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Hope the rain has moved out of your area now!
MissL got to go practice some drills on the big agility field we train at and did AMAZING! She even showed a little start line stay. I was exceptionally proud of her by (mostly) sticking with me and did not run off to go explore (like her brother Wayne used to do!)We practiced “Find the Jump” drill tonight. I started with the wing and jump closer to the tunnel and she caught on quickly, so I moved them a bit farther apart. I was also excited that she was excited about the new tug I got for her (since she tends to ignore toys in training). She stayed pretty engaged with the tug…but quickly remembered she really likes treats 🙂
I was afraid she was getting bored and/or just patterning after a few reps, so I got a little creative and did some “ad hoc” directionals to the drill too.
Whew! Finally recovered from my travel/agility hangover and then we had to wait out the rain, but MissL was excited to get back to practicing!
We are still working through some of the older exercises and concepts. Tonight we did Jumping Foundations 2: Zig Zags. I was very happy that I was able to communicate the drill to her and she was grasping the concept. Also very happy that her start line is getting better!
Here is our Zig Zag practice:
Had the BEST weekend so far with Wayne and agility! It was all an adventure. A new place neither of us had ever been before and the longest drive so far accompanied by horrible weather on the way there and stupid ridiculous construction on the way back both add significant travel time and Wayne was such a good travel boy.
The venue we trialed in was much smaller than we had experienced before and we were packed in there and very near the ring. Overall he was a rockstar, but we did find a few triggers I need to work with him on. He was picking up “vibes” from a couple of the very high energy BC’s (it wasn’t all BC’s). One of the ones he was interested in runs in the Elite category. The ring had barriers, so he couldn’t see the dogs running. This particular dog is very barky at a high pitch. Wayne would be all chill and then hear the dog run and it immediately grabbed his attention. We observed Wayne and his eyes were following the dog by it’s bark! The other BC that triggered him typically ran right before us. I worked our pre-run volume dial games and would have good focus out of him until he walked into the ring. Several times he looked over to the other dog leaving the ring and Wayne was definitely overaroused. Several times I struggled just getting him off leash because he was so amped. One of the times we came in after that dog and Wayne was very amped but we had a short delay due to a scribe/judge conversation and resetting timers, which actually worked out that it gave Wayne a bit of time to collect his head. Definitely noted all of this and will be paying attention and working on these issues.
We also had an on course distraction with a dead lizard in the dirt…LOL!
Now…for the BIG BRAGS!!!! His 2nd run on Friday he hit his first ever 6 string of weaves in flow and in trial! Over the 3 days he successfully hit 10 our of 12 sets of 6string weaves!
His other big accomplishment was the dog walk (remember I commented on this in our last zoom) He attempted the DW on Saturday and made it about 2/3 the way across the top and stopped and bailed off. First run on Sunday with a DW he took the whole thing and hit the contact!! He got so confident with both DW and Aframe that he decided he could jump contacts. I was able to handle the A frame and make handling corrections for getting the conact after that. I am SUPER proud of his bravery!Only his 4th trial, we came home with 1 Q (in tunnelers) yet we had so much good stuff! Also his first trial where I moved him up in all classes from the Intro to Novice level.
This is the Gamblers class run on Friday and his first time to hit weaves in trial!
This is one of Saturday Weavers runs. Almost clean- just a hesitation and took obstacle 4 wrong direction.
This is one of Sundays Jumpers runs…you can see his overarousal at the start line!
In addition to our over arousal, trialing spotlighted lots of things I need to work on: our “outs” weren’t consistent, some struggles with collection on tight turns and some hesitations on “go”. Still giddy about the distance and speed he was hitting his weaves!
Advice, suggestions and observations are greatly appreciated as we want to continue to grow and improve!Yes- you described my directionals well. “Out” is move out away from me. I am still working on getting my mouth and brain around the directionals (I am also incorporating them for Wayne too!)
We worked on “Sends and Serps”. Oh boy did we have some challenges. She was not getting the concept at first. She would wrap the wing and then just go on past the jump to the MM. I had to do a LOT of adjustments to get her to understand the concept. I moved the equipment around several times and a few times called her “tight” to me so she would take the jump. The “tight” command should have only been used when I wanted her to just wrap the wing and come into me. I found myself switching between the occasional “tight” along with “come” and “in”. Both “come” and “in” would be more appropriate directional cues on a serp for me. I also had to throw a few rewards so she would come over the jump towards me.
