Agility Training Talk Thread

[DeltaCharlie]

I'd recommend them to anyone. If for no other reason than her incredible ability to pick up on the most subtle things (things I would never in a million years have noticed) that might be stopping you from reaching your potential, and provide you with friendly and easy to follow advice to get it right the next time. Her patience is unbelievable and she has so much time for each individual in her class. I just wish Shock had been a little bit older so I could have got a little more out of the lessons, or in hindsight used Whip as the guinea pig to learn how to teach Shock when she was older. It didn't help that we ran into some ridiculously hot weather in Canberra and there was no way we were going to work the puppies in the heat. We also both suffered major injuries last year which held us back. All in all though, very impressed with the entire experience and would love to do another one of her courses in the future, perhaps one of the handling ones. Or I may even repeat the foundations one and look at doing some of the stuff we didn't get to last time round.

[The Spotted Devil]

Silvia is awesome - love her DVDs and wish I had the time to do one of her online courses.

[megan_]

I love her too - I live how much joy she gets from training and how she breaks the "rules". She does run very fast though and seems to run with her dogs?

Daisy Peel made some not so subtle remarks about SG 's new system and how many people have been doing the same thing for years, just using different names. She has a handling course too, based on Linda mickleberg I believe .

I'd SG offered a handling only course I would jump on it.

[Kavik]

I love her too - I live how much joy she gets from training and how she breaks the "rules". She does run very fast though and seems to run with her dogs?

Daisy Peel made some not so subtle remarks about SG 's new system and how many people have been doing the same thing for years, just using different names. She has a handling course too, based on Linda mickleberg I believe .

I'd SG offered a handling only course I would jump on it.

I heard from someone who is doing SG's course, they are already doing some handling stuff in the course which is great as I thought they'd be stuck doing CG for the first few days :laugh:

[The Spotted Devil]

She runs like a bloody gazelle lol. I can't do what she does but I do love her sense of joy and her ability to break stuff down so thoroughly. I think that's a real talent as a problem solver.

[Kavik]

I agree - Sylvia is awesome! Would love it if she would come here! Been meaning to get some of her DVDs, will do when I get some money.

[DeltaCharlie]

Well, the trialling season is once again upon us :) Here are Whip's ADO run and Delta's ADM run on Saturday. I was only just off crutches so Tailwag ran my dogs for me. Hoping the video works, we had technical difficulties on FB for the first little while, then it started working fine so fingers crossed.

[Elise+Hudson]

Wondering if anyone can give me some advice regarding dropped bars in training, since working more on teaching Hudson some turning signals and send to the back etc with one jump work, he has started hitting bars all the time I have been working on the turning cues with the jump very low to make it easy for him, but when I do put it up just to see if he was getting lazy the same thing happens.

I am guessing some grid work maybe to help with his jumping style? Just not sure how to go about it as it only seems to be when he is turning over a jump he is knocking bars.

[DeltaCharlie]

How much are you putting it up?

I've been teaching Shock and retraining Whip on tight turns. We started very low and go up by 2" at a time if they are doing it all perfectly over a period of time. Being a puppy, I have raised Shock by 2" a month, Whip maybe every few weeks as he is already trialling and not generally a bar knocker, he just needs to learn the tightness side of things. Every dog is different, I was supposed to start Shock at 4" but she had no respect for the bar at all and Silvia Trkman advised raising it to 6 (and then 8) so she had to pay more attention to it. That was a few months ago and she has just gone to 12". Whip I started at 10" as he was already full grown and it seemed rather silly to have him doing bars on the ground, I experimented a little until I found the right height to work him on (where he would actually acknowledge the jump while still wrapping tightly).

If you jump straight back up to full height then there is a big difference in what their body needs to do to accomplish the task. If you watch a dog tightly wrapping a low jump (that they presumably step over) as opposed to a full height jump (which requires airtime) there are vast differences in what their body needs to do. My advice would be not to rush it, take your time to teach it properly and it will pay dividends in the future.

[Elise+Hudson]

Thanks for that, I will do it a little slower and see if that will help - just seems like he gets lazy with the lower bars not picking up his feet, but then doesn't seem to notice when I put it up.

Will try again tomorrow a little differently and see how we go. Might try and video too (eek!) so I can see what I might be doing wrong.

