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Hello!
We finally had beautiful weather this weekend, so I was able to get some actual training done!!
I set up the sequence from Package 4, and we tried the first one. I started with a refresher on threadles, but that proved to be hard still. I think I was just overhandling it?? And I wasn’t connected on the tunnel when I tried layering. I threw that in by itself at the end of our session.
What is the last day for posting for this class? And are there other Zoom meetings? I seem to have lost the dates for those, lol.
Hello!
I signed up for the extended class just in time for the snow, lol! It’s all melted now, but we are going on a mini-winter vacation for the rest of the week. We’ll be tackling some of the games we’ve missed when we get back.
In the meantime, this is a video of our FEO JWW run at an AKC trial this past weekend. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone to video us (the only people left were pretty much just people running in novice, lol), so the video quality isn’t the best. I was hoping you’d be able to see us playing the pattern games and volume dial game before the run, but most of it’s off camera. You can see the very end of the up-down game before we go in. She grabbed a cookie off the floor just inside the gate, which is what she’s chewing on; she was not holding cookies in her mouth or gagging on one that I’d given her. I stood in the ring way too long and made her wait. I thought the judge was going to turn around so I could let her know we were doing FEO, but she started setting jump bars, so it took longer than I thought it was going to. Otherwise, I would have at least asked for some easy behaviors or played with her toy with her while we waited. I was super happy with her forward focus to the tunnel; she was looking at it before I ever turned around to see her on the start line. She did turn her head to face me before I released her, but she had already told me she knew what the first obstacle was. I turned a little too early on the tunnel entry, but I was able to turn her and get her back in there pretty easily. However, that put me behind where I thought I’d be for the line after the weaves since I was skipping those and trying to get to the next jump. I was also completely shocked that she hit her weave entry, haha! This made her miss one of the jumps in the pinwheel because I didn’t show her the correct line, but I kept going (improvement on my part, lol!). We only had one other bobble where I didn’t tell her about the rear cross side change early enough. I think the last rear cross was a bit late as well, but she read it better.
Hello!
Now that Christmas is over, I finally had some time to edit my videos that I took last week!
We did the Remote Reinforcement: Next Steps exercises. Unfortunately, I have a minor strain in my calf, so I wasn’t able to really run, but it still worked out ok. 🙂
She has a new game where she wants to tug on her leash while I’m putting it on or after it’s already on. I don’t mind her tugging on it, but I do want it on cue rather than whenever she feels like it. I do not want her to think it’s ok to tug when we’re just trying to walk normally, and as you can see in the video at one point, she grabbed it off the ground and took a victory lap with it. At the end of the first sequence, she ran over and stole her toy from my bag (which she doesn’t normally do, so it was accessible to her). I had her bring me the toy and after putting her leash on, I took her to the reward station and gave her cookies instead of the toy that she stole. I wasn’t quite sure what to do in the moment, but my goal was to make it clear that she doesn’t get to steal the toy and play her own game while at the same time not making it an aversive experience. She seemed to understand since she did not go for the toy again (other than the leash, but that context is a little different I think since we haven’t worked much with that yet.
I need to develop a behavior for her at the end of our runs I think so that she doesn’t steal toys or the leash. She also ran out in front of me when we were going back to the station towards the end of the video. I think she was herding me a bit, which I also want to avoid so I don’t fall flat on my face, lol. What do you think about a hand target back to the leash or simply heeling (but as a fun behavior, not in a militant sort of way)? I thought about having her go to her leash and sit until I get over there, but I can think of a couple of potential issues with that like her not knowing where it is or her grabbing it and self-rewarding. She’s becoming quite the teenager, lol!
We will be at your young dog workshop on Monday!! I’m hoping I can actually run for real, but we might be working on some distance skills if not, lol. We also have a spot in the January one. 🙂
Finally, here is sequences 4 and 5. I executed a lovely rear cross on the first rep. Unfortunately, I wasn’t trying to, and I probably couldn’t do it on purpose. Seriously, what’s wrong with me?? 🤪🤣 I eventually figured out the timing and handling of the wrap. For sequence 5, I could not get the serp from 4-5. I was either in the wrong place or too slow.
