Agility Dogs

Just for clarity guys - I'm not saying it won't work if your dog isn't drivey or toy motivated. BUT, this thread (and I'm not concerned it has deviated) was about my dogs and what I want from them. From what I have seen the best results are with dogs that are driven and do like their toys. That said, I like the understanding that the method helps develop for any style of dog. Like anything it may need to be adapted for your particular dog or style of working your dog. I'm not criticsing anyone who is going down a different path and hope no one has taken my comment to suggest that. At our club we have a massive variety of people and dogs and that is something we have set out to cultivate. It ranges from a lady with whippets who wants calm and quiet dogs who don't get excited at all and is, in her words, learning heaps and having great fun through non-traditional agility breeds like boxers and snow puppies to people with previously out of control, totally insane working mixes who are working on their relationship and improving every week.

Me too. Or at least it feels that way sometimes. :p

Thanks - my little girly is very special and one very lucky little pet shop puppy. (that won't be happening again!) If she had gone to a 'normal' home I don't have a lot of doubt where she would have ended up. :nahnah: ADAA weavers are 50mm narrower than the ANKC ones. Its funny watching my two when they swap from one to the other. Xena is preprogrammed to do ADAA weaves and you can see her lengthen her stride first time through the bigger set. CK has a good look first time through and then decides his corse of action. If I can manage him through the first 4 poles he explodes into the weaving dog he can be, but it is a confidence thing after he hurt himself early on in his career. Need to get back onto fixing it. Bigger problems to worry about though -we need to work on his confidence again after a bit of a set back on the weekend. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. Will have to fix that up before worrying about technical skills.

Do you think it can be trained relatively well with a drivey food driven dog AD? Or does the dog really need to be toy/prey driven? What Ness said. Also - where you are training it will be easy to lose the food in the grass. That said I use food for behaviour and toys to build speed/drive so I'm not experienced/haven't spent a lot of time working out how to make the food thing work. You may have a better idea - would love to discuss. Cheers T

Hmmmm........... good questions. LOVE the 2x2's method. CK is still a bit of a work in progress - he is really quick in ANKC weavers and nails ridiculous entries, but sucks the big one in ADAA weavers. There is a 50mm difference between the spacing in the poles and he knows it. I know its not my body language, he is fearful of another 'crash' in the narrow weavers. You can see him looking as he puts his head in the entry and he either takes off or stops depending on what he sees - that sets the ton for the rest of the day. More work to be done there - but he has improved fantastically since we started using them. Xena is amazing. She now VERY rarely misses an entry and is flying. Some challenging entries in these: I will be using the method to train Wikki. On top of this I've been watching at training as the newbies are coming through. My comment would be that you need a drivey and toy driven type of dog to get the best result from the method. Otherwise it is quite difficult to build the speed you are looking for.

yep, x 2.

I am SOOOOOO jealous of all of you. I committed to the flyball nationals 2 weeks before Cathy announced the dates for the SG seminar. I did 5 days with Linda Orton-Hill in January and apparently she is a watered down version of Susan. Over in Canada they have the luxury of being able to say - if you don't like it, don't come. Your dog doesn't tug - well, you don't get to move to the next class etc etc. They get results, but its not for everyone. Personally I have a pretty thick skin so it doesn't bother me, in fact I kind of like knowing exactly how it is, where I suck and where I need to improve.

WOW - seems like a year of hard work is paying off in the last trials for 2010! We had a great weekend. I only took Xena to agility on Saturday night. Not sure of all our placings, but I know we were quick and went clear in 2 x open jumping rounds (second in one of them by .5 of a second), one advanced agility round (second again by .5 of a second) and had just one fault in the 4th run. She was flying and was heaps of fun to run. Yesterday the puppies played flyball. CK's team won in Div 1 and Xen'a team won div 3. Must say it was quite different running in Div 3 for the first time. We put the girly in there because the team had 3 first timers and they all did brilliantly! I think Xena ran in 9 races out of 10, but was still keen for more at the end of it all - she is nuts! ETA - CONGRATULATIONS to the Fast and Furious team for putting on a fantastic first comp! Only two weeks to go until flyball nationals. Woo hoo!

