Agility training
- Thread starter Panzerotti
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Don't quit on Mia! She'll figure it out& it will be SO worth it!
Beanie.. Penn's first real trial is in March. And she runs contacts. But she just doesn't actually always hit the contact zone. Maybe 2% of the time? LOL! Take Penn for a month& fix her too?
I follow a blog with a lady& her herding dog. It's not a Border but it's a herder. She's always SO HARD on her dog for not being a Border ..and yet, she bought the breed with intentions of doing agility and always blames the dog when it doesn't work out. I understand being frustrated but every post is pretty much how crappy the dog is doing& she posts videos of faster dogs of her same breed& says she wishes her dog was more like them. I remind her her dog is same age as Penn& she just needs to build the drive. She's giving up& getting a Border Collie in the next few weeks. Makes me so frustrated. Her dog would be great if she would believe in her& train instead of complain.
Beanie.. Penn's first real trial is in March. And she runs contacts. But she just doesn't actually always hit the contact zone. Maybe 2% of the time? LOL! Take Penn for a month& fix her too?
I follow a blog with a lady& her herding dog. It's not a Border but it's a herder. She's always SO HARD on her dog for not being a Border ..and yet, she bought the breed with intentions of doing agility and always blames the dog when it doesn't work out. I understand being frustrated but every post is pretty much how crappy the dog is doing& she posts videos of faster dogs of her same breed& says she wishes her dog was more like them. I remind her her dog is same age as Penn& she just needs to build the drive. She's giving up& getting a Border Collie in the next few weeks. Makes me so frustrated. Her dog would be great if she would believe in her& train instead of complain.
Lirl. Poor Mimi. I have a Whippet for an agility dog, breed fail! Also might have EzraWhippet as a dock diver. Double breed fail! 
I can't imagine trading them in for something potentially predisposed to be 'better'.
Mimi demotivates easily and I have to take that in to account when working with her. Everything needs to be happy. I can't 'drill' without her getting irritated. I also can't expect her to do repetitive tasks, it isn't in her nature. If she starts trotting through the sequence as opposed to whippet speed, something's up and it's typically my fault,I've not put enough reward in whatever that particular thing is. I've noticed it more when I work on something new, like when I started training weaves, weaves were omg party! and jumping lost it's value in comparison. I didn't notice until I tried using a jump before the weaves. She'd blow the jump entirely to get to the weaves.
I can't imagine trading them in for something potentially predisposed to be 'better'. Mimi demotivates easily and I have to take that in to account when working with her. Everything needs to be happy. I can't 'drill' without her getting irritated. I also can't expect her to do repetitive tasks, it isn't in her nature. If she starts trotting through the sequence as opposed to whippet speed, something's up and it's typically my fault,I've not put enough reward in whatever that particular thing is. I've noticed it more when I work on something new, like when I started training weaves, weaves were omg party! and jumping lost it's value in comparison. I didn't notice until I tried using a jump before the weaves. She'd blow the jump entirely to get to the weaves.
I hope I don't sound like I hate Mia. She's the best dog I've ever had. And probably the best dog I will ever have. She's something special.
I do get frustrated though because I don't know where we went wrong as far as speed goes. She's so hit or miss- either way intense or just 'lalalalala I'm not even trying!'. I am noticing it happens if we drill a lot. She gets bored. When we switch exercises to weaves or something she picks back up. She is so smart too that she will sometimes beeline for weaves or for the teeter if she sees it because she knows those areas are more likely to get her food. Maybe jumps just have decreased too much in value? She will do the jumps better if she has a target or something after them.
At home training she is about 3x faster than in class. But we do shorter sequences because of space issues.
Summer is a dog that will drill and drill and drill and just fly the whole time. It's so much easier.
I am very happy Mia is playing with toys though! my trainer was really excited she's finally playing in class well. And Mia is playing with a variety of toys vs only tennis balls. We've had icy and snowy ground here for about 2 weeks straight so my 'do weaves every day' thing didn't work so well. So we've just been playing every day. I've made it a goal to play with Mia with at least 2 non-ball toys daily and it's making such a difference!