One of my biggest struggles was engagement with her. She would wrap the wing and I would make eye contact with her, but she wasn’t looking at me AT ALL! Just kept heading towards the MM. She is bossy and confident so she just trotted to where she wanted to go….such a mess 🙂
Finally had some success and then played around with a few crosses. Definitely a drill we need to keep working.
I am still a bit behind. Here is some work on the Set Point game with the moving target. Of course I tried with a toy and she is only kind of interested, so I again reverted to the thrown treat. I am pleased I am getting more of a startline stay with her (she did bust it a few times, but improvement!)
And we did some more work on the Minny Pinny. I tried starting from different angles and tried starting her from both inside and outside of me. I can’t recall if I included the clip of it, but I am thinking and was working on adding a new cue to her vocabulary. I am going to attempt using “back” when she is turn away from me to her left and “turn” when turning away to me to her right.
Glad you are feeling better!
Thanks again for the great input- never realized the mid run praise was distracting her, but when I went back and looked I totally agree!
We worked on the Tunnel Exit game today. Should have worked on “Wind in My Hair” because that is what the barrels were doing 🙂 Enjoy my lovely yard too, compliments of my lawn guy Wayne the BC!! At least I have less to mow!
I think MissL started getting the idea on the tunnel exits. She was still trotting, it helped when I picked up speed. She was also getting tired.
Yikes! Trying to catch up. The 3 day (well 4 for me since it was our club trial and I had set up the prior day) trial, followed my a Monday class and Tuesday night live. Having 3 dogs (2 of which are young) is a blast, right???
Hope you are feeling better and those Halls have kicked in 🙂
Pardon the lighting on this video (that big bright thing is the sun!) This was a bit of a challenge keeping MissL’s attention because the little 4 legged neighbors were out just on the other side of the fence.
We did last weeks Smiley Face Game. We definitely need to play this game some more, but here is our start. I also need to remember my left/right wrap cues and you can see where I messed up and didn’t get the connection out of the tunnel and lost her. It was a good reminder!
As always, thanks for the great breakdown on our runs!
We are currently at a 3 day NADAC trial, hosted by our club- which means I am the trial secretary. I am running the back office and 2 dogs which can be very stressful. Wayne seems to be handling it really well. He had 6 runs today (2 Gamblers, 2 Chances and 2 Jumpers). We have really been working on the pre-run engagement and having success. He mostly ignores the other dogs and is really engaged with me.
After one of our zoom chats where the fur tugs from tugawaycuwin was mentioned I ordered a few more and found the “fur flinger” is perfect for Wayne (I can use it for pre and post run engagement and shove it in my pocket)
This was his first run of the weekend. Of course he didn’t take the DW (but at least he looked at it), definitely had a lot of handler errors on this course, but loved that he was taking the obstacles over the chances line.
This was his last run of today- Jumpers. He earned a 5 point Q (lost 5 points because of the dropped bar which I realize was a handler error- called a hair too soon) I didn’t look at the final results of the run, but when entering in the trial software the Standard Course time was around 24 seconds and Wayne did it sub 12 seconds!
Thank you! Makes sense about moving the MM further away!
Today we played the Wind in Your Hair Game…made some attempts. I started with the MM but she wasn’t driving towards it, so I tried a toy and she was like “what the fluff”, so I resorted to throwing treats and that seemed to get more drive from her.
The very last sequence in this video she had revved up because she had just gone to yell at the shitzu’s next door.
I hope I am not the only handler that gets directionally challenged at times, I have to think and double think sometimes in the drills to make sure I am going or directing her the correct direction!
I am still working on keeping the connection during the run and keeping my arm lower (lots of work to do!)
We continue to work on our weaves using your independent study weaves class. Still struggling on straight weaves, he tends to skip one in the middle and will pop out on #5. I re-watched the striding troubleshooting and will work on that this week. I am thinking I need to put the manners minder back out there.
