Agility training

[SaraB]

Originally Posted by Aleron

Whim's first Excellent run at BSCA. It was a very nice run but not quite a Q (she missed a weave pole...I fell LOL).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater

Nice run! Good recovery after that fall, didn't even miss a beat.

[~Tucker&Me~]

Originally Posted by Beanie

Both Payton and Georgie now are going to get more regular training since my own training schedule is empty as of this Saturday haha. Tonight I did Salo set point exercises with both. I think we can safely say value is transferred to jumps for Payton. He has done some before but tonight I actually got out the visible target (blue Kong flyer) and it seems to have definitely clicked for him that this thing in front of him is aaaawwwsoooooome. I had other jumps set up for Auggie, who now only jumps 8" thankfully, so he went buzzing around the yard taking all the other jumps going LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!! *facepalm*

Georgie has to work on her stay LOL. As soon as she realized what I wanted from her, she couldn't sit still. We only got a few jumps before I stopped fighting with the stay and went inside. Need to beef up her stay more away from the jumps and then try to apply it again.

time to re-watch both Foundation Jumping and Success with One Jump, I think.

Can you explain more about transferring value to jumps? I was watching the SS DVD today and one of the things she mentioned was that if the dog is looking at you during agility that's not a good thing, he/she should be looking at the obstacles. Is this what you are talking about?

I am in the process of trying to improve Spy's jumping issues and am very interested in anything that could make the situation better!

ETA: Here is a video I made for my trainer so she could see Spy's jumping style in slow-mo to get a better idea of what's going on. Any input you guys have would be great, too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXIG...re=context-gau

[Panzerotti]

Originally Posted by ~Tucker&Me~

Can you explain more about transferring value to jumps? I was watching the SS DVD today and one of the things she mentioned was that if the dog is looking at you during agility that's not a good thing, he/she should be looking at the obstacles. Is this what you are talking about?

I am in the process of trying to improve Spy's jumping issues and am very interested in anything that could make the situation better!

ETA: Here is a video I made for my trainer so she could see Spy's jumping style in slow-mo to get a better idea of what's going on. Any input you guys have would be great, too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXIG...re=context-gau

Transferring value means that during training you'll reach a point where you'll have rewarded jumping enough that jumping itself becomes rewarding to the dog and the dog will want to take any jump in it's path because it loves jumping.

As for looking forward, you can practice this with one jump. Set your dog up in a stay in front of the jump, step off to the side and only release your dog over the jump when it looks forward at the jump.

I watched your video and it looks like your dog is taking off too early and doesn't understand how to jump collected. SS jump grids should help a lot with that. Have you started the set point exercise yet? Also, look into Silvia Trkman's cik/cap training, which teaches the dog first to wrap around things, then eventually to take a jump while wrapping it, nice and tight and collected. http://silvia.trkman.net/cikcap.htm

[Panzerotti]

Originally Posted by SaraB

Nice run! Good recovery after that fall, didn't even miss a beat.

Agreed! Good stuff!

[Beanie]

Transferring value means you are transferring the value of whatever your reward is to what you are asking the dog to do. Like when you play crate games, you play it using really high value treats like chicken... the crate takes on the value of the chicken. Payton has seen jumps before and played with them some, but because we've never really done any structured playing with them (they'll be set up in the yard for Auggie and he might jump over one because it just happens to be in his way while he's tearing around) he doesn't really see it as ZOMG FUN. It just kinda is. It's just something in his way. Not terribly unlike if he were in the woods and a log was in his way or whatever... nothing particularly important.
But now that we're actually working with them, they've become a "thing" to interact with. And when he interacts with them, he gets to grab the tuggy ball and we play tug! So the great game of tug he gets out of jumping has made the jump itself fun... the value of the tug has been transferred to the jump.

When people talk about having the dog looking forward at the jump rather than you, it's not so much about the value the jump holds as the dog being task oriented rather than handler oriented. Yes, you want them to be tuned in to you and your body language so you can steer them around the course, but you also want them to be looking forward at what they are doing and at what is coming up next... rather than constantly turning to look at you going "What's next?? What's next??" Kinda just "take what's in front of you, unless I tell you differently!"

[Laurelin]

Spy is fast! Haha that's all I can add. He always looks so serious and stately.

[SaraB]

I've been retraining Zuma's A-frame as she's gotten super creepy moving into that 2o2o position. This was mainly due to a lack of foundation training... Everyone take that to heart, DO NOT skimp on foundations because you pay for it later!!

I've been training a running contact to help her with her striding... I will train a stopped contact back in so that I can use it if I need it.

Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVt...e_gdata_player

[Shai]

It looks like Zuma's picking up on the striding pretty well, just needs to learn to control herself and stay low over the apex as she's getting a worrying degree of loft.

She really is such a nice size lol. And a quick little thing.

[SaraB]

Originally Posted by Shai

It looks like Zuma's picking up on the striding pretty well, just needs to learn to control herself and stay low over the apex as she's getting a worrying degree of loft.

She really is such a nice size lol. And a quick little thing.

Agreed! Some of them scared me. I'm adding some stride regulators in on the down side next, she's never jumped into the yellow before today.

[~Tucker&Me~]

Thanks Panzerotti and Beanie, I emailed that video to my trainer as well and she had some really good insight about what's going on, so we plan to do some SS stuff and set up the grids. Hopefully that will help!

Laur, I know . Me trying to keep up with him in agility is incredibly embarrassing.