Agility training

[Ozfozz]

I'm at the point now where I've got 2 "trial ready" dogs that are complete and total opposites.

Cobain thrives off of the sport. He's high and fast the minute I say the word "break." As much as there have been issues, he's been solid the entire way.
I wont lie. I live off of that thrill.

I bought Rigby with the hopes she'd be the same. She's certainly got the intelligence, and outside of the ring her speed is impeccable. But in the ring she is slow and needs to be babied. It is EXHAUSTING though. Seriously, after that run with Rigby on the weekend ("good girl, come on Rig, what a good dog, yes, good girl....etc.") while basically walking the course, I came back sweating and exhausted. She does seem to enjoy it. I would LOVE it if she eventually sped up and got over her issues. But if not, she goes into specials. No big deal. Then again, she was an adult shelter purchase, it's not like I went all out to find a great agility breeder for this one.

I'll be honest though, if Rigby was my only agility dog, I think I'd have a hard time keeping motivated to do it. I'm not the most competitive exactly, but there will always be an element of competition.
Sure she's accurate, I can seriously stop this dog mid-weave and she will correct herself, but the speed and drive are what I really love.
I'd personally rather a bar knocking speed demon that loves what s/he does.

 

[BostonBanker]

I don't know where her stress came from but I refuse to give up. I am DETERMINED to find success with this **** dog just to prove everyone wrong.

That's pretty much where I'm at with Gusto, although I'm not sure anyone ever has said "you won't be able to". Except maybe me.

I've seen so many people lately with the same issues who are getting/have already gotten new dogs, and I can't deny that in a lot of ways it appeals to me. Again, it isn't even an option (unless I got rid of Gusto, so it isn't even an option), but this tiny part of me keeps thinking that I have been running around with pom poms for 8 years with Meg, cheering her on every inch of the way (and as you said Ozfozz, it is exhausting) and Gusto was supposed to be my dog with drive and I was going to do everything right...and somewhere I messed up. And I'm tired.

We will see. I'm a little terrified that my lesson tomorrow is going to just be another "well why don't you get another dog" thing (I don't really think so or I wouldn't have picked this trainer). I just want a bit of a glimmer of hope that I can make this as fun for him as it is for me.

 

[xpaeanx]

I will (in the future, because I haven't until now) always sacrifice some accuracy for extra speed. Speed for me = confidence from my dog, and I want to see that. I never really worried about speed with Meg, and while she's not a rocket, course times have never been an issue for her, even in USDAA.

This is sort of how I am… my dog CAN go faster… but I can’t. If he goes faster than I have to be faster with myself and my cues. And *I’m* not that particularly fast and then things start to fall apart and then I get frustrated and then I hate life. We run plenty fast enough that when (if?) we trial, I wouldn’t be worried about going over time.

I'll be the naysayer. If you're happy and the dog is happy and both are having fun and playing safely then who cares if you're fast or competitive or not? What people want out of agility is so individual and the journeys with each dog so different....

I just love having fun with my dog and that's why I'm there. She has fun too.

She struggles making course time in USDAA some. She's 9 " tall and 10 years old. Eh... we have fun. It's been a HUGE benefit to our relationship and she lives for agility. Just watch her when it's her turn in class and you can tell. She's having a ball.

After this trial this weekend I may stop trying USDAA and just do TDAA and maybe AKC since the course times are slower. Maybe UKC too since it's slow. If it's not 'real enough' agility for some people well they can go.... you know where. I don't care. I'm busy having fun with my old dog.

I actually really get irked by the 'oh he's not fast enough or good enough'. It's probably not fair. I know why it bothers me and it's because of Mia. Do you know how LUCKY you are to have a dog that even is able to run? Oh god, I could go off on a rant and not against anyone in particular here but just in general. And now I'm all teary-eyed....

The bolded part is why I’m doing agility. I honestly could never set foot inside a real trial ring and I wouldn’t care. And if we do ever trial together, I don’t care what place I come in… I care that the dog and I are out there having fun. Our goals would be to get a Qualifying score, not to beat the other dogs. I could also run my dog in my backyard for the rest of my life and be happy. I will always *do* agility with my dog(s) if we have fun together, but I don’t have any particular need to trial my dog. I would like to be able to get titles and say we did stuff together, but it’s more about the saying we did stuff together than it is about anything else.

Cohen has taken down more bars/obstacles than she's left standing up on some courses. Not that you should compare your 10 year old pap to Crazyface.

