when he sits. Also, I stopped using the remote for the MM after the first time because it wouldn’t stop (I had no food inside of it). I just used it as a larger target than a food bowl but placed the food down as he came over the jump. Other than that, I think it went well but we’ll see what your observations are!

Handling Game: Wind in the hair. I am going to try to use “tight” for left wrap and “wrap” for right wrap. We’ll see how that goes.

And a brief video using a bit more distance with toy planted:

I have started him in a competition puppy group class for obedience. There are no puppy agility classes going on around here and he will learn good skills from the obedience class. He has never worked in a group so it’s all good.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
You asked and here we go:

We are going to the AKC agility invitationals in Orlando. Where are you going to be doing agility training?

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Ready to try the advanced serpentine. Initially I didn’t feel right about where I tossed the reward but I guess it was okay. I see that I didn’t quite keep fluidly moving but got better on the last rep. I am confused about executing the actual hand cue so as not to release on my hand target motion? So I was kind of moving into position with my hand already back.

Then we had some fun with Benni on the stealth self-control. Benni is quite happy to be a participant! It actually went well! They are very competitive for my attention so I think it wasn’t as hard for Brioche as I thought because he was getting ALL the attention! LOL

We are leaving next Sunday for the invitationals so I’ll see how much time I have over the next week to do videos but I think we have at least tried everything once aside from the flyball stuff. I’m sure the car will be packed full but I’ll try to fit maybe his fitness platforms or something that we can work with since we will be staying down there until the end of December.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Tried the decel game this morning.

Will try the advanced serp later in the day.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Tried the serp exit again fresh in the beginning of the training session and it went much better than yesterday.

Then tried the tunnel rocking horse stuff. Not much room for turn and burn in this space. I’m not keen on dragging the tunnel up out of the basement to practice in the freezing cold. LOL I need to connect with him better so he doesn’t miss the tunnel. I’m getting a 3 foot tunnel shortly so maybe I can set this up outside on a nice day for more room to run, connect and send to tunnel. Oh well, it’s a start.

Then I had my husband be more active on the sidelines of our stealth self control pattern game with Brioche on leash just in case. I would put Benni on a cot for distraction but he barks like a wild man so I think that would be a bit much.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Happy Thanksgiving! Did a little training so he could sleep on it while we head out for dinner.
I think too many sits by the time I did the second video which I kept very short. Not sure if he was tired for the serp exit work or just that it was new. I also think I may have been blocking the cone too much so maybe that was an issue as well. Also on the lateral lead outs, I forgot sometimes to first move lateral and then forward so it looked more diagonal on my part.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Okay the wrong video posted. Here is the correct one. I dont know why that happened. Sorry.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
I did the one long video again since you didn’t seem to mind. This one is longer than it should have been. The last bit of strike a pose when I switched to the other side, I think he was pretty much done but he was able to do a few reps before we called it a day. First I tried the perch work again since we never revisited it. He had never seen this set up nor used this front foot prop in this way so what you see is the first attempt.

During the serpentine work, he did break once but I confused him by touching the stanchion to space myself correctly.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

PS I had a tentative measurement on Brioche out of curiosity…15 inches. If this holds true when the real measurement happens I will be sad to say goodbye to the 12 inch class with him. I don’t like the idea of jumping him at 16 if his withers are an inch lower than the jump height though I’m sure he’s totally capable when he is mature. He’s only 9 months old so it will be a long while before he’s jumping at height.

Benni is 14″ jumping 12.

Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
I’m sorry for the long video. I hit pause instead of stop after the first game so it made one video with 2 games. I started with your suggestion of strike a pose without props to test his stay power and then proceeded. He broke one time when I added movement to the serp. Then we went on to the wing wrap which he had no problem with.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Day 2 of the agility show. Brioche tentative measurement 15″…so much for being in the 12 inch class…
My friend offered to video our practice jump stays this afternoon. The first rep I forgot to have the treat already in my hand but he stayed anyway while I dug it out of my pocket.

Played lots of pattern games as we came in and out of the building and walked around the rings. Wicked tugging today too.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
New big boy hair cut! Points are all officially recorded… and now I cannot tell them apart!

I propped my camera up against my cooler at an agility trial and used the practice jump to work on the stays. There was activity in the far ring but not the one near us. After he took off with the toy, I switched to food and the first rep he wasn’t staying because I had the food in my hand so after that no food in the hand that was positioning him. All in all, I thought it went well for the environment we were in. He is handling the show environment very well just in general and the pattern game is very valuable.

I tried doing the moving serpentine before we left for the trial but it did not go well so I think we need to practice more without movement. I had not revisited it since then anyway. I did not upload the video. It was maybe my mechanics with the cookie toss…I have not used the sit/stay for any of the games yet. Not sure if I should?

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi,
So in regard to the stay and anticipation. When you say mix in praise. I had stopped praising him as I was leading out upon your advice. Do you mean when I lead out and stop and connect, I should praise first and then say catch or break? Or do I stop, praise and move again and then catch or break?

Also, I feel like I’m walking out so slowly that I might be lending to the anticipation? Should I walk more normal speed? I’m trying not to increase excitement with my motion.

And if he breaks, how should I address that. It’s bound to happen.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
It got dark quicker than I could get out to train tonight. I set the camera up from the other side so the flood light didn’t glare and also now you can see what he was looking at last time. We went for broke with leaves and wind! He flinched once before I said break. In retrospect perhaps I should have thrown the toy back to reward him for not breaking…note to self for next time. In the moment the cue was about to come out of my mouth. Also the one time I was about to release him he looked away. I released him anyway and he did his job. I was afraid if I waited for him to look back, he might have made a different choice if whatever he was looking at became more stimulating. I did a short round of the back and forth game and then went right into the video:

Then we did the minny pinny expanded 2 different times. I only measured the bars the second time and at the center of the bar the distance was 37-38″ apart. See which one you think looks best of if I need to spread it more.

Also, I was going to revisit the rocking horse game but I’m not clear on what I was doing wrong when i did it. I’m not sure the difference between the spin and just a blind? When I watch your demo I can’t figure out what I need to do differently. Is it the sideways send I’m not doing? Maybe you can clarify for me.

Thanks.
Sandy

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