Kat had an upset tummy for a few days last week from some new treats I gave her. She’s much better now, but I wasn’t giving her any treats for a few days until she was back to normal. Because of that, we didn’t play any of the pattern games or remote reinforcement games until I could bring food back into training. We will hopefully be able to play some of those this weekend.
Here is another try at sequences 2 and 3. Seq 2 was supposed to be a warm-up, but she kept going past the jumps in the middle, so we did it a couple more times than planned. For Seq 3, it shouldn’t be any surprise that I messed up the rear cross multiple times. 🤣
Hi!!
I’m going to try this again. It seems that I was logged out of this page due to inactivity in the middle of my post, and I didn’t think to copy and refresh before sending, so I lost it all… ugh!!
<< She did well with the pattern games but was starting to get a bit bored 🙂>>
I was also starting to get bored, lol. I forget how much the average novice dog struggles in the weaves and how many of them will wander off to do other things and how many things people try to fix, haha. It was definitely VERY slow. 😂
<<She did leave the stay a bit early at :30 and almost left when you were adding the tunnel, so be sure you are not getting into a rhythm of connect/arm/release because she will start to release on the arm cue 🙂>>
I’ve started to notice this issue creeping up. I try really hard to always hold my criteria for this behavior, but sometimes my brain doesn’t process fast enough. Occasionally she gets up right as I’m about to release, and by the time I realize she was too early, I’m already moving on the next line and giving a cue. That seems like it might be confusing at that point. I’m really working on watching for this.
<<watch how when you point forward ahead of her with your arm, it turns your shoulders to the front of the jump and she comes right in to the front. >>
I just want to point at ALL THE THINGS. 🤣🤣
I have 3 videos to share of sequence work from package 3. We did these over the course of more than a week, but I didn’t have time to post until now. Please take your time with the feedback! I’ll put them in separate posts to hopefully make it easier and so you don’t get kicked out mid-feedback and have to start over like me, lol.
Here’s the first one. This is sequences 2 and 3. She’s not driving to the MM super well on her own; she doesn’t look for it the same way that Nox does. She will always check back in with me, and I have to send her back to it. In other settings where I’m not so far behind her, she’ll happily drive to it. I realized after watching the video that I was being a bit lazy and not driving past the last jump. Is it just my decel that’s turning her? In that case, I guess it’s good that she’s ignoring the MM since might think I’m trying to turn her? Should she go to it anyway once she hears GO! or Get it!?
I did try sequence 3 once, but I didn’t execute the rear cross well, so I ended the session there to try again later.
Hi!
I have a question about decompression. I’m struggling to figure out what Katniss finds decompressing. She is a really chill dog for the most part, so I don’t notice a difference in her behavior when I try to give her decompression activities. Nox REALLY needed some time out in nature on a hike, which I used to do regularly and then got out of the habit of doing. She was starting to show some behaviors I hadn’t seen in a while (like running away after a run in practice) and was just driving me a bit crazy at home. After going for a 3 mile hike, she has been in such a good mood and is able to function better. Katniss doesn’t have any of these sorts of difficulties, so it’s hard to know what she needs and what’s effective. She likes to shred cardboard boxes (the kind sodas come in), but it just seems to a fun thing to do that she’s done since she was a puppy; I’m not sure that it’s serving a purpose for her any more than playing with a random toy would. What should I be looking for to know if I’m meeting her needs? Would you consider scentwork practice to be decompressing? It uses olfaction, of course, but I would imagine it could have the potential to build up frustration or a need for decompression on its own since it’s a game of puzzles.
We ran in another FEO JWW AKC run over the weekend. I think it went really well overall. I could have started the pre-run games a bit later; the class seemed to be moving rather slowly, which I suppose I should have anticipated for novice.
