Here comes your new homework:
1. straight line as a serpentine: now that you mastered straight lines too, it's time to show the dog they can come in different forms 🙂 Let's try angling the jumps as you can see in a video, still working on extension vs. collection. Keep angling the jumps all the way to a serpentine. You should still throw in some wraps to keep them attentive to possible collection cues.
Showing the angling in 4 steps, but try to go even more gradually and make it a serpentine in 6 or 7 steps:
2. sequencing
With long-strided dogs, 10 will be hard - so you can simply take the other entry instead.
3. let's check how far you have got with weave entries: send in your "top 5" - choose the 5 hardest entries your dog found, the 5 you are most proud of.
Last call for 
Yippee, I just set up the little course at our fairgrounds and ran Nero through it, building it up slowly. It was so much fun. Whenever I was in doubt I threw the ball and sent Nero to water, but we finally figured out how to get all the way through it. What a rush from 2-4 and 8-11. My little baby dog can FLY! I initially had trouble figuring out where to be from 4-5 with the tight turn. I had to step inside of the line I wanted Nero on and then after that it was no problem. I had to give a tight on 5 and 6 as well. This sequence built so well on what we had previously worked on. Thank you!
Did you get it on video for us to see? Sounds like a great practice! I cannot wait to set it up because it does look like like a lot of fun -- but it will have to wait until after this weekend -- we’re at a trial 🙂 our 4th one ever!
Ania, No.. Bad me, I didn’t have the camera cause I thought the sequence looked so hard and it’s quite hot here so I didn’t even know if we’d be able to practice.
Best of luck at your trial, Nancy
PS--You’ll have to let us know how you did. I don’t have any dogs old enough to trial so I have to live vicariously through my friends (including online ones).
This is only my fourth trial ever and it is hot here too so we will see how we do. I’ve only entered two NADAC trials before and one AAC and this is my first USDAA. I even entered in Snooker -- yikes! I’ll video tape the runs and post a link to them if you’d like to see them, but I’m not promising anything spectacular 🙂
Snooker is so much fun. With the tights turns and drills we’ve done for this class it should be a snap for you if you can figure out the rules. Just ask loads of questions and go for really high points. I only ever did a few USDAA trials but did well in Snooker by finding an experienced person to help me. NADAC is mostly what I’ve done, but burned out after years and years. Now they have some new games that would be really fun and challenging with Nero. I love the EGC games. I can’t register Nero AKC per the breeder, but will find my fun where I can. This week we get to herd 3 times. Once is a demo. Herding is actually my primary goal, but eh lesson we learn in puppy class and agility foundations have a lot of cross over with my goals in herding.
Nancy
Nancy, what’s EGC?
Hi Jen, It’s in NADAC and stands for Extreme Games Classes. It’s meant to be all about groundspeed and distance so they just use the rare tunnel, hoops, and gates. Gates are about 5’x3′ and you handle them like a curved tunnel. I used them for years in classes because they are so much lighter than tunnels. I’ve run my old dogs a few times in these games and they loved it. They are perfect for young dogs that aren’t jumping full height yet as everything is on the ground. Dogs that are only motivated by contact obstacles and tunnels really suffer in these classes.
Nancy
Nancy
Hi Nancy,
If your breeder won’t let you register your dog in AKC couldn’t you ILP/PAL or whatever they are calling it these days go that route? At least then you could participate in the trials.
When I neuter him we agreed that I would revisit that topic. She’s concerned about breeding for looks alone. I wanted a pup that would herd and after trying for 16 years I would have agreed to anything. I have a pup with all herding instinct in I could ever want so to me it was a great deal. I’ll probably mostly enter him in herding trials and do agility for fun. I’ve always prefered AKC type courses though……
Well, here are our runs from day 1. It was a day of firsts for both of us. I have a lot to work on! Weaves, tight turns off A-frame, sending to the proper side of tunnels, serps and the list goes on and on. Steeplechase was a complete disaster! If I only knew how to do the serps the way Silvia is teaching them here, I think I could have saved the run. By the end, I was so stressed that I forgot the course! I’m very embarassed…
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That’s exactly why I love to compete! Always gives me some ideas on what I can still improve 🙂 Great job for the 1st time!!!
