Agility training

Beanie

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A friend of my dad's - actually the person who introduced us to Auggie's breeder - said I can borrow their a-frame. I can get it on Sunday. If I built my own it probably wouldn't be quite done Sunday anyway, so this works out best. I can borrow it and get Payton used to a full-sized a-frame before his trial, then when my dad gets better he can help me build a new a-frame... instead of me trying to enlist my mom's help to build it this weekend. =P
 

Finkie_Mom

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Try putting a harness on him and doing restrained sends. Do you have a tunnel and will he do it yet? You can do them to wraps too. Start really close, pull back a bit on the harness - or just take hold of it if he seems upset by you pulling on the harness - then say "GO!" and "send" him to the tunnel or wrap. Then just gradually start backing up more and more. You should find he starts pulling more on the harness as you progress too. You want him straining when you grab the harness or at least leaning into it because he's amped up ready to explode forth.
YES! GOOD idea! He does drive to the tunnel a bit, but I definitely need to focus more on that. I don't have a harness, but I can always like hold his chest or something to rev him up - that's how I practice recalls sometimes anyway since I usually don't have anyone to like help me by restraining him.

The Punk update:

Punky came into heat the day before her 8 month birthday. So that limited (a little bit) what we could do and not do, mainly any off leash work (not worried about her but other dogs coming to visit).

Her 2o2o work on a plank is solid, smarty pants wont break no matter what I do until she hears the release. Her wraps and sends are coming along nicely along with some lateral work.

I am really pleased with her heeling and pivot work. My puppy however didn't have much of a sit :rofl1: Still makes me giggle when she can so many other things and tricks but we had no sit. The looks I got from folks after they watched her to handstands etc, and then I told them she didn't know sit was very funny lol. But we are starting to get some nice sits now.

I introduced her to a lowered teeter last night for the bang game. She very quickly started jumping on from the side, running to the end and riding it down with me guiding it when it was higher. Note: training for a skateboard, wobble boards, balance disks were started in the whelping box and have continued to this time. I could then take off, she would hold the position until released, racing to me and coming to the right side.
Oh yeah I, too, would LOVE to see more videos of Punky! She sounds so awesome.
 

CaliTerp07

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Trialed today. We got in last night from 2.5 weeks away (Lucy was boarding with our instructor). I'm not sure if our first runs were a giant "screw you for leaving me for so long!" or a "YAHOO, WE ARE PLAYING AGAIN, WEEEEEEEEE!", but either way we didn't hit too many obstacles. I was pleased that I managed to just. keep. moving. to try to keep her focus on me.

Chances was obnoxious, because we actually did the distance send perfectly, ran the whole course lovely, but I didn't realize she had crossed the line at one point. Boo. Still, I'm thrilled at the distance I got from her. It was a serpentine of jumps to a tunnel around 15 feet away.

In weavers she hit 2 out of 3 weaves perfectly first time through! WOOHOO, we broke our "6 months without a successful weave in a trial" curse.

Then we nailed jumpers for the last run of the day, and the only Q of the day. Soooooo...now we have to go back tomorrow, because clearly she was getting better as the day went on :)

ALSO! It is august, but it was rainy and overcast and I was able to car crate, YAYYYYY.
 

Laurelin

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Keeping this short since I have no Internet since I had to unplug my electronics since my carpet flooded....


1. Running two dogs in agility then doing nosework in 100 degree heat is exhausting!

2. My dogs held up in the heat SO WELL. We had fans and wetted them down. Mia was the speediest she's been in a long time.

3. Summer face planted off the table.

4. Major breakthrough wih weaves! Omg, my new trainer's method seems to click perfectly. No stress signals for either dog and no guides either. They were full blast running the channels happily. Woohoo!

5. My dogs are awesome. I really love them.

6. I need to work on shaping a down from a stand because I never did that and my dogs have to be told sit then down and it's wasting my course time on the table.