As long as she’s not right next to the line with the next dog running, Katniss has a pretty decent “chill” behavior. I’m thinking I should try seeing what her natural “engage and chill” looks like in this environment; the cookies seemed to hype her up.
In the moment, what order the volume dial game and the pattern games were supposed to be in. I ended up with some sporadic version of both, lol. Part of this reason was also that I started playing the games too early.
Once I got her in the ring, she did find it difficult to sit on the start line. I unfortunately had not yet listened to the recording for Training Nights 2 and 3, or I might have tried a wrap at the first jump.
Sorry the video is so long(again, I was off in my timing of starting the games)! My videographer stopped recording a couple of times but then started right back up again; there’s nothing missing from the spots where it restarts except I was getting more cookies at one point.
We also did the warm-ups and first sequence for the driving ahead games. She picked up on the GO! pretty quickly, but even after she was driving well to the MM, she would still check in before the last jump, even if it was just a sideways glance with her eyes. We haven’t done a lot with placed rewards lately, so I think this was really helpful for her!
Hello!
<<remember to start it with a regular pattern game before turning away. And also, remember that she does not need to come in front of you or anything… she just needs to be patiently engaged.>>
I totally missed both of those details in the directions, lol. Whoops!
<<I think it was probably too many reps and also reward sooner – they have limited patience with us 🙂 so be sure to do it maybe once on a sequence then move on to staying connected.>>
That makes total sense to only “mess up” once when playing this game. I would imagine this isn’t a game you’d want to play super often so as not to build in too much frustration??
<<She did well with remote reinforcement too! Bear in mind that you don’t need to do this with a bowl of treats on the ground.>>
Yes, I won’t be doing that again, haha! I leave the bag of cookies on the ground all the time, but they are harder to access, so I think it will go well as long as I don’t put the cookies in a dog bowl on the ground, lol.
<<Going close to 5 made it harder to send to the tunnel and hustle to get the BC on time.>>
I totally forgot I was supposed to do the blind until the last second. 😂
<< just be sure you practice your verbals before you run so she hears the correct ones 🙂>>
I definitely practiced them, but I think because I walked all of the sequences at one time before I brought her outside with me, I got the verbals mixed up. I should have walked it one more time as a refresher or at least “walked” it in my head and said the verbals out loud. That’s a good reminder for when it takes a while between a walk through and getting to actually run a course.
<<If you stay closer to 3-4 and use parallel line motion to send to 5 and 6, you can be across the landing side of 7 as she exits the tunnel. And then show her a serpentine upper body,>>
I was attempting to handle 7 as a serp, but I was having a hard time getting there. This makes total sense! It’s been a while since I’ve been able to use much distance (consistently), so this is going to be a big adjustment for me to not have to babysit obstacles. Kat seems like she’s going to have pretty good commitment once she gains more confidence and experience.
<< Ideally you would go up closer to 4 to set the RC line>>
This is why I need a lesson on rear crosses, lol!! Even though Kat and I did a few of them on these sequences, I still don’t think I am doing them correctly a lot of the time. And they are just about impossible with Nox! Ugh!
<<One other thing to consider: giving her longer breaks when running sequences.>>
I’m still figuring out her endurance level, and it seems to vary quite a bit from day to day. I will plan to give her more of a break between things even if it means it takes us longer to get through things. In the video below of the tunnel discriminations, I did take some short breaks with her between reps so I could review the next sequence, and she was pretty quick to come back to work for most reps. She did take a victory lap, but she tends to do that at the beginning of training sessions, not just when she’s tired, so it’s hard for me to use that as a sign that I shouldn’t keep going on its own. I admit I probably should have only done half of the sequences since I did a bit of a review on just the tunnel threadle at the beginning, but I was running out of light. Now that it gets dark so early, I typically don’t have time to train when I get home from work, so I have to take advantage of the weekends for the sequence work. Doing a working spot keeps me motivated to get the work done, but I also feel the pressure of “deadlines.” I’m really bad at remembering to set a timer. I need to get better at that or have a set number of reps planned out before I walk out the door.
