So... Here is the plan. As agility is easier to show as to explain, you'll be getting your homeworks in video form. You'll always get some new assignments, but you need to keep practicing the old ones too - we'll be checking back on those here and there, so don't forget to keep working on those!
1. restrained send to cik/cap - the purpose of this exercise is to play a nice chasing game, while teaching great sends, distance work and commitment - see how early I can start running in the other direction when sending Le to the jump.
Things to pay attention to:
- height: If you only did cik&cap on other objects so far, start with a jump now, but without the bar for first 3 sessions: and then put the bar VERY low - max. 5cm (2 inches) for smaller dogs, 10cm (4 inches) for BC size and bigger. You can then add some height every 5 sessions: 3cm up for small dogs, 5cm for bigger dogs - SLOWER with young dogs! If you already did cik&cap with more height, do this exercise on your normal height, send a video and I will tell you if it's o.k. or you need to make it lower.
- distance: Start the dog very close to the jump first and then further&further every next try to slowly add distance. If the dog turns back to you (as Le does once in my video) or waits for you, start closer again and add distance more gradually.
- angle: Note from which angle I bring Le to the jump and in which direction I run away to reward. The purpose is to teach them to jump close to the wing, NOT in the middle of the bar! That's why I always do this approach FIRST and do lots of it before trying any straight approaches.
- speed: You can't expect much speed with multi-warps, but you definitely want it now. Restrain the dog, wait for a good pull, let him go and run away for them to chase you&the toy. Make sure the dog is rewarded when still moving - don't stop and reward: run and reward! 🙂
2. If the first part goes well, you can also do some figure 8s + chase it game: it's the same game, only that you use two jumps now and run from one to another, sometimes still rewarding the first wrap, sometimes 4th, sometimes 2nd, sometimes 5th, sometimes 3rd... Note the angle of the jumps and the distance between them: you want BIG distance to get good speed - something like 10m. Again, you want the jumps under this angle to make sure the dog is jumping close to the wing, not in the middle of the bar. DON'T do figure 8s on one jump, it teaches the dog to jump in the middle!
3. restrained send to a tunnel (obstacle discrimination!) + come to hand vs. go game
Restrain the dog very close to the tunnel, as he is pulling towards it, say "tunnel, tunnel" to them: pulling in the direction of that thing is what you want when you say "tunnel" - and then let them go. Slowly add distance. Later on, you can add more obstacles (jumps&contact) close to the tunnel to make the discrimination harder: only say "tunnel" when the dog is pulling in the right direction, you can feel it if you hold him. You do the same with jumps: call cik&cap and release to the jump that is first the only thing around and then add tunnels closer&closer. The goal is teaching obstacle discrimination AND actively pulling towards obstacles you call (as opposed to hanging with you, waiting to take them all the way to each obstacle).
To train even more things at the time, when the dog is out of the tunnel, either call to hand and when he is at your side, either do a front cross or a shoulder pull (see the video) and reward for closeness - OR say your magic "run FAST" word and throw a toy ahead when the dog is catching up with you - meaning that you're moving in both situations, do NOT stand still when you send!
4. independent weaves
If you haven't started weaves yet, set 12 poles in two rows (left row must always be 60cm/24inches closer to you when you stand in front of the channel in order to teach them correct entries), at least 1m apart, restrain the dog at least 3m before the channel, throw the toy through and release. As the dog is running to his toy, sometimes just stand back, sometimes run after him, on both sides, sometimes far, sometimes close, sometimes run and stop, sometimes run and turn etc. The purpose is to teach the dog to ignore your body language when in the weaves and complete the task. Slowly switch to a static toy 4m after the channel, bringing the two rows closer&closer as you practise independent performance (I'm using bowls with treats with Le as she isn't too excited about dead toys... - but I quickly switched to a toy, thrown after she is out then to get more speed). See the video for some ideas on what to do when the dog is in channel. If the dog already knows the weaves, send the video of how independent it is. If it's not, go back to the channel.
Have fun!
