Agility training

Beanie

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Just to throw in, a lot of people I know with running contacts also train stopped contacts because sometimes you need both. Trkman lost some competitions because judges started setting up courses where running contacts put you at a huge disadvantage. The people (mostly Brits IIRC) who had both contacts on their dogs were able to have success.

Payton has 2o2o not because I need to catch up but because I want his contacts to be clear to the judge. I have seen plenty of contacts get called because the judge isn't sure. Don't make the judge question your contacts is what I have been told by multiple agility pals who are also judges... so I went 2o2o with him. Although I am going to re-train his a-frame to a running a-frame... and I may regret it... if he starts getting called even if he is in, I will probably switch back to 2o2o again... =P
 

Laurelin

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She's 10 now, right? Meg is 10 as well (give or take). Obviously it isn't young, but there are certainly plenty of other dogs in the double digits out there running. I wouldn't let the number be the judge, just how she seems to be doing and feeling. I think one of the Cavaliers we train with is 10 as well, and just barely bumped down to veterans.
Yes she is 10 1/2 or so now. I do see some older dogs running which is why I'd hoped we'd get another year or two.

But she's really slowed down. She's so sensitive to stress though that I wonder if the move and adding a wild dog into the house is not the bigger issue. I don't want to rush into retirement. But I don't want to force her to play if she doesn't want to. I'm definitely going to try to finish out this round of classes (5 more weeks) then re-evaluate.
 

k9krazee

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My Aunt's labs have all continued doing agility into their teens. Her last dog was still trialing at 13! It varies so much from dog to dog though--genetics, health, etc. My Jack is only almost 10 but he wouldn't physically be capable of doing agility.


I'm doing running contacts with Crossbone. He will also 2o2o anything...so I always have an emergency back up if I need it. We've actually played with switching between the two with different verbal and body cues and he does awesome. I am not a believer that dogs can only learn one way to do contacts.

AND I'M SO GLAD IT'S MONDAY! Class tonight! I keep missing it due to work, but today looks promising so far.

Sent in our entry for our first AKC trial in November. ON DIRT. Crossbone loves racing around in dirt...it should be interesting.
 

xpaeanx

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My Aunt's labs have all continued doing agility into their teens. Her last dog was still trialing at 13! It varies so much from dog to dog though--genetics, health, etc. My Jack is only almost 10 but he wouldn't physically be capable of doing agility.


I'm doing running contacts with Crossbone. He will also 2o2o anything...so I always have an emergency back up if I need it. We've actually played with switching between the two with different verbal and body cues and he does awesome. I am not a believer that dogs can only learn one way to do contacts.

AND I'M SO GLAD IT'S MONDAY! Class tonight! I keep missing it due to work, but today looks promising so far.

Sent in our entry for our first AKC trial in November. ON DIRT. Crossbone loves racing around in dirt...it should be interesting.
Trkman does a whole segment in her DVD on teaching the dogs BOTH styles and the reasons why it's helpful for them to understand both. She actually suggests stopped initially and then switching to running later on. I wanted to take her suggestion to start with stopped and switch to running later on, but I was kinda forced into doing running from the beginning and the fact that *I'm* slow started really causing my dog issues. *I* need the time get myself into place. That's what I was saying. And the whole thing actually caused me a lot of grief and stress and we were both hating agility for a while. So my gripe with contacts may be slightly personal... as I was forced into doing something I didn't want to do for the very reasons it turned sour for us.

Ideally when we're more advanced(and my distance skills pick up) I'll also teach running.
 

Finkie_Mom

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Congrats to Kimma on her Qs, and to Jari on his handling the trial! I know that feeling of being so thrilled that they are happy and running that you barely care that they are running the wrong obstacles.
Thanks BB! Yeah, it's such a GOOD feeling. I went to take Jari to class today (his first time in a real group class - he has had only privates up until this point because my schedule was dumb), and she was SO MAD I was leaving that I just took her too LOL. Ran her after the class was done :p

But Jari actually ran a FULL Masters course in class!!! Dog and people distractions were like nothing. He strayed at one point the first time we went towards where the other dogs/handlers were waiting, but I got him back no issues and I don't even think a judge would have called a refusal on that. He ran clean, pretty darn fast, and he was having a blast. I'm so excited for his future. And Kimma always does well at our training center, so we just played on the same Masters course and ran until she was tired basically hahaha.

AND I might get to run a friend's BC in trials starting probably next spring! She's already in Open but my friend is having trouble keeping up with her since she had a foot surgery recently so yeah. It will be cool to run another dog!!! Hoping to start practicing with her next week :)
 

krissy

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We did not have a fabulous trial. But we did have a successful one.

First FEO standard run... my plan was to do the first 5 obstacles (jump-jump-dogwalk-jump-weaves) and then celebrate and leave to give her the jackpot. Well, she blew her stopped contact on the walk and then proceeded to run around and take obstacles at random on her own. Instead of trying to get her back and focused I simply left to get my leash, caught her, and returned her promptly and neutrally to her crate.

