Your last homework already! Two more weeks left to catch up and then with October 3rd, this class is finished. If you want to keep working on Foundation stuff in a class form, you can join October Foundation class (that is repeat of this class) for a reduced price. If you want to take things further, you're welcome to continue in Handling class that will start 31st of October, I'll open the registration soon. In Handling class, I'll be posting two different exercises for two different levels: the whole course for more experienced teams and shorter sections that will still be focusing on training to some degree for beginners.
1. sequence
Let's check your stays. I usually train them away from agility until they are 100% with toys flying, dogs running around, me moving etc. - and then just use them here and there also in agility: probably only for about 10% of sequences we run, to make sure I'm not given too many opportunities to ruin them 🙂 In this sequence, you need a stay. Position your dog at the good angle to be on a good line for 2nd jump, go to your position and start. Choose how you want to handle it.
2. front, rear and blind crosses: as there were some questions on the crosses, I included a video with different crosses on the same sequence. Normally, I first do front crosses only (as I only do collection sequences) + blind crosses on tunnels, then add rear crosses on flat and at tunnels, then blind crosses and then rear crosses on jumps. So try rear cross on a tunnel and on flat first and if that goes well, try it on a jump: see the video - just ignore the double tunnel, use a single tunnel of course, I just used whatever I already had in a set up. If you want (I'm not forcing anybody, I'm just including those as some participants were asking about them), you can try it with blind crosses too. Normally, I will choose the cross based on a situation: for collection, I will use a front cross OR, if I can't get there in time, rear cross at the jump. For extension, I will choose blind cross OR, if I can't get there, rear cross on flat. At trials, I do the most front crosses, then blinds and maybe one rear cross every 5 runs... Yeah, not big fan. But of course, it's important the dogs know rear cross too as sometimes it is the only option!
You could of course run those sequences with front crosses only, I showed it with rear and blind crosses only as by now, I think we mastered the front crosses already, so we can try some rears and blinds (if you want).
3. send in your contacts, see-saw, weaves and multi-wraps (on your current height) work again to check how it's going and to give you some suggestions on how to proceed after the class is finished.
Hope to see you in Handling Class!
Grace & I have got very far behind so we’re going to repeat this class. That will gives us time to take it slowly and really consolidate this stuff before we move on.
Will we be able to post on exercises 4-6 in the new class or will we have to wait until the new class reaches classes 4-6?
Grace & I did a bit of one jump exercise tonight and i was really impressed with how much better her commitment and jumping style is since last time we did it and she wasn’t getting distracted by my movement…I think she must have been practicing while ive been at uni 🙂
Yeap, they sometimes get things in unexpected ways! 🙂 Good idea to repeat the class, the program is sure somewhat overwhelming if you’re really just starting… I’m thinking to make it somewhat less intense and more gradual for next classes… But yes, you can of course post things whenever you get to doing them!
Fantastic! We’re all signed up (thought i’d let you know that there is a discrepancy bt the website 90euros and paypal 100 euros -- I’m more than happy to have paid 100 euros but thought i’d just let you know) 🙂
It is definitely a lot for beginners but at least the intensity has shown me what we are aiming towards… I’m hoping G&I will nail it by the end of the next class. Ive seen improvements w our own progress so i havent been too worried that we’ve been left way behind. Given that g & I hadnt jumped a jump bf, this class has definitely given us a love of agility 🙂
Oh, so sorry, I had no idea, but you’re right, I’ll have my boyfriend fix it tomorrow morning and refund you the difference. And yes, it’s definitely AMAZING how far even those who didn’t do anything before came! But yes, I don’t want anybody to rush things and feel under pressure, that’s why I’m thinking to break the program down somewhat… -- To make sure people are focusing on FUN aspect of it more as the catch up aspect! 🙂
Thanks silvia but pls don’t worry about refunding me, I’d like to give a little tip 🙂 Think i spoke too soon about G not being distracted by my movement -- just did a little 1 jump session then and she was sooo distracted by my movement (I was also running w a ball in my hand which was too exciting). So glad i’m doing the next course so i don’t have to worry -- plenty of time to fix it 🙂
I’m thinking about signing up for the next foundations class too. I have 2 worries though --
1- we are going into winter and the ground will be frozen very soon. Is it Ok to do agility on frozen ground? It seems like it would be hard on the dog.