I miss my old instructor though I still see her for tricks class but I'm living getting new ideas. My new trainer is great about seeing issues we've never had brought up before.
 

MandyPug

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Well, our first nationals is a wrap. Here's the breakdown of the awesomeness.

Izzie ran 4/6 clean, the other two were gamblers and we struggle with those HOWEVER our openings had more points than we got at regionals so that's a win.

She also placed 6th and 5th in her jumpers rounds and 5th and 10th in her standard rounds which means she got 4 pretty rosettes!

Overall we ended up in 11th place in 6" DD vets, missing the podium by less than 2 points. (There's more to the podium story but it is what it is and is rather not hash it out yet again.)

We had an AMAZING time and Izzie ran so well. I didn't cry all weekend and then I stepped off our last run on Sunday and just started bawling. Deep ugly crying and people were concerned I was hurt or my dog was hurt and then when I told them we just ran 4/6 clean with placements at our first nationals, I got lots of high fives. Agility people are pretty awesome sometimes.

Other than our runs (of which none made it to video as I forgot to charge my camera, bad handler!) we had fun meeting up with friends from other places and watching some of the best teams from all over canada run their dogs (swagger is so much more handsome in real life and who's brother is stinkin cute).

On to NB next year ;)
 

DenoLo

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2. My dogs held up in the heat SO WELL. We had fans and wetted them down. Mia was the speediest she's been in a long time.


6. I need to work on shaping a down from a stand because I never did that and my dogs have to be told sit then down and it's wasting my course time on the table.

.
Jealous! Lola struggles a lot in the heat. She'll still play, just is extremely "Ho hum". Luckily I think we've seen the last of the 90+ degree days this year.

What we did when we first learned the table, was send them up there and then wait them out 30 seconds or so to see if they offered a down. If she didn't, I'd tell her down. The next time I'd wait her out again and she'd usually offer it. After a while of that we were getting pretty quick auto-downs on the table. ..... Until of course she randomly decided that auto-bows were really much flashier and now we waste tons and tons of time on the table. :rofl1:
 

Panzerotti

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Izzie ran 4/6 clean, the other two were gamblers and we struggle with those HOWEVER our openings had more points than we got at regionals so that's a win.

She also placed 6th and 5th in her jumpers rounds and 5th and 10th in her standard rounds which means she got 4 pretty rosettes!

Overall we ended up in 11th place in 6" DD vets, missing the podium by less than 2 points. (There's more to the podium story but it is what it is and is rather not hash it out yet again.)

On to NB next year ;)
So much awesome! Maybe next year we can car pool! :)
 

PWCorgi

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In other news, Siri and I start private agility lessons on August 22nd. I am beyond excited!!! I finally just decided to suck up the cost and go for it, I'll be training with a wonderful trainer and I'm sure she will be worth the cost. She also gets to keep training while in heat, which makes me happy!
 

DJEtzel

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Ricky and I got to set up some drills with a co-trainer after class the other nigth since we had some equipment out anyway.. this is definitely the best we've looked in a long time, especially at 16"! My handling leaves much to be expected (like that ridiculously late front cross after two) but look at his start line and sends to tunnel/distance work with minimal arm flailing and talking on my part! I'm very pleased with him, especially since we haven't been in a class in months. I got a new job so I'm not able to afford privates which is AWESOME.

Hope some of you can see this.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151595660377705&l=5706331409582587223

Oh, and this..



We've started working a lot harder on 2o2o footing on the table when I'm at work, and Friday I looked up from my desk to see Recon doing this. So funny. XD
 
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Laurelin

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Had some good stuff today working weave entrances, rear crosses, and sends indoors in the tiny shed (raining). But omg Summer was everywhere today. Her little brain just seemed to explode. I have no idea why other than the fact we were inside.
 

