Agility training

Limit's evaluation went REALLY well We're joining her Mon night class and she expects we'll be able to compete just fine! I am VERY excited. He was so good. He was a little nervous, even growled/bark when she came up (we were up on a hill in the dark when she approached and turned the lights on). He recovered within minutes. Was taking treats and doing his tricks for her. He did his contact behavior - she was really pleased with him overall and so was I.

YAY! We have 4 pretty much straight poles from all angles! No video yet but maybe next weekend when we work them again I will remember to set my camera up. I really wish I had 2x2s here now that the yard is thawing. The ones I made got all sorts of messed up being outside in this weather :/

Yay! I'm so glad it went well. Can't wait to "watch" him progress

We had run thrus yesterday and I couldn't tell you how proud of Abby I am! She was completely stress free and happy! I had her doing tricks and she was 100% focused on me which is a first especially at this particular facility where she's been known to just completely stress out and be a bit reactive. Her first run was awesome the only problem was that she missed her weave entry, but other than that it was a nice run! We even got some compliments from the other folks there! Her second run was good as well though we did have a couple mistakes that were entirely my fault (stupid handler). But she had good contacts and even made the weave entry that a lot of the other dogs couldn't get! And I was just happy she was having fun considering right before this run she suddenly did get stressed and start to react, but I was able to pull her aside and we played some LAT. She was still clearly stressed going into the ring, but once we started running she was fine and afterwards was stress free, happy, and had no problems walking through the crowd of dogs/handlers to get outside. So I couldn't have been happier!

Vid of her 2nd run
[YOUTUBE]GfmhlHfa7MA[/YOUTUBE]

She also got signed up with AKC and her first trial is March I think and then we have a USDAA trial planned for April! Can't wait!

Got all the supplies but one for the hoops, now I have to wait for the internet to deliver the last pieces. Want them now. MY LIFE IS HARD!!!

Well we dropped in another class. It was all border collies so that was... interesting. One I met this weekend- sweet older girl and the other is a crazy wild youngster and Mia would get so worked up when she'd start zooming.

Overall pretty good. We did simpler sequences and some obstacle work. That went great with both and Mia was fast tonight. Some sniffy behavior but every time she did she found herself a dropped treat. Summer impressed the other people and she really was fantastic.

Weaves. URGH my downfall. I swear I am so frustrated. My dogs act like they've never seen them before and I have no idea if it's just because mine at home are stick in the ground and don't have the bar across the bottom or what. They act like they have no idea. Summer especially just seems to not equate the weaves in class to the weaves at home. So we keep opening them and opening them and ugh... I just hate weave training and I suck at it apparently. My trainer had some good ideas but I have GOT to get on this training. Why do I suck so bad at weaves?

Mia also had a meltdown at the end of class because we got a wind gust and the chute looked scary. So we had to convince her the chute was still just the chute.

I'm also cramping badly and PMSy so I'm sure some of it is that but I'm bummed our weaves are still not getting anywhere. I'm going to try to film my training and maybe I'll see something... anything?

I'm sorry you're having a hard time with the weaves, I will say that videoing your training is an *awesome* way to improve it! There are so many things I'm better at thanks to watching myself (and yet I still have tons of headsmacking moments).

Thanks! I restarted 2x2s with Mia this last week. I may fork over the money for the actual DVD. It seems to be going better with Mia and she's getting more speed.

It's not working for Summer because her lack of front teeth means she can't open the tossed food toy. If I could figure that out that might help...

Good news! Yay!

Can you just have Summer bring it back to you to open? That's what I did with Kim while building ball drive. She could open it, but I didn't want her to...wanted her driving to it, grabbing it, then bringing it to me. Knowing the food was inside the toy seemed to help her make the connection and build value.

She won't pick up anything. Sadly.

Oh, sad

Manners Minder (or equivalent)?

Tiny tupperware with peanut butter in it? My friend uses that as a thrown food reward for her Cavaliers who don't like toys.

She refuses any soft mushy food. I can't figure out how to keep non soft food in a tupperware she can reach though.

Argh I swear she's difficult!

