Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
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!
Hello!
Thanks for the info about the Max Pup classes! I will let my friends know about the other options!! I didn’t know you’d let people upgrade to newer versions. That’s pretty awesome! I’d love to have access to the new version of Max Pup 1! I purchased it a while back to do with Nox, so I did it as self-study with Katniss before enrolling in the live version of 2. I know you added some resilience-based games to the newer version that I’d be interested in. 🙂
We played the tunnel threadle and tandem turns game from package 7. I refreshed the tunnel threadle (not in the video) a few times before I started the first session, and after that, she did REALLY well with this skill! For the “tandem turn,” I used the threadle wrap verbal since I wasn’t really turning with her, so I’m hoping I did that correctly. I suppose there might be a time and place to use an actual tandem turn, but it seems like the threadle wrap produces a more efficient line for the dog (and tells them earlier where the next line is) and gets the handler out of there earlier. Based on your previous comment about tandems turning into threadle wraps, I decided to go ahead and use the wrap here.
Hi!
<<One suggestion for her is to start her further back so she has more room to take off for jump 1. She has a strong stay (yay!) so you can put her 10 feet away from 1 for now so she can take a big stride before takeoff.>>
That will be a big adjustment for me setting up a dog at the startline! I always put Nox close enough that there isn’t a stride before the first jump. She’s much less likely to knock the bar if I help her out with the take-off doing this. I will try to remember for Katniss, though!
Katniss and I have tried the double crosses game a couple of times since I tried it with Nox at your workshop. It was still really hard since she’s so darn fast, especially since there’s no hang time for a jump in the middle to give me just a bit more time. It seems the key was to move the last wing out just a little and do a few reps so she’s not quite as fast. 😂
This is the zig zag grid. It went pretty well (as long as she looked at the jump, lol).
Also, I had a question about the self-study Max Pup classes. I know that you update and add to the classes each time you run them live. Do you ever replace the ones available for self-study to reflect the new content? I have a friend who is hopefully getting a puppy soon, and since you are getting ready to run Max Pup 1, she won’t be able to do it live until the next time it goes live, which will be a while I would assume. Another friend (Kristin with Tala) wants to do the Max Pup 3 as independent study, but I know she was hoping for the updated version rather than buying the older one (I compared the list of lessons to this current class, and there do seem to be quite a few differences, at least in the names so I’m presuming content as well). I just wanted to be able to tell both of them if they might wait for new versions or if those are the only ones that will ever be available. Thanks!!
Hello!
I finally got to run another set of sequences with Nox! With school starting back up last week, everything has gotten crazy (including the dogs, lol)!!
We worked on Hot Topics from package 4. I videoed at least a couple of “walk” throughs for each of the 4 sequences, so the video is a bit longer than usual. I ran the first one a couple of days before that I didn’t include because the video quality wasn’t good (was getting dark), so technically we didn’t do the one-and-done on that one. The issues we had from the reps not included were dropped bars. She was taking them ALL out. Unfortunately, you really couldn’t see enough detail to see why.
Hi!
Thanks for all the tips on the teeter games! We’ll keep working on that for sure. I have the whole teeter class in my self-study library, but I’m thankful for the feedback since we need to make some adjustments. I love her confidence, as you mentioned, but some of her antics scare me, lol. I do plan to go back and do the whole class once this class is done (or perhaps Max Pup 4 depending on how much time I have to do the classes now that I’m back at work. Boo! 😂).
We worked on the lead outs in package 7. They went pretty well overall I think!
We also did the Turn Aways game from package 7. These went better than I thought they were going to since we haven’t done many turn aways together, and I’m pretty new to them myself. You can definitely tell that I had to think about what I was doing a few times, haha!
Hi!
<<Teehee! It is my job to bug everyone about that LOL!!>>
I just wish I could have you at all my training sessions to tell me in the moment to reward the dog and to keep going, haha!!
We played the Bang Game again. It still needs a lot of work!
We also tried the angled entries game. It was… nerve wracking, lol. Is there anything I should be doing to make sure this game is safe for her? She wants to get the board as fast as possible, so she’s jumping the boards. I know that once the teeter is trained, I’ll want her to run to the end at speed, but it kind of freaks me out when she’s stopping so fast in the air. As you will see in the video, there was one time when she just jumped off the end to get the cookie she dropped. There was a lot of face palming in this session, lol.