Go Nancy!!
Silvia -- Brilliant idea for me to make the jump higher..Grace LOVED it! This was the first time she had jumped a proper jump and she thought it was great 🙂
I went inside to end the session but she begged me to keep going. Made me really happy bc I’ve really felt like she’s been working with me out of obligation lately rather than passion
I’m all over the place in the vid -- accidentally rewarding when she knocked the bar and i think my body language was making her jump back over it. But hey, we had so much fun and i think she got the idea
My mum’s tea towel that i stole for lesson #1 is well and truly ripped to shreds
Any other suggestions or just keep building on this?
Thanks for posting this, Cam!! Someone else still working with one jump 😉
Looks like Grace made 2 towels out of one.
Hi Jen! How’s buddy going with his jump?
I edited out most of the play -- she actually made 8 towels out of 1!
🙂
Hi Cam,
I put 1 jump by the front door, one in my living room and one on the patio. I put those up a couple of days ago, and use them every time we go outside, with breakfast and diner time and play time. I just ask him to do cik cap or just jump, sometimes only once, sometimes a few more. He doesn’t like a lot of repetitions. I try to switch more between toy and food. I also have his crate in the living room and use that with the door open for stay and release (Crate Games). I want all of this to be solid before I try it outside again. It’s going very well, last night and this morning he offered a couple of wraps 🙂
I have the bars at 12″ now. If he refuses I stop and stand still and turn my body facing the direction I want him to go, and you can see the gears in his head turning 😉 He used to just plow through the jumps, like Grace was doing, but now he is paying more attention. I also make sure that I reward the good ones only. Another thing that’s working well is making him chase me for the toy and not letting him have it right away.
Yesterday, he stepped into an ants nest. He dropped on the ground and started licking the ants of his legs, I tried to brush them off and they were stinging my hands!! We both had to take some antihistamine and then were very sleepy.
Have fun! Grace’s sweater/jumper is getting bigger 🙂 very cute!
That sounds great -- love your strategies! 🙂 Well done 🙂
Have you made any puppy decisions?
🙂
Still researching breeders. It’s more complicated than I thought, but I want to take my time and not rush things. I will meet some breeders when I am in Germany next month.
Is it a secret which kennels?
Hi Jennifer, did you already say which breed you are looking for?
Hah, no, not a secret at all 🙂 I am just slow to make a decision and coming to an agreement with my husband Mark, who also lives here with us 😉
Mark likes Aussies and Hunting dogs, he’s from Ranch country 😉 I like Aussies, BCs and also considering Pyr Shep or Mudi, and those last two breeds you don’t really find here in US, so I just want see if that might be a good fit. I always had rescue dogs and they kind of find you, so picking any dog I want is a totally new thing for me.
Jennifer, if you are really interested in a Pyr Shep here in the US let me know. I’ve had two and can help steer you in the right direction. There are some great dogs our there right now, but also some not so great ones. My email is runscoutrun at mac dot com.
Mary
Did you see my boy Spritz (Bu’s full brother) here in the US. I have bred him four times with HillcrestBorderCollies.com
You could get a “German” lines dog right here in the US if you are interested. Newest litter will be born next month:-)
Mudi breeder in Duesseldorf vom Schloss Feengrund, and Bettina Rupprath in Bochum, Pyr Shep breeder le chenils de petit voyous. Feel free to comment, if you know them.
Hallo Jennifer, wir sind in dem anderen Zuchtverein und kennen die Züchterin nur vom Namen her. Ich denke, man muss sich eben die Eltern anschauen, auf den Inzuchtkoeffizienten achten und dann sehen, wie die Welpen dort groß werden. Bei uns im Verein ist es zur Zeit wieder total angesagt (im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes: der Vorsitzende hat das sozusagen von den Züchtern gefordert), dass die Welpen wieder mit weniger Umwelterfahrungen beim Züchter konfrontiert werden sollen, damit sie “rassetypisches” Verhalten (sprich scheu, Fremden gegenüber skeptisch, wenig umweltoffen) zeigen. Ist natürlich totaler Quatsch, da muss man jemanden finden, der das nicht mitmacht………
Ah, o.k., I thought you’re going for a BC! To meet some PyrSheps, you could also go to Le’s breeder (Lage, near Hannover), I think she knows agility lines better as the kennel you’re visiting.