Hello!
<<Where is this? It is a lovely facility!>>
The trial was at the Family Dog Club in Chesapeake. This is Rita’s place (Ruby Roo’s person). We are lucky to be about 15 minutes from here. 🥰 You’re welcome to visit any time!!
<<For simple lines, keep going. For things she might not know that well yet (RCs and GO lines), or longer sequences – break things up and reward, then reset and keep going.>>
This makes sense! I will be doing another AKC JWW FEO run this coming weekend, and I will try to keep this in mind as I’m planning my strategy. We won’t be doing weaves still (we only train weave things maybe once a week if we’re lucky, so it’ll be a little while, lol!). That will definitely be a spot we stop and reward, but I’ll try to figure out a good spot to reset and get ahead for the inevitable GO line at the end.
<<You can see the tugging was not as easy for her here, so you can ask for tricks and also change toys to something new and interesting.>>
I have definitely noticed there are times that she is not as into tugging as others. So far, I’ve always been able to get her to take the toy, but sometimes I have to work a little harder at it. I need to find some new fun toys!! She likes the one I was using the best, but I’m sure I could find something else even better.
<<Chances 2 – wait, did a run even happen? LOL! It took 3 seconds? I think it looked really good!>>
Hahaha!! Yep, and it cost the same as a 20+ obstacle elite run. 🤣🤣🤣
<<Will she tug on her leash? That is a toy that can come into the ring for AKC as well, so getting a nice tug leash will be a good thing to have!>>
I haven’t really tried since her leash isn’t great for tugging, and that’s not a behavior I like my young dogs, at least not until I have it on stimulus control with a good “out” cue because it drives me crazy trying to walk someone’s dog who won’t let go of the leash. I think she is at that point now, though. I will look around for a fun one. 🙂
<<Looks like there was some of that too on the 2nd run – even if it is a real run, you can still play with her at the start line, do tricks, etc – then let her respond to the line up cues like she did in the earlier runs.>>
I think my dog training brain was tired since the tunnelers runs happened at the very end of the trial! I definitely could have kept her engaged better in these last two runs. 🙃
<< So definitely prioritize getting your remote reinforcement skills going, so you can say the marker and she can run towards the leash/toy combo (in NADAC she will have to let the person hand it to you, but that is better than barking at you LOL!! In AKC, it will be a leash marker before the reward marker (unless it is a tug leash!!).>>
You can actually have the leash runner put the leash on the ground or carry it with you if you prefer. I will have to figure out what works best for Katniss. In AKC, can the dog grab the leash before you put it on them? Are they allowed to tug while still in the ring if you are making your way to the exit?
On to the new stuff!
We played the Find My Face game. She was a bit confused in the beginning and just stood there while I got myself sorted out, lol, but then she got the hang of it. She did get a little mad when I used it in “a course,” but she was able to keep working through it. Am I starting this step too early? I’m trying my best to avoid building frustration into her training to avoid the angry tornado that is Nox. 😂
This is the Remote Reinforcement game. She definitely stole some cookies when I had the bowl on the ground. 😂 I think she thought I was playing the game with her that I used to teach her the “look” cue, which was transferred to the first obstacle on the start line. I got smarter the second session and put the bowl a little higher so the context looked different. She didn’t have any trouble with that, so I don’t think it was a remote reinforcement issue so much as being confused about the game. Poor pupper, lol! She is used to me throwing toys somewhere and then walking away, but I do often have a different toy on me for that. The toy was definitely easier.
Finally, here are the two sequences from the Middle of the Course games. They went really well! As you’ve requested, I didn’t do much in terms of editing. I did take out the part where I was reviewing the course map so I could remember the numbers to the second one. That didn’t seem too important, lol.
Hello!