Hi Silvia,
Just had a quick first session on the tunnel and cik and cap. Short since it is way too hot in Belgium for the moment! It was greaaaat fun! 😉 I have two questions on the cik and cap. In the beginning we will do no multi wraps on the wings .Did I understand that correctly?Do we keep on practicing the multiwraps around other obstacles or do we leave that for now? On the video it looks like the dog always turns towards you. So do you only practice turns towards you at the start? Your position helps them to turn correctly while you say the cik or cap. Is that correct?
How hot is it in Belgium right now?! 🙂
35 degrees. 😉 But it’s the humidity that makes it worse. Wednesday it will be 18 degrees (celsius) again. That’s Belgium. We need to be flexible. 😉
Belgium sounds great to me right now! I live i Florida, it’s subtropical 🙂
35 degrees here in Sicily too… but it won’t turn to 18 degrees unfortunately 🙁 Too bad…
Last saturday in Belgium we had to run competition in the rain all day and we put the heating on in the caravan because it was so cold. Sunday it was way to hot!
Short is always better as long! 🙂 And yes, exactly, I don’t do any rear crosses at the beginning (and not very many later on either 🙂 ), so it’s very easy for the dog to guess the direction even if they don’t know the difference between cik&cap yet (what is normal!). Multi-wraps and sends are two different exercises, you need to work on both through the whole process, but as multi-wraps were already the “introduction” exercise, I didn’t include it in lesson 1 -- but don’t worry, it’s in lesson 2 again 🙂 so you should of course keep practising it, you should do it on wings as well as on other objects.
Hello Silvia & Classmates,
My name is Mara and the dog I’m working with in this class is Leia. We are just finishing up with Puppy Class II. Leia is my 2nd dog and as you will soon see I’m having some challenges with her. She is energetic, playful, and physically rough and tumble (which I am really excited about). She has come a long way with her attention span, tugging/retrieve and desire to interact with me since I got her and especially since Silvia’s Puppy Class but, we still have a ways to go. I’m trying to go slow with her training and give her a really strong foundation as that was one mistake I made with my first dog.
I don’t believe in getting stuck on her past but, I do need to put our main problem into context. Leia is from rescue so I did not raise her from the beginning, I only know what she was like when I got her. She was very under weight and would flinch anytime you touched her back. She is strong and healthy now and the flinch is almost gone BUT, we have a problem when she wants things her way she nips, growls and sometimes really bites me (mostly without breaking the skin -- but it still hurts). It doesn’t happen all the time and I try to prevent it from happening as much as I can but, it gets ugly when she goes into full protest mode. Since my first dog is very soft and fearful, I got good at being his cheerleader and never expressing any dissatisfaction with him. Getting used to Leia and trying to deal with some of her behavior has been challenging for me. I don’t use any force with my dogs. I try to be fair but firm with her. I try not to make too much of an issue about her getting snappy with me I just stay calm and follow through with whatever I’ve asked of her. In any case, this first video shows our problem quite well so I though I would take the opportunity to get your opinion. We went out to work on some of the exercises this morning and this is what happened. Do you think that I am doing something to provoke this behavior? Do you have any observations or suggestions of things I could do differently? Is this a problem you’ve seen before? My way of restraining her is to take the toy and push her back. I found it really turned her off when I held her collar (even after lots of desensitizing games). Early on I tried restraining with a harness and one day when we were doing cik/cap on jump wings her harness got caught on one of the jump cups and she dragged the wing on her back for a few yards before I could get to her and untangle her. It really scared her so we had to quit all cik/cap for a month and rebuild after she forgot about it.
Aside from our problem, this is where we are for cik/cap. I realize you can’t see enough on the tunnel exercise, I just put that in so you could see the nipping. I’ll film it again from a better angle when we do weaves.
Sorry for the long story.
Thanks for reading and watching,
Mara
Hi Mara,
I am interested in Silvia’s opinion on this problem too.