2 -- I really want to do the next running contacts class, but I don’t think we could do 2 classes at once. Will the classes overlap a lot?
Well, I have to admit that I trained on frozen, snowy and muddy ground million times in last 15 years and never ever had a problem. I did get somewhat more careful lately, but I think Tibby is careful enough on her own to not get hurt and you shouldn’t be doing so many repetitions with her anyway that it could be a problem. And no, the two classes will overlap for max. 2 weeks.
Hi Catalina
About the snow -- I work my dogs in snow for 6 months. I have no choice as winter lasts that long. Also in temperatures to -15 C, but not if its colder. You must make sure the dog is warmed up properly. Hardest thing is keeping ice of equipment surfaces and that you have to be careful about.
About the snow -- depends on type. If it is icy and wet, I will not train. Ice does damage to the dogs pads over time and they don’t like it because its slippery. But once its permanent and dry it isn’t slippery any more and no need to stop. In my case jumps are a bummer because I have only stick in the ground ones. Means I have to set them at the start of the winter and that is how it will be for the next 6 months.
Thanks Nicole
Last winter Tibby was a baby and I didn’t know anything about agility, so this is our first real winter of trying to train something.
Yeah our winter lasts at least 6 months too 🙂 Wonder sometimes why I live here!
The ground will be frozen solid by the middle of Nov. -- we don’t get very much mud, because it doesn’t thaw again until April. Jan. and Feb the temp. is -30F/-34C + colder with the wind chill.
We snowshoed all last winter, so I think we could do a little agility this winter. Just have to pick the warmest part of the day and only go out for a short amount of time.
Tibby really likes the cold. On a warm day (-10F/-23C) she will sit in the snow for hours, if I let her!
How do you keep the snow off of your equipment/yard? We get 24in/60cm of snow at a time -- usually overnight.
That sure sounds cold! But well, short sessions are better for Tibby anyway!
I have a snow blower machine -- it has metal cutting wheels at the front that crush the snow and send it out a blow pipe. Impossible to keep it clean without that (unless you have hours to do it by hand). I leave about 20 cm there so the grass does not get damaged. Yes its still hard to keep up with it -- but you can’t not do it otherwise you get a frozen mass that you can’t cut thoough! You need to keep clearing it just after each fall. Major work! Where do you live?
I was wondering about the grass….hmm might have to get a small snowblower just for the backyard. My regular one is too big to move around in the backyard.
I live in Minnesota -- where do you live?
I’m in Kittilä, northern Finland
Yes the pace was a bit fast for working people! At first I thought, no way can she do that, she has done nothing before. But she really did it -- I was suprised and very proud! Its amazing how far she came in this course.
It is also good as Camilla said that it gives you goals for future training. I did sometimes work my dog too long though, just so we could do our homework, even if I knew it was wrong. Maybe you could keep the same intensity of material, but have it every 3 weeks instead of 2? I like that RC class works that way -- it gives people with less time more time.
Yes, that’s a good idea! I’ll leave the next class like this one as it’s already planned that way, but maybe give them two two-weeks breaks instead of one + plan the next class longer, with 3 weeks between the lessons, that’s a good idea!
New material every three weeks and 2x2 week breaks sounds perfect!
I think I really needed more time for lesson 5. I know we are not supposed to master it but it is a lot of work to get going for two weeks. My problem is I only have time to do small stuff in the evenings, so I rely on weekends to do most of it. 2 weekends is not quite enough, 3 per lesson would be great!