Hi!
<<When that happens, don’t stop there and withhold reward. Keep going and reward the next thing, because all errors are handler errors 🙂>>
HA! I knew I was going to get called out for that as soon as I did it, lol.
The screen grabs are super helpful! It’s easy to see the difference.
For the double crosses game, I completely messed up the directions on that! I watched the video and took notes, but by the time I got outside to play, I guess I jumbled it all up in my head. I could not figure out how I was supposed to get both crosses in that fast and why on earth I would want to, lol. I watched the videos of the instructions again, and then I tried running it; it still went very poorly. I got some help from a friend today, and although I understood what I was doing wrong, I still couldn’t get the timing right. I’m going to try to fit in one more session of the game this week, which I will post if I get time to try it again. That is a HARD game!!
We played the serpentine games. I think they went pretty good overall. This is almost our entire training session; I took out most of the clips of us tugging since that takes a pretty good amount of time (way more than the actual training in a session!).
Hi!
<<If you leave too soon and she doesn’t take the jump, just keep going as if she did. That will ultimately be more useful for teaching commitment because you can reward somewhere else for taking jumps, rather than stopping and rewarding when she barks at you and doesn’t take jumps.>>
That makes a lot of sense! I will keep trying to break this bad habit. I think if she didn’t turn in to me and scream at me, it would be a lot easier to make something up on the fly, but I feel like I’m going to trip on her, and it’s so hard to get her to look back at the obstacles once things go poorly. I’ll keep working on it, though!
<<Also – is ‘back’ your verbal for both the backside slice and backside wrap? If not, remember to use your backside wrap verbal at 16 🙂 If so… we need to get a backside wrap verbal added to help her know the difference.>>
Sooo…. No, she does not have a separate verbal for wrapping. Nox is the first dog I’ve had who even had a backside, and when I learned it, I didn’t know anything about having two verbals. Katniss is learning both. I do want to transition to having separate ones for Nox, but when I’ve tried just sneaking the new verbal in, she is like, “What the hell does that word mean??” and gets mad, lol. I need to break it down and teach the cue outside the context of a course. I’ll be adding that to the list of things we’ll work on this fall/winter.
We ran in an AKC trial this past weekend and had a BEAUTIFUL FAST run (78 points!)! Unfortunately, the livestream wasn’t up yet at LUDS, so I didn’t get a video of it. We had a decent Premier Standard run other than a poorly executed blind cross that caused a knocked bar and a pissed off sheltie. 😂 Then we had a really nice Excellent Standard run, which is in the video below. Unfortunately, she lost her footing on the dog walk right before the ending, and she ended up jumping off. Thankfully, she landed on all 4 feet and was nice and low to the ground, so I don’t think any one joint took too much impact. She was ready to keep going and seemed fine (the chiro that checked her out agreed)! But, the reason I’m including all of this in my post is to say that I had multiple people approach me throughout the day to tell me what a difference they have seen in Nox and to say they can tell how hard we’ve been working. I owe so much of that credit to you. 😊
Trial VideoAnyways! Here are our attempts at the Package 4 Standard courses. I walked the first course a bunch and then videoed myself running it a couple times. Unfortunately, my phone was getting full and all I got was me walking to the start line, lol. I deleted some things, but I knew if I ran it several more times, I would not have been able to do as good of a job actually running Nox as if I was fresh, so I did just one more run-through before the real thing. She took the dog walk instead of the 2nd tunnel, and that made it really hard to keep going, so we did start over after a short break. I totally forgot to turn on the camera, so I only have the final attempt. There were I think 2 runs that didn’t get videoed in the middle.
For the 2nd course, I was training with friends, and I didn’t want to video them walking the course, so I only have the one run-through of myself before the real thing. Other than one spot, this run was really good! I started her over in the middle to clean up that one section.
Hi!
We will keep working on the bang game to make it more fluent. I love how confident she is with hopping on it!
We played the Tight Blinds to Wraps game. I think I was a bit late on several of the turns, so I got wide turns. It’s been interesting to figure out the timing for Kat, who actually has much better commitment in a lot of situations than Nox. But of course, she’s still a baby, so I also never know what I’m going to get, haha.
Wingin’ It: Tight Blinds to Wraps
This is the Double Crosses game. These were fun and challenging!