My dog frequently disengages when things are not going his way or when I ask him to do too many repetitions. I either ignore and take a break or play with him some more. Maybe you take the toy away too soon, maybe asking too much with not enough reward?! Sometimes I trade the toy for a treat.
Hm, interesting…
…Silvia?
Thanks Jennifer, all good suggestions. I was also thinking along those lines…maybe I should trade the toy for a treat, maybe I should reward more. It will be interesting to see what Silvia says.
or try to make it a game of giving up the toy to you, then give it right back. I practiced “out” (Aus) or “let go” by having him let go of the toy, wait for a couple of seconds and then throwing it to him or telling him “ok” to grab it again etc. with different toys. It just seems when I watched the video again that she gets really frustrated and eventually gives up. But overall you are handling it very well by not having a big reaction to her.
In Mara’s case, I think it was a confusion that caused Leia to walk away. I think that’s the most common reason… It might look like they are leaving because things don’t go their way, but it’s most likely because they THINK they are doing it your way, but then see you’re not happy with it and don’t know any better… Making it easier usually helps. Dogs like to do things with their people -- any way is o.k. with them, but they sometimes don’t understand what you want.
My first rescue dog had similar issues to your pup. My voice overstimulated him and he would herd, jump, and bite. As soon as he touched me I stopped all action and then realizing that he was over the top I just used body language and no voice. I tend to be pretty loud and hyper and it helped to fade it out. The behavior went away pretty quickly. By the time I was showing him it was all gone except for barking when he wanted a tunnel and I wanted a different obstacle. He died last year at 16. It’s pretty cute to remember when he was all young and sassy.
Nancy
Oh, Mara. I feel your pain. Callie used to tag me ALL THE TIME! I had many many wounds when we first began training. She was 18 months when we adopted her from rescue. She didn’t disengage like this, but for her it seemed like the excitement was too much and she would nip at my knee or get my hands when taking the tug toy. Basically, if her teeth touched my skin, I’d say “ouch” and the game ended until the next session. I tried the shorter version by just turning my back, but that wasn’t enough time for her to calm down. Now (she is 4), IF her teeth make contact, I still say “ouch”, but don’t need to end the session…I do take the toy and she has to work for it again. She is very good now. It was very frustrating for a very long time because we could only work as long as she played nice. Initially, I used bigger toys so it was less likely to happen. Now I can use pocket tugs if needed. This worked with Callie, but I would NEVER try this with Cash because he is already very hard on himself. And with Callie she was actually hurting me. Basically, I found that I needed to keep her from getting overstimulated by the play until she had a better understanding so I had to train myself not to be the same cheerleader I am for Cash. I hope that makes sense. The more I talked and cheered, the worse she was…it was just too much for her to handle then. Even now, if she gets too excited, she can’t release the toy…BUT this is what I’ve learned about her…at that point, she is so over the top that she CAN’T let go. Instead of fighting her, I’ll squat down with her and wait until she comes down a notch and can nicely release the toy…she knows what “out” means, but sometimes needs a moment to process and calm down before we continue. That was my experience and what worked/ works for us.
Kristin
Oh, and yes! The “out” and “let go” game is great. We still play it A LOT sometimes separately and sometimes in the middle of agility training. Above, I’m talking about agility making her so excited that she needs to “chill” before she can function sometimes.
Kristin—Thanks for this great description of what you did with Callie--saves me from writing the same thing. 🙂 And Mara, I feel your pain too! Elsa had the same issues as Leia & Callie when I first adopted her and what Kristin describes is exactly what I did/do to work through the problem.
You’re right Kristin—Callie & Elsa are very similar! 🙂
Hi Mara,
My older Border Collie Ricky is a rescue dog that came with similar issues I hear you describing with Leia. He was initially very collar sensitive (he bit anyone who reached for his collar for many months) he was also pretty edgy with his play and hard with his mouth. I don’t think he was very used to how to play with someone and would get very very excited by it, then when he bit me instead of the toy and I said “ouch” , even calmly, he would get very worried and disengage quite sure he was going to be in trouble. He also would get very egdy when I grabbed his collar when he had the toy in his mouth. I always guessed that in his previous home when he took things he shouldn’t have he was probably grabbed by the collar, had it taken away and was scolded.
