Agility Training Talk Thread

[whiskedaway]

My girl loves jumps. She'll even jump over the tunnel if you're not quick enough.

[DeltaCharlie]

Delta's favourite obstacles in the world are her contacts. She doesn't care which one, just so long as she can race over it and into her position LOL Comes from being so heavily rewarded and usually pays off with discriminations (seems that 9/10 if there is a tunnel under the contact the judge wants you to take the contact) because I don't even have to handle it, I just know she will take the right one where most dogs will suck into the off-course tunnel. Its a pain though when we are required to take the tunnel because I simply cannot get her into them! I have tried at training so many times, even to the point of holding her by the collar with her nose already in the tunnel, giving her the tunnel command and she will still back out of it and go up the contact...

Charlie doesn't really take off-courses of his own choice, its pretty much always due to lazy handling on my part. The only time I ever remember him voluntarily taking himself to an obstacle was during a snooker run where he locked onto the weave poles and decided that nothing was going to stop him from doing them. Most bizarre thing as he is not a great weaver, he cant usually be sent to them from a distance, and will often run past them in a "what weaves? I don't see any weave poles" fashion. I think we may have been doing lots of weaves over the preceding week though as he had forgotten how to weave the weekend before. So at that point in time they were highly valuable (didn't last long though )

Whip hasn't really seen many obstacles so no idea what he will be like yet. He has done jumps and tunnels (3-4 obstacle sequences) but doesn't really suck into the tunnel or anything. Although Tailwag started his weave training (just entrances with 3 poles) and he kept trying to go over to them one day. If he ends up being a weave suck like Dash I will be most impressed.

[**Super_Dogs**]

Hi Kavik,

thanks for responding, our weaves at home have plastic bases.

At training we use ones with solid metal bases as well as stick in the ground ones.

Yes we are doing them in a straight line at home.

She can do the offset weaves at training fine but really struggles on the upright, full set (as in just stares at them or misses poles or only goes thru 1 or 2 poles and the runs out)

I am having the exact same problem with weaving. At home she is fantastic! We have been working really hard on weaves as this has been her weakest point in competions. However at training it is a different storey. She will run straight past them or pop out.

I am thinking it may have something to do with me. At home I am more confident and am at a distance and run to the end before her. At training I am babysitter her alot more.

My weaves are also blue and yellow (the ones with the platic base that fold up). So I too am wondering it the colour has anything to do with it. Could it be she is not recognising it is the weaves? Maybe I should spary paint them white?

Kavik - that is also a good point about them moving, as the plastic base ones are not as rigid as the ones at training with the metal base.

So I thought I would give an update on the weaves. We where having problems transitioning what we had learnt at home to training and competitions.

So one night at training I decided to get out a set of 6 weave poles and go off and practice like we would at home. Wow what a difference!! It is like the penny dropped that even know the poles are different I want her to do the same job.

We are now working on consistency of the entry. Which is also going good and improving ever week. :D On the weekend at a comp we did a perfect entry and perfect weave. I was so excited.

I have had to pay close attention to what I am doing, and make sure I am consistent with where I stand, move and what I say. This is why I love training - the instructure was telling me what I was doing wrong to confuse her .

No as we have consistency, she is picking up the speed.

[The Spotted Devil]

That's great buddy1 - well done Dogs don't tend to be great at generalising so a change in venue can really turn everything on it's head!!!

I had a private agility lesson today.....Ziggy has been doing big wide turns in trials, costing us a lot of time and I was pretty confident that it was my fault. It turns out we have a whole new problem to deal with which is actually a great problem to have In the beginning I was "racing" Zig around the course to build his motivation as he can be a bit of a velcro dog. In the meantime I've been increasing his value for tug and toys as well as working on sending him forward and lots of confidence building. He's now put on that much speed and forward movement that I need to start indicating acceleration and decceleration (especially) more clearly and earlier as well as getting my shoulders pointing in the right direction. So lots more shadow handling practice this week and we'll see what happens at next weekend's trial :D

Em also did some shadow handling and start line stays - A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E. is the conclusion both my instructor and I came to ;)

[krustie22]

Just curious, what does everyone use to record their trial runs? what do you find best? electronic, or hard copy? Can you recommend the best ones in your opinion?

[OSoSwift]

Could someone please point me in the direction of finding out what shadow handling is?

[krustie22]

Could someone please point me in the direction of finding out what shadow handling is?

this vid helped me understand it a bit better!