[Elise+Hudson]

Sadly I am yet again asking for some help with the recall - we were going so well, but tonight at training he had a great time running off on me and for the first time in ages he wouldn't come back when called.

He was super excited and working in a really high arousal state - doing 4 jumps straight flat out with another dog working in the distance, but even though he is working SO well now, I get discouraged by the fact I can't keep him with me and wonder how we will ever make it round the ring!

We did SG recallers and it did help, but I still don't have that reliable recall (wish I could go back and do recallers again but sadly I don't have acess anymore) Any other ideas of games or things I can try to help get a reliable recall with him? I don't want to lose that drive and fun he has doing agility, but its just disheartening to me to have this still keep happening after all the work we have been doing, he looks like such a disobedient dog!

[Leah82]

Another Agility training session under our belts. This week we focused on jumps and the tunnel and Sarah was off leash for a bit of it which was really good, she's getting used to the equipment which means the nerves aren't interfering and making her run away

Main thing to work on is having her work on the right as she gets confused when she's not on the left of me (too much obedience :p). I did some ground work with her on the right while other dogs were going through the jumps but not enough to make much of a difference.

The instructor told me at the end that he could see Sarah has a knack for Agility, she still has a very long way to go and at this point I have no plans to trial but it was nice to hear :)

[Agility Dogs]

Sadly I am yet again asking for some help with the recall - we were going so well, but tonight at training he had a great time running off on me and for the first time in ages he wouldn't come back when called.

He was super excited and working in a really high arousal state - doing 4 jumps straight flat out with another dog working in the distance, but even though he is working SO well now, I get discouraged by the fact I can't keep him with me and wonder how we will ever make it round the ring!

We did SG recallers and it did help, but I still don't have that reliable recall (wish I could go back and do recallers again but sadly I don't have acess anymore) Any other ideas of games or things I can try to help get a reliable recall with him? I don't want to lose that drive and fun he has doing agility, but its just disheartening to me to have this still keep happening after all the work we have been doing, he looks like such a disobedient dog!

I was helping a lady ad ADCQ last night who had a fear of this sort of thing - I could see that the dog had the potential to do it but we managed not to allow it to happen.

So, question for you.......

When you get your boy out of his crate do you clip his lead on and wander over to where you are going to work letting him have a good look around the field? OR Do you get him out of his crate, start to work with him immediately, put his lead on and then work him over to where you are going to work, do what you are going to do and then work him back to the crate? (MASSIVE level of reward be it toy or food the entire time he is out of his crate?)

What I saw with the dog last night was that when he was allowed to look around and think about other cool things in his environment he was more likely to think about running off than when he was occupied/engaged the entire time. So.....rather than coming out of a tunnel and looking for what to do next (we were only working tunnel) he would come out of the tunnel and look for his handler.

This might mean having to shorten the sequences you are running or rethink where you set up for the class. Hope that helps.

I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe look at this not as a recall challenge, but as a challenge to keep Hudson engaged so you don't need recall.

[Tassie]

@ E+H - I'd agree with AD - maintaining the level of engagement - high value tuggy is good, as it acts as a lead while you're getting him hooked up again. Massive reinforcement for turning to you when you call him excitedly - huge game - you should be more exciting than anything else out there. By the way, have you got a short quick form of his name - that you use in agility - like, my Kirra is Kizz, Kizz, Kizz, and Rory is Roarz. It's useful for cueing on course too.

And if all else fails, and he does shoot off - try one call, then if that doesn't work, just go and get him, take him by the collar and away from the equipment - he doesn't get to play the game for a little while (I'm assuming that he finds the game rewarding.) "Too bad - you missed your turn. How sad."

Combination of those two should help. I certainly wouldn't call him more than once - and maybe not even the once. Just a thought.

[Elise+Hudson]

Thanks guys :)

If I manage to keep his attention on me we have a much better time of it for sure, I think part of the problem the other night was for whatever reason he was not interested in tugging or his toys so was looking around a lot more. Maybe I should try covering his crate and only bringing him out for our turn and back away again. I do tend to have times where I have him out while trying to keep his attention by doing tricks etc, but there is some time where he can look around and get distracted.

Yeap I usually call him Huddy or Hud for short. He is getting much better and I am sure he will turn the corner one day! Agility is just SO exciting to him it puts him up right up to his maximum level of arousal where I think he stops thinking quite so much!

