Agility training

Today I took the girls to agility run thurs and I seriously can not tell you how proud of them I am! Abby was AMAZING! She hasn't seen any equipment(other than jumps/weaves) in probably over 5 months now, but she rocked everything! Seems like that long break was probably the best thing that could've happened to her.

She was excited and ran her heart out! This is probably the first time I have ever seen her this happy to play agility. She wasn't stressed out in the least!

So her first run she did hesitate on the dog walk, but got lots of cookies for doing it, then she decided not to stop on the A-Frame so we redid that and she did her 2o2o and got lots of treats. She also ended up missing her weaves the first time, but second time she got it; and I think she forgot the teeter tips and did a fly off, but I got her right back on and she got lots of treats/praise for doing it the second time!

Now her last run was her best and she did everything perfectly. She hit all her contacts, got her weaves on the first try, and no teeter flyoff! The only thing was her last jump she decided to choke on a cookie she got back on the teeter and kinda ran past it then hacked up the treat re ate it then did the last jump. haha, but seriously can't tell you how pleased I was with her!

Really wish I'd gotten it on video, but alas that didn't happen... Our next trial is in Feb I think so I'll get vids from that!

Karma came along to, but she didn't get to play today. We just worked on some OB and LAT stuff in the parking lot, but she did awesome and had great focus!

Finally got video of our jumpers run. It was smoother than I thought, minus that dropped bar!

http://youtu.be/BkxRHpkXIS8

Well we had stressy Mia today after a month of happy Mia. Sigh. I really just don't know. We were indoors and one thing she was very worried about was the Belgian, whom she has been around quite a bit and was totally crashed and sleeping and ignoring her. My trainer's foster rottweiler x? was there but Mia seemed to like her. We had to move thestart line though because Mia would not put her back to the belgian at all. My trainer was convinced she was feeling under the weather. I'm not sure, I think she was just stressy. We did end it on a happy note for her though.

Feeling a bit down. Trying to remind myself we've had a month of great practices.

Haven't posted vid in a while so here's Mir & I at a recent trial:

[YOUTUBE]w56bRFP-jVE[/YOUTUBE]

You guys look AWESOME Shai!!!

Was really happy with Kili's weaves yesterday at class. We are doing 2x2 and have just introduced the second set but she was FAST! It was awesome. I wish I'd gotten a video of it.

Agility has been going well overall the last two weeks. Working weaves weaves weaves but it's been so cold and icy we haven't got far.

Mia last week was overall fantastic. She did lose a lot of speed and get distracted in one sequence. I think it was just too long to hold her interest. This week was GREAT until a guy showed up for the next class at the last 10 mins and brought in a ESS adolescent and then we had meltdown mode go because of all the noise. The ESS was acting like a normal puppy and was pulling all around and barking and it was just too much for Mia. She was just spooking at everything but eventually I got her to do some tricks and one more run of tunnel and weaves. She's much better outside vs the inside room and I'm trying to think if something bad happened in that room recently? I am hoping have tricks class in that room with her starting saturday will help with this recent fear. She loves tricks and it's low key and stress free for her. It is a small space and it can get very loud and overwhelming (mostly Summer's fault for barking nonstop and getting the puppy to bark nonstop).

Prior to the freakout at the last few minutes though she was happy and very up and even let my trainer pet her. During freakout mode there was no way that would happen. She loves the weaves a lot. She was hopping to the tunnel and prancing then coming out blazing fast to do her weaves.

Summer is great but a ditz. My trainer finally commented that Summer was a 'Barbie' and I have to agree. She is FAST and crazy but also prone to 'Oooooh shiny!' Summer kind of operates on autopilot and doesn't always think. And that ends up with my old dog flying over tunnels as fast as she can a lot because I pointed and Summer and agility and Summer....!

Distractions class starts saturday for Summer and that should be worthwhile.

Summer has also this last month been pooping in the ring very often. Now it could be the cold but I'm wondering if it's not more sinister. Historically Summer poops when she's overly anxious or excited. Give her a bath? Poop. Leave her home alone? Poop. Etc. Summer is so much higher in agility than she ever is in any other aspect of her life that it makes me wonder if she's getting so worked up she's actually anxious? Does that make any sense? I'm probably over-thinking it and she's just avoiding pooping in the snow. She seems happier than ever when we do agility.

I have a friend who will split ring rentals with me on a regular basis upon our return, woooot. Em's ready to trial, I just need to clean up her weaves a little bit.

Thanks very much I know we aren't super flashy but it's the time on the clock that matters and we play the smooth-is-fast game. Especially on tight courses on mats with 24" jumps!

Gage starts agility training tomorrow lol. Just for some alone time for us together more then anything.

