So I went to my first agility fun match today (at Daytripper). Cohen and I had a blast, and Cohen did pretty well considering she'd never been out on a grass course before.
Our biggest problem were our contacts. She has problem-free contacts at my normal training facility, but once she got out on new equipment her 2o/2o contacts seemed to merely be a suggestion, to put it lightly. Her two issues were stopping short (all 4 feet still on the plank) or popping off to the side after sticking a landing. When I tried to wait her out she would shuffle a bit, try a bow, or lay down -- I couldn't get her to offer the correct behaviour, so we would retry (and retry and retry) until she got a proper contact unassisted.
Since I have good contact behaviour in my "home" facility I'm not quite sure how best to start polishing this behaviour up. I know I'll have to start being a real stickler when we do our practices, but I was wondering if other people had other tactics to polish up the behaviour.
Cheers!
Edit:
Another idea: go back to the CD case target at the foot of contact equipment. I was hesitant to do it today since I thought Cohen "knew" better, but I guess I neglected a cardinal training rule: when adding something to a behaviour (a new environment), relax your criteria.
Our biggest problem were our contacts. She has problem-free contacts at my normal training facility, but once she got out on new equipment her 2o/2o contacts seemed to merely be a suggestion, to put it lightly. Her two issues were stopping short (all 4 feet still on the plank) or popping off to the side after sticking a landing. When I tried to wait her out she would shuffle a bit, try a bow, or lay down -- I couldn't get her to offer the correct behaviour, so we would retry (and retry and retry) until she got a proper contact unassisted.
Since I have good contact behaviour in my "home" facility I'm not quite sure how best to start polishing this behaviour up. I know I'll have to start being a real stickler when we do our practices, but I was wondering if other people had other tactics to polish up the behaviour.
Cheers!
Edit:
Another idea: go back to the CD case target at the foot of contact equipment. I was hesitant to do it today since I thought Cohen "knew" better, but I guess I neglected a cardinal training rule: when adding something to a behaviour (a new environment), relax your criteria.