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Had a chance to stop by Catherine Laria’s place on the way home from a boondoggle I did yesterday. Spot and I worked contacts first then worked on this toward the end of our session. Looking at it now, I’m not sure I should have done a side change (RC) as I sent him to go on in the session. He listened to my words though…good boy! The last couple, I set a jump up before the tunnel several feet back but you can’t see it in the camera view. I left in the part where he didn’t understand the discrimination so you could see what I did to fix it. He doesn’t seem to get discouraged and once learned has it down. When he got 2 wrong tries I left the jump but moved our start position over away from the tunnel. Not sure if that was obvious on the video. Was nice to have a place to work where there weren’t 50 bazillion mosquitos!
Wow! Courntey Keys was using straight tunnels a couple years ago and I just thought it was her signature thing, but it seems to be in all the runs now. It’s interesting to watch how many good handlers don’t use a cue at the entrance to the tunnel then just ‘man’ their way through with speed at the end. I’m guessing as time goes on they’ll all learn the trick of the early cue, but right now it’s a great advantage to know to do it when they don’t. 🙂
Well, I finally got a place to work the tunnel stuff. We are just back in TX and I haven’t had time to shred the land, but there are so many stickers I’m not sure I’ll be able to use much of it. I pulled sticker plants out of an area on my old road area in a patch big enough to do this exercise. I couldn’t move laterally too far, but Spot sends to a tunnel pretty well. Should have seen me going over and over the area so he wouldn’t have a bad experience and shut down. LOL!
I gave you a little preview of my agility field where it’s fenced and the grass beside where i usually work when the field is muddy. Not going to be ready for a while. Sigh…
We worked through the first exercise and then took a break. Took a walk around and rested then tried again but he was over the ball so we tried to use cheese. My throw wasn’t as good with cheese, but we did the best we could. In the first few reps of left and right he made some wide turns but later seemed to start getting it. I tried a tight turn (wrap) once to each side just to see. I couldn’t remember exactly how you did the side changes, so I just gave it a shot. Took a long time to do this because Mr. Spot doesn’t always bring the ball back and Wager had to have a fetch between every rep. LOL! next time Wager will stay home, but it was the first time they could be out at the land without me pulling too many stickers and I felt bad leaving him at home. (I’m a sucker – I know!)
I had a fine example of the distance with a tunnel a couple weekends ago at a UKI trial. Some people were able to pull way laterally from the weaves and blind cross the exit of the tunnel. Some of us chose to layer the dw. I layered and Wager did it like he’d been doing it forever. I’m hoping with this course Mr. Spot will be able to do this by the time he is ready for Masters Series courses too! 🙂
For some reason I can’t figure out how to attach a picture. Will message it to you…
Definitely staying tuned! Looking forward to what fun stuff is next in the works. Thanks again for all your help and advice!
I hope it’s ok to sneak one last video in before we close it out. Spot and I worked the Wk 4 Skill Set stuff. I was pleased with it! A few mistakes on my part, but he responded well to all my cues. At the end after I’d had problem bypassing the tunnel I went back and worked that for each side a little. He’s so funny – he’s starting to get pushy – I stopped after setting him at the start line to look at the exercise and he whined and grumped at me. LOL! BTW – what is it about the orange tunnel that makes me say ‘ready’ each time I pass it? I don’t even realize I’m talking till I see the videos. sigh…
This has been such a fun course. I hate that I missed so much of it but will continue to work all of the things. Thanks so much Tracy for all your hard work on these classes and great advice and help!!
Did you think I fell off the face of the earth? LOL! Been sick. I’ve had 3 weeks of vertigo and couldn’t run to save my life till now. Vision is still not right, but better all the time. This is our first attempt at a course in a month. I’ve been able to work his frame and teeter a bit for a few days where I could mostly stand still and let him do the work so at least he’s done a little agility for a few days.
It’s also his first time at 22″ on a course. Since he is just over 19″ I”ve been slow to put him up from 20″ jumps, but looks to me like he has value for keeping them up and isn’t having trouble with the extra couple of inches.
so, 2 things…when does this course end as far as submitting videos?
second thing – here’s the video. I tried the section after the first weaves 2 ways – first a forced blind then after we ran the course we went back and did a push to a blind after the jump. I like the first way better, but maybe it’s just because I felt like it was smoother handling and if I got the hang of the other it would feel better. Your thoughts? So, here you go…Thanks! Can’t say I’ve heard ‘you’re too early’ very often. LOL!
I worked on the different options for seq 2 of week 3. Didn’t do the comparison, but just worked each combination. I didn’t like the wrap between 4 and 5. I felt like I was stuck standing still till he got past me. Anyway, here’s this set of choices…
That all sounds great. Will add a line and use less arm.
I redid the FC that he kept coming to me instead of the jump. I think I did it from about the same position, but looked at the landing spot of the jump. Worked perfectly! I did 2 reps to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. LOL!
