We're starting with real sequences today, you'll get a new sequence every time and we'll always be running them in parts, starting with a small part and then adding more&more obstacles, just as you can see in the video - reward where I rewarded and then start from 1 again, meaning that you'll always be doing the whole sequence only on a 4th try or so. Whole sequences will be pretty long, to get the flow, but do NOT run a whole sequence again and again - you can run little parts several times, but the whole sequence only once or twice. Always run it without the dog first and only when you really know it, try with the dog. After every try, PLAY, give a dog a break to rehearse the next sequence on your own and only then try again.
Don't keep running the same sequence for 2 weeks!!! You can either think of another sequence on your own or keep working on multi-wraps and sends (from lesson 1 and 2). Also, don't forget to keep working on weaves and contacts, we'll get back to that later!
And Bi on the same sequence to show how things should look like on a low and then higher height:
1. introducing straight lines: after all the cik&cap work, it's time to introduce some straight lines and extension jumping too. Set a straight line of 2 or 3 jumps between two tunnels (or simply use one if you don't have two), start with some cik/cap to tunnel, cik/cap to tunnel, then straight over the first jump to cik/cap on a second jump back to tunnel, then two straight jumps to cik/cap on a third one, cik/cap again on a next jump etc. - just think of something, putting more and more straight jumps in between one and another cik/cap. See a video and again another example here:
2. sequencing: start with cik on 1, run in for a front cross between 2 and 3, ask for cap on 2 from the landing side, RUN for cik on 5 (extension jumping on 4), another cap on 6 and finishing with cik on 8, rewarding in the direction of 9.
3. bang the see-saw game: if you did the "closing drawers and doors" trick, then you're all ready for this new game. If you don't have a see-saw, you can use a small plank with something underneath so that it moves when the dog pushes it with front legs. If you have a see-saw, either lower it almost to the ground or support it so that one end is 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches) off the ground and have them push it down with front feet - you can then raise it somewhat more off the ground. Do not promote 4 feet, 2 feet is better to teach them to push. Jackpot for most powerful pushes and eventually stop rewarding the gentle touches. Reward away from the see-saw, you want a push&go (I'm not doing very good job on that in the video, I forgot to bring better treats for that - a toy would actually be even better). ONLY work on this part (step 1 and 2) for next 2 weeks (no 4 feet yet!) - I included next steps in the video just to give you an idea what's the plan 🙂
I'll be answering your comments till Friday 29th. Then I'm leaving for EO and have the camp after that, so we'll be on break till 15th August so that everybody can catch up AND you can practice cik&cap some more. We're introducing straight lines too today, but if you only started with cik&cap when the class started, you still need to do quite some work on that anyway - especially exercises 1 of lesson 1 and 2! You can also keep adding height... So, plenty of work for everybody! The second week of this lesson will be from 15-21st August, with no video commenting in between. I like those breaks as they take some pressure off and I can always see a huge progress after the break!
Three STARS are going to shine on the EO !!
—- SILVIA—-- BU—--LA—--
have FUN !!
Good luck this weekend!!!
Does anyone have a link to results from EO?
For Jennifer and Eva here is the pre-link to our dirty dash video….
Nero was along for the socialization and made many friends. He got to swim in the clean pond on the grounds, but wasn’t allowed to race.
Nancy
Awesome!!!
Thank you very much Nancy, I was looking forward to come back home from our week end walks to see if you had some news…Brilliant!!! I see you enjoyed a lot all of you..I wish something like that would happen in Ireland…there is enough rain to make a good mud…:)
By the way, I have just checked in the internet…Results are posted in the EO website..Look for Agility EO 2011 Austria and the web will come up.
Hi Silvia,
Here is our first video with a little bit of each piece. I am reluctant to keep training this without your input but I will do a little more in a few days. In the meantime, we will work on weaves and tunnel drive and independence. Synergy has already done 2o/2o on the teeter so I think this push with two front feet and go has her confused. I didn’t put on the video but at first she just turned around and went right into 2o/2o for a few times. I had to use release word as soon as she banged the see saw to get her to get off right away and not do 2o/2o. I don’t know if this is being counter-productive or if I should go to the next steps quickly. I know you are at camp but I am eagerly awaiting your input.