This is another thing that becomes a problem when we increase speed. My crazyface crashes through everything. “Oh we’re running flat out! Weeeeeee!!! (no obstacles are left standing).â€

I think it's totally up to the handler for what they want, speed wise. I have friends with border collies whose dogs gently lope around the course, not stressed but not fast. They like that, it suits them, they and their dogs are having fun. Me, I'm an adrenaline junkie person who hopes to have a crazy fast little dog.

I don’t need a slow dog per se, I don’t need a fast dog either. I just want a dog that matches me and we have fun. HaHa. So whatever speed we work well together at is where I want to be. I’m slow though… so it will probably always be slower than the dog is capable of.

I'm at the point now where I've got 2 "trial ready" dogs that are complete and total opposites.

Cobain thrives off of the sport. He's high and fast the minute I say the word "break." As much as there have been issues, he's been solid the entire way.
I wont lie. I live off of that thrill.

I bought Rigby with the hopes she'd be the same. She's certainly got the intelligence, and outside of the ring her speed is impeccable. But in the ring she is slow and needs to be babied. It is EXHAUSTING though. Seriously, after that run with Rigby on the weekend ("good girl, come on Rig, what a good dog, yes, good girl....etc.") while basically walking the course, I came back sweating and exhausted. She does seem to enjoy it. I would LOVE it if she eventually sped up and got over her issues. But if not, she goes into specials. No big deal. Then again, she was an adult shelter purchase, it's not like I went all out to find a great agility breeder for this one.

I'll be honest though, if Rigby was my only agility dog, I think I'd have a hard time keeping motivated to do it. I'm not the most competitive exactly, but there will always be an element of competition.
Sure she's accurate, I can seriously stop this dog mid-weave and she will correct herself, but the speed and drive are what I really love.
I'd personally rather a bar knocking speed demon that loves what s/he does.

See, I don’t have to encourage. He’s happy to run the course whatever speed we run it at. So I have more fun with slower more accurate runs than I do with speedy less accurate runs. And that was the point I was trying to make. If the person and the dog are having fun at a slower speed and they’re not falling over the allotted time and they’re not wanting to go faster to beat other people’s times… why is that such a problem? The natural progression of things is that as you advance you usually just naturally get faster with things as they start to become muscle memory and easier to perform… but why must everyone always try to be the fastest person in the ring if that’s not really something they care about?




The thing is that I'm honestly wondering if I should just stop agility outside of my yard. I'm tired of everything being focused on going fast, fast, fast. I am not fast, fast, fast. That is I as in *ME*, someone else could probably do very well with my dog going much faster... but I start to not have fun. We start to fall apart because I get confused and late with cues and he starts flattening out and knocking bars and that makes me more frustrated which makes him frustrated and does more things "wrong" and the circle continues and then I have a miserable day and I go home upset. Which, it's not that we're too slow and we NEED to speed up... we just prob won't take a first place (but I don't care about that?).

 

[BostonBanker]

but why must everyone always try to be the fastest person in the ring if that’s not really something they care about?

Well, it is a timed sport. Are you taking lessons with a competition person? And if so, have you tried explaining your feelings to them? I certainly agree that there is nothing wrong with working in your comfort zone. But if the instructor is training for competition that you don't ever want to do, that may be where the issue is coming up. A lot of good trainers for agility competition will train for speed first and accept some errors early on, so they aren't killing off that drive for speed. If you haven't already, I'd make a point to express your feelings. For me I'd email between classes, just because I tend to fail at discussing stuff in person. But whatever you are comfortable with.

If you've already discussed it with them and they are ignoring you, it's a different story. But if you haven't spoken about it, I don't think either one of you is in the wrong. Just different pages.

Along a similar line - I'm not fast either. At all. And nothing ticks me off more than discussing handling with an instructor, and saying something like "I'm not going to be able to get there for that front cross" and having them say "well run faster". No, be a smarter trainer and help me work out another option. One of the first seminars I went to, I was absolutely terrified, and during the first talk, the trainer said something along the lines of "I will never tell you to run faster, because I assume you are doing the best you can. If you need something else to do, we will figure out how to handle it." It was such a relief to hear it, and I instantly relaxed and had an amazing day.

 

[Shai]

I miss agility. So much.

 

[xpaeanx]

Well, it is a timed sport. Are you taking lessons with a competition person? And if so, have you tried explaining your feelings to them? I certainly agree that there is nothing wrong with working in your comfort zone. But if the instructor is training for competition that you don't ever want to do, that may be where the issue is coming up. A lot of good trainers for agility competition will train for speed first and accept some errors early on, so they aren't killing off that drive for speed. If you haven't already, I'd make a point to express your feelings. For me I'd email between classes, just because I tend to fail at discussing stuff in person. But whatever you are comfortable with.

