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!
This class program is very extensive and after discussing it with 1st class students, I decided to give you some more time for last three lessons: first three you'll get every 2 weeks and last three every 3 weeks and we'll also make a 2-week break somewhere in between to let you catch up. As always, taking things slowly is always better and takes you to the goal faster as rushing things up, that's why I'm giving you more time for your homeworks.
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 stanchion now, but without the bar first: 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 stanchion, NOT in the middle of the bar! That's why I always do this side approach FIRST and do lots of it before trying any straight approaches. Check the angle again as it's not the best angle to see and many people do it coming to the jump facing it and then running parallel to it away and then the dogs are back-jumping the jump. You want to come to the jump from the side (nearing the stanchion/wing first) and then run away perpendicular to it.
- 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 (side approach again!) and the distance between them: you want BIG distance to get good speed - something like 10m/33'. Again, you want the jumps under this angle to make sure the dog is jumping close to the stanchion, 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 for you 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!
To make it even more challenging and train three things at the time 🙂 you can also add more tunnels and jumps around, like this:
Try to change it some every time, like bringing the other tunnel closer, or curving it sometimes, or using a jump instead, and also try running by it (to the other entry maybe) while calling to hand so that the dog needs to stay with you even when you’re actually moving towards the tunnel/jump and similar.
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 a 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. With puppies, you can start the channel work, but only play with it max. twice a week, to not progress too fast as you don't want to close it to the point that requires real weaving before the dog is fully grown. But you can do a lot of work on independence and entries without doing any real weaving.
Have fun!
This is Chip’s first session on restrained cik/cap. I still need to get videos of the other exercises.
He has great acceleration, straight line jumping, and turns tightly when I really get close and cue decel. But I’ve been unhappy with his turns from a distance, especially when he is really excited for the toy. So I think this will be perfect for him!
Oh yes, no doubts about good accelerations! 🙂 Great commitment too! But he is sometimes a bit too much in a hurry to collect and really stay close, so I think I would do very short-distance restrains for a couple of sessions and add distance and speed gradually so that he learns how to control his speed to stay even closer to the wing.
And here is tunnel bug Bun Bun. 🙂 This set was done with having her do a nose touch to my hand first. I’m having so much fun with her, thank you Silvia!
We did some more cik/cap but the unrelenting wind blew my camera over and I didn’t notice it. This was before you said take away the bar.
Wow, that was cute! Really great distance skills -- not so easy with a small dog! But she sure seems to love it 🙂 The cik&caps look much better too, but yes, I guess taking a bar off for a couple of sessions will give her even more confidence!
I have had quite a few technical problem getting started but we have been hard at work. I think I have finally figured out how to edit video and upload so here is our first video! Zip and I have been working hard at gee (right) and haw (left). He understands what to do as long as there is good supportive body language. I would like for him to have a better understanding of the words so we are going to try to get out this weekend to gee and haw around lots of obstacles to see if we can generalize the behavior a little better. Most of his turns seem pretty tight and he certainly is enthusiastic about the game! He occasionally stops short and turns back to me instead of continuing on around the jump standard. He is definitely cuing off my body language.
Cool, the warps to the right sure look great! -- Maybe a bit wider to the left, so you can do some more of those, maybe even on lower height first. You can help with body language on direction, but have him drive to it and wrap independently from when you turn. You can also add even more distance. Great job!
As you suggested, I switched to throwing the ball for Des this week after cik/cap, instead of tugging for now. It really does seem to have increased his drive to the jump. He goes to work with me, so at lunch, I’ve been sending him around trees, stakes in the ground and anything that looks like a pole. I’m sure my coworkers think I’ve lost my mind, but we’re having fun! Also, a little more tunnel work, and we’ve tried the channel weaves for the first few times.
Wow, Des is sure getting faster&faster! Great job! You can also try figure 8s and next also introduce very low bars. Very nice, fast and tight also with the tunnel exercise! Keep working with the channel, gradually introducing more challenges to his entries and independence.
Thanks! It’s so gratifying to see him have fun and increase his speed as a result. We’ll keep working on it!
Aw, Hope, Desmond is ADORABLE!! How big is he? Spur is probably an aussie/pap mix that they would have sold as a mini aussie, but the puppymill was seized and he got to keep his tail. He’s 14″ and 14lbs and SO much fun! Your little Desmond is VERY cute and looks like he is TOTALLY into it and fast!! Great job on your cik/cap!!
Thank you Amy! Des is just over 16″ at almost 7 months, and has the sunniest personality. By the way, I’m a secret fan of yours and Spur (we were in RC 1 and 2 last year). Duncan, the boy in my avatar is a 14″, 15 lb Mini Aussie who is also a paw wringer, just like Spur. Watching Spur grow in confidence with his RCs helped keep me working on them (even when others said it wasn’t necessary) and wow! What a difference, not only on the DW, but the rest of the course, too! So glad to see you both here!