Thanks,
Marla
Here is two days later with a little change in the extension v collection exercise.
I see my mistakes. My body did not indicate extension on the way back to the tunnel and I was swinging my arm on collection cue. I think I should keep my arm steady so as not to give mixed signals.
We will more on teeter games, weave poles, 2o/2o and RC on carpet during this next week.
Grace had her performance at the cinema last night. I was sooo proud of her!! She even got to stay and watch the film which she thought was pretty special
We had a rehersal the night before which was a disaster -- G was a maniac -- tugging on my sleeve & running around the stage doing zoomies 🙂
There was an audience of 400 people and i was v nervous she wld run off to eat someone’s popcorn but she was awesome 🙂 🙂 (I gave her a 2 hr run bf the performance!)
Our performance was 10-15 min but sadly the camera cut out so we only caught the first 3 min. I love the bit where she wants to stay in the spotlight..(lucky we’d practiced all those stays w distractions in puppy class, for when her boyfriend was skipping).
Very cute!!! You should be proud of you, too!!! I saw the hug on this webside already -- it is supercool………..
Thanks Birgit 🙂 🙂
Well done Cam and Gracie! You should be proud of your team work with her 🙂
Very very cute dogs, Cam and Australian English!!
Hey Cam, great job!!! Too funny when the audience went “Aawww!!” 🙂
WTG--that’s amazing. So cute with the three dogs working together. I’m sure you’ll remember new batteries next time!
Nancy and Nero
😀 too cute! Great job!! That was lovely!
That is absolutely darling. Thanks for sharing.
Maureen
OHHHHHH!!!! She is so good, and you two made me feel proud of our puppy class group too!!!!
Very nice to have the opportunity to work together and show other people what a team is…
AMAZING!!! The “hug a friend” is still my favourite!! Too bad your camera stopped I could watch you and your friends for hours!! Jin says: “GOOOO Gracie!!” 😀
Thanks J&J for cheering Gracie on! 🙂
Very cool, very cute!!! But you definitely need to remember to fill the batteries next time, it’s really too bad to not have it all on a tape, the beginning sure looks great!
Thanks Silvia! Yes, I’ve definitely learned my lesson about the camera now -- wont be letting that happen again 🙂 Grace has been invited to do a tricks show at the Royal Melbourne Show. We’re pretty excited (& nervous of course). Grace is doing flyball at the show on the same day, so i said we could do a maximum of 1x10 minute show (with the other dog, sprockett). The hilarious thing is that the organiser has scheduled her to do 3x20 minute trick shows as well as flyball!!!! NO WAY
Wow, you two are getting famous!!! 🙂 Very cool, Grace is definitely a perfect dog for that! 3x20min is crazy yes, I think some people just don’t realize how much is that for the dog! Looking forward to see the video!
Ha -- thanks Silvia! Can’t really believe they asked us -the royal show society is even sending their media person to do an interview with us for the newspaper! i’ll have to let Grace do the talking 🙂
Grace was being a ‘clown doctor’ at the hospital yesterday and it made me so glad to have taught her tricks. She cuddled about 50 patients and had a great time entertaining the kids in the paediatric ward. One little girl was celebrating her 6th bday -- seeing her laugh so much at G’s tricks made my day 🙂 She hugged Grace so tight I thought she might strangle her (a reversal of the hug trick). The kids thought it was so funny to see a dog ‘dressed’ as a lion and thought her handstand against the wall was very cool (unfortunately she’s very set in her ways with her handstand style now -- i can’t get her to kick up w 2 legs. Ive tried w hollow objects but she just tries to lift her 1 back leg to meet them, with no success)
You and Grace make a perfect team!
Wow!! That’s awesome!! give Grace a big kiss and puppy hug from us!!!
