ness Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 (edited) Thanks for the thoughts - will take it on board. I got what I wanted out of the video and maybe I did compromise a small amount of a training session for that to occur. Although funnily enough my 400/500 issue was resolved without the assistance of the video when we ran the jumping course over both heights. The video did however showed me things I wouldn't have been able to see otherwise and appreciate everybody's thoughts and my handling is pretty average and obviously I am not able to see that without having it videoed . Edited February 25, 2010 by ness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casima Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 Hi Ness, since you are after advice, I have a few comments to add too... To me it looks like Kenzie got 3 rewards during the 2+ mins of video (correct me if I am wrong) and all 3 happened for her contacts, no wonder she goes off back to the contacts when she gets confused... that is where she gets paid. That looks like quite a tricky course for a baby dog, I would be breaking it down alot for sure, and trying my best to handle it so it flows, even changing it a bit if you have to. Ideally, you want to go and walk a part of a course for her, a few times, work out your handling and what you want to reward, what your criteria is for her and what you will do if it goes bad. That way when you get her out you will be confident and you can reward her for the good parts, and try the bits that went wrong again and reward when they are right. From the video it looks like she loses confidence in your handling once things start to go south and since you hadn't rewarded anything up till that point and you just kept on trying to get her around the course things didn't get any better. I would have rewarded her start line, then rewarded after the first tunnel for the Fx, then sent her into the tunnel again to work the next little bit and when she missed that jump I would have gone back and restarted that little sequence probably from the tunnel again and rewarded her for getting the jump she missed the first time. etc, just split it all up and run it as lots of little sequences and restart any that don't work rather than just redoing the missed jump. That way it will also be easier for you to handle better as well as you only have to worry about 1 thing at a time. From memory your older dog is slower, so it is probably a big adjustment for you to get used to handling a faster dog, to me it looks like you need to do some work on your timing, positioning and confidence for your handling, you also need to learn to trust her to work at a bit more distance and more independantly so that you can get into position to handler her more. If you keep running her in shorter sequences that should help you get a feel for how fast you need to be, and keep her confidence in you up too. For her contacts, make sure you reward down low as well as straight ahead, head low keeps her back straighter and is better for her. Unless you are really good at handling tunnel DW discriminations I wouldn't send my baby dog from that end, I would use the far end of the DW and Tunnel only until the dog is more confident with the DW behaviour as I've seen how much it can lower their DW confidence if they get the discrimination wrong. I would also continue to work on building value for all the obsticals, that will improve her distance skills alot! and also make it easier to handle her as you wont need to feed her onto all the jumps etc, she should grab them herself better and as Vickie said, the hardest part of distance work is sending the dog on the right line, once you have that figured out its easy Kenzie is a beautiful girl, good luck with her Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Thanks guys for all the assistance - sorry only just saw your response Casima. Can I ask what might seem like a stupid question but because I can run fast enough to not worry about having her at a distance would you work on that and let the distance come later. So run with her rather than try to handle stuff at a distance for the time being. Guess I am saying should I be pushing her and in effect challenging her to keep speed up by running her as I would my older one. I am hoping to get some new video tonight and so I can see if i have taken on all the suggestions . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Spotted Devil Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Thanks guys for all the assistance - sorry only just saw your response Casima. Can I ask what might seem like a stupid question but because I can run fast enough to not worry about having her at a distance would you work on that and let the distance come later. So run with her rather than try to handle stuff at a distance for the time being. Guess I am saying should I be pushing her and in effect challenging her to keep speed up by running her as I would my older one. I am hoping to get some new video tonight and so I can see if i have taken on all the suggestions . ness, at the moment, Zig is very green (actually we both are as it's been a while!) so I run with him to build his confidence and enthusiasm and work on distance handling separately. He can do a start line stay at 1000 paces but I choose to run with him at the moment. I agree about the complexity of the course for a novice dog. What I actually do at training, to avoid stuffing up my dog, is to run the entire course on my own at least 15-20 times (under the critique of an instructor) as he is more than capable but it is ME who makes the handling errors and stuffs him up in a trial. So I get told "don't crowd your imaginary dog", "connect with him NOW", "support him out wide", "hold your arm steady - give strong direction" etc etc. Then I run Zig through once or twice and if he doesn't absolutely nail it he comes darn close! I try to never turn my back on him in the training or competition ring either - that means physically but, even more importantly, psychologically. If we are in the ring we are working as a team no matter what happens. Anyway, enough rambling from me - hopefully I will get a video of Zig up here one day and you can all critique me too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Scary thing - I am sitting here with my little CR exercise source book working out what I'll set up at club tonight . We get the scramble and the see-saw tonight - am looking to pick two separate drills we can set up and somehow combine into a course for anybody who wants a course . They will also work well for Kenz cos they are short sequences we can work on . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I envy you all for even getting to this stage in agility! It all seems too daunting for me... I'll keep at it (only just started ) but not sure how far we'll get. My comfort zone is obedience, and even then it really tests my handling skills (which aren't that crash hot!