I fixed his issues by teaching him to think letting go of his toy was super fun and non-confrontational. I used treats or a second toy and played games where when he let go of the toy on his own he was released right back to it like someone else described. I also played drop it games where I had him spit it out, get a treat, then pick it up and put it in my hand so we could tug again. I played a lot of shaping games with his toys, like the putting them in a toy basket, or in my lap. I taught him that it was really fun to release the toy and sit, so sit became his toy release and I never pulled the toy out of his mouth. I also found he really enjoyed having the chance to own the toy, prancing around with it, having a moment to revel in the ownership of it, then he was happier to give it back up again after having his moment.
I’d use multiple toys and or treats and not pull the toy out of her mouth because it looks like each time you grab under her neck by her collar to release the toy she gets nippy. Then it almost looks like after she nips you she is confused and not sure how she is supposed to play with you so she walks away.
Hope some of this maybe helps. She looks like a great dog! I am so glad you rescued her.
Thanks Classmates! Lots of good ideas. Thanks for sharing your stories and taking the time to help me.
I see you already got many good suggestions from other participants -- definitely something to work on! To add my observations: it does look like you are provoking that behaviour with how you take a toy from her. You do make it a kind of a fight… That’s not necessarily bad, I will often do that with Bu and you might have seen this kind of “fight” at the seminar where we first met, when Melanie was running Regan: same type of “hard to excite” dog who needs some additional push -- soft&sensitive type of a dog that you pray to sometimes see angry 🙂 It’s a cool game to master with dogs like that.
However, I will never take a toy from Bi that way. With some dogs, you don’t want to make them fight you 🙂 On your video, it looks to me that you start the fight and when Leia joins in, you stop the game and that’s why she walks away -- it looks like confusion to me, as if she is saying “make up your mind lady”. So, to give you a quick fix: work with a ball for now, have her drop it at your feet, give her a treat for it and meantime take a ball and start again. For now, even a push on her chest might still provoke that behaviour, so you can skip that part too, just start from a short sit stay or do a trick and then send.
Meantime, teach her a “give” -- probably best would be to teach her to drop it on the floor at your feet as that way, it doesn’t look like fighting at all. So you always release the toy first, then tell her “give” and throw another, even better toy as a reward. You can also try to make that hand on a chest look less like a fight and more like a cue to focus forward and search something to pull towards to. You can make a shaping game out of it and first work with food that you toss and then have her get it after she puts pressure on your hand that you gently put on her chest (for now no pushing on your part: let her push against the static hand).
Again, the important thing is to adjust to the dog you are running. I would probably give you a completely different advice for your other dog -- but that’s what makes dog training so interesting. There is no one best for all dogs. You need to try different things to learn as much about your dog as possible and then go with whatever works best for that particular dog.
Anyway, on cik&cap topic: her ciks are beautiful, but caps could be better, so work on caps some more, maybe even one height lower first.
Additional explanation on fight vs. no fight topic: as I said, I like to have Bu fight me as she is such a softy and that boosts her confidence. I never do that with Bi who has tons of confidence and is easily excited anyway. With my PyrSheps, I do fight as to fight with me is their biggest jackpot (AND because angry PyrShep is just so funny 🙂 ), but I teach them to bite softly. I let them bite me when we play like that, but I stop it immediately if it starts to hurt. They learned to bite so softly I hardly feel it. That would be the third way 🙂 For now, I wouldn’t play with that option just yet, but maybe you can try it later on if you feel the need for a way to excite her without getting hurt.
You will sometimes see Le attack me in the videos, she does it when she thinks she actually deserved that toy that I withheld -- I let her do it as 1.) she knows to do it so that it doesn’t hurt and 2.) I like them to “stress up” vs. “stress down” meaning that I promote that they react with activity to frustration vs. reacting by shutting down at first frustration (as Bu’s natural respond was) -- I prefer them to blame me for their mistakes over blaming themselves for my mistakes (what Bu would do). And 3.) angry PyrSheps are just so funny 🙂
Thank you Silvia, I really appreciate your explanations and will start experimenting to see what I can learn.