Working on wing wraps with the boys again, largely to teach P not to blind cross me and to start teaching Auggie some better behaviors as far as choosing his path around the course. Payton is doing great and starting to get the idea. Auggie is still trying to figure out I want him to go around the cone and not hit it with his paws. He's catching on. I bet if I used an actual wing he would catch on faster but I'm not sure teaching it on something NOT agility associated isn't the point right now. We'll see how long my theory on that lasts...

We started Advanced Beginners last night and it was a surprisingly good class. There were twice as many dogs as our previous class, and the exercises were definitely a step up, but Watson did well. He did take off to do a couple "Whee!" laps, and to check out a dog (9 month old female pup who was more wild than him - just his type!), but each time he was able to come back quickly and focus enough to complete the short sequence.

The class started with things like jump-jump-tunnel and we ended up with things like A frame-jump-jump-tunnel-tire, with a super awkward baby front cross thrown in. The more challenging it got, the more Watson actually paid attention and thought things through. Maybe he's better than I give him credit for, but just needed more of a challenge? He was also very good with most equipment and was one of the only dogs to dive into the curved tunnel every time (most dogs tried to follow their owners instead of going into the tunnel).

His only equipment issue at this point (not counting teeter and weaves which we've done very little work on) are jumps. I think he has a slight soreness in one paw (no limping, just occasionally holds it up), but that doesn't stop him from jumping on and off our bed parkour style every day. I think he's just not sure what to do about jumps as they're not something solid he can jump on top of. Before he was trying to run around them, but now he gets really slow and stares at them for a couple seconds before jumping, like he's thinking very hard about what to do.

What can I work on to help with this? He's only jumping 8-12", so it's more about the jump itself than the athletic effort required. I don't have a jump at home yet, but once I get one what should I work on? Just sending him back and forth over a very low jump so he can get comfortable with it?

Also, there was a 3 legged beagle in the class who was awesome. I wanted to steal her.

Carma started agility this week. She had a blast. Our trainer really likes her and had us doing some exercises that were a bit more advanced than the others dogs in the class, which I thought was awesome. Just basic stuff like tire - tunnel and some jumps. She's so obedient and fast and insanely full of drive that I think we will have a lot of fun. Only issue that our trainer sees us possibly having soon is the whole right sided work thing. We are so conditioned to our left sided obedience! Lol. I'm already so excited for next Wednesday.

Jump work. Just because a dog can jump doesn't mean a dog knows how to jump. There's a variety of different jump program/methodologies out there: Susan Salo, Linda Mecklenburg, Suzanne Clothier, Chris Zink has a book too but I haven't read it so I'm not sure the details of that. Pick one and start working on it, definitely. There has been much discussion on a couple different threads here and I'm pretty sure at least once in this thread itself on jump methodologies and I'm sure there are lots of other reviews online too of the various methods.
And I would drop the jumps down really low right now, like 4", until you have been able to make some progress with a jumping program.

Thank you! I will look into those. I have the book "Agility Right from the Start", but haven't read to the jumping portions so I'll have to see what they say too. I'll also look for the threads.

I jumped horses for many years and I know that teaching a horse to jump is complicated (additionally so because of a rider), but so far we haven't done much work teaching the dogs to actually use their bodies to jump well and I wasn't sure how to do that. We did start with just a pole on the ground, and then 4", but he's still kind of weird about it and I need to approach it more systematically. There are plenty of little dogs in the class, so I'll make sure we take our turn at their jump height for now, instead of with the 12" dog. Our instructor is good at putting the jumps down when dogs seem unsure.

At least this week he seemed to understand to go through the jump standards instead of around. I remember our third or fourth class where I was standing at the jump standard and popping him back and forth over a 4" jump (basically luring). Instead of jumping, he ran all the way around the jump, the long way, and then sat in front of me for his treat. :rofl1:

Agility Right From The Start doesn't go into actually teaching a dog how to jump if I remember right.
Since you jumped horses I think you will do best with either Clothier or Salo. Both of them have their background in horses and both of them developed their method based off teaching horses how to jump. It should make total sense to you!

Thanks! I love Clothier's writing in general, so I'll start with her method.

Hopefully I can do some of this stuff in a small space indoors. I have plenty of outdoor area, but none of it is fenced and Watson isn't reliable.

Hmm, there are some of Susan Salo's exercises you could do in a small space but Clothier requires long jump chutes, and eventually Susan Salo needs jump chutes as well. Will the place you take classes at let you rent their ring maybe?

Not sure about the agility club, but my obedience place has jumps and plenty of space. I'm there every Saturday for nosework, so I'll ask the owner if I could rent the space for 20min or so before nosework class.

I could use my yard if I can do some things on a long line.

We have focused on jumping exercises in agility class occasionally, but obviously we can't focus on every thing every week, so anything I can do on my own would be awesome.

Oh, I just remembered that a nearby housing development has some brand new tennis courts. Assuming they don't lock those for home owners only, I wanted to use them for dog training and they would work for jump stuff.