Thanks everyone for your input. Silvia, I already contacted Silke and she just said that her Spring puppies are already reserved. She referred me to the kennel “Wilde Kehrle”, but they didn’t seem to keen on someone wanting to get to know the breed. They kind of gave me the run around.
Birgit, nobody really wanted to discuss the difference between those two kennel clubs.
Marla, yes, BC from US kennel would be fine, and Aussie definitely!, doesn’t have to be from Germany 🙂
Oh, you don’t want to know the story about PyrShep breed clubs in Germany… They’re both completely crazy! In short, one is anti-France (doesn’t support importing and thinks every dog outside Germany is ill…) and one is pro-France (imports a lot, but has some other strange ideas) and you don’t want to have anything with either of the two 🙂 But there are some good breeders and good dogs on both sides. Silke really has lots of reservations, lots of troubles with the club and just gave birth to a baby, maybe that’s why she didn’t have time to talk more about it.
It seemed very odd that neither Pyr Shep club wanted to talk about this. Very fishy. I don’t like extreme idiologies.
Yes, they’re very extreme and very military towards the breeders, they don’t let them much freedom on choosing the male etc. and behave somewhat “know it all”. I find it strange and unhealthy that the breed club can have that much power.
I didn`t want to discuss something about the two breeder clubs here, I just wanted to say what I would pay attention for. Just not only for agility -- but in general. Inbreeding is something I wouldn`t be able to abide. Inbreeding is a problem for both clubs I think.
Birgit, ich meinte, dass niemand von den beiden Vereinen mir die Unterschiede weiter erklaeren wollte.
Auf Inzucht muss man wohl bei jedem Zuechter achten, egal welcher Verein oder Rasse.
Birgit, Lost in translation 🙂 Ich meinte das auf gar keinen Fall auf dich persoenlich bezogen! Ich stimme deinem Kommentar von gestern voellig zu.
Ist o.k..
where in Germany will you be?
Ruhrgebiet und Munsterland, NRW.
Susanne, wo warst du?
im Odenwald, zwischen Frankfurt und Heidelberg, grob gesagt. Schade, ich dachte du bist evtl hier aus der Gegend, dann hätten wir uns ja mal treffen können. Trautmann ist hier ein sehr verbreiteter Name
🙂 ich meinte den Kurs 🙂 habe nichts von dir gehoert, bis jetzt…
aber Odenwald ist schoen! 🙂
A very good kennel of mudi with very good working habilities and temperament is the kennel Irhaberki 😉
http://www.mudis.fw.hu
das ist ja süß von dir Birgit, vielen Dank :). Ich bin übrigens von deinen Videos sehr angetan. Fine hat sich wirklich super entwickelt
Am WE habe ich vor wieder ein Video zu machen. Die Slalomeingänge fangen an zu funktionieren; ich dachte schon meine Hundis kapieren das nie…..
Justine, thanks for the link. Is your dog from that kennel?
Yes her parents are Picur and Legény 😉
The same parents of Irhaberki Csimota Kiki at Martina Klimesova
ich habe so vor mich hintrainiert, mit eher mäßigem Erfolg. Für ein Video wars nicht gut genug, aber wir arbeiten dran…
Kennst du den Odenwald?
