[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,

Here is our tunnel-GO video:
1 jump:

2 jump:

hope you don’t mind skipping thru the tug part (it’s not too long anyway)

Next is our ladder grid with jump spacing of 5 feet and height 6″:

Next is our review on step back wrap and FC/BC:

LOL…one of these days I’m going to get my act together on this exercise. I think I need a toy in each hand because having it in just the one hand messes me up when I try to figure out which hand need it to be in when doing the blind and I get confused…as i’m sure you can see! And by the time, I get a rhythm or remember I’m supposed to be doing counter-motion, he’s already done like 3 wraps and I don’t want to make it more repetitive for my sake. Hopefully, it becomes easier and easier for me over time. I think I might do better on a course where I only have to do one in context of the course and not one after another after another. We’ll see…

Anyway, no matter what we have fun 🙂

Thanks.
Sandy and Benni

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Sandy Mainardi.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

HI Tracy,

The distance between jumps was 3 ft 9 inches which is also what I do with the set point. Is 4 ft what you want me to try? Or even more than that? I see you have listed medium dogs about 5 feet.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,

Are you crossed eyed from all the computer stuff with the online seminar?!

I set up the ladder grid. I didn’t realize you had responded on the height so I used the jumps I made which are 6″ I believe. Anyway, we did 3 jumps, then 4, then 5 with me on the right side and then the left side for each one. I forgot to move the manners minder further out when I added the 4th jump so he may not look good on the exit? And for 5 jumps, I think the 2nd rep looked like he got a little ahead of himself by jump 5 so I did a bit of remedial work in the way I have done in the past by placing a toy between jump 4 and 5 and then did one more rep without the toy…seemed like that helped him but see what you think. He has done these jumps before at 6″ prior to this course. But if you think 4″ is better for him then I can put out my regular jumps in the future.

I had made notes from past homework to work on but after having done the boot camp, I left it at this for now and will resume after a day of rest.

Thanks.
Sandy and Benni

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Apparently, we have aggressive hawks in NJ. A friend told me a hawk swooped at her papillion and the BCs chased it away. And there were a few more stories when I asked on my FB page about it. Yikes. Benni is about 14″ tall and weighs 12.5 lbs. And he’s white which someone said draws more attention. I looked all around today before I took him out. I didn’t see any hawks today but that doesn’t mean they aren’t perched someplace watching for an opportunity. Crazy thing is I’ve had toy poodles the whole time I’ve lived here and never gave it a thought….coyotes yes but not birds!

I’m leaning towards signing up for boot camp auditing. But if I see the weather will turn out okay, could I upgrade Sunday morning or that’s too confusing for you?

Question on the ladder jump exercise….do all the jumps need wings? I have simple 6″ fixed jumps that I made for when I took the Salo course with CAVU. I used those for the jump grid exercises at that time. I’m assuming they will work or I can just use my regular jumps set at 4″ or 6″ whichever you prefer. I actually have done a bit of this with him before so should I just start with 4 or 5 jumps are still start with 3 then 4 then 5?

LOL…first I did the FC/BC too fast, now I don’t do the BC soon enough. I’m gonna get that right one of these days! He sure does love when I run away from him so he can catch up!

Let me know about the Boot Camp and I will sign up tomorrow.

Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
I sent you an e-mail regarding the boot camp. Not sure if you received it…sent it to your regular e-mail address. Are both 1 and 2 appropriate for Benni? Supposed to rain on Sunday and I do not have access to internet outdoors where I train. I have 4G…just not sure about the logistics for me to take a working spot. I put more detail in my e-mail.

Also, I looked up this evening and saw a huge hawk sitting at the top of a tree in our yard. Fortunately Benni was inside and had trained earlier. CAVU was practicing recalls. Freaked me out…now I’m afraid about training Benni outdoors… and for sure I don’t want him taking off on a run with his toy. I’m hoping as long as I am right with him during training they would stay away…what do you think? My only other option is very limiting on space in my basement. People have sent me links for coyote wear with spikes but not very conducive to training in that.

So here are a few videos:
1. Revisiting bend work on the tight mini pinny since you said the spread mini pinny he was not really bending. You can see one rep here where he doesn’t bend on the 3rd jump of the pinny.

2. Revisiting part 2 Rocking Horse (FC/BC) – see if I do it any better?

3. Part 3 Rocking Horse step back – towards the end of the video you will see me get my feet out of whack and step back on the wrong foot but I just need more practice getting that better. I thought he did really well on his part. I see I got a little carried away on the reps without reward…my bad. Throwing toys would be great but like I said…can’t risk having him run off having a party of 1 with those hawks around. I could throw a food tube or lotus ball but he’s not thrilled with either one of those.