Edited September 9, 2011 by krustie22

[kelpiechick]

Could someone please point me in the direction of finding out what shadow handling is?

Shadow handling is practicing your moves withouth the dog( a lot of people confuse it with flatwork) so things like front cross footwork, lead out pivot footwork, serpentine footwork/arms, etc.

Flatwork is running/moving with your dog 'on the flat' with no obstacles, so things like circle running, running to a motivator on the ground, lead out pivots with no jumps, etc. In fact all the moves that you teach in foundation before getting on equipment.

[Kavik]

kelpiechick

Most people who I talk to use shadow handling to mean flatwork, usually circle work.

[kelpiechick]

kelpiechick

Most people who I talk to use shadow handling to mean flatwork, usually circle work.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said in that most people use the terms to mean the same thing. Call 'em what you want, it's up to you. (You say potato ........)

At the end of the day it's just a 'label' - I don't care what anyone calls either type of training, whether it's working on the flat or working on moves without your dog but someone asked a question and I answered ..... obviously I talk to different people than you.

For me they are NOT the same training exercise so I like to call them different things, especially as I do a lot of working on both. My defintion comes from a US trainer who was confused when people here called them the same thing and so offered her definition .... and her explanation made total sense to me so I have since stuck to it. Before that I called them the same thing too. It now helps me to think of them as different things in my mind anyway.

To give an example, if I were working on a training plan for focussing on acceleration/deceleration as was mentioned by TSD then I would plan to do shadow handling without my dog first, to make sure my body signals were clear and I wasn't decelerating at the wrong time or place (also helps if you can get an equally silly friend to role play and be your 'dog' when you are doing this, thankfully I have one of those, LOL) or that there was a clear difference in my change of pace for my dog. (Sometimes we get so tuned into running like mad we think we are slowing down when we are actually not really slowing all that much) Then when I was happy I had my part right, I would add the dog into the equation and do the associated flatwork - straight line, circles, recalls - all with accel and decel, I would even integrate it into my crate games. Then I would go to adding an obstacle, etc. etc. and keep building on it step by step. It helps me with my planning to think of shadow handling and flatwork as 2 different things so when I develop an action plan in regard to training something it reminds me to always work on the moves without my dog first which is something that I think is very much neglected here.

And there is certainly a lot more to 'flatwork' than just circle work, that's for sure - have a look at the new Dave Munnings DVD -he does a ton of flatwork exercises before his dogs ever get onto obstacles and you can see the results, circle work is only one little part of it.

Edited September 10, 2011 by kelpiechick

[aussielover]

Can I ask why people consider tugging to be a superior reward to food?

I was looking at the 2x2 method on susan garetts site and she said ALL the dogs in her training club are taught to use the tug rather than food.

Additionally does anyone know where I can get some info on training the 2x2 method for weaves?

- like can you use a ball instead of a tug?

or even where I could get a reaosnably priced book or dvd about this method?

I am thinking about going back to basics with weaves, having a lot of trouble with entries. Once we get going, we are fine, it is just the first 2- 3 weaves that are an issue at the moment.

[Tassie]

Aussielover, I don't think there is really any substitute for Susan's 2x2 dvd if you're wanting to train that. She does show how to do it with food, and I think Sue H in WA has used food with 2x2 for one of her dogs - but the toy or tug has the advantage that you can make sure the reward only gets delivered when the dog has done correct performance. The advantage of a tug toy over a ball is that you can get the dog to retrieve the toy back to you (avoiding going back through the weaves) for more reward and revving up with a game of tug. A ball on a rope would work too - as long as you can get the dog to bring it back.

I think many would say that an advantage of tug is it makes the handler more interesting and motivated and excited. I can remember one agility lesson where we had to tug with our dog for 1 minute afer the dog had done a 10 second sequence correctly. That is very, very different from delivering a food reward. (Having said that, I tend to use food more than I should, cos I'm lazy. It really depends what I'm working on.)

[aussielover]

Thanks Tassie, do you know where I can get the DVD ? (preferably from within australia so I dont have to pay crazy postage prices!!!)