OH, gosh, Hope, I don’t remember Duncan??? How could I have missed him??? I thought I was so good at watching everyone! Maybe at nearly 50 my memory is starting to go. Ugh!!
Hahaha, Spur has “secret fans”??? He sure has a LOT of fans, secret or not!!! 😀 Apparently, he is more of a hit than I ever knew. I LOVE him dearly and want him to be the happy little guy he is and hate to see him wringing his paws, but it happens still pretty often. I struggle to be the sensitive handler he needs, but he is managing to work through all our struggles and he just amazes me all the time with how he improves more and more and gains confidence. There sure were times I wanted to stop and just work on his tricks and go hiking with him, but then he shows me glimmers of hope and works SO hard and definitely has become happy about agility because of his RDW. I TOTALLY credit his happiness to that work and Silvia’s awesome help!!! I know it’s in him, I just need to bring it out and keep it fun and make him happy! 😀
Wow, Des looks smaller in the video. Funny, I always think Spur looks so big in videos. Must be the tail makes him look bigger.
Have you always had minis? I once had a MinPin/Aussie mix. She was 15″. MinPin was the dam, it was a BAD mistake and amazing the dam lived, but she was a cool dog! Here is a photo of her next to my MinPins. Funny, I sure have been drawn to the minis I guess. My folks always had border collies and my first dog was a siberian husky, who also could be off leash, so going with little terrier type dogs was a new challenge for me (MinPins have terrier ancestry). I sure felt common ground with Silvia because of her samoyed as her first dog! 😀
Silvia -- you’ll like this one of Rockin’ Roscoe that was taken when he was about 2, he was SUCH an adorable little guy. And for anyone who thinks MinPins can’t be let off leash, this was at the top of a mountain hike and both MinPins were off leash the whole time! 😀
Here is our send to tunnel practice. He likes this game but sometimes he cuts behind my back instead of watching to come to my hand.
Driving really well to a tunnel, but I can’t see the come to hand well -- try to have him circle with you for at least 180 degrees before you throw a ball (or maybe even better for come to hand exercise if he likes it: tug) to test him to really check his stride and stay close when called. Make sure to reconnect with him after the tunnel, opening shoulders to him some, to make sure he knows to which side to come.
Debra! I don’t know if you’ll remember me . . . It’s Diane, over in Moscow? What a nice surprise to see you here!
Diane, Of course I remember! What a small world! Bun and Byrdie are looking great!
HI Silvia! I have a question about the table, will we be doing any work on that in this class? That’s another area we lose a lot of time, like sometimes 3-4 seconds. 🙁 I have tried to make it a happy place, but obviously I do something stressful at trials. Part of it, I think, comes from so often the table is the next obstacle after a teeter and that’s a MAJOR bummer for him. I have practiced that at home A LOT and doing all kinds of crazy table games at home, but at home he is fine. Not as fast as I would like, but fast enough, losing maybe only 1/2 second. He just doesn’t want to go down on the table and what ends up happening is I have to be firm with him and it feels bad to both of us. I always praise him and get his tail wagging once he is down, but from the moment he gets on there to when his elbows go down he is bummed out. In AKC it is now “positionless”, meaning he just has to get four feet on it, but in USDAA they have to be in a down before the judge starts the five second count and it often costs us seconds.
Do you have any advice or is this something we will work on later in this course? He drives really well to the table, that’s not the problem so we always have better times in AKC, it’s getting those elbows down that bums him out and in USDAA it often means we miss first place. He knows drop-on-recall and I have done tons of that with him in the fields. I brought my table inside and practice it a lot with tons of cookies and that does help some. If I do that for 3-4 days before a trial, it is often better (maybe losing just 2 seconds and losing first place still!), but I just wonder if there is something I haven’t thought of.
Thanks!!! Amy
Hm, no, we won’t be addressing a table as we never see it other as on WC sometimes and the position doesn’t matter, so… So he is fine with dropping into down at home and also in a trial situation, just not on a table? But he will drop down ring side or on a start line (if you asked him to)? I guess I would address both, practice dropping down in trial situation and make a table a happy place at home, having it inside and make it a place to do tricks, play, eat dinner etc.