He struggles, not just in weaves, but on courses also with collection. He just wants to go fast 🙂
Contacts are still our nemesis and such a challenge to work on when you don’t have equipment at home.
Here is a run from practice today. As you can see he chose tunnels over contacts (the first run we made a couple of attempts at the DW at first he took a couple steps up and turned around and came back down, second and third attempts he bailed off and then discovered the exit end of the tunnel so we improvised!)
Then we ran a fast and fun grounders course. Again you can see his collection issues (or maybe it’s a handler issue?) doing a 360 around the barrel and coming out of the 2nd tunnel and running wide of the the next 2 hoops.
Always open to your feedback and suggestions/advice!
We will be running at his 3rd trial this coming Friday-Sunday. I have him entered in some Regular courses, which I know will have contacts, so I plan on using these as training runs and starting past the contact obstacles.Decided we needed to revisit the verbal wrap cues exercise since the handler struggled!
We then did the jumping foundations game. The sit/stay is improving 🙂
I attempted with a moving target, but apparently she did not like the toy I chose this time, so I went to throwing treats. About midway through the exercise I moved the jumps closer together so she had to land and take off again.
The good news….we have lots of opportunity for improvement 🙂
We worked the Pre Game Wrap Verbals and the Moving Target.
Our practice was a comedy of errors….the barrel blew over in the Oklahoma wind, the neighbor dogs yelled at MissL and she had to correct them, the toy I was using was an EPIC fail!! The toy was WAY too high value, hence she pulled that fur tail into 2 and ran off with me chasing behind her. We attempted again and I obviously didn’t have the 2 tugs securely attached together and MissL won round 2 of taking off with the toy. We ended the session with the more boring tug. Lots of lessons learned!!
We will be practicing both of these pregame skills. She obviously has ZERO start line stay (are you noticing a pattern with my dogs???)
Wayne and I survived his 2nd trial! Yes, we were registered for 16 runs over the 3 days. I scratched 2, so he ran 14 runs over the 3 days (NADAC venue and most were at the Intro level and a couple at Novice level). We ran 7 of the 14 runs with a non visible toy (toy in the pocket). Had a great time and learned a lot- a few things he can do at practice he wasn’t able to do at trial, which is good to know we need to work on those more.
I knew he wasn’t confident on the dogwalk, so on all of the Regular courses I either started out in the middle past the dog walk or if DW was near the end I created my own course.
Start lines…. still no stay, but played around with some things. Today I played with a “go around” start and that was fun!
I have lots of thoughts as I am still decompressing from trial, but will share some videos and get your input and thoughts!Day 1 Intro Weavers:
This is from round 1- so his first run of the trial. I ran with a toy.
Day 1 Novice Tunnelers
Ran without a toy in both runs (NADAC offers 2 rounds of each run). This is from his round 2. He ran through the 1st tunnel and then bolted across the arena (I think he was looking for that cute red head that had just run before him 🙂 ). We actually were rewarded a Q on this run!! Which is really funny because we missed the entire 2nd loop (handler error, I sent him from tunnel 7 to 12) guess the judge was tired and didn’t notice!
Day 2 Intro Jumpers
Ran both rounds without a toy. You can see he was a crazy!!!
Wanted to post and show his crazy and also so you can see how much better he did from day 2 to Day 3
Day 3 Intro Jumpers (round 2)
We ran round 1 with a toy and I felt he had good focus, so we ran round 2 with the toy in my pocket. We played with it a bit before the run, then I put it in my pocket so he knew it was there. It was also fun because we did a “go around” start even though you can’t see it on the video. This is probably the run I am most proud of over the weekend. I loved how he was focused and flowed so nicely!
Day 3 Intro Regular (Rd 2)
I am including this as it was the 2nd time we did a “go around” start and the first time we used this new fabulous toy! As you can see he said “nope” to the A-frame. The course was supposed to go from obstacle 7 to the DW, because I wasn’t even letting him near the DW I made up my own course. I took the course as designed through obstacle 7, then retook obstacle 5, 6 & 10. That is part of the reason the course didn’t flow real well for us, obviously as he tried to take me out between 6 & 10! I loved how Wayne tried, stayed with me and flowed!