Katniss and I had a very eventful weekend with our NADAC debut!! I am absolutely thrilled with how well she did!
I’m not sure how familiar you are with the games and rules for NADAC, so my apologies if I explain things you already know, lol. We ran 4 classes at the Intro level, which are very short courses typically with one side change required. Like many NADAC trials, this was a double run format. This means we ran the same course twice in a row, so she ran a total of 8 times between Saturday and Sunday. For intro, you can enter the dog at any height you want, regardless of FEO or running for “real”; I ran her at 12″ since we are still working on grids to get to full height.
There’s LOTS of video here, but the runs themselves are very short. I figured you would skip through a lot of the pre-run stuff, but I thought I’d let you choose which ones to focus on. 🙂
We started with Grounders (hoops, barrels, and tunnels) on Saturday. I ran the first time with the toy in my hand. At the end of my run, you can see the judge talking to me before I left the ring. She was telling me that having the toy in my hand might have been causing her to jump up and bite at me. I’m not entirely sure what she meant since I didn’t think she did that (and don’t see it in the video either…), but I felt like it was not so much training advice as much as it was a warning that it could be considered problematic. I decided to go ahead and run the next one with the toy tucked away since that’s the next step, and I really felt like she could handle it. I sure wish I had remembered that I could have thrown the toy at the end of the run instead of having it in my hand. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was an option until the last two runs (but as noted below, I chose to run those differently). There is a decent chance she may have done a lap with the toy before coming back, though, and if there was a dog on the line already, that could have been problematic. The courses were so short that I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to stop and reward and then get to the end of the line as you suggested after the AKC run. I was worried that it would be frustrating for her to have to stop after just a couple of things since she LOVES to move her body and GO FAST!!! After watching the videos, I think I should have done it anyway.
Grounders Round 1
Grounders Round 2We ran Intro Jumpers next. NADAC’s jumpers doesn’t have weaves (and no intro courses have weaves except one set in the Weavers class), so we ran the whole sequence. She went past one jump, but we kept going, and she did the rest of them!
Jumpers Round 1
Jumpers Round 2On Sunday, we ran Chances (distance challenge). We started at #4 since we don’t have contacts yet. There was a 180 degree turn over two jumps; it seemed to be a disconnection issue there. Instead of stopping, I did a circle and brought her back. I thought I’d trip over her if I didn’t swing her back around to be able to get the front cross in after that 2nd jump. I’m hoping this was ok to do!
Chances Round 1
Chances Round 2Finally, we ran Intro Tunnelers on Sunday. Kat thinks tunnels are amazing, and she had done so well with her previous 6 ring experiences that I got a little bit greedy and tried it as a real run instead of a training run. 🙈 I only chose to do this since it’s TUNNELS (ALL THE TUNNELS!!), and you can tie your toy onto your leash for the dog to grab, so it wasn’t very long after the run that she got the toy. I had different videographers for the last two runs, and I didn’t have much time to instruct them to get the pre-run games, so it’s mostly us stepping to the line on the last one. For the first try, I did not support her line enough and she missed tunnel #2. You can’t see it in the video unfortunately, but that definitely happened, lol. I again did a big swoopy circle to get her back on track. I really needed her to go into tunnel #2 so that I could get ahead for a blind after #3, which is why it was worth it to me to “fix” it.
It was pretty cool to get a Q with her (both runs actually), but not because of the Q itself; rather, I was just so happy that she was able to focus so well. For a dog who, as you put it, has been essentially “home schooled,” she ignored SOOOO many distractions that could easily have drawn her away from working with me. There were people walking and building courses in the other ring (although no dogs ran since we only had one judge; that wouldn’t have gone well, haha), dogs all around the gates, spectators all along the fence, a table full of food cooking in crock pots on the other side of the fence, ring crew all over the place… but she was a rockstar! The only thing I noticed in terms of focus was a delay in sitting at the startline. I’m not sure if that was due to distractions or just being mentally tired. She will do that at home occasionally if we’ve run a few reps or done a couple of different stations already, and I know that she’s either physically or mentally tired and I had better stop very soon after that or I get less-than-stellar performances, so that’s what I’m assuming was going on.
