Agility Training Talk Thread

[Cosmolo]

Cool, i shall give it a try on Sunday.

ETA Kavik- what were your original contacts/ ie how were they trained?

Edited February 15, 2011 by Cosmolo

[Vickie]

hi Cosmolo, I am sorry I did not know the video was from your class.

If your students are happy with their progress & the dogs are happy & safe, then I guess it is all OK.

I learnt agility exactly like this 10 years ago. I didn't want to compete either. When i did get interested in competing (as so many do) I had to retrain everything & honestly my enjoyment and my dogs enjoyment increased tenfold.

I think it's only fair to students though to let them know that your classes are not geared towards competition & that they will need a different type of class if they are even considering competition

[Cosmolo]

Of course Vickie- i discuss clients requirements with them and all of the dogs i know extremely well. As we run these classes infrequently, people wanting to trial would need more regular classes.

There is no need to apologise- i don't think for a moment that we are 'beyond reproach and question' when it comes to training and in actual fact as a result of this discussion, i have some new exercises to try.

[corvus]

This week Erik started on weaves. At my club we do the 2x2 method and reward with toys. I'm not having troubles with the method per se, but I've been taught to hold Erik by the collar in front of the weaves and then let him go and throw the toy when he goes through. Erik doesn't really like being held by the collar. I've been doing LOADS of counter-conditioning this week and he is now leaning into his collar, but still balks when I reach for his collar in front of the weaves. Part of this I think is because he's a short cattle herding breed and has a really strong duck instinct. When I do get him he immediately orients towards me instead of the weaves and is very reticent to face the right direction. I don't want to let him go crooked because I want him to run straight.

Anyway, today we spent most of our training sessions me just sitting in front of the weaves with him oriented the right direction and leaning into the collar for food treats. Really high reinforcement rate, had him putting his whole weight behind him as he pulled towards the food treats, and letting him go through every now and then for a tug reward, which he was happy enough with. But he's still leery of the first collar grab. I wonder if I'm fighting a losing battle, or even the right battle?

[Kavik]

I always planned to do 2o2o, and ended up teaching it with a paw target. But at the start I couldn't quite get the type of paw target I wanted. I started by shaping one and then both paws onto a rectangular piece of material. He would reliably give me this but generally one paw at a time. I spent time fiddling with it with contact boards and stairs and then on equipment, but realised that it is not as independent as I would like when in competition he would sometimes stop on the yellow in 4on and I had to wait him out for him to go to 2o2o, and he would often go one paw at a time rather than pounce, and did not like to go fast in front of me to get into position.

So then after watching a running contact DVD with a paw target, I saw a way to teach the pounce I wanted, and could get the pounce reliably with the target, but was too quick and impatient with fading the target. Now with some time before I compete again due to pregnancy I have decided to fix the issue by only working on my contact position and not the whole obstacle, to make sure he really understands what I want him to do regardless of my position. The Susan Garrett workshop I went to was very helpful although she teaches a nose touch the ideas of the progression of the training are the same.

[Kavik]

This week Erik started on weaves. At my club we do the 2x2 method and reward with toys. I'm not having troubles with the method per se, but I've been taught to hold Erik by the collar in front of the weaves and then let him go and throw the toy when he goes through. Erik doesn't really like being held by the collar. I've been doing LOADS of counter-conditioning this week and he is now leaning into his collar, but still balks when I reach for his collar in front of the weaves. Part of this I think is because he's a short cattle herding breed and has a really strong duck instinct. When I do get him he immediately orients towards me instead of the weaves and is very reticent to face the right direction. I don't want to let him go crooked because I want him to run straight.

Anyway, today we spent most of our training sessions me just sitting in front of the weaves with him oriented the right direction and leaning into the collar for food treats. Really high reinforcement rate, had him putting his whole weight behind him as he pulled towards the food treats, and letting him go through every now and then for a tug reward, which he was happy enough with. But he's still leery of the first collar grab. I wonder if I'm fighting a losing battle, or even the right battle?

