Agility training

Finkie_Mom

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YAY! Got our first Open Standard Q with a clean run and a first place! It was a bit slow, but that's OK. She was super accurate and still had fun. Jumpers was a bit of a mess in the beginning, but after the 5th jump she was great. She refused jumps 3 and 4 for no apparent reason, which cost us our Q. The rest was clean, though, so I'm not complaining. Weave entries for the day were perfect, and definitely faster than they have been. 2o2os were also great.
 

MandyPug

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Woo! Congrats!


We have a trial this weekend. Well we're only going for Sunday so I don't have to take time off work. I'm so excited. First outdoor trial of the year! It's gonna be rainy as hell but still! (And I consider it preparation for regionals as the weather could be ANYTHING for those too lol)
 

BostonBanker

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Got our first Open Standard Q with a clean run and a first place!
Congratulations!

We are trialling Sunday as well. Poor Meg. With Gusto out of commission, I swapped his entries to her. I've only been running her once or twice a day when we trial, but she has four runs on Sunday now, including two that were maybe stupid to put her in - Masters Challenge jumpers and the Grand Prix. She actually does really well on Masters Challenge courses usually, as she's super steerable and obedient, but the times can be so tight on them. Plus she is silly Meg. The last class I ran her in, she stopped at weave pole 10 and play bowed at me growling happily. Raving loon.

The vet has given her tentative approval to start putting Gusto back on some equipment after his next laser appointment. I'm half excited, half terrified that he will break and we will have to start this all over again.
 

AdrianneIsabel

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We "passed" foundations today by showing our ability to Line up on both sides, walk backwards through a ladder, show start line stays, jump drive, lateral sends, post turns, release check ins, and some other things. We'll be starting Ag1 in a week or two. :)

Meanwhile, my dogs are still awful, rotten, naughty shits.

I'm registering them both for FAST runs in June, might have Denis do std & jjw with Sloan but I doubt B is ready yet.
 
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Had our first outdoor CPE trial this weekend! Just ran Cricket, since Journey is just coming off her heat. She did really well, and Q'd in 7 out of her 8 runs (Jackpot will be the death of us). We finished up most of our Level 3 legs this weekend - she only needs one more standard Q and two more Jackpot Qs to finish it up and get her title.

Mostly I was just happy with how she ran - very focused and attentive. A little slow on the last run of each day, but other than that she kept the pace up pretty well. Nailed the weaves all but once, only missed one contact (we've been having problems with this, but she's definitely making progress), and gave me some really nice back crosses, which we've been working on.

I think I might have a couple videos, I'll try to get them up.
 

BostonBanker

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Meggie had a great time trialling today. When I'm training, I often think she wishes she was retired, but then we trial and she is such a fast, happy nut. She had an absolutely smoking fast standard run, with the only error being me sending her to the wrong side of a jump. Things evened out when she got through ALL the crazy hard 270's, backside jumps, and 'you can't get there from here' parts of Masters Challenge jumpers with grace and speed...and then ran around the backside of simple tunnel.

She did finish out the day with a nice run in Masters Jumpers, earning her Bronze in that class. Pretty proud of my little girl!

Gusto came out and played and even worked on the practice jump (with the bar set on the ground) a bit. I wanted to test something I suspected, which is that I think a big part of our issue in the ring is that I have zero rewards for him there. He was tugging and playing and engaged and doing tricks for treats, and as soon as I put those things down and walked him to the warm up jump, just like I'd go to a start line - his head went down, he was sniffing, he couldn't do his set up. We finally got several good set-ups, with me immediately releasing him to his toy behind him. I think as soon as we get the go-ahead to start jumping again, we are taking our own jump on the road. I'm going everywhere with it, and we shall practice start lines with no rewards on me, but lots of releasing and running to the rewards!
 

Beanie

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Still working on these $@(& wraps.
Payton hates them. He walks s-l-o-w-l-y in a circle around the plunger, cone, whatever. I have never seen this dog move so slowly for anything ever. Forget asking him to DRIVE to a wrap.

I haven't even posted a single video to Trkman's class because we can't even get THIS **** figured out and this is like... the foundation of everything. I really want to cry because I spent so much money on the class and this is the BIG thing and we're just failing at it.

I hate wraps too.
 

Finkie_Mom

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Thanks!!! We got another Q and first in Standard today, so we have 2/3 Qs towards our OA title! WOOO! I'm so glad I set that goal for us - I think it's actually realistic that we get both Open titles by the end of the year! It was raining allllll day today, though, so Jumpers was NOT our friend as they laid mulch throughout the ring to reduce slipping for dogs and handlers alike. There went her nose! She "did" the course, but slow, and with her nose to the ground, therefore refusing some jumps. Ugh. Gotta find some mulch to practice through. Never thought I'd have that sort of problem!

We "passed" foundations today by showing our ability to Line up on both sides, walk backwards through a ladder, show start line stays, jump drive, lateral sends, post turns, release check ins, and some other things. We'll be starting Ag1 in a week or two. :)

Meanwhile, my dogs are still awful, rotten, naughty shits.

I'm registering them both for FAST runs in June, might have Denis do std & jjw with Sloan but I doubt B is ready yet.
I want your foundations class. Also, you MUST video these runs in June!!!!!