When trying to upload the last video, YouTube told me I had reached my limit for uploads and needed to verify my account or wait 24 hours to post anything else. I verified my account, and now I have to wait 24 hours for approval, lol. I posted the video to Facebook yesterday, so I’m hoping the last link will work for you. If not, I can post it in 24 hours I guess, haha. It was an absolute amazing run! She gave me a HUGE lead out with some lateral distance, and she turned nicely out of the 2nd to last tunnel (although I think I started my brake arms and verbal way too late!).
Hello!
<Remember that you can play with her and talk to her on the way to the line and after you take the leash off – that will relax both of you >
I wasn’t entirely sure wouldn’t run around like a feral beast, lol. She also has a habit of taking the first jump after I take her leash off before she comes to line up. She’s less likely to do it in training at home, but at a couple of workshops at LUDS, she has been more excited and has done it. I really don’t want that to become a habit that I have to fix, so I was being a bit more conservative at the startline. I have not experimented with doing some volume dial games before and then after the leash comes off. I will play with that. I will say that I was actually pretty relaxed for our first run. I felt zero pressure (other than the clock, lol), and Nox has helped me learn to not be embarrassed by whatever crazy antics they do in the ring, haha! (She has been quite a humbling experience. 😂) I will always debut a dog using FEO from now on, and I will encourage others to do the same. It was helpful that she doesn’t know the weaves, so I couldn’t even attempt to run the whole course. Maybe that’s a strategy, lol.
<For going around jumps, is she tending to do it more on these short distances, and on turf/mats? >
She will do it on grass as well. She hasn’t done it as much in the videos you’ve watched since we are just starting to do bigger sequences with more space and speed. It seems to be tied very much to speed and arousal. I don’t know if she doesn’t have enough value or understanding for jumps yet since so much of her foundation training was done on wings, or if perhaps she can’t figure out how to sort out her jumping while maintaining speed (and she really values speed, lol) and finds it easier to go past the jumps. After she gets some of the crazies out and gets more tired, she is less likely to go past them.
<The AKC rule of not being able to throw the reward makes the big ending lines tricky, especially with the triple as the last jump (really, judge?>
Yes, the courses were not my favorite for anything I ran, even with Nox, but that double- triple ending was just mean! I almost threw the toy at the ending line and remembered at the last second I wasn’t allowed to. I will try to do as you suggested and find a way to be ahead of her on the big lines. It felt really awkward and wrong to reward from my hand in that spot. I believe NADAC allows you to throw the toy, but I will have to brush up on the rules to be sure.
We finished up the opening sequences from Package 1. We started with sequence 3. It was the only one we struggled with. As you mentioned, I was very “twitchy” with when I could leave her at #3 to get to the blind after 4. In the moment, I thought the issue was that I was leaving too early or too late (either pulling her off of jump 3 or sending her to the big layering line). I felt like my cues were more clear after the first couple of reps, but she wasn’t really looking out towards the jump, so I rewarded her after the jump and then after the turn. After I watched the video again, though, I believe the issue was connection and pointing ahead to the jump. In my defense, I ran these this afternoon before the last bit of light disappeared before I read your thoughts about continuing on when she goes past jumps. 🤣 (The email notification that you responded went to my “promotions” tab in my gmail (not even sure why that’s a thing), so I didn’t see it until this evening. I do not have a valid defense for not following the two failure rule. 😂😂😂 Sequences 4 and 5 went fantastically! We only did one rep of each of those. 🙂
Hello!
<My only suggestion is to flip the script: do the pattern games before the volume dial.>
I actually think I did this for the FEO run, lol. 🙂
<Nice job getting forward focus on jump 1!>
Thanks!! I struggled to teach her this initially.
