Agility training

Well, we had our last two training sessions before our first "trial". Kili has an FEO jumpers and standard on Thursday. I will see what the courses look like but she won't be running a full course... partly because I don't want to do that much in such an intense environment and partly because she doesn't do weaves yet and we JUST got teeter to full height and am still helping her a little with it.

Fun little sequence at class on Sunday. I think this is the longest sequence we have run so far without reward (okay, other than at the frame for holding the contact). Also, good example of our "personal/naked play". This works really well for us and I think shows what a good relationship we have together... but it can be dangerous! In the last clip Kili actually raked me across the face with her nails. Ouch!

[YOUTUBE]E1pwhmOYawg[/YOUTUBE]

Thursday is coming fast. Wish us luck for not having a puppy meltdown!

You guys look awesome! There is a greyhound that runs at a lot of the trials I go to (all of them?) and I'm honestly not sure why... I don't think I've ever seen him complete a course, and his owner is very abrasive with him. :rolleyes: He's been trialing for years, though.... so you guys look like PROS in comparison! Keep up the great work!
 
You guys look awesome! There is a greyhound that runs at a lot of the trials I go to (all of them?) and I'm honestly not sure why... I don't think I've ever seen him complete a course, and his owner is very abrasive with him. :rolleyes: He's been trialing for years, though.... so you guys look like PROS in comparison! Keep up the great work!

Thanks! :) I think she's doing really well. I'm very pleased with how she's coming along.

That's too bad about the guy that you see at trials. Greyhounds of all breeds probably are one of the most sensitive. Even in the clip I just posted, when Kili clawed me in the face and I reacted with pain she immediately shut down and thought she had done something wrong. I had to go back and work her back up a little bit. They're so sensitive. You just can't be abrasive with them (not that you should be abrasive when training any breed).
 
Thanks! :) I think she's doing really well. I'm very pleased with how she's coming along.

That's too bad about the guy that you see at trials. Greyhounds of all breeds probably are one of the most sensitive. Even in the clip I just posted, when Kili clawed me in the face and I reacted with pain she immediately shut down and thought she had done something wrong. I had to go back and work her back up a little bit. They're so sensitive. You just can't be abrasive with them (not that you should be abrasive when training any breed).

What's funny is that this dude is the happiest dog ever, he completely tunes out his owner (probably because of her attitude) and just takes off bounding around the ring. I wonder if it's a coincidence that she needs gates shut for both of her dogs when they run... :rolleyes:
 
What's funny is that this dude is the happiest dog ever, he completely tunes out his owner (probably because of her attitude) and just takes off bounding around the ring. I wonder if it's a coincidence that she needs gates shut for both of her dogs when they run... :rolleyes:

As a general rule, I wouldn't call zooming around on course or leaving the ring signs of happiness.
 
As a general rule, I wouldn't call zooming around on course or leaving the ring signs of happiness.

Zoomies can definitely be an indication of stress or confusion. Greyhounds are difficult because they definitely get the zoomies out of pure happiness too... however I doubt that's the case given the description of what is going on.

As o the gates... most greyhound owners believe their dogs are incapable of learning any sort of recall. As with all dogs... some are and some aren't. But the reason may just be typical greyhound owner attitude rather than a true indication of the recall the dog has.
 
More videos of Harleigh!

We are dealing with some teeter issues at the moment. In the second video she bailed it, but I got her back on it and she completed it. Not sure why she did that, as that was her third time doing the teeter last night. Not to mention the practice we did before class on the small teeter.

Also - excuse the long time lapse of us just standing there in the second video. I couldn't crop it for some reason :rolleyes:
[YOUTUBE]aketjVQzoYQ&list=UUpsN1OW5c4-OQVzSQEXSiYQ[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]RmHt1OeKPOo&list=UUpsN1OW5c4-OQVzSQEXSiYQ[/YOUTUBE]

Harleigh's boyfriends were there last night also. Two male Labs. She is absolutely, positively in love with them.
 
So why do you in this case?


-------------------------------

Yay Harleigh!

Because I can read a dog's body language and this dog has a great time NOT playing agility in the ring. Nothing about it's antics tell me it is the least bit unhappy.
 
Krissy- Kili will kill it in the ring!! I'm so looking forward to video proof of your dog proving you wrong ;)

People ALWAYS think Penn zooming is Penny having SOMUCH fun. It's her actually having SOMUCH stress. She looks happy to most people, obviously. I am amazed at people who I thought knew so much about dogs be so utterly confused about why she runs away. That and people think the fact that she has almost 0% recall during those moments actually means she has 0% recall in her day to day to life :/ It stresses me out ..such a vicious cycle and so, so hard to work through. Try to not judge us with stressy, running away dogs too harshly. I can be fairly upset in tone of voice when I get Penn but it only takes me about 2 minutes to cool down and reevaluate where/ why the stress cut in. They may ask for the gates to be closed because they have so much stress about their dog taking off in that particular situation and not because they don't have any sort of recall in any other situation.

The second Penn shuts down, she runs. Then she's nervous to come back because she knows she didn't make the right choice. The longer it takes me to connect back with her, the harder it is for her to overcome that and come back to me. It sucks. People judge me because of it, I'm sure and so I tend to want to stand up for all those stressy runaway dogs and their owners for sticking it out& trying regardless.

Then again maybe she is a true ass and this post was pointless. It's a subject I feel strongly about because Penny is a MACHINE at home but the second she gets in a situation where she is even a little bit stressed she completely shuts down. It's frustrating& sucks because I have so much work into her and it just doesn't show.
 