I do get frustrated though because I don't know where we went wrong as far as speed goes. She's so hit or miss- either way intense or just 'lalalalala I'm not even trying!'. I am noticing it happens if we drill a lot. She gets bored. When we switch exercises to weaves or something she picks back up. She is so smart too that she will sometimes beeline for weaves or for the teeter if she sees it because she knows those areas are more likely to get her food. Maybe jumps just have decreased too much in value? She will do the jumps better if she has a target or something after them.
At home training she is about 3x faster than in class. But we do shorter sequences because of space issues.
Summer is a dog that will drill and drill and drill and just fly the whole time. It's so much easier.
I am very happy Mia is playing with toys though! my trainer was really excited she's finally playing in class well. And Mia is playing with a variety of toys vs only tennis balls. We've had icy and snowy ground here for about 2 weeks straight so my 'do weaves every day' thing didn't work so well. So we've just been playing every day. I've made it a goal to play with Mia with at least 2 non-ball toys daily and it's making such a difference!
That's really sad.
I mean, here's the thing... I do get a little frustrated sometimes when training. Fortunately, in our class Kili is right on par with the other dogs which is very uplifting. I am so proud of her, but we absolutely struggle with certain things that come more easily to other breeds. And yes, it is a little MORE frustrating if she struggles with something because I did get her specifically with agility in mind and trialing in mind. BUT!
Big but. If I only wanted an agility dog I would have gotten a border collie. A border collie is absolutely, 100% a better suited breed to the sport. But I didn't want a border collie. I wanted a greyhound for numerous personal, non-sporting reasons. AND I wanted to do agility. When I get a little frustrated I try to really remind myself of that. She is a pet first and foremost and an agility partner second.
Sounds like this person should have been more honest about what they wanted a dog for and chosen accordingly. If she really just wants an agility dog she probably should have chosen a BC to begin with. If there was some reason why she chose this other breed then she should be more patient, have more realistic expectations, and stick it out.
I mean, here's the thing... I do get a little frustrated sometimes when training. Fortunately, in our class Kili is right on par with the other dogs which is very uplifting. I am so proud of her, but we absolutely struggle with certain things that come more easily to other breeds. And yes, it is a little MORE frustrating if she struggles with something because I did get her specifically with agility in mind and trialing in mind. BUT!
Big but. If I only wanted an agility dog I would have gotten a border collie. A border collie is absolutely, 100% a better suited breed to the sport. But I didn't want a border collie. I wanted a greyhound for numerous personal, non-sporting reasons. AND I wanted to do agility. When I get a little frustrated I try to really remind myself of that. She is a pet first and foremost and an agility partner second.
Sounds like this person should have been more honest about what they wanted a dog for and chosen accordingly. If she really just wants an agility dog she probably should have chosen a BC to begin with. If there was some reason why she chose this other breed then she should be more patient, have more realistic expectations, and stick it out.
She sounds like Mimi, honestly. Mimi KNOWS the obstacles that were/are jackpot rewards. Two classes ago we had a 270* turn, out over one jump, I had to support the turn, and bring her back in over the second jump. Mimi was having none of it and would just trot around to the second jump. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous of people who have dogs that happily run at speed beside their handlers. My trainer backed me up and essentially I needed to put the reward back in to jumps and particularly instances where I have to call her back as opposed to sending her on. She'll slow down if I'm not moving and a pivot 270* turn seemed to summarize that.
Kudos to you for knowing what you really want for you and your dogs' happiness and going for it.
My personal opinion has always been that if you don't actually want a certain dog/breed, they will probably not be the right choice for you no matter how suited they are on paper. I know enough people who have chosen a breed solely because they want to succeed in XYZ and sometimes it works out but more often it doesn't...they don't mesh as a team. And generally they don't seem to enjoy the dog away from competition at all...s/he is just a tool to accomplish their goals, and nothing more. Which is both crazy and sad to me.
My personal opinion has always been that if you don't actually want a certain dog/breed, they will probably not be the right choice for you no matter how suited they are on paper. I know enough people who have chosen a breed solely because they want to succeed in XYZ and sometimes it works out but more often it doesn't...they don't mesh as a team. And generally they don't seem to enjoy the dog away from competition at all...s/he is just a tool to accomplish their goals, and nothing more. Which is both crazy and sad to me.