Ah, this is great! Thanks Silvia, lots of excellent advice, as always!
and Thanks to Mara for bringing it up!
we didn’t get to practice at all today, rainy season has officially started. I enjoyed everyone’s videos!!!
Oh, Mara. The other thing I taught Callie which helped (and conveniently builds on the Puppy/ Tricks class) was to put the toy away. When I see she is heading “over the edge”, we end our sessions with this trick. Since I can now anticipate that we need to be done, after a party, I say “Put it away” and she carries her toy to the water bowl for a treat and knows we are finished. I do the same thing at trials after her reward…she “brings” her toy back to the car. That way I’m not taking it from her.
I’m an auditor in this class and others you have done and I usually stay quiet, but the visual of an angry Pyr Shep made me laugh out loud! I don’t have one, but I can imagine it. Lol!
Yeah, they’re funny little creatures 🙂
and they love Malinois, right Silvia 🙂
You are making me want a PyrShep 😀
Kristin…be careful what you wish for 😉
You’re creating conflict when you try to steal the toy from your dog. It looks like you’re pushing him away by his chest (growling), then yanking the toy out of his mouth and away. As the toy flies away from him, it looks like prey, and incites his desire to chase and get it, but you’re blocking him, so he gets you instead.
Teach him that letting go doesn’t mean he loses the toy, but that the game starts again. Play tug, wait until he’s really tugging hard, then freeze and lock up. I hold the toy in both hands and brace my fists on my thighs so that even if the dog keeps tugging hard, I can hold the toy still. The goal is to make the toy “dead”. No more fun.
He may continue tugging and pulling… just stay as neutral as you possibly can and wait. At some point he’s going to finally start to release, as this just isn’t fun anymore. Mark this “yes!” and make the toy alive again by moving it quickly away from the dog. Let him re-engage and start the game again. Soon the dog learns that releasing is what starts the game again.
Once dogs understand, they practically throw themselves off the toy in anticipation of a new game starting.
Hope this makes sense,
-samie in Montana
Hi Silvia and classmates,
Instead of saying cik or cap, what is everyone else using?
Also in your Cik&Cap video you mention that it is not neccesarry to use two seperate verbal cues, that your body cues will help the dog understand which way to wrap. Did I hear this correctly?
Thanks, Astrid and The “R” Gang!
I’m using Zig & Zag.
Hi Astrid, I’m using tight for right and wrap for left. I used to use ‘wrap with my older dogs so it made sense to me. Mostly I try to avoid herding terms with Nero.
Nancy
‘
I’m also using Zig & Zag, but still deciding whether or not to drop one and just use 1 verbal cue and let my body position be the visual cue. What do you think Silvia?
Tricia
Hi there i am using Tip and Tuck cause i cant say the other!
I think that’s a good plan, you can use two for now as we do one or two jumps sequences and you can prepare well in advance which in which: and then see if it’s getting easy enough to use the right one in more complicated sequences or not and then decide on either to drop one or not. Astrid -- you could go with the same plan.
I’m using “Seek” & “Zap”…probably very bad pronunciations of cik&cap… 🙂
You can use any short word… Kit-kat, tic-tac, do-re, see-tap… But yes, as I already wrote to Rachel, it’s better to use one and say it in time as have two and then think so long which is which to say it too late… It is easier to use two as it first looks like 🙂 but one is o.k. too.
Yup I will stick with one, thank you Silvia! However I am probably not using Cic or Cap as I use tug, attack (sorry) for playing tug and it seems to close to me. Of course the dogs know the difference between playing tug and an obstacle. So I was thinking of using short but it doesn’t sound well with me and shoot… no way.
Hi,
I use “Sik” and “Sak”. They both make no sense at all.