Most of the time we had run off issues we had completed the short sequence I had stopped to offer him a treat (as he wasn't interested in the tug) and he would almost come back to me and right before he took the treat/I could grab him, he went looking for more fun! haha

Sunday will be a massive test for us Tony, but super excited about it anyway! :) Will keep working on getting him engaged, have been teaching him a nose/hand touch at obedience and he is really starting to get it now.

[Agility Dogs]

Thanks guys :)

If I manage to keep his attention on me we have a much better time of it for sure, I think part of the problem the other night was for whatever reason he was not interested in tugging or his toys so was looking around a lot more. Maybe I should try covering his crate and only bringing him out for our turn and back away again. I do tend to have times where I have him out while trying to keep his attention by doing tricks etc, but there is some time where he can look around and get distracted.

Yeap I usually call him Huddy or Hud for short. He is getting much better and I am sure he will turn the corner one day! Agility is just SO exciting to him it puts him up right up to his maximum level of arousal where I think he stops thinking quite so much!

Most of the time we had run off issues we had completed the short sequence I had stopped to offer him a treat (as he wasn't interested in the tug) and he would almost come back to me and right before he took the treat/I could grab him, he went looking for more fun! haha

Sunday will be a massive test for us Tony, but super excited about it anyway! :) Will keep working on getting him engaged, have been teaching him a nose/hand touch at obedience and he is really starting to get it now.

AWESOME. Looking forward to seeing you guys there.

Also - these things take time. Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it sorted on the first night. :)

[dotdashdot]

I've only got two training sessions under my belt (total Newbie here) but I am so proud of Cleo! Last week she was a bit reactive on lead (an ongoing issue with her, everyone is aware of our "no go zone") but she did very well at the two exercises - a couple of jumps and running in a circle on loose lead. She did very well at the circle running thanks to our conformation training!

This week we were both much more relaxed (got several comments that she - and I - were more relaxed) and she did well again. She stumbled a bit at the tunnel, made a funny sound but once she realized what I wanted she did a good job, even doing a mini run off lead that included tyre jump, two normal jumps, a tunnel and a table. I was so proud! Then we did a collapsible tunnel and weave poles (not weaving yet, just doing a "channel" run between wide set poles).

Can't wait to keep moving with Cleo, I need to remember to hold the treats in the hand closest to her (i'm so right hand dominant that I am already struggling)!

LOVING agility so far!!!!

[Leah82]

I've only got two training sessions under my belt (total Newbie here) but I am so proud of Cleo! Last week she was a bit reactive on lead (an ongoing issue with her, everyone is aware of our "no go zone") but she did very well at the two exercises - a couple of jumps and running in a circle on loose lead. She did very well at the circle running thanks to our conformation training!

This week we were both much more relaxed (got several comments that she - and I - were more relaxed) and she did well again. She stumbled a bit at the tunnel, made a funny sound but once she realized what I wanted she did a good job, even doing a mini run off lead that included tyre jump, two normal jumps, a tunnel and a table. I was so proud! Then we did a collapsible tunnel and weave poles (not weaving yet, just doing a "channel" run between wide set poles).

Can't wait to keep moving with Cleo, I need to remember to hold the treats in the hand closest to her (i'm so right hand dominant that I am already struggling)!

LOVING agility so far!!!!

welcome fellow newb it's fun when you see the light bulb go on isn't it

[dotdashdot]

It's awesome! I just want to practice and practice but I understand that I need a trainer at this point so I don't teach Cleo the wrong stuff.

I love the group of people I'm with too, several of them are customers of mine and I've seen some of the dogs grow up from pups but it's nice having a different interaction with them as fellow dog lovers rather than a worker/customer relationship.

[The Spotted Devil]

Lovely to see the newbs in here!

I had an awesome time with my 2 at training tonight. Mr TSD came down for half an hour to do restrained recalls through tunnels with Em. Success!!!! A new kind of feral lol. Did a bit with Zig just for the heck of it. Worked them through yet another step or 3 of Phenomenal Stopped Contacts and ran them on a very neat exercise based on box work and a tunnel. Front crosses, back of jumps and tunnel sends - both of them ran it superbly with a stack of speed. Very pleased.