If you've already discussed it with them and they are ignoring you, it's a different story. But if you haven't spoken about it, I don't think either one of you is in the wrong. Just different pages.

Along a similar line - I'm not fast either. At all. And nothing ticks me off more than discussing handling with an instructor, and saying something like "I'm not going to be able to get there for that front cross" and having them say "well run faster". No, be a smarter trainer and help me work out another option. One of the first seminars I went to, I was absolutely terrified, and during the first talk, the trainer said something along the lines of "I will never tell you to run faster, because I assume you are doing the best you can. If you need something else to do, we will figure out how to handle it." It was such a relief to hear it, and I instantly relaxed and had an amazing day.

I have said before that I'm only here for fun. I would like to trial one day, but again it's only to have fun with my dog. Which is where I think some of it may be coming from. I'm not competitive with other people... me being competitive is wanting to make it under the allotted time... and than maybe working on beating my previous time or score, not other people's. Again, making it under the allotted time isn't the issue... it's trying to be as fast as possible to beat everyone else. I'm not willing to sacrifice our teamwork for the promise of getting their first.

An example would be "I'd like to train stopped contacts so that I have time to get where I need to be before releasing my dog"...."but running contacts are so much faster?" Yes, I know they are faster... but I'm not in position to cue my dog where to go next what does that speed do for me?

"I want to start training turns using distance work"... "the farther you are from your dog the slower he will be." But if I'm not fast enough to get him around the turn and then cue him to the next spot and we miss it... wouldn't we be better off sacrificing the speed to get the next part correct???

And this isn't focused at my instructor... this is basically everywhere that I talk about agility... which has made me not want to talk about agility... which I kinda actually find sad. There are only a few people I really mention it with now.

 

[DJEtzel]

I honesty wonder why people trial if they don't want to compete? Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and more fun to just train?

 

[xpaeanx]

I honesty wonder why people trial if they don't want to compete? Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and more fun to just train?

Because you can compete against yourself. How well do you work as a team "under pressure" and does that get better? Do you make qualifying scores? And lastly do you have fun going to a trial and going out there with your dog.

I wonder why people can't do something and find it enjoyable unless they are always #1.

Why bother doing anything? Bc you have fun simply doing it.

 

[DJEtzel]

Because you can compete against yourself. How well do you work as a team "under pressure" and does that get better? Do you make qualifying scores? And lastly do you have fun going to a trial and going out there with your dog.

I wonder why people can't do something and find it enjoyable unless they are always #1.

Why bother doing anything? Bc you have fun simply doing it.

I guess my point was it seems that many people who don't want to be competitive *don't* enjoy it or have dogs that don't seem to enjoy it, so I just don't see the motivation. It isn't fun anymore at that point.

I have plenty of fun trialing even when we don't Q and learn SO MUCH, but I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to strive to be better than everyone else in a competition, personally. I just don't see the point. You (general) don't want to compare yourself to others (competing) and you can compare yourself and make goals and meet them in training while having fun just fine. Seems so much easier and cheaper! Lol.

 

[BostonBanker]

And this isn't focused at my instructor... this is basically everywhere that I talk about agility... which has made me not want to talk about agility... which I kinda actually find sad. There are only a few people I really mention it with now.

Ah, gotcha. I thought it was an issue with class when you mentioned wanting to just do agility in your yard.

I think it is 100% fine to do things the way you want to (as if you need my validation ). BUT I do think you will need to accept that the focus for most people is going to be on speed because it is a speed based sport. If you are confident in your decisions (I've also been told I shouldn't be training stopped contacts because they are slower - I have no issue telling people exactly why I'm doing them.), just stick to your guns and keep having fun with your dog.

And keep posting here, because if you figure out good distance work, I want the secret If I ever get Gusto running the way I know he can, I'm going to need all the distance I can get!

 

[BostonBanker]

You (general) don't want to compare yourself to others (competing) and you can compare yourself and make goals and meet them in training while having fun just fine. Seems so much easier and cheaper! Lol.

Obviously I like the competition as well, but to be fair, I also consider agility trials my "vacations". I like going and hanging out with friends from the region I don't see outside of trials, I like staying in motels and going out to dinner or just getting take-out and hanging out with my dogs. I get a lot from trial weekends outside of the ring. I love competing - but even if I didn't, I think I'd still like trialling!

 

[crazedACD]

Obviously I like the competition as well, but to be fair, I also consider agility trials my "vacations". I like going and hanging out with friends from the region I don't see outside of trials, I like staying in motels and going out to dinner or just getting take-out and hanging out with my dogs. I get a lot from trial weekends outside of the ring. I love competing - but even if I didn't, I think I'd still like trialling!