Very cool! With some dogs, 2 feet pushes are very easy and natural, but I think Grace is not that type of a bouncy dog… Maybe try when she is extra excited and bouncy and jackpot anything that goes in the right direction. But yes, might be harder now that she is now used to 1 leg first style…
You guys are so sweet!! We definitely couldn’t have done it without puppy class! 🙂 We performed nearly all our puppy class tricks…when we did the one where she zooms around me backwards & walks on my feet, she was having so much fun she circled me about 6 times instead of 2 🙂 she did her handstand against a boogie board (not sure how that translates from english -- like a little surf board). I wish you could have seen sprockett’s maths trick -- we held up big numbers to the audience and he did his sums and barked out the answers. Too cute!
🙂
That was awesome -- well done to you both ! Was good to see Wendy too, haven’t seen her since she used to run Willow in agility quite a few years back. Atilla has a limp that rivals Grace at the moment -- but completely untrained and I want it to go away, LOL.
Oh no, poor Atilla!! Thanks Julia 🙂 That’s funny -- small world -- Wendy is my partner. I’ll say hi to her from you. Willow is 10 now and happier than ever -- I’ve been trying to get wendy reinspired about agility. She’s getting a pyrenean shepherd at the end of the year 🙂
Here is our lesson 3 video. I left the play in with the sequence work so you could see how he is doing. I’ll edit it out in the future. He is playing a lot more. We worked through the whole thing. The next day, we ran it again and it was pretty slippery out. This is our first experience with the teeter. I see that I need to be quicker about rewarding away from the teeter so he doesn’t get all the way on. Once he runs up it and I just instinctively called him back down…if he does that, should we just pick him up and take him off or call him back down like this?
I’ll work on the straight line jumps. We tried it once, but it was NOT going well so simply ended. He was very focused on me, my hands and the toy…then he just got goofy. As you can see in this video, when things aren’t going just right, he gets goofy…we call it the “look what I can do” mode. He comes back quick though.
He is so tight on the cik and cap! Is this in your garden? I’d wish I had such a big garden!
Yeap, definitely playing great! But… Why aren’t you using your verbal cues? From what I see, he is just cueing from your body language, so yes, he is watching you too much already in this sequence and is only as wide or as tight as your body language is cuing. He could be (and he indeed was!) much tighter as that if he knew what to do vs. just watch your moves. So yes, I can imagine you had problems with a straight line… Go back to sends to one jump with a verbal cue. Then do one wrap-tunnel-wrap-tunnel -- with much less handling and more independence. When you have it, try tunnel-straight jump-wrap again.
And yes, reward quicker for a see-saw. He won’t be climbing it anymore once he gets the game, though.
We’re not up to this point yet, but though we’d give it a try and… now I’m not sure we did this right… I think jump 2 was suposed to be around the other end of the jump and that would have made for a tighter kik and then a better line to the tunnel… oh well, I can try it again
Can you please wait with posting videos till the end of the break. The idea of the break is you work on things you need to still catch up and the rest, we’ll work on after the break. Your videos will be out-of-date in 2 weeks, so I won’t be spending time reviewing old videos. We’re making this class 2 weeks longer because of the break, so we’re keeping a break a break, otherwise there is no point in it.
yes, sorry about that… we just hadn’t had a chance to video in so long, I thought I’d put it up… but yes, on break now!!!!
Hi!
I finally know how to put a video in slowmotion, and now I just want to see everything in slowmotion! 😀 Here is our video of yesterday evening:
I know we are on a break but I taped our session yesterday and put in on youtube so I thought “why not post it” 😉
Jonina & Jin
Awesome!! That was fun to watch it in slow motion 🙂 You must’ve been working v hard to have added that height already+weaves -- great idea to add the weaves into the sequence. G and i are feeling v behind now..thanks for motivating us 🙂
Very cool! Very nice style for collection! -- Other than that one time that you noticed yourself already. And yes, slow motion is really great, I always watch agility in slow motion, you see SOOO much more as in real speed!