Really? Your English is really good. For some reason I thought you were from Canada! 🙂
Aha! I’m Australian actually, but I have lived here for a looooong time 😉
Here’s today’s video of the Lesson #6 sequence. I’ve also run it at our fairgrounds where I can spread the jumps further apart to encourage more speed. I think he’s moving pretty slow here so I called this sequence good after this. I’m going to pull out the weaves, carpet and seesaw for the rest of Lesson #6 and try to get as far as possible in those. It’s tempting to sign up for handling class, but I think I’ll still wait for Dec running contacts and work on getting on sheep for these few months. I also need to go back and work on all of the incredible exercises from this class.
I’ve tryed Nero on some simple patterns with pinwheels etc. and he is brilliant on those with great speed and extension.
I could be a perfectionist and try to get film with me saying all the right things and my pup at his best, but in the end we’d both be bored to tears!
Nancy and Nero
Nice job! I see you fixed the 6 to 7 problem! And he actually starts really nice and fast, but gets somewhat demotivated with that threadle… Maybe reward those more to make them more fun? No other problems, other that yes, saying the right thing at the right time. But I still think that was GREAT, especially for such a young dog!!!
Hi Silvia and Classmates,
Here is a little video from this week of Synergy’s weaves, DW and the first sequence. We did not do the drills yet. I will do a second video with the rest of the drills (with front, rear and blind crosses) as well as her teeter.
Thanks,
Marla
Great job!!! I think she added some speed, didn’t she? She looks really great on this sequence. I was especially impressed by what an effort she makes to keep the bar at 12 up! What a good girl! -- A knocker like Bi really makes you appreciate this! 🙂 Very nice handling too, in time with hand change on 3, maybe a bit too strong with collection cues on 11 as she is sometimes not quite sure about it -- but I guess she will learn. Weaves and contacts look really great too, great job!
Thanks, Silvia. Yes, she is a really good girl. She is very careful about the bars (unlike her daddy who is all speed and not caring as much about bars in his way:-). I think she is getting faster with confidence. I know she has very fast speed as I have seen her chase a ball before:-) She is cautious and I am working on her building speed but I know that it will come with confidence. She gets more confidence every day. She is my most favorite dog to train that I have had. Sage (my first BC for agility) is very tough and independent so not as much fun in certain ways. Spritz (Syn’s daddy) is too fast for me and makes me crazy:-) Synergy is my perfect agility dog (fast but also consistent). I have so much fun training her. Thanks for a great class. We will be back for more!
Oh, one question. Weaves are still open a couple of inches. I hesitate to close all the way because of the impact on the dog’s body but do you think it is time to close them up so she doesn’t get too used to these extra inches? FYI, for my dogs already competing (Sage and Spritz), I never practice with closed weaves. They are always open a few inches after they “know” how to weave with closed poles. I’d like to know your ideas about this.
Thanks!
Hard to answer as I never did it that way, but I guess that if it works for your other dogs and they don’t have problems, then why not. But I would definitely try to close it now for Synergy and once she is perfectly fine with that, you can open it again. And yes, she sure looks like a blast to train! Can’t believe how fast she got the idea of running contacts, it’s really amazing!
Hi Silvia and classmates,
I am sending 2 videos of Arrow; One of Running Contact training at about 6 inches and restrained releases about 6-8 feet from end.
If I go back further, he will run past the board, you see him doing this.
He really digs in and runs so he has a lot of hits o the board. Sorry I can’t understand how to make it slow motion. No hits are higher than 18-24 inches.
He can do this Many times.
The second video is how I could increase height. At 8″. Is this OK?
Also, I tried this with him a few times today and am getting good hits, same as 6″. But he still does not go on the board if we start more than a few feet back. Could you tell me how to get distance releases so that I could start to vary my position? And start to send to start at the tunnel? I am afraid of losing his speed if I start correcting for missing the board.
Thank You!
Wow, looks great! Looks ready for your next set up. Try to put some jump wings or x-pens at the beginning of the board to limit his options on where to run and channel him on the board.
Thank You!
Hi Silvia and all,
Could you comment about our seesaw work. Sen jumps on OK from the side when it is close to the ground. The goal contact position is a down, but it is sometimes a combination of a bow and a down. When the board is higher she is quite reluctant to jump on, but will pull it down. Should I stay here until she is jumping on nicely from the side?