Mensch Susanne und ich habe die ganze Zeit nach einem zweiten Video von Dir geschaut. Habe Dich aber dann auf dem Lehrgangsfoto gesehen und gedacht -- nun gut, da hat sie natürlich keine Zeit zum aufnehmen gehabt. Ich persönlich würde gern Videos von Dir und Deinem kleinen Sheltie sehen -- egal wie gut oder schlecht…………
ich kenne Silke und ich kenne auch Wiebke (wilde Kehrle) und deren Hunde, und ich würde, glaube ich, genau so gerne von Wiebke wie auch von Silke einen Hund nehmen. Silvia knows Wiebke and her dogs too, and could say sth about them. I like these dogs and if I had room I would have one. If had to choose between Silke and Wiebke as breeders I don’t know which one I would prefer. Now I will have a look at Wiebkes HP to see if Kitty has puppies 🙂
She sure seems to like it! In the next session, you can get more picky and don’t reward when you see she is touching the bar even if she is not knocking it. If it goes well, start her from further away and add more movement from your part, I think she often puts her back feet down when she is in a hurry to catch up with you.
Thanks -- will do. Yeah, i realised that too from watching the vid -- the time she completely forgot her back leg was when i ran one step in the other direction
Sounds great! Don’t forget to tape it next time!
Who? Nancy, Cam or me? 🙂
I think it was originally meant for nancy but probably counts for you too 🙂
Hi Silvia,
I have a question regarding the seesaw. Do we still keep on banging it as we are doing now or can we take it a step further?
If they like the banging, you can go to the next step yes.
Here is the weave portion of the lesson. I did not edit so you can see our mistakes. He still struggles with weaving on a rear cross. We’ve been working on it at 4 poles and he is doing great there, not so much here.
It was very hot, I think that’s why I was such a boring trainer today-poor dog! w It used to be very hard for him to weave past his toy, which is why I have one of those included.
Cool, that’s going really well, but do keep working on extreme entries and independence. You can make your rear crosses smoother at first, coming from the straight line so that you can slip behind unnoticed -- and then start with more angle every next time, to keep him mostly successful.
Here’s my current running dogwalk setup. The hoops will go away now since he is finding the carpet. I have the lines of bright tape down so I can evaluate stride length. I’m hoping for a total of 6 strides on the US 36′ dogwalk, but as he gets stronger I’m not sure this will work out. I only filmed 4 today since it was pretty hot (for Montana). My next step on this would be to add the two 6′ sections of mini aframe that I have on hand. I’m debating starting the contact class now or later in Dec.
Nancy and Nero
I loved the first try. On others, he watches you too much, so his striding is off. I don’t know how you count the strides, but if you count the same way as I do, you have absolutely no chances for 6 strides. 🙂 Our DWs are 39′ and my extra small (too small for standard) PyrShep puppy does 5 and Bi does 3 or 4… (See the video I posted a while ago)
Thanks Silvia, I saw the video with Bi and watched it a bunch and I count one more stride than you because of the way I do it. I think on my first try above you would count 2? Looking at the slow motion from 10-16 seconds I count three strides (my way). Would it be 2 the way you calculate? For me I count each spot all four feet land on the dogwalk/carpet. Anyway I can always substact one, but that still gives me a 5 stride dogwalk which will be quite a challenge. My old BC and Saales has consistent 5 stride dogwalks. My Pyr Shep always had the same size stride as my BC despite being 3 inches shorter. I think I will wait to December for the contact class. At 9 months new gears are still being revealed.
Here’s Silvia’s video that we talking about:
No matter how you count Bi’s dogwalk it’s pretty amazing!
We’re off for a herding lesson now, and then a herding demo in front of 1000’s tomorrow.
Nancy
O.k., yes, I would call that 5 strides, 6 hits DW. No matter how you call it, I agree it’s a nice striding as it’s so symmetrical (one stride, fly the apex, one stride, fly the apex, one stride) -- but it probably won’t happen with Nero on US length DW -- almost all US BCs in RC I are doing 4 and with his size…
Thanks--Ok So I’m calling hits. Thanks for the help with vocabulary--never my strong suit. For now I’ll keep him running fast low and then we’ll hit it hard this winter. I could do this with a slower smaller dog, but Nero is not that category! Here in Montana we get a lot of dogs with this ability coming out of shelters etc. No one here can teach it and friends of mine with running dogwalks are going to 2/2 when their dogs get fast enough to run like Bi. I know of 2 right now.