I use the metal crate for crate games and training using the actual crate. My two older dogs 'live' in soft crates at trials and sleep in old ones at home. My pup has a soft crate, but it has been put on ice until she grows up a little. She has just discovered the joy of destruction and is not being trusted with anything. For me - I'd be getting a metal one until you are 100% sure it will not be destroyed. If you are in that situation now and don't need a metal one for any reason I'd go with a soft crate - knowing I'll have to replace it in 18 months or 2 years. (We use them 5 or 6 times a week at training/trials etc.) Cheers Tony

What about dogs that do both? I know - just smart enough to need a handicap! Seriously - at our club we set up three different 'courses' of about 6 or 8 obstacles - basically out and back. We have 3 dogs of 3 different experience levels running a the same time - fastest dog wins. The other thing we do is set up the same course (it might be jump, jump, jump, tunnel in a U shap, then jump jump jump back) and run the same 3 dogs. Experienced dogs handlers are not allowed past the start line. Intermediate dogs handlers are allowed past the start line, but only on one side of the course, Novice dogs handlers can do whatever they like. Both make for heaps of fun and are quite social with everyone standing around cheering for the various dogs. (littlies get the biggest cheers and everyone loves to see the advanced dogs making mistakes.)

Really good point - I love watching dogs learn to learn. Makes life and training so much easier when they 'get' learning.

My first two dogs were 'crate trained' in that they love their crates and see them as a safe place to relax. That said I think that dogs that have done crate games properly also see the crate in the same way - it's a matter of making sure they understand the cues in the game. (Hand on crate door etc.) I've done crate games with my puppy and for us it was almost as simple as the video. The only problem I had was that she didn't want to go in there when we started playing 'yer in yer out'. I backed it up a step and started rewarding when she paid any attention to the crate - just like you would start any shaping exercise. We quickly progressed to where she now drives hard into and out of the crate from good distance. (She has just turned six months and last night I was sending her from 15 or 20 metres with flyball training happening in the background - all about building desire.) Maybe you just need to up the reward rate a bit more than what the video shows? The other thing is that what you said above might be contributing to the stalemate. Allowing to lie down and essentially self reward is going to encourage that. It took me quite a while to realise that my boy was manipulating me with behaviours like this one - he would 'shut down' so I would put him back in the crate and train my other dog - exactly what he wanted. IMO our job is to keep them interested so that they don't present any unwanted behaviour - be it passive, aggressive or any where in between. I think some dogs require that higher reward rate so be prepared to play around with what is basically a generic formual (the dvd) because it won't always fit every dog or every situtaion. A lot of what we have done was with the help of Linda Orton-Hill who works for Susan. (I wasn't bright/creative enough to come up with it myself - once she put us on the right road it has come a lot easier.) ETA - best not to throw food into the crate before she goes in there - its just a big lure she has taught you to use. You need to drive the game.

We'll be there with the two b&w BC's from the Flyball Fanatics. Counting down now.

There are a few places. Nudgee beach (I'm not a big fan, but plenty of people do love it.) You can also do Red Beach at Bribie - we live inner south side and it took us just on an hour this morning. Otherwise the Spit at Southport is quite popular. The puppies had fun this morning :D ......

That's what I was thinking. Dog has awesome body awareness, but.........

This sounds exactly like Kei how did you work through that problem? Rules, rules and more rules. If I tell you to do something you do it - no option. BUT.......because I can't/won't use correction I had to go backwards quite a few steps and work on motivation for tasks I know he enjoyed and understood and make sure I worked him for VERY short periods. In the process transferring value from the good (in his head) to the not so good/challenging. We also did a lot of shaping so the worked out it was OK to fail and if you did fail and tried again you got a BIG reward. He is still a work in progress, but this is the type of work I am getting from him now.........

Not quite what I meant, but totally agree. I haven't pushed the game on the dogs as such, but I have taught them that the game of tug involves grabbing the toy and then hanging on for grim death while I throw them around. (One of the downsides of being 5 or 6 times bigger than your dog!!) What I mean is that the dog has to do the work of tugging - that's not meant to be my job.