I add my other dog for comparison. He was trained another way and his seesaw is ok, but I would like him to race to the end faster. He tends to wait for the tilt before the end. So, while training Sen he is doing these exercises too. His normal seesaw position is a down first and then to 2/2, but as you see here with this method he tries to jumps straight to 2on/off. Do you think I should just go with that or insist on a down? For the examples where he does down (not taped here) his feet are hanging over the edge of the board, so that is not good either.
And so back to Sen. I have known for some time that she does not like heights (dog show tables etc). It took me a loooong time to get her running fast over the dogwalk at her current running height of about 20 cm! She does not like the seesaw board at all (it seems to be the height more than the movement but of course a bit of both), and I was not able to get her up the board for the next step. So I put the board flat and am just getting her to go back and forward over it. Do you think this is OK? After that I was going to start to let it move very slightly at the contact end. Perhaps have her on a stay at one end and the run to the contact position.
Any advice?
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sorry -- messed up that link
Cool, she is too cute jumping on! Your second height is already too high for her I think, so you can progress towards whole see-saw now. Knowing she is afraid of height, the best would actually be to use low see-saw first and then slowly make it higher. If not possible, I would try supporting one end and starting her there, letting her run down actually. It might be less scary as this two-objects set-up. For your other dog, I would get rid of the 2on2off in a first place. He doesn’t look scared of the movement at all, so I think the reason he doesn’t run straight up till the end is that he learned that he can’t hold the see-saw down then. So I would insist on down (you can stop him with a treat in your hand at first), but then release immediately. Did you actually wait for 2on2off in trials?
The thing is -- I NEVER taught him a 2on/off for the seesaw!, and no he is not scared of it. I taught it for dogwalk (under pressure from local instructors -- and a mistake because his primative running contact at the time was better -- now he is learning a real run with Sen). He just transferred it there himself. And -- he NEVER did do a stop on a dogwalk in a trial -- just slowed down and looked confused. But he stopped in 2on/off EVERY TIME on the damn seesaw. And so yes since he did it I waited. I will get it gone and train the down. I am finding it hard to retrain his wiating at the tipping point -- for how long do you think I should control the board movement myself until he forgets the idea?
As for Sen I cannot lower my seesaw so I will proceed as you say. Lucky it is a very light-weight and fast board, so if she can do mine she can do anyone’s. In winter I just use snow piles under it (if the board won’t come to the ground, the ground in winter can come come to the board!) It makes it easy to increase the movement slowly too -- just take a bit of snow from the pile.
With letting her run down, have you any tips for how to keep her focused forward? Her stays are not good enough yet so that she will stay there until released. I guess I must just shape that position carefully.
Thanks!
Well, you’ll see: when you see he is driving to the end really well you can stop holding it, with his weight it won’t move until he is at the end if he drives well anyway. Snow might do the trick for Sen yes! And well, if she doesn’t wait, then you need to run 🙂
Hi Silvia,
Here is a video of our contacts. I’m super happy with her progress on them! With her dog walk I have started working on more jumps, tunnels & such before and after the dog walk, we play lots of games going back & forth over it with jumps & tunnels between and I have started working a bit on doing front crosses and things as well. At home we are up to full height on the plank with the extreme turns and I think we are close to bringing that to the full dog walk. The teeter we just got up to full height today and she seems super happy about it, she can’t wait to jump on it now:) I also restarted her aframe since the vet gave the go ahead for full training since her growth plates have closed. Still needs more practice since we just got back to full height but I think she looks pretty good already.
We are way too far behind on the jumping sequences since I need to take those slow with her to make sure it stays fun and with our 2 week break for her spay surgery we got even further behind than the class. I want to go a lot slower with her and the jumps so I doubt we’ll get caught up before the class closes but I’ll keep working on it in the meantime and see how far we get and maybe we’ll do the class over again.