Nancy
I managed to secure my weaves and we just did a session tonight. Well, in fact, 2 sessions…Grace wanted to keep going after the first one. Grace is FULL of energy -- I love her when she is in this mood 🙂
I’ve never trained weaves before so i’m needing some extra guidance. We have been stuck at this angle for quite a while now. Sometimes she seems to understand it really well and other times not at all (I’m a bit confused why this happens -- any ideas?). I’ve noticed that my movement is still very distracting for her – if i try to run with her she runs sooo fast that she goes straight past them. We started to get a lot of mistakes towards the end. I was trying not to make a big deal of it and just keep going (bc she can get quite sensitive and give up quickly when she gets things wrong). I thought she did really well with this and just got a bit disheartened at the end. I guess my question is, is this the right approach or should i make it a bit easier?
With the issue of me running – should i open up the angle, go back a step and add more movement from me or keep going with this angle and add the movement in gradually? Also, in relation to her speed, should i reduce my intensity of play to slow her down a bit (which might make it easier for her) or keep working with her speed?
Thanks!
I think you need to keep working with the speed, she needs to learn how to handle it now that things are still easy, not later on, when things will get harder. I think the same goes for introducing your movement… I would go back to an easier angle and add your movement in that situation and then make it harder again, but letting her run full speed and having you do all different kind of things (running, stopping, falling etc.) to get her used to it when the situation is still easy enough for her to succeed.
Hi Silvia,
I got a problem this evening with cik&cap and I prefer having your advices to fix it right away:
Is it just time for karmen to get used to my “new” pre cue (with the opposite hand) or I am doing something wrong?
Thank you
Céline
What a great speed! 🙂 I think what confuses her with the hands is that you first show a jump with one hand and then switch too hard to the other one. Try to do it smoother and even sooner, so that once you show the jump, you show it with the opposite hand already. I think it’s easier to first try it on a cik&cap sequence, you have more time to think about it there and you can be closer to the jump there, you’re somewhat far on the video and then also step back and that pulls her off.
Thank you so much Silvia for your explanation, it makes sense to me.
Effectively I focus our trainings on speed as I’ve read you mentionned it is a key point (and I thought : even more with a non BC dog !)
I am looking forward to trying considering your advices during our sunday session!
We are just coming back from 1 day in the Pyrénées with hiking and swimming. Karmen loved it and FINALLY she gets tired!
Here’s our homework for Foundation 4 (drill, serpentines, contact work and rear end awareness exercise. Do you think I should start to raise the jump height again? How about the serpentines? She is looking at me so should I throw the toy sooner?
Thanks,
Marla
You make it look so easy! 🙂
Time to start running! Try to do some running with her to the weaves too, it’s actually easier for them when you stay away and static as when you run with them and do some sudden changes of direction or speed -- and you want to proof for that too, especially if you are planning to do some international stuff with her too: that definitely won’t allow you to handle everything from distance and without running!!! The same for serpentines: RUN!
Cik&cap sequence went great, it’s only turn on 4 that could be better. Try to tighten that up some, do some multi wraps on 4 to remind her of tightness. But the first and last wrap sure look great, so yes, I think you can add some more height.
The running, I commented in RC class already.
Thank you. Yes, I thought the same thing when I watched it. She is looking at me on serpentines because I am behind her. Sometimes I find myself just standing there watching the dog instead of running with her:-)
OK. I will work on running with her to weaves, on serpentines and on the flat and will do running out of tunnel onto carpet with a thrown ball.
Thanks,
Marla
Yes, it’s important to run from the start because if you do everything standing still, the dog doesn’t necessarily know how to do things when you’re not standing still but running hard! It can throw them into so much of a hurry that they forget everything, that’s why it’s important to do it when things are still quite easy.
Hi Silvia,
Sorry I had to put both videos in same place as I am on my way out door and running late. Thanks, Marla
MUCH better! MUCH faster! 🙂 Great job!
Tibby has an appt. with the cardiologist on Tues.
This is a link with all the info about it for anyone that is interested:
http://justatibetanpup.blogspot.com/2011/08/appointment.html
Hopefully it was all a mistake and she is just fine. At least that’s what I’m hoping.