I throw a treat bag for Georgie and she won't grab it - just run to it and then bark at it until I run up and open it to give her some cookies. It accomplishes the forward drive though. =P

YAY! We're going to Florida this year

Our first trial is this weekend, novice only so it doesn't count for Payton except practice. Georgie still needs two standard legs so it could feasibly matter for her, but I'm not really looking at it as anything except expensive practice. Hoping if anything goes terribly wrong, we'll get it out of our system there instead of down at Louisville in front of hundreds of people. I'll have a whopping two days to work on things if any problems come up...

Saturday we got in some time to work at my house. Payton came out first and he did lovely. We discovered my teeter was frozen to the ground. My big wonderful puppy, he ran up the teeter and I saw him shift his weight back at the tipping point... and it didn't move. He stood there looking confused and then kept walking. So he was standing at the end of the teeter board while it was practically straight up in the area and it just did. not. move. I lifted him off it and then tried to push down on it... I obviously weigh a lot more than P but it didn't go anywhere. So I tried a different tactic and lifted instead. That finally broke it loose. =P Good thing it was my big baby dog because Georgie might have been quite upset by that, but P isn't phased by much these days.

Unfortunately the ground is too frozen to put my stick-in-the-grounds in so we didn't get to practice weaves. I really need to work on them. I'm not sure if I can drag my set and my mom's set of 2x2s outside and somehow get them set up to work on it. The trouble is Payton is great at practice but then at a trial his weave entries go to pieces, so it almost doesn't even matter what I do. I need to go practice more places I think. I don't know.


Ugh the number of things I have to work on is making me feel really nauseated and panicked. Ughhhhhhh whyyyyyy.

Exciting! Congrats!

Still sick and missing agility class this week.

Mimi wins for problem solving when learning new agility skills. Obviously I want her to climb the latticework of the wing jump standard or put her feet ON the bar without knocking it over, not find the back entry for the jump. Training a creative dog is fun.

Agility was really blah last night. First, we sort of signed up for the wrong class this term. The schedule said that my 8:00 class was changed from advanced beginner to intermediate, so I signed up for the 6:00 advanced beginner class. Apparently there were supposed to be two adv beginner classes and the 8:00 people were expected to stay at that time. Most people somehow found that out, except for me and two others who showed up at 6. It's probably better though, because this group is less advanced than the other, which is a better fit for us. The 8:00 people are in their 3rd or 4th time in adv beginner, while the 6:00 people just started. Since Watson still has jumping issues, I'd rather be in a class that moves slower. Second, the 6:00 time is so much better for me. And third, some of the people in the later class were really getting on my nerves. Haha.

The other reason it wasn't fun is that we worked on the teeter, and Watson had a panic attack. He has worked with it a couple times, just baby steps putting his feet on, but has never heard it slam down as another dog ran across, since the others were doing baby steps too. This time, two of the dogs were advanced enough to do it normally and he didn't like the banging. The first couple times he was fine, startled, but took a treat and recovered. As it kept going on, he got more and more panicked. I'm not really sure what to do about it the next time we work teeters. We left the arena and were as far away as we could be in the barn without being outside, and he was still flailing at the end of the leash each time it banged down. He wouldn't take treats, which is so unusual for him. He's always been a little uncomfortable with loud noises, but just a startle and then back to normal, never this panic. I think the fact that it kept repeating really got to him. And for the record, he's heard the teeter quietly hit the ground many times and was completely unphased, so we have a place to build from, it's just hard to figure out how to work on that and I can't ask other people in class to just not run their dogs on the teeter. Yeah, just frustrating I guess. He recovered really well and rocked the weave-o-matics so I was proud of him for that.

I think what happened here is most likely he went over threshold. He was uncomfortable and he couldn't get away and it kept happening. Next time, before they start working on the teeter, leave the arena and go as far away as you can again. See if he's able to stay calm there, then you can work on it there. Basically do Look At That, except it's more Hear That.
They make CDs that have agility trial sounds and stuff, you could try that. You might also work on loud sounds in general and see if you can't teach it as a generalized game. Clanging pots and pans around, dropping things that clatter when they hit the ground.