Hi Dawn -- your A frame and dogwalk look great! How long did the whole process take? The dog waits a bit on the seesaw
Nicole
We did Silvia’s first running contact class, which started in April or May? I’d say it took us two months to get to the ful height dog walk. Since we’ve been focusing on turns. This is only her second time on the aframe:)
Wow, that sure looks great! The teeter went great for the first time too, that last try was perfect! It’s too funny how much she likes her contacts and weaves, but not jumps… But I’m sure she will change her mind soon! 🙂 Great job!
Thanks! I credit your great teaching for our contact success:) well that and her complete ball obsession!
I know the mistakes I made with the jumping so I know we can fix it, I just tried to go too fast and it didn’t make enough sense to her so she slowed down to be correct. She is a serious little dog when she thinks she’s done something wrong. The thing about jumping is it seems like just when she was about to figure something out I’d throw something new at her and she would be all “no, no, you see we are running straight and fast over the jumps now, not turning, why didn’t you say we were turning, oh jeez, I can’t believe I didn’t hear you say we were turning, I’m sorry, I’ll be sure not to miss that next time, oh what, wait, now you want me to go off over that and take that jump without you, no no, we are turning, not going on straight and fast, oh man, I don’t get it, ok, I know I’ll go slow and get this perfectly…”
Now I know I just need to back off and make it more fun and move more gradually waiting until she really understands one exercise before moving onto the next. She does like the jumps, she is super excited to go play with them, but then she slows down and gets too serious if she thinks she may have made a mistake. And I tell ya, no matter how hard I try to pretend I am happy no matter what she knows, she knows the difference between wow nice try and wow that was terrific and she thinks nice try is terrible:) Before Emily I didn’t realize dogs could be such perfectionists!
With contacts & weaves they make sense to her, she can just do them and not worry, she knows what her job is from the time she enters the obstacle until she finishes it and she doesn’t have to think about it, she can just run and I have much more time to give her the information about what comes next.
Sounds a lot like Bu, she likes to be perfect too and is very worried if not 🙂 To make it even harder, Bu doesn’t care about toys or food, being perfect is her only aim… It sure takes some mental management, very careful, gradual training and no rushing allowed, but once they get it -- they’re perfect. Bu is my hardest dog to train agility with (because of all the things I need to be careful about to not hurt her feelings and make her slow) -- and yet the easiest dog to handle: always does exactly what told and never ever makes a mistake.
I thank the stars every training session for her ball obsession. It is the one thing that will trump all. If she gets all worried all I have to do to clear the slate is do something else and give her a ball, that makes everything ok:) My trainer friend said she had never met a dog with a bigger swing between worried little marshmallow and a fierce little monster than Emily. Because once she gets something she is a fearless monster and yes, usually a perfect fearless monster. But lookout if you confuse her.
Here’s a funny Emily story: We were backpacking up at this high mountain lake that has an island in the middle and my husband and our three dogs we swam out to the Island, it was a long swim. Our dogs are beasts in the water, we swim a lot. They do things like dive off of cliffs with me into the water. So anyway, we all dive off into the water to swim back to mainland and my giant goofball golden retriever Butters swims right over the top of me in his excitement, it hurt, a lot so I come up out of the water yelling “owwww” a bit, you know, because it hurt, I wasn’t yelling at him, just yelling in general. My dogs are never yelled AT so they don’t seem to take it personally, in fact I don’t think he noticed. But Emily she freaked out, turned around and swam all the way back to the Island, climbed onto a log and sat there facing the Island refusing to look back at us. She stayed there until we were almost all the way back to mainland, then she SCREAMED at me, finally gave in and swam back to us. She sulked for an hour after that…
Boy, I don’t know how I’d get her trained without ball obsession so I hand it to you for training Bu!!! Perfect dogs, not so easy… But I am enjoying the challenge, my last dog was a bit more Bi like, leap before you look:)
Oh, Bu hates screaming too! She freaks out if somebody screams at THEIR dogs/children. When I have her out on trials, I actually avoid all loud-spoken people as she might read it as screaming. Interestingly, she is not at all sound sensitive (thunder, shooting, loud teeters etc. -- that’s all fine with her), but screaming people and aggressively barking dogs are her biggest nightmare.