It took me a while to get Kaos comfortable with a collar grab and get him leaning into it for sending as well, but he will now do it well

Have you done other sending work holding the collar with Eric? It might be easier to start with sending on the flat to a toy/reward bag then to start with something as complex as the weaves. This will help to teach him to look forwards and not to you for the reward as well.

[Cosmolo]

Can you put him in a sit instead corvus?

[kelpiechick]

There is no way i could get the committment fron 90% of people to regularly complete agility and do 3 months of foundation training. I know some would say- then they shouldn't get to do it- but again, i disagree.

I have been to a number of agility classes (at various clubs) where leads were on and dogs were on equipment (heavily supervised) night one. I have not seen a dog scarred by this- i appreciate that others have.

I don't think you'd have any problem getting a lot of people to sign up for a lengthy foundation course actually. I can't believe the demand for agility - one of the clubs where I teach has a 12 week foundation class - only equipment is a tunnel, lowered table plus we have ladders, balance discs, perches, travel planks and jump bumps for introducing the Susan Salo set point exercise, rest of the class is flatwork and control and motivation exercises and games - and we currently have a 12 month waiting list the demand is so great.

The other club where I teach is almost up to a 2 year waiting list which is a bit scary. And the other agility specific clubs also have extremely long waiting lists or in one case has closed their waiting list.

I have no problem with foundation classes on lead, as ours are except for the tunnel and restrained recalls. Problem I have with leads on equipment is the safety aspect, training method is immaterial in this case. Just too easy for a lead to become tangled and cause an accident.

You very well may have seen classes where this is the norm but for me that doesn't make it right. Happy to disagree on that one.

[poodlefan]

Of course Vickie- i discuss clients requirements with them and all of the dogs i know extremely well. As we run these classes infrequently, people wanting to trial would need more regular classes.

There is no need to apologise- i don't think for a moment that we are 'beyond reproach and question' when it comes to training and in actual fact as a result of this discussion, i have some new exercises to try.

I think jumping training Susan Salo style and grids would be good. Dogs and handlers enjoy it.

Also a handling box. The sooner handlers ping that its not just about running along beside the obstacles, the quicker they seem to want to learn to do 'proper turns', to handle serpentines on one side (you have one on that course) and the value of speed and distance.

However to do that sort of handling you need to build obstacle drive and that's where the jump training is good.

[J...]

This week Erik started on weaves. At my club we do the 2x2 method and reward with toys. I'm not having troubles with the method per se, but I've been taught to hold Erik by the collar in front of the weaves and then let him go and throw the toy when he goes through. Erik doesn't really like being held by the collar. I've been doing LOADS of counter-conditioning this week and he is now leaning into his collar, but still balks when I reach for his collar in front of the weaves. Part of this I think is because he's a short cattle herding breed and has a really strong duck instinct. When I do get him he immediately orients towards me instead of the weaves and is very reticent to face the right direction. I don't want to let him go crooked because I want him to run straight.

Anyway, today we spent most of our training sessions me just sitting in front of the weaves with him oriented the right direction and leaning into the collar for food treats. Really high reinforcement rate, had him putting his whole weight behind him as he pulled towards the food treats, and letting him go through every now and then for a tug reward, which he was happy enough with. But he's still leery of the first collar grab. I wonder if I'm fighting a losing battle, or even the right battle?

I never taught Zee collar grab until she was a bit older, and I just use a hand touch - including for weave training. If you still want a collar grab, work on it separately, otherwise you're going to transfer his leeriness to the weave poles.

[Kavik]

There were so many awesome exercises at the Susan Garrett seminar - many of which required just one obstacle. One I worked on at training (due to my limited mobility at the moment ) is jumping tight using just one wing jump upright at first, and then progressing to one winged jump. Definitely something we need to practice There were heaps with just one tunnel as well, incoporating sending ahead, rear crosses, angles , going across the face of one entrance etc.

[Cosmolo]

:D Perhaps the demographics of some of my clients is different. If i had the demand for more agility i would certainly attempt to meet it. Kelpiechick, can i just ask your opinion- do you think people should have off lead reliability to be able to commence agility? Do you have fully fenced agility areas? How do you mitigate risk of runaways? I do understand the lead issue and i will be trying some further suggestions to improve this.