Yes! I went and did confo for three days about an hour and a half away, and got a hotel nearby because I enjoy chilling with just my dogs. I could have driven back and forth but... hoteling it with dogs is nice.

 

[sassafras]

When I signed up for agility with Squash, I just wanted to try something new with him but wasn't sure it was going to be for me. We're still in a super beginner/basics class, but he is so much fun to work with. I lub him, he's just the best dog.

 

[Sekah]

Arguably I trial because I want titles & clean runs. It doesn't much matter to me if I come 5th or 1st. Though... the occasions when I come first I'm pretty damned happy about it.

 

[yv0nne]

With B, I've never gotten lower than 1st anytime we've run clean. I love the added difficulty of blazing fast speed. It makes a Q feel like the perfect run because you have to be pretty near perfect with your handling to get around clean. One guy always said dogs you can walk beside while doing it is sort of like a heeling obstacle course& less agility.

 

[Beanie]

Arguably I trial because I want titles & clean runs. It doesn't much matter to me if I come 5th or 1st. Though... the occasions when I come first I'm pretty damned happy about it.

Same here. It doesn't say anywhere on the titles what place you got when you earned each of those Qs - and since there's no longer a multiplier for MACH points, there's really no difference between placements. (Oh how I wish there were still a multiplier, for Auggie's sake...)
But a blue ribbon is still a beautiful thing. Even more so when you're in a competitive height class. Farm sheltie beating all the sporter collies? Yes please.

With B, I've never gotten lower than 1st anytime we've run clean. I love the added difficulty of blazing fast speed. It makes a Q feel like the perfect run because you have to be pretty near perfect with your handling to get around clean. One guy always said dogs you can walk beside while doing it is sort of like a heeling obstacle course& less agility.

+1!

 

[DJEtzel]

Same here. It doesn't say anywhere on the titles what place you got when you earned each of those Qs - and since there's no longer a multiplier for MACH points, there's really no difference between placements. (Oh how I wish there were still a multiplier, for Auggie's sake...)
But a blue ribbon is still a beautiful thing. Even more so when you're in a competitive height class. Farm sheltie beating all the sporter collies? Yes please.



+1!

Seriously.. Fiancé's 8 y/o "no lined" GSD jumps veterans 20" and beats border collies all. The. Time. And it's pretty effing awesome. Except when she beats us.

 

[DJEtzel]

With B, I've never gotten lower than 1st anytime we've run clean. I love the added difficulty of blazing fast speed. It makes a Q feel like the perfect run because you have to be pretty near perfect with your handling to get around clean. One guy always said dogs you can walk beside while doing it is sort of like a heeling obstacle course& less agility.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Sekah]

When we did regionals our one clean run earned us 10th place overall. At the end of it, we qualified for nationals but still came in around 40th in 22R.

Cohen is loads of fun to run and she has a great speed to her (fast, not too fast) for a beginner like me, but she's no where near the top when it comes to performance. And that's okay.

 

[Laurelin]

I trial because I like hanging out with my friends and their dogs. I like having a 'dog event' weekend. They're my mini vacations. I also love spending a few days with my guys and away from life. I also think agility is just plain fun and I like running new courses and getting to play games (we don't get to do that in class!). I love watching my friends and their dogs overcome challenges and improve be that them Qing and placing like crazy or just the dog that has been fearful and shut down for 2 years and finally Q'd.

It would be ridiculous for me to compare Summer to the other USDAA dogs in the region. Most- probably 80% or more are young sports bred border collies. Summer is usually the only dog in her class. It would be completely unfair to Summer to compare her to the other dogs. I'm not trying to get to nationals or worlds like they are. I trial a small fraction of how often they do and probably train a lot less too. My dog is a tiny fraction of their dogs' size and has 6-7 years on most of them. My goal is simply a novice title in USDAA. That would be a big accomplishment for Summer since it's a fast venue and she didn't even start trialing till she was 9. I think she can get a lot farther in AKC or TDAA (in fact I am kind of thinking we could TACh since we got into superior in 2 trials and already have 3 Qs in level 3 games....).

I like Q'ing. I do have goals but they're less traditional and 'impressive'. I like showing. I like having some results for my dog but only because I think everyone should be as enamored with her as I am. I just don't care if I'm competitive or not. Even nextdog, I want a dog capable of Qing and having fun in the game. I don't need a dog that can take me to the upmost levels. I doubt I ever will.