At least I have Summer to keep me sane. She just runs cause it's fun and she loves the game. And Summer isn't a thinker like Mia is. Summer takes everything at face value and never tries to outsmart me or figure out a way around. I don't think it would even occur to her that you could skip ahead to get to the food faster.
Mia's a neat dog... difficult though a lot of the time. How are you rewarding the jumps with Mimi now? I've been trying to reward speed lately regardless of performance. If she's turned on and working with me (or attempting to), I jackpot.
At least my trainer now sees Mia isn't 'tired' and is just lacking motivation.
I can't imagine getting a dog breed you didn't like or want to live with just for sport. My next dog will be a herder but primarily because I like herders and miss having them.
Mia's a neat dog... difficult though a lot of the time. How are you rewarding the jumps with Mimi now? I've been trying to reward speed lately regardless of performance. If she's turned on and working with me (or attempting to), I jackpot.
At least my trainer now sees Mia isn't 'tired' and is just lacking motivation.
I can't imagine getting a dog breed you didn't like or want to live with just for sport. My next dog will be a herder but primarily because I like herders and miss having them.
Let's see if I can fix Auggie's first LOL. First day of Louisville is March 13th so I have about a month. Holy crap I'm starting to panic a little bit. I have SO MUCH to work on with everybody, and there's still over a foot of snow outside and a nice layer of ice underneath it. I can't even take anybody out to practice on the actual contacts because of the snow and ice...
Auggie doesn't usually miss his contacts because he's slow, so I can get in front of him and really make him stick it. But I would rather he actually have good contacts. =P
Auggie doesn't usually miss his contacts because he's slow, so I can get in front of him and really make him stick it. But I would rather he actually have good contacts. =P
OMG that's my guys exactly. Jari moreso than Kimma, actually. I can only do things with him MAYBE three times before he either blows me off completely, or will like skip a jump or something. And with Kimma when we were first starting, I definitely did not put as much value in to shorter sequences so that when we went longer and longer, she would blow me off. I have learned my lesson with that, but definitely no drilling for either of them.
Yay for playing!!! I need to really do something like this for Jari. That's a good idea to make it a point to play a coupe of times a day with him. He's getting to the point where he will work for a toy for the first few minutes of class/training session but then he just bails on that and goes back to food. But when he is in to the toy, he's definitely faster and obviously more engaged.
Yeah I've had an acquaintance tell me during a course walk through that Kimma is a good starter dog for me, then once I'm "done with her," I can get a Sheltie and really have a good agility competition dog. Uhhhhhhh no? I like Finkies. I like living with them and working with them. I work with more biddable dogs all day, and I can honestly say that I don't think I could live with them.
If at the end of the day Kimma and Jari can't do agility, they will still be here and still be my dogs. Agility isn't my life - I just so happen to do agility with my dogs sometimes
Yay for playing!!! I need to really do something like this for Jari. That's a good idea to make it a point to play a coupe of times a day with him. He's getting to the point where he will work for a toy for the first few minutes of class/training session but then he just bails on that and goes back to food. But when he is in to the toy, he's definitely faster and obviously more engaged.
That's really sad.
I mean, here's the thing... I do get a little frustrated sometimes when training. Fortunately, in our class Kili is right on par with the other dogs which is very uplifting. I am so proud of her, but we absolutely struggle with certain things that come more easily to other breeds. And yes, it is a little MORE frustrating if she struggles with something because I did get her specifically with agility in mind and trialing in mind. BUT!
Big but. If I only wanted an agility dog I would have gotten a border collie. A border collie is absolutely, 100% a better suited breed to the sport. But I didn't want a border collie. I wanted a greyhound for numerous personal, non-sporting reasons. AND I wanted to do agility. When I get a little frustrated I try to really remind myself of that. She is a pet first and foremost and an agility partner second.
Sounds like this person should have been more honest about what they wanted a dog for and chosen accordingly. If she really just wants an agility dog she probably should have chosen a BC to begin with. If there was some reason why she chose this other breed then she should be more patient, have more realistic expectations, and stick it out.