4. Serpentine foundation:
The first rep, I forgot to stand still…

Supposed to get rain the next 3 days so I wanted to do a little of each thing and let that process the next couple of days. At least the serpentine stuff I could do in my basement as it doesn’t need much space.

Thanks.
Sandy and Benni

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,

Did a little building on part 1 rocking horse, trying to get some counter-motion going and also to get my own brain warmed up to try the FC/BC thing…for some reason that messes with my brain on the mechanics. I forgot to use wings and used cones and they are set about 20 ft apart so I can get more steps in on the motion part. The neighbor picked this time to come out with his barking shelties…I guess it’s good distraction training. Here is the video:

Thanks.
Sandy and Benni

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

HI Tracy,
Thank you for answering all my questions regarding training. As you know, that is NOT the typical way agility people do things (most drill daily or multiple times a day) but I want to do right by my dog…had enough issues with the other one in the house!

How often do you do set point or is that something that once the dog shows understanding you don’t need to to it anymore?

For the video on set point where you want his head lower – I was out of the video frame standing stationary and facing forward looking back at him. Manners minder was much further out per previous instruction. I will try it with me kneeling down and send another video to see if that looks better to you. On a side note, how do you teach weaves for dogs built upright to encourage head low? Someone told me they wouldn’t do 2 x 2s for that reason…I’ve never done 2 x 2 method but the instructor I have now for pre-novice uses them. Just curious.

For wing wrap to “GO”, I was saying “go” the whole time…LOL…can’t get those darn verbals right. So next time I try it, I will say “tight” and then “go”.

Ah lumping…yes I tend to try to do the whole assignment so I can get feedback and then repeat the training with the suggestions for improvement. So I will go back to the tight mini pinny in a day or two.

I think that covered everything for now. Thank you! Stay well!

Sandy and Benni

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,

Beautiful weather so we took it back outside today to give the extension exercise another try with more space. I kept it very minimal reps because I wanted to focus on the mini pinny exercises. I also submit here 2 reps of the set point as you said it was okay to raise the oxer jump bars to 6″ and 8″. The spread is a bit more than 6 inches because the feet on my jumps would overlap in that small spacing but he has no trouble with it. On the “GO” exercise my camera placement didn’t show our start position for one direction where dog is on left…but hopefully you can tell something about how it went anyway…

So here are those 3 videos to see if there are improvements. I did what you said on the extension exercise and said go,go,go instead of “ready”.
1. set point – 2 reps

2. “GO” slice jump 3 reps (thought I did 2 + 2 but nope)

3. “GO” straight approach with cone wrap start ( 1 each direction)

I did the set point at the end of our entire training session. What is your theory on bend work? Should we always do something like set point or straight line work to rebalance the dog afterward?
Also, is the distance you set the dog up for set point work the same distance you should set the dog up at the start line for consistency?

Next up is the tight and open mini pinny. This was interesting. I’m eager to hear your observations and any correction or progression. I measured from the center of one bar to center of the next bar in the pinwheel at 3′ 9″ which is his set point distance also to get one stride. It was just something I tried but let me know if you want something different for him. I thought this exercise was very cool and lots of fun!

1. tight mini pinny – first rep was wacky but then he figured it out

2. open mini pinny – I flubbed one toy toss placement but were the others on the correct line?

As we add more and more games, do you suggest we have some sort of schedule of games to combine the new with the older ones or just focus on the games for each week to strengthen that particular skill set for the week. I’m thinking about what you said on repetition so we wouldn’t be doing the bend work every day right? Then separating those days with other types of games might be a good plan?

This course is super fun! Thanks.

Sandy and Benni

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy!
Boy am I glad I signed up for this class because we can do everything at home and still participate! Great timing 🙂

So, Benni had some minor eyelash surgery on Wed therefore we kept this session inside which isn’t ideal but I wanted to do something with him that wouldn’t jeopardize getting dirt or anything in his eyes. This is the Extension and Go game even though space was limited. I figure I can always re-do it outdoors when he’s had a bit of recovery time under his belt and the swelling goes down around his eyes.

Video 1:
“Go” with dog on left:

I think maybe I wasn’t able to run enough to get the straightest of lines with him. Also, I’ve been doing a bit of a focus game with him where he gets released when he looks at the jump. I thought maybe that would be appropriate to try here in case you wonder what I am waiting for before releasing him. Maybe you like that, maybe you don’t? LOL

Video 2:
“Go” with dog on right:

Video 3:
“Go” straight to jump
I didn’t have enough room to run around wings so I used cones instead.

I have a question on set point jump height. We’ve been doing young dog sequencing at 8 inches for a couple of months now. Should I set the oxer jump at 6″ and 8″ for the 2 bars? When I did the video, I think they were at 4″ and 6″. I am hoping he is going to measure into the 12″ class ultimately.

That’s it for now. Thanks!