People ALWAYS think Penn zooming is Penny having SOMUCH fun. It's her actually having SOMUCH stress. She looks happy to most people, obviously. I am amazed at people who I thought knew so much about dogs be so utterly confused about why she runs away.

Yeah Kim was the same way when we first started out (and by first started out I mean, intermittently for the first year :P). That's how she deals with pressure -- weeeeeeeee butt-tuck boundy zoomies yahooooooo and looks like a gleeful maniac but she only did in stressy situations to decompress. I completely understand!

I pretty much just let her zoom and cheered when she did obstacles even though they weren't at all the ones I would have preferred she did, haha. That helped take the pressure off so she started zooming on course then actually was able to run with me like a normal dog haha.

But yeah so many people would grin and laugh and be all, Wow she is so happy! And she was. But she was also stressed and worried so was running to make herself feel better.

Not true for all dogs, but true for her.
 
As the owner of the stressy dog who puts his nose on the ground and sniffs, I solemnly swear to never judge your zoomie dog if you promise to never say "You should train him to ignore smells!" to me ;).

IT ISN'T ABOUT THE SMELLS!
 
Krissy- Kili will kill it in the ring!! I'm so looking forward to video proof of your dog proving you wrong ;)

I'm hoping if I convince myself that she's going to suck that whatever she does do will blow my expectations out of the water and I'll be happy. lol. It's hard not to have high expectations with all the planning, time, and money that I've put into her... but I know high expectations are a death sentence. Sooo....


She's going to suck! And that's okay! Ah ha ha ha! :rofl1:


(Please be awesome, Kili.)
 
People love to see sighthounds running. I don't think I've seen any Greys run around here either, so I'm pretty sure she'll be a hit either way. I hope you guys have wicked success too. Set yourself several attainable goals and celebrate the crap out of them when and if you meet them.



Here's a video from last night's agility class. The theme of the night seemed to be handling tunnels a bit differently. It's amazing how fast you can feel like you're going in class and then you watch yourself and... whelp.

Also, I trip a bit around 10 seconds in. Also also, Cohen is a talker.

[YOUTUBE]y7PIH2HZ5Ew[/YOUTUBE]
 
Haven't been here in a while but I wanted to post the vids from Wiley's first agility trial weekend. It was a 2.5 day UKI trial Eastern Spring Cup. Tournament style weekend. Go big or go home, right?

Well the open entry classes - agility biathlon, masters heats, etc kicked our butts with some challenging courses but in the beginner agility classes we earned our first agility title, the UKI Beginner International Dog title. He also earned his Qs to qualify for a bye into the 2nd round of UKI Canadian Open (UKI Nationals).

In the speedstakes aggregate he placed 5th overall in a competitve field by having a clean/4th place run in round 1 and just 1 bar in round 2 but his time would have been the fastest overall! So proud of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obwX5C5OzWs

We have our second trial this Sunday, I entered 1 day of an AAC trial so will be simple starters courses. I dread straight lines with this dog lol.
 
We did our first group class. I mostly trained at home and we did basically 1 private before because I have ZERO idea on how to handle. My main goals for the class were to learn to handle and to proof working during distraction (read:new dogs around to sniff and play with and chase and bark at).

Anyway, I have 2 left feet and tripped over myself 900 million times and he crashed through bars like a maniac bc we don't use them at home yet and the class had them at full height.

BUT he didn't leave me 1 time. Not once! I thought for sure once the leash was off it would be over but nope he stayed with me the whole time! Even when I wasn't engaged with him bc I was working out my cues before we ran!!! OMFG so happy!

Also, we have thus far only ran straight lines with jumps. All handling skills have been practiced without any jumps, just foundation work in the driveway. The class was ENTIRELY turns.... He did miss jumps but that was from me not supporting long enough or not giving him cues to turn fast enough... But he nailed about 90% of the turns.... Our FIRST time ever trying them... In a place he was only 1 other time... With NEW dogs around.

To say I am beyond bubbling over with happy would be an understatement.
 
Verdict is in: first trial was a big success!

Unfortunately I do not have video of our Starters Standard run as I didn't know anyone there and all the people I really started chatting with were all in Starters too! Which is too bad, because there was some not so good and some really awesome.

Standard - First I messed up the beginning because I have never run her with no collar. So I took off her collar before I had gotten her into position and then couldn't get her into a good position because I had no collar to hold onto. So we had an awkward start... I wasn't in position. My initial intention was to do the first 1/3 of the course because it contained only obstacles she is good at (jumps, tunnel, dog walk, A-frame, table). After the table was the weaves. She JUST started to consistently hit 6 weave poles in our backyard YESTERDAY and today, so I figured there was no chance in hell she'd have any clue what to do. But the first section went reasonably well, she was happy and focused so I figured we'd keep going. And she did the weaves on the first try and at decent speed. So we had a HUGE party. Which kind of put me out of position for the next jump so we had to go back and take it again. The next section went really well and then I elected to skip the teeter and just do the last 3 obstacles. I was super happy.

THEN we had jumpers. She was awesome and got her first Q (but it doesn't actually count because I ran her FEO in both runs... darnit!) which was super exciting! I do think it was a little question whether she should have gotten a refusal for the third jump since she kind of went the wrong way. But whatever.

[YOUTUBE]rokIySZJhwg[/YOUTUBE]

She got a bite of cheeseburger and some fries when she finished. :)

Oh and proof:

 
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Wow Krissy, what a great run! She looks amazing. Especially for it being her first time out. You should be very proud! You've done a really good job keeping her "up" and happy and you can see it in the video.
 

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