Also did Seq 1 from week 3. You were totally right on the send and go vs a spin. On the left wrap, he came out of the tunnel wide and still was faster with more distance on the send than the spin. I did each direction send and spin then compared them in slow motion then compared the faster of each direction to the other. Send and go to the right was faster from what I can tell.
He’s starting to get some attitude – barking at me as we start. LOL!
Thanks! That Go thing is an issue for me. I don’t know why I use that to cheerlead, I’ll make a conscious effort not to do that.
I worked a little on the threadle wrap. Had a technical issue that I didn’t realize till I was done with the session. Worked Spot a bit, then Wager then Spot again. Apparently it didn’t record Spot’s first part, so here’s part 2 of session 1. When I looked at it I had no clue I was stepping in toward the jump on each rep – will go do this again without that, but here’s our first go….
btw, I use In In for the slice, so I think I’ll use Loop Loop for the wrap. 🙂
Thanks for all your input!! It all makes great sense!
Today I worked a little on the wrap – tried for a little more acceleration in and out of the wrap. I found myself about to run into the tunnel a couple of times, took my eye off him and he didn’t go in. Anyway, here’s our session on that…
Then we did Seq 2 of week 2. I thought a FC would show him the new direction 8-9 better (my feet would turn toward the correct tunnel mouth sooner, but in the end I liked the blind better there for us. We had a hard time getting the jump before the tunnel with me being off-set for a FC. Here’s our work for this sequence…
This may be a little painful to watch. Especially the wk 2 sequence. I started with the wk 1 std 2 course before I changed my course up. Decided not to try to do the whole thing without treating during the attempt. I was really not at my best on using my words. sigh… At the start, if I had room I would have done a back side slice from 3 to 4, but the fence is right there, so I had to do a back side wrap. The first time after the teeter, he didn’t get the back side wrap because I was standing right in the way and he didn’t see the wing. Anyway, here’s wk 1 std course 2.
I tried to get a baseline run on seq 1 of wk 2. Had a lot of trouble with the 180 part – all my own fault. I quit trying to get a baseline run and after several failed attempts at getting the 180 I just trained it throwing treats on the line I wanted. We worked through it, took a break and I finally got a whole course when I went back out. I’ve worked this exact thing with him in your other class before and I have to say I didn’t realize how little I have worked on that skill lately! Also realized I forgot to put on my brace – so yay that I could do the course without it and boo that I probably was babying my leg and didn’t move well and confused him more than normal.
We attempted the first std course of week 1. I had all poles opened up very slightly. When we weren’t successful I opened the last couple channels a little more. First time didn’t say ‘feet’ for the frame and he was all ‘squirrel squirrel’ then went back and said feet and he purposefully looked for and got his contact. Granted, the second time wasn’t in the full sequence, but I think I’m just going to have to plan to use a word for it.
Funny thing – I closed up the channels I had opened further and got out treats and worked weaves. He did great then and I could have a lot of distance.
The full course was a little above our pay grade, but I’m so happy with his willingness to work and his jump commitment.
I mislabelled the weave training, but you can figure that out. LOL!
There was an actual target. He doesn’t pay that much attention to it here does he? LOL! Am going to work on target away from the equipment and bring up the value for it. Thanks for your input!
OK, so my verbals (for Spot)…
Release is OK
Gradual turns are left and right.
Wraps: right is duh, duh, duh, left is ch, ch, ch
back side slice is push
back side wrap is around
drive forward on a line is go and sometimes it’s go on.
threadle at jumps is in in
tunnel mouth bypass/threadle is pass
I don’t have one for the weaves – I can’t even really visualize how to use it at the moment.
2/o 2/o is place
running frame contact hit is feet – I tried without a word and he had trouble.
turns off the frame or out of a straight tunnel are the same as for jumps – left, right, duh duh duh or ch ch ch depending on the amount of turn. Sometimes I use a name for a turn out of a tunnel.
driving on from a straight tunnel is go on and the next obstacle name.have added zing for a reward thrown ahead to drive on to get.
way to go is the lets go together and get a reward
get it is used for both starting a tug game and a dead toy on the ground, also used for directing to a treat on the ground not driving on away.
get your leashie is to get a leash at the end of a run especially during relay and for our new transition to trial exercise.I have one question – I want that ‘zing’ to be a drive on looking forward reward, so I don’t think that’s appropriate for this week’s transition to trial game. Think it’s still ok to use get it to mean get a treat and grab this toy either in my hands or on the ground? I guess I could change the word for grabbing the toy in my hand and still use get it for either toy or treat on the ground. Is that too gray for them as I add more reward words? It’s worked in the past because I really used only one reward word. It meant they were now able to interact with the thing to play or eat whether on the ground or in my hand, so kind of a release from a self control behavior of not grabbing things before given permission. I hope that makes sense.