Next run was also a standard run. I realized that the direction of the course had been reversed and that the first 3 obstacles from run 1 were now the last 3. So I took her to the finish line and set her up (and received a couple of helpful comments from ring crew that the start line was at the other end, lol). We did the first 3 obstacles. I made sure she did her stopped contact and then we had a party and left. For which I then received several nice comments on my training decision.

Jumpers was good. I completely screwed up the handling twice. But she stayed with me even with the mess ups.

Here's the jumpers run. I was really happy with her... not so much with me. lol. And you can see my fun outfit for the "Bad Pants Trial".

[YOUTUBE]DvEz48vGrQM[/YOUTUBE]

So I'm not sure what it is but she clearly finds Standard much more stressful or stimulating than Jumpers.....
 

Laurelin

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Summer and I had a GREAT class tonight. I really needed that with her. I had so much fun. Such a good dog.

Pre-class I took Hank out to play and work with him for about 45 minutes at the field and he is so fun too! He is SO FAST. So fast. I can't wait to get him really training.

And Mia and I had cuddles. Mia is the best.

I love my dogs.
 

Oko

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Found a place that does agility ring rentals and worked out a good time that classes aren't being run, going to go there to train weekly, starting the 27th. :)
 

Laurelin

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Dangit! They are not running snookers on Saturday at the trial! That's what we need our Q in!!!! And I can't come Sunday.
 

krissy

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We had an AWESOME class last night. Kili was on form. There was really no messing around... she was all business. Love it when I see this, and especially when it happens more and more consistently. She wasn't totally perfect but she was fast, enthusiastic, focused. And this was a tough course that even the master level students agonized over. I think she did really well considering. Oh, and she got both of her switch cues... which is awesome. Though she did find that last tunnel VERY enticing. :rolleyes:

Right now for working on her focus we're "throwing bunnies" (as my trainer calls it :rofl1:). I give her a container of food or a toy and she randomly throws it out on course when Kili is doing well. Basically... she has no idea when the "bunny" is coming, which should encourage her to pay attention all the time.

[YOUTUBE]s2TaCiFf7yI[/YOUTUBE]

Oh, and then we worked on some gamble stuff. Wish I had a video. She did it perfectly twice! :)
 

BostonBanker

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Kili looks great! It always blows me away how TALL she is, and how well she gets around the obstacles. I feel like she could practically do a 2o2o on the a-frame and still not be in the contact if she stretched a bit!

I am so happy that we FINALLY have an agility lesson this weekend. Between scheduling, dealing with Gusto's lameness, and a cancellation by the instructor, it felt like we were never going to get going. Our barn rental for the winter starts in a couple of weeks, and we are ready to really TRAIN this winter, and, if all goes well, aim to trial again in February.
 

krissy

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Kili looks great! It always blows me away how TALL she is, and how well she gets around the obstacles. I feel like she could practically do a 2o2o on the a-frame and still not be in the contact if she stretched a bit!

I am so happy that we FINALLY have an agility lesson this weekend. Between scheduling, dealing with Gusto's lameness, and a cancellation by the instructor, it felt like we were never going to get going. Our barn rental for the winter starts in a couple of weeks, and we are ready to really TRAIN this winter, and, if all goes well, aim to trial again in February.
Ha ha. She probably could. I was really happy with the tight turns we had in there, especially at those tunnel-dogwalk transitions.

Yay for agility lesson! I know what going without classes is like. Not fun!
 

Beanie

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Payton is on major impulse control bootcamp this week. He did not get to play about 50% of his runs this weekend. I enacted no stay-no play after he ran off on me before I even started to walk away and do my lead out... no sir. This is unacceptable. He did have one really good NQ jumpers run - I cheated and didn't even ask for a startline stay, because why should I? I'm fast and don't really need one - and Saturday he got his second NF leg (yaaay... no one cares, not even me) but it was really not... a pleasant weekend. A fellow competitor told me her dog, who is far more experienced than P, had just started blowing his startline stay that weekend too so she suggested it was just a tough environment. Incredibly frustrating because his stays had been excellent the last two trials and then it was like suddenly non-existent.

Georgie had no weaves all weekend long and my mom is mad and thinks she needs to completely re-train her weaves. We almost got into an argument when I pointed out I gave her a Clean Run article with about a dozen weave pole proofing exercises and so far she has spent two months only just barely bothering to do the very first exercise. But despite the complete lack of weaves Georgie had some EXCELLENT runs and did some beautiful handling. Since I was pulling Payton off the course so often, I didn't get to do most of the stuff I wanted with him, so I did it with Georgie instead and my gosh does she just handle beautifully most of the time. I am pleased as punch with how she runs for me. Reliable weaves and contacts would be nice to actually get us some Qs, but otherwise, just beautiful.

