Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I have a longer than usual video, but it was shot over the course of 2 hours where I worked Gunnar and Robie, and my friend Susan introduced her baby Chi, Liam, to some wings and tunnels. Julie is fairly certain that he is a right turner in flyball, but to me he seems to turn better to the left in agility. Am I doing something different when asking for left vs. right turns here? Anyway, we had fun with these setups!
We did the set point with moving target today. I am uncertain about my mechanics here! I am thinking I should have been dragging the toy longer before releasing him? The bars are set at 8 and 12.
Wow, I am really struggling with my dog side leg! You must be getting weary of telling me to use that leg EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Lol! Anyway here is a little baby level tunnel turning. Since I forgot about the Minnie pinnie, his soft turn cues aren’t great. I will go back and work on those, but I wanted to get a little bit of work done on this week’s exercises. I won’t move on to advanced level until I get the soft turn better.
ARMS!!! FUCKING ARMS! My nemesis. Nemeses? We will revisit this tomorrow. Today we went outside with no camera just to see what we had as far as the proofing exercise was concerned. He did so well that I had to go get the camera. Honestly I was floored. Here is the video.
Well, I don’t know why I forgot about the left/right mini pinnie. I am chalking it up to a senior moment! We worked on the Smiley Face today. He sometimes wants to flank out on me and I know he is confused when I am standing still and not using my dog side leg to tell him to go. The struggle is real!
We worked on the Set Point and Wind in Yer Hair today. It was fun! I was pretty proud of Yuzu’s forward focus and his stays!
Question on turn verbals. I have taught Yuzu the tight turn/wrap verbals. I trained them both on the flat and on various obstacles in Max Pup One. However, I have not started training the soft turn verbals because I’m not really sure how. I planned on using “left” and “right.” Can you explain how to go about it?
We did the advanced tunnel rocking horses today. I can’t quite figure out why he wasn’t wanting to take the tunnel when I started him on my right side. Hopefully you can shed some light. I am certain it is something to do with me! I think my biggest issue handling-wise with all of my dogs (particularly Robie; Gunnar can read my mind most of the time) is that I am always in too much of a hurry. I watch handlers like Casey, whose dogs are super fast, and she is barely running! She always has her eye on her dogs and watches for commitment before moving along. This is my new goal, lol!
We worked on the baby level tunnel rocking horses yesterday. All that speed from the straight tunnel certainly widened his turns! I’m going to try again today and see if I can get the second jump in.
We also worked on the lateral leadouts. In watching the video I see that I am not maintaining a very good connection with him. Need to work on that!
We worked on the spins for the first time today. I thought he did really well!
Also worked on the countermotion on serps. I think I wasn’t setting him up on the serp line quite right. I was throwing the treat to try to get more motion coming in, but I think I will just start him from a stay (and reward the stay) next time. I think his brain was getting a bit fried on the left turns here. I tried putting a treat bowl down for him to focus on, but when he failed there I decided to stop and seek guidance!
Here’s a little video on the status of our retrieves. Making some progress!
We worked on T&B on the wing this morning. I believe I did a few things not particularly well, lol. I think I shouldn’t be saying “yes” when he is coming around the wing because it might be confusing him. I also think I’m not supposed to be holding his collar, but rather stepping to the wing using dog side foot and low arm. Finally, it was really hard for me to see if I was leaving earlier/later. I think I did a similar exercise with Robie where I put a leash on the ground so I could see exactly when I should be leaving, i.e. earlier and earlier. Do you think this would help my eye? Anyway, I was happy with his speed and the tightness of the wraps for the most part!
We also did a little bit of stay training. In watching the video back I noticed that I almost always rewarded from a stopped position. I think I need to reward more in motion. Also, I forgot to start using the “catch” word, and instead was using my “get it.” Why verbals gotta be so hard???We haven’t been working stays for very long, so I was pretty happy with his performance.
We worked on adding motion to the serps and threadles this morning. I had to bring the target back to my hand for the threadles to remind him what we were doing, but he caught on after just a couple of reps. I feel like his confidence is really growing, and he’s doing things faster and more deliberately. I’ve also started working on his stays more seriously, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in this exercise.
Ha ha, well of course you are right! I think my tremendous performance anxiety is kicking in. I find it hard in public (which doesn’t actually include places like classes and seminars, where I CAN be loud and crazy, but actual PUBLIC with lots of people around) to be as animated as I want to be. Does that make sense? Anyway, I will try at my next trial in February.
Today we did a little verbal tunnel threadle practice. He had a significantly harder time turning right into the tunnel than turning left. I have been thinking he’s a right turner, but maybe not? Included goofy moments bc he is just so adorable.
Also did a little minny pinny with bars and verbals.
I haven’t tried tugging at trials yet because I don’t feel like we have proficiency in the skill yet and I don’t want to fail. That being said, we attended a young dog seminar with Rebecca today, and I was thrilled with his progress! He never declined the tug the whole afternoon! On the contrary he seemed thrilled to play with it! Here is some video.