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kavik Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 (edited) What I like is that you can break down agility skills (both obstacle and handling) into small components which can be trained at home and then bring them together when training at the club. That makes it much less daunting RubyStar and the small components are FUN! Today did work on our tugging (getting much improved), driving to contact position (added in some handling - rear crosses and running ahead as well as staying behind and have him drive ahead of me), and the ladder for body awareness. ETA: this evening working on our seesaw. Again working on driving to contact position, so gettng him to hop on the end when I am holding it about half height (so it is even/straight) and then doing bang game, where I want him to drive to his pouncing foot target as soon as it hits the ground (well, in theory ) Edited March 3, 2010 by Kavik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 I was sitting here looking at my potential plans and wonder if they are a bit ambitious for Kenz yet. I think I just need to spend tonight back chaining/proofing contacts and not try and put them into sequences yet because she is far from reliably proofed. Maybe at this stage I should focus on jump sequences with her and then work on contacts separately . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pie Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I envy you all for even getting to this stage in agility! It all seems too daunting for me... I'll keep at it (only just started ) but not sure how far we'll get. My comfort zone is obedience, and even then it really tests my handling skills (which aren't that crash hot!) The time will fly RS! I never felt like I would get there either and I'm nearly trialling! (And I was really slack) If you go to Agility Nerd - http://www.agilitynerd.com/blog/ - they are offering the Click & Play agility book free for download (up to chapter 2 so far) that might give you some ideas and things to do in the back yard (I haven't read it yet). I'm reading Shaping Success at the moment and after I've finished I can lend it to you. Also - ACWA have a DVD library that you can borrow agility DVDs from, for $2 I think. They used to have some Greg Derrett foundation ones, and others. Sorry for the hijack Ness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 (edited) RubyStar if you haven't got a copy of Shaping Success and you want a copy - I have one for sale . No need for the 2 copies I have sitting on my shelf at present. As for agility dvds - prod Ptolomy a bit harder . Edited March 3, 2010 by ness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tailwag Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I agree to everything that has been said.......that would be a course i would break right down for a green dog regardless of what it has or hasnt sequenced before. With the video i would be going back and analysing it for my handling mainly. What ever Kenzie did was purely given by yourself . Good dog!. With rewards i would be looking at the course and working out where the rewards should be coming in , so for a tight sequence say iw ould reward there, be very carefull where you reward as well......alot of what i saw was rewards when something hadnt gone quite right...She is an eager dog wanting to do right so make it easy for her and build complexity into the game once you are 'in tune' with each other and have the basics down pat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 RubyStar if you haven't got a copy of Shaping Success and you want a copy - I have one for sale . No need for the 2 copies I have sitting on my shelf at present.As for agility dvds - prod Ptolomy a bit harder ;) . Depends on how much you're selling it for Otherwise I will take up Amy's very kind offer and borrow hers! I have a few agility DVD's already, but I found they don't play in my DVD player, just my computer, so I'm going to have to re-burn them somehow to get them playing on TV! I'm sure in a couple of years I will feel like it's less daunting, but right now, I'm very very scared! ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 The time will fly RS! I never felt like I would get there either and I'm nearly trialling! (And I was really slack)If you go to Agility Nerd - http://www.agilitynerd.com/blog/ - they are offering the Click & Play agility book free for download (up to chapter 2 so far) that might give you some ideas and things to do in the back yard (I haven't read it yet). I'm reading Shaping Success at the moment and after I've finished I can lend it to you. Also - ACWA have a DVD library that you can borrow agility DVDs from, for $2 I think. They used to have some Greg Derrett foundation ones, and others. Sorry for the hijack Ness So when's your first trial? Thanks for the link and I may take you up on your offer to borrow the book - thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pie Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I'll try and read it by Sunday so I can give it to you then. Or Tuesday. Well the first trial was going to be the midweek ACWA jumping trial but having trouble tracking down someone to measure him and entries close on Monday! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I still need my girls measured - the official measurements taken are recorded for both obedience and agility, right? Gosh I hope my girls aren't required to jump 600! Fingers crossed for 500, as I don't think Ruby could handle jumping any higher, she has enough trouble as it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RosieFT Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Sorry to hijack, but going with this tangent.. please could someone give me the names of agility books/dvds for a complete novice? I am doing the beginners course but do need more knowledge, WAAAY more knowledge :-) . Thanks :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 I'll try and read it by Sunday so I can give it to you then. Or Tuesday. Awesome, thankyou!! But no rush! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Thanks everybody for your assistance - I did end up running the sequences I had decided on when we did the agility stuff but I made sure I broke it down more and rewarded frequently. We worked contacts/reinforcing contacts separately. In the OJ course I walked it with a purpose and made sure to reward frequently - she struggled with bits so we broke it down into chunks she could manage and I helped her out by running it as a normal course not trying for the distance challenge. Thanks again for the feedback . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Do we have video for this one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Nope sorry no videos tonight - hardly anybody showed up so we were all running flat out . Very productive night though and have a very flat Kenzie . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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