Another three day weekend next weekend and then one final two day in November. I just want my Open titles before winter starts and I'm starting to feel like it won't happen. Maybe it never will. I don't know. People try to be really encouraging but it's just disheartening to feel like nothing is working and we take two steps forward and then twenty steps back. And of course everybody is always helpful with the "but he's so pretty!" Sigh. If only judges neglected to give us a F for blown contacts because he's pretty.
 

Laurelin

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I ran all 3 today. Me and some friends rented a ring. I realized... I am the crazy dog lady. Half the dogs running this afternoon were mine! :rofl1:

Summer did fantastic! She was flying and happy. Weaves went well till the end and she was tired. But overall just had fun running her. She's so steady, I love it.

Mia was desperate to get to go play and since the place is air conditioned I let her run when we do ring rentals. There's lots of down time so we jump in when everyone else is not working their dogs. Mia was AMAZING. It's so nice to get to play with her. She was so fast and did everything really well. It is so tempting to let her run TDAA... I don't know. Everyone asks me why I don't since she loves to run. The courses are shorter and it's in air conditioning. I probably won't but I have fun doing courses when we rent the ring. It also seems to depend on a good day or not for her. She's had a lot of good breathing days lately. She had fun though.

And Hanky Pank.

Oh boy, I gotta brag here. With Hank, I've started foundation stuff at home. This was his first time to be in a real ring. And it was a double ring where there were 2-3 dogs working at once with a short fence. We mainly worked on tunnels, playing and staying engaged with me, tugging and fetch, running through jump stands, doing his tricks in the distracting environment, and also started working on down on a (low) table.

He's amazing. He started out very afraid of the tunnel to the point I ended up crawling in it to get him through. By the end of the afternoon he was gleefully running and sending to the (straight) tunnels and going as fast as possible through them.

He tugged well, did small sequences of 4-5 'obstacles' (jump stands and tunnels). He is already doing things FAST, on both sides, and also from even more of a distance than Summer can... Worked for his tug and also food. Was friendly with the people. Worked around the other dogs off leash and was just superb.

I'm super pleased with him. It's amazing to think he's only been out of a shelter for a month and a couple days.

We also wicketed him and he's DEFINITELY going to jump 16".
 

Finkie_Mom

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One of those "I'm the worst handler ever" days. I really need to stop psyching myself out so much and just RUN MY DOG. She gets the complicated things but then I go and mess her up on the easy things. Ugh ugh ugh.

And Jari MIGHT jump 20. I was hoping he'd squeak under 18" enough to jump 16. Guess it depends on the VMOs that measure him LOL. Starting to work him higher in class anyway just in case.
 

BostonBanker

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GUESS WHO STARTS PRE AGILITY CLASSES NOVEMBER 8TH!?
Yay! I can't wait to hear about how things go.

We had our first lesson yesterday, and holy cow was it great. I wasn't quite sure how it would work out - there are five of us, (currently) six dogs, with two more puppies starting soon. So by our third lesson, I'm going to be the only one without a border collie puppy (oh, the jealousy!). But it was fabulous, and the skills are all stuff that I am completely missing. It makes me really sad and annoyed that I didn't know this stuff when Gusto was a puppy, because I think it would have really changed a lot of things for the better. But I keep reminding myself that all anyone can ever do is the best they can with the knowledge they have at the time. And Gusto has some really, really good skills already. I'm just so excited and hopeful for the future!

And we have more and more lessons already booked. It was like going to a great 3 hour seminar and coming home all excited - but instead of being on my own again like after a seminar, we will be back in 2 weeks. And again 2 weeks after that.
 

Oko

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Yay! I can't wait to hear about how things go.

We had our first lesson yesterday, and holy cow was it great. I wasn't quite sure how it would work out - there are five of us, (currently) six dogs, with two more puppies starting soon. So by our third lesson, I'm going to be the only one without a border collie puppy (oh, the jealousy!). But it was fabulous, and the skills are all stuff that I am completely missing. It makes me really sad and annoyed that I didn't know this stuff when Gusto was a puppy, because I think it would have really changed a lot of things for the better. But I keep reminding myself that all anyone can ever do is the best they can with the knowledge they have at the time. And Gusto has some really, really good skills already. I'm just so excited and hopeful for the future!

And we have more and more lessons already booked. It was like going to a great 3 hour seminar and coming home all excited - but instead of being on my own again like after a seminar, we will be back in 2 weeks. And again 2 weeks after that.
Awesome! That's great that you've found such a good class, sounds like you're on a good track. :)

Feist and I had our first ring rental today, I'm so excited to actually go back with a training plan. They have 2x2s, channel weaves, a lowered dog walk, a teeter already set up to hit the table, not to mention all their regular equipment. Soooo nice to have the space to practice with obstacles actually farther apart.

[YOUTUBE]ozBEvad3PBc[/YOUTUBE]
 

BostonBanker

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With all due respect to the rest of her mad skills, I am mostly impressed with the phenomenal start line you have with Feist! It looks like a great place to practice!
 

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