Yep PF, believe it or not we had taught the serpentine on one side in that course. The dogs were all doing it very well, handlers needed a bit more help.

A question for everyone- do you start grid jump training early or do you not consider this to be a foundation exercise? How many strides would you start with between jumps initially?

[kelpiechick]

Corvus, is the collar grab to build opposition reflex or just to line him up straight ?

I never taught the method with a collar grab either but if your instructor wants it for some reason (I'm guessing the oppostion reflex and also to prevent a sit/control position) you could try a training tab maybe.

Kavik, agree that there a ton of fantastic exercises out there using very minimal equipment. I also think there are a ton of fantastic exercises out there that build on crate games and allow you to use a crate as literally a piece of equipment and to build up a foundation for the equipment first - tunnel entries and 2x2 type entries taught first on the crate come to mind.

[ness]

Cosmolo the Susan Salo dvds will start grid training with pups as young as 4 months so yep you can start it really early.

I am sure you could design a class around some jump grid work, some flat work foundation skills work, some tunnel drills and even some single jump work and have people think its the best thing in the world. Even if you include some travel plank work/wobble boards etc.

I think people don't want to necessarily need to be out using a million and one obstacles when they are starting out but do enjoy being able to use some sort of equipment as it differentiates it from normal obedience classes which people seem to find a little uninspiring.

I have to say I was another person that felt a little uncomfortable watching the video with dogs on-leash doing obstacles and much prefer handlers have some control over dogs before being allowed to access to much gear.

Edited February 15, 2011 by ness

[corvus]

It took me a while to get Kaos comfortable with a collar grab and get him leaning into it for sending as well, but he will now do it well

Have you done other sending work holding the collar with Eric? It might be easier to start with sending on the flat to a toy/reward bag then to start with something as complex as the weaves. This will help to teach him to look forwards and not to you for the reward as well.

Thanks Kavik. I'm just not sure I'm doing the right thing with him. Today I was pulling and pushing him around a bit and he was working with it, but I can see there's a part of him that doesn't really like it. I've done a tiny bit of sending him to a toy and I've been sending him to his plank from a collar hold, but he's no better with any of that. In the past if I've wanted him to wait before doing something I've put him in a sit or down and then release. He's good at that, but I don't know that I want to start him in front of an obstacle in a sit or down, even if it's just two weave poles not yet in their final positions. He can fire pretty fast from a sit or a down, but I dunno, it just feels kinda wrong to set him up in a position that isn't very fast to take off from when I want him to go fast? He's a really routine little dude and downs especially are so strong for him, I don't want him to be habitually downing in front of obstacles.

[Cosmolo]

For those of you who won't have dogs on lead at all for agility, what do you do to mitigate the runaway risk? Are your training areas all fully fenced? If ours was, i can tell you we would have 100% of the dogs off lead for sure (at the moment we have about 60-70% of the dogs off lead) but the runaway risk is a huge concern for me and for some of my clients. As far as venues go, we have access to an indoor venue- but it is so small that if i posted it here you would all have a heart attack, the surface is uneven too and as a result we are highly unlikely to continue using it. The oval type venue has a perfect surface- but isn't enclosed.

I will take all your advice on board and perhaps look to further develop some foundation courses. If i can get people there, i am happy to do them as well.

[corvus]

Corvus, is the collar grab to build opposition reflex or just to line him up straight ?

Mostly I just want to line him up straight before he goes, and as far as I'm aware that was the purpose for doing it at training. But considering how leery he was of it I decided the best way to get him to both drive forwards when I let him go and actually like the collar hold was to reward the hell out of pushing into the collar. Lucky he doesn't wear a collar any other time! I have been working on it away from the obstacles and he's pretty good and gets really into it, but still ducks sometimes. The purpose of sitting in front of the weavers to do it today was to try to counteract any leeryness that was transferring to the weaves.

I've been thinking about a tab and even looking around for one, but haven't seen any. Does anybody know where to get them?

[kelpiechick]

:D Perhaps the demographics of some of my clients is different. If i had the demand for more agility i would certainly attempt to meet it. Kelpiechick, can i just ask your opinion- do you think people should have off lead reliability to be able to commence agility? Do you have fully fenced agility areas? How do you mitigate risk of runaways? I do understand the lead issue and i will be trying some further suggestions to improve this.