And for the record, there is nothing wrong with his foot. When he sits he naturally lifts his right foot (you will see that at the start line). The go around start was a good practice as I need to work on where I set that up at the startline.
Thank you! Yes, I think I will channel my inner Tracy!! Lots of FEO runs! There are a lot of things we can work on in the ring in the trial atmosphere. I really like the reminder to do some runs just like home with the visible toy and then incrementally work our way to toy in the pocket.
Even though the intro class of weavers is just 1 six string of weaves, we will still go to the start line and we might just work start line stuff or tunnels and not stress him on weaves yet!
I might even play around with a behind the back start. He loves doing this start in disc. Here is a video of our round of Frizgility in UpDog this past weekend. Obviously several handler errors (not used to having discs in my hand when sending through obstacles! and feel free to laugh at my disc throwing!!) Part of the hesitation and my spinning after his first time through the tunnel he slipped or something and the crowd gasped and that caught my attention. He is definitely feeling more comfortable taking jumps though 🙂
This is a run from practice this weekend. He started off pretty distracted with his nose on the ground but then got into flow. His handler threw that arm up too high again on the out command towards the hoop and he took it literally and took a big detour but came right back and finished strong!
Here are 2 more runs from our practice this weekend (I didn’t send you the first run where he had to go visit the trees!!) I felt like we had really good engagement at the startline of the 1st run in the video and continued engagement in the run. Definitely some handler errors too! The 2nd run in the video he quickly got distracted (probably random treats on the ground). I bounced a tennis ball and it got his attention and some re-engagement. In hindsight I should have let him play with the ball a bit before going to more obstacles. In hindsight, his brain may have been getting a little tired after his 3rd run too! I definitely pulled off that tunnel too fast too. I feel like we are making some progress….definitely have to work on his handler 🙂
Thanks for the input! Working on the counter-intuitive part 🙂 I am going back and watching the lessons on Volume Dial.
We ran VTs (Virtual Trials today- something offered in NADAC where you run a specified course and if you Q you can submit it). A little difference between this and regular trials is we only have 1 dog out at a time, so there is no waiting on leash for our run. This reduces the amount of time for Volume Dial and pre-run engagement (which we are still working on).
We ran 4 runs today and I learned I definitely need to work hard on “leash off engagement on” I couldn’t get a good sit at the startline today. He had a couple of runs where he disengaged and ran off to the north 40, but also a couple of well engaged runs or I was at least able to re-engage. I am still working on keeping that connection with him and my arm out of the way (obviously I need to work harder at this!)This run he skipped the 2nd obstacle and blew past the A frame, got him back to the A frame and was moving nicely until he took the tunnel off course then got distracted. I was able to re-engage him with a tug toy and he continued to flow with me (the last obstacle was my fault)
We definitely had fun on this run! He missed obstacle 2 (the barrel- went the wrong side) then skipped obstacle 7. He skipped obstacle 10 and took the tunnel instead.
I had a mini self induced panic attack last night when I realized that we have a trial in 3 weeks (it will only be his 2nd trial). Self induced panic because he is still not comfortable on the walk- and we will be running at least 6 runs with dog walk (Regular/standard course). We are running at the Intro level (in NADAC these are shorter courses for beginning dogs). I channeled my “Inner Tracy” 🙂 and reminded myself that we can run these FEO…I can run any of the runs FEO! Our weaves also aren’t real solid yet, definitely not where I hoped we would be at this point and I signed him up for Intro Weavers too. We do have a couple of weeks to keep working on those weaves. Not having a full dog walk at home, not sure we will get much practice on that obstacle before trial.
So…I am thinking trial strategy and would like your advice/input/suggestions! Day 1 we have the Intro Regular, Intro Weavers and Novice Tunnelers. Definitely planning on FEO for Regular and will make game day decision on Weavers (we also have the advantage of running 2 rounds of each, so I can always run round 1 FEO and round 2 for real if desired). I think we can run Tunnelers for real- he has run the Intro level in trial before and it’s all tunnels). The rest of the weekend I am going to wait and decide after I see how he is doing each day (I don’t have to declare it an FEO run until I walk up to the line).
Also thanks for the tip on where to buy the tugs, I had forgotten that is where I purchased from before, so I have ordered him some more super exciting tugs too!