Sure sounds a lot like my Rue too!
Hi Dawn, Your dogwalk is exactly like I pictured that I would want, but we’re thinking that Nero will be too strong to do it in 6 hits like your pup. Did you take Silvia’s running contacts class? Your Aframe contact is also what I’d like, but again Nero might be too strong for that. Both my old dogs did it exactly like yours--in fact-- your pup looks a lot like my 14 year old BC who started with stopped contacts and then went successfully to running at around 6 years old when I realized that it was possible.
Great scenery in the background!
Nancy
yes, we did the last running contact class. And actually I think Emily’s prettiest and best running dog walks are her 5 stride ones. When she is up at full speed and extension she single strides the top and it brings her down so deeply into the yellow with her 2 down strides. She seems to understand she is targeting the bottom of the down ramp with her rear feet with all the exercises we did with Silvia, so whether she is doing 5, 5 & 1/2 or 6 strides she still seems to get she needs to plant those rear feet nice and deep into the yellow. It’s been interesting to watch her play with her strides to figure out how to do 1/2 strides so she can switch what she is doing on the board to avoid having to leap.
But I do think her smaller size certainly makes it easier for us because she has to work a little harder to leap, where the bigger dogs have to work a little harder not to leap:)
Southern Oregon is sure a pretty place to live, I feel very lucky!
I don’t really think smaller dogs are easier to get RC with. It’s often even harder as you often can’t be sure if they’re hitting just because they are so small or they are really trying (when speaking of really small dogs’, not Emily’s size). One thing that is sure though is that 6 hits DW is so symmetrical that it’s easier for the dogs to get as 5 hits. But that way or another, as you noticed already, they still need to know other options too and be able to adjust the stride when necessary, they can’t just do it exactly the same in every situation, so understanding is very important, no matter what size. Training is definitely more important as size and I’m sure that Emily would be hitting it nicely even if much bigger 🙂
I guess what I mean by easier for her size, say compared to my friends larger male BC with a running dog walk is her larger dog is perfectly comfortable doing the down ramp in one stride because he doesn’t have to work quite so hard to leap and miss, his bigger stride easily clears the rest of the board. On the ones when Emily tried doing the down ramp in one stride it looked like she really had to work to clear the rest of the board when she hit high and seemed like a real effort to clear that bigger span. So it seemed like I didn’t have to work too hard to get rid of those big leaps because they were not easy for her to do. But even with Emily’s size I had to work to get her to put the two strides in the right place, because she can easily miss with 2 strides on the down ramp when her first hit is too high on the down ramp, so absolutely it comes down to the understanding of what you are training them to target.
Yeah, big leaps might be easier for big dogs, but any size can leap over the contact if not trained not to. And sometimes, it’s even easier to see and stop big dogs’ big leaps as small dogs small leaps 🙂 I think from my dogs, Bi was the fastest to understand the importance of getting all the way down -- probably simply because it required so many adjustments right from the start, due to her gigantic stride 🙂
Hi,
I would like to show our sequences. These are not from this lesson, because we are very behind…But I would like to know what do you think about that, Silvia.
Cool, just somewhat wide when jumping towards the tunnel: I would do some multi-wraps there -- and practice it a lot. Also, don’t reward when she pushes out on her own, like on a last jump in the video. And, try to be more consistent with what you say and what you want, you said cik for the one at straight line at 1:56 and then jump for cik 🙂 But definitely great speed and some really nice wraps!
Hi, this is where we are on the see saw training, I´m using a target on the flor, we my other 2 dogs I always used it. Any sugestions? thank you
Looks good! I would probably try to select for even less slowing down in the middle or work on lower see-saw some more, but you can first focus on other things and come back to the see-saw later, it’s pretty good already.
Here is Synergy’s teeter. First time on whole obstacle.
Great!
Here are the other drills with blind, front on the flat, rear on the flat and then another blind.
Great, she reads them all really well!