I use “sin” (sinistra is left in Italian) and “took” for right (just a funny word when you say it quick :-D, I sounds like a chicken then). I’ve chosen these words because I hoped if they sound totaly different, it would make it easier for me to remind it.
I think it depends what type of accent you have 😉 I’m english and I’m using ‘check’ and ‘dig’!
I’m using Zip and Zap although Spur finds offering going left a lot easier so I tend to use Zap more than Zip.
Hello Silvia,
I did weave training with Toby here and there in the last month by doing 2x2 method. here’s the video of final result, can you pls let me know what i need to keep working for? I know that I need to work him more on sending him to the poles from my left and i will work more on the distractions.
We will be working the lesson 1 this week, and i will post a video by the end of this week to see how far we are at.
Thanks
Why are you mostly static? In real life, you’ll be always moving, so while I do some work with me static too, I mostly run, doing different funny stuff (rear, front and blind crosses, shoulder pulls, sudden stops, running in the opposite direction, falling etc.) -- looks like that’s what you need to focus on now. The entries look great, just move more on the approach side too, to give him more speed when entering from the difficult, left side.
Silvia, I thought that at the start I tried not to help him find entry with my movement, that’s why u saw that I was static most of the time. Right now I started moving around with him, but I don’t have a video of it yet. I will focus on moving around from now on. 🙂 thank you
O.k., good, just add more&more movement now, he did pop out when you started to move first, so it’s important he learns to ignore your movement. Try to move in all possible ways, see my video for some ideas.
Bonjours tous le monde et bonjours Sylvia,
Je suis tres content que ce cours soit commencé. nous allons faire notre première séance mercredi soir. j’adore la vidéo et le travaill du cik et cap celon un angle comme celui la. je n’ai pas encore commencé le slalom et ne pense pas le faire de suite. Fly n’a que six mois on a encore le temps 🙂
j’éssais de lire chaque commentaire mais j’ai quelques soucis avec l’anglais et google traduit souvent de façon fantaisiste 🙂 🙂
Bonjour,
Si jamais vous avez besoin d’aide pour la traduction, je peux volontiers vous aider. Je parle français et si ma compréhension de l’anglais n’est pas parfaite, elle me suffit pour comprendre ce qu’il y a à comprendre. Donc si je peux vous aider c’est très volontiers. 😉
Je me réjouis également de commencer.
Je vais essayer de faire une vidéo du slalom ce soir…
Merci beaucoup Justine 🙂 ça va surrement beaucoup m’aider.
Yes, I can imagine Google French is hard to understand 🙂 Maybe I could do the same as I try to in my other classes… Bold the important parts so that you can then focus on translating that part -- maybe Justine can then translate those parts (otherwise she will be too busy!)? And yes, of course you can start with weaves later, I knew many dogs in this class will be too young to do those, but wanted to include it too so that you can see what to do when it’s time to do so 🙂
C’est vrai que je suis très occupée ^_^
Le plus simple Georges c’est que vous m’écriviez à cet email: justine.chav@gmail.com
Transmettez moi également votre email, ainsi je vous enverrais la traduction pour chaque cours et si vous avez des question plus précise sur la compréhension de certain texte, vous me copier coller le texte en question et je vous transmettrais la traduction.
J’ai déjà traduit (tant bien que mal ^^) ce premier cours. Si vous me donner votre email je peux vous l’envoyer…
Hi there Silvia, If i do not have jumps with wings do i need to make a plan to have them changed so She always jumps with wings or not neccessary, cool, thank you.
Oh, no, you don’t need wings for any of the exercises -- jump stantions are just as good. I’m just using a “wing” expression, I guess that “European English” expression for everything that holds a bar 🙂
Cik and cap: First session restrained send to ” cik and cap ” (I say ” tik and tap” )
What do you think can we start with the figure 8 or is it not tight enough?
Tunnel: First session ” come to hand” and ” go” game ( I say ” go go go” )
Weaves: 20 cm apart. I have a channel wire with 6 poles (I also have wires but didn’t use them… should I?)