Beanie

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Took Auggie, P and Georgie to a fun run on Saturday. I was going to leave Auggie behind but my mom told me to take him, so I did.
It had been a long time since I'd been to this place and I'd forgotten the building was so small! Everything was really crammed on top of each other. I almost clocked myself on the dog walk running Auggie and nearly tripped over things multiple times.


Nonetheless I accomplished what I wanted to Payton, which was to get him on a full-height a-frame (the one I borrowed is just a little short) and on rubberized contacts. It took an extra shot at doing the a-frame and dog walk both, but once he was on and over it, the rubberized texture didn't bother him at all. I was a little surprised since my contact trainer is rubberized so he's used to that texture, but I think he was just expecting something different and was surprised when it felt odd under his feet. Anyway, we can check that off the list, I don't anticipate it will be an issue anymore.
They had a set of six weave poles set up in the other room where everybody was waiting and people were practicing on them so I decided to work with Payton on them too. Funny, they had mirrors set up along one side and at the end. And Payton wanted to play with the sheltie in the mirror. :rolleyes: So it took a while but eventually we got it done, I thought it was pretty good to work past that distraction. After that he went in for his second run and for the first time ever he ran off on me in the ring. I was laughing at the time but when we were done I started feeling annoyed with him. I think really I just asked him to do way too much, he had to work through the new footing on the contacts, he ran a full course with me, then we did weave poles, and I also was testing his stays... then I asked him to go do it all again.... I think his brain was just a little fried and he was blowing off some steam. So tried to not be annoyed about it, but I kind of felt it creeping in. No big deal. Let it go.


Georgie was not bad really but I wouldn't say she was good either, haha. I am thinking of making flash cards for my mom of stuff she needs to work on, and every day she picks from each pile or something and works on a different skill. She was whining about this and that, Georgie doesn't know this because we haven't worked on it blah blah - well how did you expect her to do it if you haven't worked on it?! She can't just magically know contacts by osmosis!! I HAVE contact equipment at my house, go take the dog to my house and train your dog! I was resisting the urge to yell at my mom "TRAIN YOUR DOG" while I was out in the ring with Georgie because I could just tell she hasn't really been trained. Of course part of it was my fault because I forgot that Georgie is now really far behind Payton. They were pretty even with things before and Payton's training has really advanced in the past few months, so I stupidly expect she can do something(s) she can't do.
That said my mom filled out the paperwork and entered her in her very first trial - her debut will be September 22nd. So we have a month.


Auggie was full of ($&*, bounced off the table, kept popping out of tunnels, wanted to do NOTHING but the a-frame over and over and over - and then was such a delight on weave poles my mom asked afterward if I had been practicing weaves with him while I was training Payton. Oh Auggie. <3


Payton's next trial is the 21st and 22nd of September as well (Georgie is only doing Sunday because my mom is busy Saturday) and we will hopefully have one more fun run before then. I still have tons to work on with him.
 

Laurelin

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Contemplating travelling to a trial in November... I've never done the travel to trial thing but it's the next USDAA available that's reasonable distance (3 hours). Hm.

I don't feel like we're ready to weave in a trial yet so AKC is out. I have the trial itch though.
 

CaliTerp07

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Thoughts on why Lucy's starter was broken in jumpers yesterday?

[youtube]aHUdw57L-3s[/youtube]

It was the last run (run 9) of a 2 day trial, so I'm not sure if it was low energy levels--you can see the whole run is pokey--or stress. I'm thinking stress. Her stress used to manifest as zoomies, but is now showing up as freezing, I think.

Had I known she was going to be so slow I would have started with her, but if she was going full speed I never would have made that front cross so I attempted to lead out a smidge.

How do I fix a stress-y start line? I have a "READY, READY" arousal build up--maybe I should have done that? Then I guess I could have reared that first turn instead of fronted it, if my dog actually took off at speed.

Hmmm...thinking aloud.

Also, I need to stop clapping my hands to get her attention. She doesn't react to it, and I look like a dancing monkey.
 

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