[The Spotted Devil]

We did another session of flat work today - dogs did great. I'm exhausted Both sides, inside, outside, accel, decel and front crosses. Will try a few things with a jump or 2 tomorrow. Or when I recover - lol - my back is not amused!!!!

aussielover - I use food as rewards. It is much more valuable than tugging for Ziggy although I have transferred quite a lot of value to tug and use it in some situations. Much of it is in the timing and the choice of treats (eg if you are throwing food, cheese cubes are much better than anything else that crumbles or is hard to see). I can make a cheese cube last at least a minute by dividing it into 20 tiny pieces. Sometimes I release him to sprint to a bait plate which is HIGHLY rewarding. Soft food (4 legs) is great for fast delivery. I teach weaving with food as well. My youngster won't be tugging initially either - I'm a bit precious about her beautiful soft mouth for retrieving. Whilst I'm pretty sure she would understand the difference I'm not prepared to risk it.

Edited September 10, 2011 by The Spotted Devil

[krustie22]

And there is certainly a lot more to 'flatwork' than just circle work, that's for sure - have a look at the new Dave Munnings DVD -he does a ton of flatwork exercises before his dogs ever get onto obstacles and you can see the results, circle work is only one little part of it.

hey kelpiechick, the DVD sounds very handy! where did you get that one from?

[krustie22]

Thanks Tassie, do you know where I can get the DVD ? (preferably from within australia so I dont have to pay crazy postage prices!!!)

it is certainly not cheap, but agility click are lovely, and usually quick to post off. they charge $70 for it, and i dont think postage is too much. they are the only one in australia i have been happy to deal with so far!

[RubyStar]

Can I ask why people consider tugging to be a superior reward to food?

I was looking at the 2x2 method on susan garetts site and she said ALL the dogs in her training club are taught to use the tug rather than food.

Additionally does anyone know where I can get some info on training the 2x2 method for weaves?

- like can you use a ball instead of a tug?

or even where I could get a reaosnably priced book or dvd about this method?

I am thinking about going back to basics with weaves, having a lot of trouble with entries. Once we get going, we are fine, it is just the first 2- 3 weaves that are an issue at the moment.

Hi aussielover, I taught 2x2 with a squeaky ball and a ball on a rope because 1 of my dogs don't tug at all and the other doesn't think its the absolute bees knees like her squeaky ball and food. I chose not to use food for teaching 2x2 weaves because it was harder to see and because I would go through truckloads! The ball worked well for me, so just go with what your dog loves most and what works for you

[J...]

And there is certainly a lot more to 'flatwork' than just circle work, that's for sure - have a look at the new Dave Munnings DVD -he does a ton of flatwork exercises before his dogs ever get onto obstacles and you can see the results, circle work is only one little part of it.

hey kelpiechick, the DVD sounds very handy! where did you get that one from?

Q-Me - Clean Run have it, also a few UK agility sites do as well. Might be cheaper postage to get it from the UK, US/Clean Run postage is too dear these days unless you can bulk order.

[krustie22]

Can I ask why people consider tugging to be a superior reward to food?

I was looking at the 2x2 method on susan garetts site and she said ALL the dogs in her training club are taught to use the tug rather than food.

Additionally does anyone know where I can get some info on training the 2x2 method for weaves?

- like can you use a ball instead of a tug?

or even where I could get a reaosnably priced book or dvd about this method?

I am thinking about going back to basics with weaves, having a lot of trouble with entries. Once we get going, we are fine, it is just the first 2- 3 weaves that are an issue at the moment.

we are still working on the tug thing! BUT i managed to teach my girl to weave (i bought the SG 2x2 DVD from ebay!) and i only ever used food to reward. i used chopped up chicken necks (nice bite size chunks to easily find) as they are most rewarding to her. you only need to do 5 mins a day for this method to work! the vid below is of our 8th session (i was a bad mama and only trained 3 times a week instead of frequent smaller sessions!) but it still paid off better than anything else we tried.

tugging is handy, but it can be done with food for sure! in the vid you can see her munch on the chicken neck lol...

[krustie22]

And there is certainly a lot more to 'flatwork' than just circle work, that's for sure - have a look at the new Dave Munnings DVD -he does a ton of flatwork exercises before his dogs ever get onto obstacles and you can see the results, circle work is only one little part of it.

hey kelpiechick, the DVD sounds very handy! where did you get that one from?

Q-Me - Clean Run have it, also a few UK agility sites do as well. Might be cheaper postage to get it from the UK, US/Clean Run postage is too dear these days unless you can bulk order.

thanks jess, i will have a look around tomorrow and see what i can find. i am kinda cranky with clean run atm over postage costs and also had an issue with customer service! from what im reading it sounds like a good one to add to the collection! thanks!