I realize now that I can also use the poles of the jumps… to have 12 poles! Stupid I didn’t think about it earlier 😉
This was our first trainings-session (late at the evening because it was more than 30 degrees!) I post it already because I realy want to now if we are starting the right way
Jonina and Jin
Oops something went wrong …
I’ll try it again:
Great job!!! As you are that close with a channel already, it’s definitely time to work on entries too, though! You can first start by moving your bowls “out of the line” with the channel, as you can see me do it at 5:17 -- you can see at 5:29 then that she needs to correct her line because of off-line starting position -- that’s the beginning of teaching entries. Then slowly make it more&more extreme until you can do approaches as in Le’s next weaves video. As Lin has good independance already, that should be your major focus now.
I don’t like wires no, just keep it as it is, focussing on entries now. 12 poles is even better, so you can use jump poles IF they’re nice and round -- she will soon be touching them, so it needs to be safe to touch it.
Great job with the rest too, try cik&cap on a real jump now, with a very low bar. Not sure if it’s just a video angle, but it looks to me like her ciks are better as caps… If so, work on caps more! You can also do some figure 8s: some of both is the best.
Hi all, As I say in my introduction I am a newbie so silly question regarding weave poles…I read in the internet that the right entry for the poles is always taking the first on the left side of the dog, is it true? So it is like skipping the first one always?
See the video I posted… Those were all correct entries 🙂 They need to find the first gap from the left side, so that the first bar is on their left shoulder and the second on right, the third on left, fourth on right… 12th on right. That’s why you need to set a channel so that the left row is closer to you as teh right row as that will make them have the first bar on their left side. Hard to explain, easy to see from the video.
You can post your 1st session so that we can stop you from doing something wrong right away 🙂 if you’re not sure about it.
Thank you very much….I will post it tonight hopefully! 🙂
Eva.
Hi classmates! Well, we tried out the 3 basic parts of the lesson. I think this class is maybe a little too advanced for us, but we are just going to go at our own pace.
When I was putting together the weave pole set I realized that this was the first time I had ever touched a weave pole -- so you see we are beginners!
Tibby had a little tantrum (as usual) when we were working on the cik/cap. This is something we are working on and she has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks. She used to just run away, but now she will come back and play some more. She has 2 speeds -- flat/calm and cRaZy! Someday her brain will catch up and I think she will be able to control herself. I like to get her excited, because I want her to be fast, but it is hard to know HOW excited to get her before she has a little tantrum. Even though she is 14 months she is very much a baby dog. Baby brain.
I hope you enjoy our movie -- there are lots of funny parts 🙂
Hi Catalina,
You make my day! I was laughing my head off!! What such a smart girl you have!
Do not worry if you are in the wrong class me too!, as we dont even have proper poles we use the sticks to hold the electric wire for the cattle! Video coming soon, hopefully I will record it when I arrive home!!
Eva.
Well, it’s much harder with dogs who are hard to motivate… Definitely only use her favorite toy and maybe don’t use it for anything but agility, to make it more special. Try to move yourself as much as possible too. Spend lots of time playing between one and another try to not bore her with too many repetitions. And, most importantly… Try to take the zoomies to your advantage… When she is running around as crazy, call her “run fast” word and run around as crazy too, pretending like it was your idea in a first place. Once she knows the tunnel better, you might also be able to redirect her running into the tunnel: that would be a real win. Once there, it’ very easy to throw in few more obstacles. It would a huge breakthrough if she realized agility is about running and see how much fun it is to run through the tunnel full speed.
So maybe focus on making her liking the tunnel first. To make the tunnel easier: no rear crosses on tunnel yet (meaning if you are on left side of a tunnel when she enters, be on the same side when she exits)! AND move with her to the other side. And to make it more fun -- have her chase you once she is out, make it more abut running.
In general, no problem with the exercises as such, so motivation is definitely our major focus here.
You two always make me smile! You are doing great. Keep it up.