Sandy and Benni

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,
Thank you for the feedback on toy play and increasing rewards for tricks etc. It gave me a lot of insight as to how to make things better for him. I will say he is a dog that does not like much repetition in training so less is more (polar opposite of CAVU who will train until he keels over…well not literally…). But he loves to play with me which is awesome. So I will take your advice and if you see things in my videos that could be better in that regard please feel free to bring it to my attention. Sometimes I get so caught up in the assignment and getting video that it becomes too serious!

First video is the intro to the set point. I hope it’s okay with you that I used the device that I had for CAVU when we did Susan Salo. I tried setting up the V like you describe with the jump bars propped up but I couldn’t get it to where the bars would stay in place and I was afraid if they fell on him or fell while he was jumping it would spook him and create a problem. I feel like it’s the same concept using the thing that you see in my video. If you don’t like how it looks, let me know. We have done a bit of this work before. The distance from where I set him up to the jump is 3’9″ Here is the video:
Intro to set point:

The next videos are for the bend work. Since we’ve also done a bit of this before, I did parts 1 and 2. If you would like me to work on specific things that you see, then I can do that and make another video in a couple of days to improve performance. I didn’t edit these since we went pretty quickly along so you can zip thru the parts where we tug briefly or me walking out/back from the camera.

Part 1 Bending:

Part 2:

Thanks!

Sandy and Benni

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Total video to date: 1 min 32 sec.

Hi Tracy,
I combined multiple sessions here and realized after spending time editing that I should have split it into 2 shorter videos so do with it what you will…either speed thru parts you don’t particularly need or want to see or just watch half of it one day and half the next or…whatever. I will pay closer attention next time. This one still keeps me under the 6-8 min total for the entire week. By the way, are we going Tuesday to Tuesday for the videos? Each Tuesday we reset the clock and have 6-8 min total?

Part 1 is getting some tricks and engagement prior to approaching the “ring gate” where I begin the “stay tour” using the gate, a jump and the tunnel. Notice he also “offers the jump” when I’m trying to set him up (I’m probably too close to the jump but he does like to offer that…I’m thinking I need to figure out a way he doesn’t take the first jump at a trial when he’s not supposed to yet). We are not trialing and don’t plan to for awhile.

Part 2 is tunnel commitment. I use “go” for straight extension out of the tunnel and “dig” for tight turn either direction based on where I am relative to the tunnel.

I took your toy play self-study. I’ve worked on getting him to bring the toy back to me. I left the part in the video where he takes off with the toy. I’ve done toy switch, running away with another toy, I’ve played in small spaces where he can’t run off. I let him win, I push him away so he brings the toy back towards me etc. I feel we have a good toy play relationship but he takes great joy in doing a few laps before he will bring it back. In seminars, he’s been pretty good about it…he seems to need that release of energy to do a run out and back once in seminars and pretty much will bring it back. Sometimes I use a food swap especially when the clock is ticking during our turn to work. In the backyard, he has much open space and he makes use of it. If you have any suggestions that I can try let me know and I will keep working on it. For this video, since he was just doing his own thing no matter what I tried, I walked into the garage as if I was going back inside and then he came to me and we had a party and continued on. Perhaps I asked for this…his registered name is Benecio Joie De Vivre! LOL Actually, I love his attitude and joy.

Here’s the video:

Thank you for your time in reviewing it.

Sandy and Benni
video total for week 5 min 23 sec

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi Tracy,

Does the spacing of the bars on the ground for bend work change for smaller dogs? It seems to me they would put in more strides between the bars on the bend work if not adjusted? I don’t know if this matters or not for this exercise if they did add strides…or maybe they won’t because they will take a more inside path. Just wondering. Thanks.
Sandy

[Sandy Mainardi]

Thanks for the feedback! So I do have a question on the sends when I am leaving early…related to the feet forward stuff I did with CAVU where we changed our lower body early to indicate the lead change for the turn….I’m thinking that is what you mean by rotating 3-4 feet before he reaches the wing? Also, when we are doing the running with opposing handler motion, do we still send with a step or keep our motion going and use our motion to send the dog?

Also, so as not to overdo with repetition for the sake of the dog, how many short sessions are advisable for exercises…especially wrapping with tight turns? I keep the reps low per session. Twice a week?

Here is the tunnel commitment 1 game:

Sandy

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Thanks for the feedback. So I do have a question on the sends when I am leaving early…related to the feet forward stuff I did with CAVU where we changed our lower body early to indicate the lead change for the turn….do you want us to stay facing the wing and step with dog-side leg before doing the rotation to leave for right now?

Sandy

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandy Mainardi.

[Sandy Mainardi]

Hi,
I’m late to the party and this format is different than in the past so I cannot figure out how to start my thread…help!

Sandy and Benni

[Author]

Posts