<The scientific term for that is “twitchy” haha>
🤣🤣🤣 I think I’m going to struggle with that in the beginning with Kat. She is so fast that I know my brain is going to be thinking about getting to the next thing and not want to wait for her to commit.<So I don’t think she was mentally done, I think she was still in the game and reading you correctly>
She was slow to sit at the startline (which I now realize I should not have cut out in my edits; edits were just supposed to cut out tugging between reps but include resetting for the next rep). She was also running to her toy but not grabbing it or just dropping it immediately. I’m starting to see those as signs that I need to be done soon because her performance goes down at that point. I don’t disagree with your comment on the handling, though!< And NADAC has interesting rules about food near the ring (but I think it can be in a ziplock in your pocket?)>
You aren’t supposed to have food within 10 feet of the ring. The rule was added because of dogs being distracted in the ring by people feeding their dog at the gate entrance (gates weren’t able to be closed between dogs at the time of the rule change) and because of some incidents that occurred between dogs when food was left near the rings (I guess some fights or scuffles happened??). They also didn’t want dogs dragging people back to their crating area or cars to get their rewards, so they decided you could carry food or toys in your pocket IN the ring, but it has to be in a sealed container. I get the food being in a sealed bag or whatever, but the toy thing cracks me up! You can bring a ball in your pocket, for example, but it’s supposed to be in a baggie or something. 😂 That rule shouldn’t be an issue for us, though. I can use food for the pattern games and then use the toy for the volume dial game as we get closer to the ring.
This is our debut FEO video. We ran Nov. JWW. My goals were for her to hold her start line and stay engaged the whole time in the ring, which she did fantastically!! One of her best doggie friends was in line behind us, and she was able to ignore her.
She doesn’t know the weaves, so my plan was to reward before them and then set up for the ending right after them.
I did not plan to stop to fix anything, but I ended up doing that twice. 🙈 The first time, I didn’t think she was going to take the jump after the one she missed, and I didn’t want her to run past all of the jumps and not actually do any obstacles for our run, lol. She did end up taking the next one, but I realized that too late, so I rewarded her and reset her. I cannot remember if I gave her a turn cue, and I know (after watching the video) that I was too close to the jump and didn’t turn my shoulders early enough. I would have loved to have thrown her toy ahead of her before resetting, but I know you can’t do that in AKC. Should I just ignore when she misses a jump and assume it was always me? She tends to go around jumps a lot, so I worry about reinforcing that too many times.
For the second half, I know that it was a late blind that made her miss the jump, but I was worried about possibly sending her over the double and triple at a bad angle (assuming I could have gotten her to keep going forward), particularly since she’s never seen those two jumps before. I just put her back on the line to give her a better approach rather than actually fixing it.
Hello!
<<Perfect! Let me know when you might go and we can do baby dog NFC together!!!>>
That would be super fun!! I will have to look at their schedule and see what else is being offered that we could do. I imagine with the holidays coming up, there might not be quite as much going on, but I hope there’s something. It would be great to get her in a totally new environment, too! She’s been to LUDS and our local club since she was a baby.
We had to take a break from training last week because poor Katniss ran her paw pads off at LUDS at a workshop. She has soft baby feet still, and I guess the turf was too rough on them. They have healed nicely, though, so we are back at it! Is it ok if I post 5 minutes of sequences and 5 of the other games later this week, or do these videos I’ve posted above count for “this week” since it’s technically Monday? It was driving me crazy getting behind on the first package! I kept looking at her feet throughout the day and willing them to heal faster, lol! I’m sure she thought it was weird that I had a new fascination with her toes. 🤣
We took the Volume Dial Game and Pattern Games on the road. Although this is the facility where we often train and she’s grown up at, this was a NADAC club practice, so there were lots of people and dogs wandering around. There were several dogs and people to the right of us just out of the frame maybe 20 feet away, plus the ones you can see in the video. She LOVES people and dogs, so I was very pleased with how she was able to ignore them all. I didn’t have to use a high value cookie as you had suggested as a possibility- just some True Chews, which she gets often.