Ah huh. We play flyball and both my dogs are reasonably quick (both run under 5 seconds), BUT neither of them is an insane rat bag that many flyball dogs seem to be encouraged to be. They can both sit and hold a stay on the side of a flyball lane (obviously only at training) and watch a team of dogs run and know that their job only starts when they are about to run. Too many flyball dogs are just revved right up in the name of motivation and don't understand self control in that environment. I'm not criticising your flyball training (I love it and my 5.5 month old pup is already doing age appropriate foundation work), but I guess I'm just saying you need to be careful about the balance between drive and self control or at worst you will just end up with a monster that is no fun to live with unless you are in the flyball ring or at best a dog with some annoying behaviours. WRT the cars - we are working through that issue with my pup at the moment. For some dogs/trainers I agree correction is the way to go, I corrected my older two dogs, but with hind sight I don't really think I would have needed to do that if I had put in the same work that I have with this pup. Wikki is very driven and lives to chase ANYTHING that moves, but I have had fairly speedy success in teaching her that it is more rewarding to look at me than it is to 'chase' cars. Still no trust and I'm still very vigilant, but at a guess she is turning from the car and looking at me 70% of the time after working on it for about 2 weeks. If she does look at the car a gentle verbal reminder (her name at conversational volume) is now all it takes to get her attention back. That said this is just part of Wikki's entire regime and the other work we have done has formed the basis for this. She is amazing for a pup that is not yet 6 months old and I know that I could not have achieved it with my other two because they simply weren't at the same standard the this one is.

One thing I hate seeing when people tug is the dogs head kinked upwards because they have not come down to the dog's level. IMO the dog should have its head at a 'natural' angle - either looking slightly down or straight ahead. The other thing that I need to be mindful of with my dogs is that the game is about the DOG tugging NOT you throwing the dog around on the end of a tug toy. There needs to be interaction, but the dog needs to be putting in most of the effort.

LOL. Snap.

Sorry - yes - simply driving out to the toy. It is not a retrieve exercise, it is just drive to the toy, pick it up and by that time I'm usually pretty much there so we have a big game. Once they have this down you can move it back t othe grid, but just start with one jump and then progress. If they won't drive you to the toy to begin with start by racing them to the toy - they don't get it if they don't beat you to the toy. Then fade youself out of the picture. Otherwise throw the toy and let them chase (as long as they won't run away with it!). Then progress to longer and longer stays as you throw the toy. ETA - as well as the with the dog/with the toy change in picture we also do a lot with lateral distance so I am right out of the picture. Also - dog does not get relased until it is focussing on the toy, not on me. This translates to focussing on the jump in front, not on me. It's all kind of a combination between Susan Salo's jump grids and Susan Garrett's one jump exercises.

Have you done any grid work with her? I found that really useful for teaching them to drive ahead. Also, I do a lot of foundation stuff teaching them to drive out without any equipment invovled then do the same thing on equipment. We do it both with me level with the toy, starting with them and then for kicks half way between the toy and me - the expectation is that they don't blast past me to the toy. Throwing a toy can also work - if you do that just make sure you throw it low and with the arm closest do the dog as if you were giving them an instruction on course. Whatever you do make sure you balance the driving ahead thing with decel - nothing worse than having a dog that will blast along, but take an extra 4 steps because they haven't read a tight turn at the end of a line of jumps. Hope that helps.

What were the handlers doing? Lead out? Running with the dog? I wonder if it were something like an unintention decel which caused the dogs to drop the bar?

Agree with Poodlefan. My boy doesn't like the Ivermectin (has a reaction to it). On the Vacc - our breeder recommended the 6 week, 12 week regime. Our vet recommended 6, 12, 16 week, but knows we titre test our older dogs in preference to vaccinating so we compromised and did 6 week, 12 week, TT at 16 weeks with another at 6 months. I will take pups out and about before their second vaccination, but not to high risk areas. I figure the benefits of socialising early outweigh the risks of infection. I know not everyone will agree, but unless I quarantine the other dogs for that period I don't see a lot of difference.

Absolutely, but the rules were the same. When you are not working you sit in your crate - covered to keep stimulation to a minumum. When you come out of your crate you are working at 110% until you go back in there and get covered again. For CK this meant starting with just 30 seconds of work and running him straight back in there. He can now work for 10 minutes or so before he switches off. One of the keys to what we did (and the whole system) is not to allow the poor behaviour in the first place. In his case this meant he wasn't worked for long enough that he had the chance to shut down. If he came out and wouldn't work I basically pushed him until I got something vaguely resembling what I was asking for. The one that sticks in my mind was one night at flyball I asked him to tug in the middle of team training - he decided he would prefer to play flyball so we left training and went to the carpark until he decided to tug. He immediately got to run back in there and play. Just before anyone asks - we also only asked for behaviours we knew he understood so that we were not beating him up for things he didn't understand - only for trying to drive the bus himself. We also did a lot of shaping during the exercise (and still do). We did this to teach him that it is Ok to make a mistake and try again. I did stop taking both of them at the same time though. This was less about him and more about making sure I didn't have an out. My girl is a LOT more fun to train and as a result I tended to just let him go to his crate and get her out. Only having the one dog stopped me doing this and made me focus on him.