Yep PF, believe it or not we had taught the serpentine on one side in that course. The dogs were all doing it very well, handlers needed a bit more help.

A question for everyone- do you start grid jump training early or do you not consider this to be a foundation exercise? How many strides would you start with between jumps initially?

Possibly one of the differences with demographics is that I am talking 'agility only' training whereas I believe you offer other types of training as well?

(stand corrected if I've got mixed up on that)

I don't believe you need offlead reliablility to commence foundation agility classes, but both clubs where I teach have 'ready to work offlead' as part of the promotion criteria for the next class up - where the lowered equipment/weave training begins. As agility is pretty exciting for most dogs, the atmosphere at training can be highly charged so I think a pretty good level of offlead control is necessary - the offlead control you have at home or out on a quiet walk is likely to deteriorate in that environment if it is not pretty solid first.

'Ready to work offlead' doesn't necessarily mean that we expect the dogs to be 100% reliable as that would be unrealistic. However we don't promote any dog that doesn't have a reasonable level of focus on their handler or that doesn't have a reasonably reliable recall. We also ask handlers to have a 'plan' for what they will do if their dog does run off as this seems to take some of the stress out of it and makes people relax more. We also work a lot in foundation class on building a strong reinforcement zone so that the dogs are not as inclined to do a runner.

One club is indoors so the dogs are pretty well contained. I still try to keep an eye on any potential runaways in foundation though. Had one last night in first session, so next week when we do tunnel and recalls, I will move everyone else outside the arena (fenced) and only have one dog at a time off lead in there. It is a luxury to be able to do this in this environment though.

The other club is outdoors, not fenced and there is the occasional runner, if we get a dog in the foundation class that shows a tendency to do this, we use orange netting on the side of one of the rings to block visibility of the dogs running a course in the next ring. (Just thinking haven't had to put this up for ages, touchwood ) It's not totally foolproof though. If I was instructing an offlead class and a dog was continually running off (not talking about a once off) then I would probably ask handler to put their dog back on lead and watch the rest of the class for that evening or to work on some focus type exercises with dog with a lot of reinforcement, then try again if there was no danger in doing so- eg: if there was a reactive dog in class they wouldn't get a chance to reoffend.

Sometimes when dogs are running off it is a level of reinforcement issue (eg: dog being expected to complete course before being rewarded) and once the dog experiences more success and a higher reinforcement level then the problem disappears. In every case we would try and pinpoint why dog is running off first before deciding how to deal with it.

Edited to add : I totally understand your concern about dogs running off, years ago when I first started out with my ACD, he got a fright one night when someone let off fireworks in the distance, and did a run right across the main road beside the agility training area - with me racing along behind bawling my eyes out. (It's a wonder I went back when I think about this now- just as well the seeds of an addiction had already taken root)

Can you use some sort of temporary fencing, even star pickets and orange netting or would that be non-practical. Pain to put up but if you had students to help you out maybe.

In regard to grid training, we start in foundation class but use jump bumps, beginning with the set point exercise, then building up to a 4 bump grid. Distances and heights of bars for each dog size are all on Salo's DVD's.

Edited February 15, 2011 by kelpiechick

[J...]

There is a snub lead for sale in OT under the Black Dog gear.

[Cosmolo]

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that KC, I do wish we had a suitable indoor venue to use. Does anyone know if the typical horse riding arena surfaces are too 'deep' for dogs?

I think i have the Salo DVD's, just haven't got around to watching them as yet.

And yep, our focus is 'other training' rather than agility so we don't get many enquiries from people just wanting to do agility- its more that they 'covert' from obedience or private lessons.

ETA- i agree that with higher reinforcement rates the issue reduces/ eliminates. I guess thats the challenge though- i believe that agility improves reliability off lead (due to the high rates of R+) but in the immediate/ short term, how to keep everyone safe (in every way, not just on equipment) is the conflict.

OH is making snub leads for me too : )

Edited February 15, 2011 by Cosmolo