Oh, you are very lucky. I hope some day USDAA decides on no position on table, too. Yes, we do work on down ring side, no problems. I don’t know if he would do a down on a start line as I never ask for anything on start lines since those are times he worries, too, and right now we are doing really well with restrained starts!! 😀
OK, I’ll just keep working at home making it as happy as possible in his down. The table is a happy place and he drives to it well, it’s doing the down that he’s not so happy about. What I might do is try some tricks on the table in AKC since it doesn’t matter what he does on there and that way I can practice it as a happier, fun place at those trials and then ONLY ask for the down in USDAA. Of course, I will still practice down on it at home a LOT, but maybe surprising him that sometimes at trials he does something really fun, like spins or tricks and sometimes he has to do his down. I hate how it feels when I have to demand the down. 🙁 It is getting a little better, but still especially after a teeter it is a bummer. We like tunnels after the teeter. 😀
Yes, I know you don’t want to start from a down, but maybe you can still practice down after you enter the ring, if you need to wait for bars to be set or something -- just to show him he can do it in trials too. Doing tricks on a table in USDAA is a good idea! -- Might make a down easier in AKC then. You could also try to teach a different down, more trick-like-down (like with a head down) with another cue and try if he liked that better? FCI switched to no-position because only electronic table is allowed. I would take a table out all together anyway, it’s stupid.
Hahaha, YES, it sure is STUPID to me! I don’t like stopping! Yeah, I did try a nose touch type target/head down trick and that has helped so I will do some more of that. But, in trials he won’t do that, yet. When something worries him he will refuse to do things even his favorite tricks, but I’ll keep working on it and try some different things and some different tricks. And, yeah, I’ll try asking him to do a down on the start line and see how that goes if we have to wait. That’s a good idea!!!
I have also thought about making a whole bunch of tables and putting them all over my agility yard so he can do a whole bunch of them in practice. That seems daunting, as making things isn’t my favorite, but it might help. It isn’t like doing the table is hard on his body, LOL!! So, practice, practice, practice might be my best answer. I know with Roscoe doing his competition obedience I had to practice his stand-for-exam for like a year because he wanted to bite the judge. It took a long time, so if I can train that I think I can train Spur to like his table, LOL!!!
OH, I SO want electronic tables!!!!
Oh, I so agree--it’s stupid! And not fun! And it seems to me that the table and 2o2o are the two places where you see people start to act all intimidating toward their dogs. Get rid of those and let a dog run! That is something Byrdie really loves about NADAC.
I shape the down on the table as a trick. Start with the table top on the ground and then add hieght.
We have the table as a normal item in what is called ‘Dog Jumping’ here which is based on horse jumping -- not as flowing as agility, more of a handling course and often has two rounds one on a full course including the table for a clear and then a shorter run off for placings.
Where are you again, Fiona?
I agree they should get rid of the table. In America the table count is done by the judge. How can the judge count exactly the same for every dog? It’s not fair because some dogs could have an advantage if the judge counts a little faster. They should get rid of the table or require an electronic timer.
I know, that’s why electronic table is required here now, the time is so important that human counting can never be fair. But actually, we almost never see a table that way or another anyway -- and we sure like it that way!
Hi Silvia,
we’ve tried figure8s, cik&cap sends and multiwraps. Bars are 20cm height.
He knocked sometimes, but I think, it is because he is trying very hard to stay close to the wings.
He works very independently 😉 Have a nice weekend, Betty
Cool, really nice, fast and tight! -- When you’re in time with your cues -- you’re sometimes a bit late though, like for a wrap at 0:19 -- that one was not too good, so send him back into the 2nd wrap for tries like that -- but it’s true your cue was too late. For the bars, I would still stop him and redo, to not let him think it’s o.k. to knock them. You can also spread the jumps even more next.
Here is a little sends to tunnel video. I had some problems to show him properly where to go.
With him, mostly work on come rather as go yes 🙂 But call him earlier (when he is still in a tunnel) so that he can prepare for a turn. Don’t stand completely still, but move some with him on turns too to show him the direction. Try it without an obvious toy in a hand too to make sure he follows a hand and doesn’t just grab the toy. Do at least 180 degree circle with him at the side before rewarding: sometimes circle even more than that to practice him staying close the whole time you’re calling him.
I can’t seem to ever get the camera angle quite right so you can’t see his restrains, plus I did send to a tunnel first. I think meeting him out of the tunnel might have caused some pressure and slowed him some. I sure seem to need to experiment with what works for Little Spur. Anyway, he still doesn’t seem to be driving all that well to the jump, but I am able to leave earlier and earlier now and most of the time he seems pretty tight? Gosh, video is so telling, I really hate my voice and how intense I am sometimes. Poor little guy. I guess he has learned to handle it OK, LOL!!
I know, Roscoe is a little bit in the way, but he SO enjoys “helping” and doesn’t seem to interfere too much? 😀
Yeehaw!!!! LOVED seeing Spur kickin’ up the dirt!!! He’s looking really fast to me in this one Amy, CONGRATS!!!!
Certainly very tight, great accelerations out of a turn and great commitment! He could still drive more to the jump yes, but this can take a while for them to learn and it’s harder to get with smaller dogs anyway, so he is actually pretty good already -- and will only get better 🙂 And Roscoe is sure trying hard to help! 🙂