We also played with the first couple of sequences for Package 1 at home. She was mentally tired from hanging out at the dog club earlier in the day, so I think that affected her performance a bit. The first two sequences went well after just 2 reps each, so I tried the third one (I wasn’t going to do any more than that), but she was clearly done, so we stopped.
We did our first AKC FEO debut run this weekend. Super exciting!!! I took about 8 minutes of video to show what we did outside of the ring as well as the run itself. I’m not quite sure how to edit that. There’s a couple of minutes of the volume dial and pattern games when we were further back in line and then some tug and tricks near the gate. We also had to wait for the jumps to be reset while we were in the ring and I tugged with her. Surely you don’t want all 8 minutes, though?!
Next weekend we will be running in NADAC in several classes in Intro. The courses are super short, and training in the ring is highly encouraged. It will be harder to get video inside and outside of the ring since there’s no balcony like at LUDS, but I will do my best. 🙂
Hello!
<<There are some great FEO/NFC opportunities in Louisa, VA – how far is that from you?>>
It’s about 2 hours and 40 minutes from me. It’s definitely doable. I’ve been to Close Enough Farm once to do FEO for a league night with Nox a couple years ago. It was super fun, but unfortunately, it’s way too far to play in the league for real. I actually discovered it while on vacation at Lake Anna (because who doesn’t look for nearby agility opportunity when you’re on vacation with your husband and non-dog sport friends? 🤣). I remember seeing some USDAA events there, but I think Katniss is too young to play in that venue yet. She just turned 15 months a couple days ago.
We played the Pattern Game Foundations exercises. Although I’ve played most of the pattern games with Nox, I haven’t done too much with them with Katniss yet. She’s always happy to eat cookies, though, lol, so she thought they were pretty fun!
Hello!
We got to play a few more games over the last few days, and I’ve finally had time to do some video editing. There’s a lot of video to go through, so I’m not expecting feedback on all of it! I just wanted to put everything in one place before I wasn’t able to post anymore; I use these forums as a sort of training journal. I will be doing Package 9 on my own before MaxPup 4 starts, but the rest of it will all be here on my thread so I can review it later. 🙂
With that being said, I would mostly like feedback on the tunnel game, specifically the rear crosses as noted. And the other big question I had was related to the forced threadles (not so much from the video but just in general). The questions are below with each topic, but again, please don’t feel like you need to watch everything. 🙃
This is the tunnel entries and exits game. Everything went really well until we got to rear crosses (go figure; you know how I feel about rear crosses, lol!). If you want to skip ahead to about :45, that was our trouble spot. What can I do to break this skill down more?
This is the Lead Outs and Big Lines games. She didn’t have any trouble finding the jumps in any of the lead outs. She actually did really well on all of these with only a few questions when I messed up my handling.
I was excited to try out the forced fronts and threadles game since this skill is relatively new to me. I’ve tried the forced fronts out in a workshop a couple years ago but haven’t done anything with them since. Other than needing to review the threadle briefly, Katniss read everything much better than I anticipated. I have one question about this game. What’s the difference between a regular threadle and a forced threadle? Aren’t all threadles done with the handler on the takeoff side of a backside (at least on a jump)? I’m very curious to learn about forced rears and blinds! I can’t picture what those would even look like.
Finally, we did the layering games. I’m super happy with how these went considering how little we’ve practiced this skill! I realized that I was doing my blind cross WAY late for the first reps of the sequences. There were 2 reps I didn’t include in the video where she flanked the middle jump after the tunnel because I was trying to connect with her and cue the jump before starting the blind. I’m not sure why I was doing that, lol, but my timing got better towards the end of the session once I realized the problem.
Thank you for another awesome class! I’m AMAZED at how many skills Katniss has learned in such a short time with these MaxPup classes. I am super excited about the final class in the series!