Had our first outdoor CPE trial this weekend! Just ran Cricket, since Journey is just coming off her heat. She did really well, and Q'd in 7 out of her 8 runs (Jackpot will be the death of us). We finished up most of our Level 3 legs this weekend - she only needs one more standard Q and two more Jackpot Qs to finish it up and get her title.

Mostly I was just happy with how she ran - very focused and attentive. A little slow on the last run of each day, but other than that she kept the pace up pretty well. Nailed the weaves all but once, only missed one contact (we've been having problems with this, but she's definitely making progress), and gave me some really nice back crosses, which we've been working on.

I think I might have a couple videos, I'll try to get them up.
Congrats! Sounds like an awesome weekend :D

(And YAY videos!)
 

AdrianneIsabel

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I want your foundations class. Also, you MUST video these runs in June!!!!!
Thanks, it can be boring at times but it is important, Backup needed it and Sloan and Denis benefited from it. I'm excited to move on!

Backups biggest issue which we'll probably always fight is his head turning handler focus. He is so fast and paired with his handler focus he runs into so many things it's ... chaos. LOL
 

Shai

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Took Kim & Webby to a friend's agility field last night to work his dog and my own. His dog and I mostly worked on developing some sort of working relationship. Started with her running in loops and trying to tear my arm off (damned Dobes :p) but ended with her pretty focused, following my cues, holding her contacts, weaving, etc. not sure how it'll hold up in a trial environment but it was a decent first step for us.

Worked concepts with Mira. Some crazy off kilter serps since we have a judge coming up who likes that sort of thing, and a two jump leadout pivot with the second jump a spread and a hard 90 immediately after, driving on down a line. She tends toward "extreme efficiency" and will sometimes tick that turn over a spread when I am already well gone moving down the line so wanted to tidy that up. She did well and seemed to get it quickly. We'll see how it holds up in a trial.

Webby was hilarious. He ran last so was so amped up an eager that he was doing a spinny zippy dance before running and flattened out down the line to the point he ticked a bar, which he rarely does lol. Despite the new and highly distracting place he was 100% keyed in without my even asking and charging obstacles, racing into 2o2o, and getting low and diggy on his weaves. I take this stuff for granted with Mira sometimes. With Webby, the working attitude that Mira gives me every second of every day is cause for surprise and celebration :p. Funny how that works. Quit while they both still wanted more, as usual.

Then we went to the river and cooled off. Well, Mira did. I watched from shore and Webster was on cloud nine when all the hikers stopped to fawn over him. Once again he is "so soft!!!" and "must be a puppy awwww!" and uppn hearing he is nearly six, "ohh my gosh really!? is he like a miniature german shepherd? he looks just like one!!!" as all the while he is in attention-flood ecstasy. And Mira just kept retrieving her new chuckit frisbee. Both dogs got exactly what they wanted lol.
 

DJEtzel

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We had a drop in class at a student's house on Monday night, and it was a lot of fun. Met an internet friend from another forum, and saw a GSD friend from another forum again... lots of awesome dogs there!

I took Frag since Recon's still off, and he really surprised me for not being on any equipment since our trial in January. I can't remember all of these trainer's names, but my trainer is teaching the no arms/no voice style training (I wanna say mecklenburg*?) and I was hesitant doing this with Frag because he's so clingy already and way focused on me. Well, of course, to my surprise, he was fantastic! He was dropping bars left and right, but it was warm, and my trainer recommended some foundation jumping vids to work on with him; he's not used to jumping trial height during training unfortunately. We did lots of jump drills with 5-10 jumps and a tunnel since there is no contact equipment there and it was so nice to work challenging angles, distances, back wraps, etc. with Frag. We ran a few and struggled in the beginning, and my trainer finally just told me to shut up (I was actually doing ok about keeping my hands down!) after dropping three bars in a three jump sequence a few times trying it... well, wouldn't you know, as soon as I stopped talking, Frag stopped knocking bars. XD

So... I really need to give my dog some more credit and let him do what he knows how to do instead of cueing a tunnel in front of his face while he's mid-jump causing him to turn into me and knock bars, is the moral of the story. I'm learning a lot, and I really enjoy it!
 

Beanie

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Payton's very first agility entry forms are in the mail. :yikes:

I told our trainer tonight and she was like "Plenty of time!" THAT'S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY HE'S NOT YOUR DOG

On the upside, one of my agility friends is also debuting her puppy at Payton's same debut trial, so they will be in town and we'll get some socializing done, hurray!

On the downside, one of my agility friends is also debuting her puppy at Payton's same debut trial, so they will be in town and see us crash and burn LOL.
 

Shai

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Payton's very first agility entry forms are in the mail. :yikes:

I told our trainer tonight and she was like "Plenty of time!" THAT'S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY HE'S NOT YOUR DOG

On the upside, one of my agility friends is also debuting her puppy at Payton's same debut trial, so they will be in town and we'll get some socializing done, hurray!

On the downside, one of my agility friends is also debuting her puppy at Payton's same debut trial, so they will be in town and see us crash and burn LOL.
I got conformation on the CPE registration.

::flail!!!!::

What have I done!?

 

Beanie

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See I was thinking more this:



I keep being like "oh it's just NOVICE. It's just NOVICE right? ...right???"

My co-worker this morning was all "Oh, he's going to shock and surprise you!"
"Yes, that is EXACTLY what I'm afraid of."
 

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