I mean, here's the thing... I do get a little frustrated sometimes when training. Fortunately, in our class Kili is right on par with the other dogs which is very uplifting. I am so proud of her, but we absolutely struggle with certain things that come more easily to other breeds. And yes, it is a little MORE frustrating if she struggles with something because I did get her specifically with agility in mind and trialing in mind. BUT!
Big but. If I only wanted an agility dog I would have gotten a border collie. A border collie is absolutely, 100% a better suited breed to the sport. But I didn't want a border collie. I wanted a greyhound for numerous personal, non-sporting reasons. AND I wanted to do agility. When I get a little frustrated I try to really remind myself of that. She is a pet first and foremost and an agility partner second.
Sounds like this person should have been more honest about what they wanted a dog for and chosen accordingly. If she really just wants an agility dog she probably should have chosen a BC to begin with. If there was some reason why she chose this other breed then she should be more patient, have more realistic expectations, and stick it out.
If at the end of the day Kimma and Jari can't do agility, they will still be here and still be my dogs. Agility isn't my life - I just so happen to do agility with my dogs sometimes
Laurelin- I didn't mean to imply that about you at all! Sorry if it came across that way.
Penn is a lot like Mimi. It was frustrating until I learned how to keep her motivated& stay connected. We have having way more success now than in the past. I think struggling through makes you so much more appreciative when your dog finally gets it ..or at least that's what I keep telling myself about her focus issues LOL!
Penn& I are heading 5.5hrs away for a fun run tomorrow! Could use all the good vibes ahaha
Penn is a lot like Mimi. It was frustrating until I learned how to keep her motivated& stay connected. We have having way more success now than in the past. I think struggling through makes you so much more appreciative when your dog finally gets it ..or at least that's what I keep telling myself about her focus issues LOL!
Penn& I are heading 5.5hrs away for a fun run tomorrow! Could use all the good vibes ahaha
We played agility today! Em was a complete hooligan and ended up a disgustingly muddy mess, but Abe was awesome for me
With the almost seven months off, a lot of old issues seem to have come back, but I have a much better feel of where we are and how I can improve it. I mostly just wanted to have fun today, and we did!
Bonus, she hasn't seen weaves at all in those seven months and was doing six with no issue and did twelve a few times for me! Love my dumb black dog.
With the almost seven months off, a lot of old issues seem to have come back, but I have a much better feel of where we are and how I can improve it. I mostly just wanted to have fun today, and we did!
Bonus, she hasn't seen weaves at all in those seven months and was doing six with no issue and did twelve a few times for me! Love my dumb black dog.
Such a nice morning with Summer. She is such a steady, always willing little dog. Overall just a great practice with some handling stuff and some obstacles we've neglected (coughtablecough) and she did great. I forgot where I was going a couple times and she saved my butt both times.
Distraction-wise (it is a distractions class) it was tough today. In the field next to us was a lure coursing trial going on (holy cow beezers are loud when it's their turn!). Summer didn't pay any mind to it but the aussies and cocker were definitely having more distractions than usual.
Summer's downfall is my trainer. She's gotten much much better but if we are making a beeline to the trainer while she's sitting on the ground just a ways away from the course, Summer runs and does a drive by lick. She's fast getting back engaged but she just HAS to go let the trainer know she loves her.
So we're working some of her getting clicked/treated for leaving the trainer and coming to me. Overall though in everyday life I am noticing how much more focused on ME that she is. It's been a fantastic class and I wish we could do it again! Only one week left sadly.
Distraction-wise (it is a distractions class) it was tough today. In the field next to us was a lure coursing trial going on (holy cow beezers are loud when it's their turn!). Summer didn't pay any mind to it but the aussies and cocker were definitely having more distractions than usual.
Summer's downfall is my trainer. She's gotten much much better but if we are making a beeline to the trainer while she's sitting on the ground just a ways away from the course, Summer runs and does a drive by lick.
She's fast getting back engaged but she just HAS to go let the trainer know she loves her. So we're working some of her getting clicked/treated for leaving the trainer and coming to me. Overall though in everyday life I am noticing how much more focused on ME that she is. It's been a fantastic class and I wish we could do it again! Only one week left sadly.