Whole Lotta Stuff

It rained for a long, long, long time....6 days.  I had to make Dhali put on the raincoat.  It actually fit him!  Which is crazy, because it doesn't fit Tibby anymore.  It just goes to show all his height is in his long legs.  Tibby has a longer back and is built differently.  Dhali's bone structure is more delicate.  I can tell this by feeling their heads - Tibby: square and heavy,  Dhali: thin and light (and tiny too).  He has a tiny head.

Anyway.....these pictures were taken on the day he turned ONE!  Then we went shopping.  I forgot to make him wear the raincoat into the store.

Dhali shopping!  Isn't he cute?!?  He loves to go shopping.  I didn't get a very good video of it, but he is rubbing himself on the racks of bones - just like a cat.  He LOVES to rub up on stinky stuff. 

 I took him to a race on Sat.  We watch (and cheered) for my Mom.  After the race we had to stand around FOREVER waiting for the awards.  Dhali did AMAZING.  He sat and stared at me or laid down on the ground and rested.  He was totally relaxed - even though we were surround by tons of people.  My biggest fear was the someone would step on him, because he was being so good and invisible.

Anyway....a man was squatting down in front of us and I wasn't paying attention.  Dhali apparently thought the guy smelled AMAZING and tried to rub the glorious stink on himself.  LOL!  That was his one silly moment.  I don't think the guy realized that he was basically sitting on a dog until Dhali stuck his cold nose into he man's leg LOL!!  I had to laugh at that :)

Oh and P.S.  I didn't have a treat on me and Dhali was still amazing.  

I'm working up to our SUPER AWESOME lesson with Loretta Mueller....so hang in there! 

On Thursday we had a lesson with Loretta at her place.  It was so long ago since our last time up there - 9 months!   A lot happens in 9 months    This was Dhali's First Lesson.

I had forgotten how looooong the trip is.  It takes forever.  The trip wasn't so bad until about 40 mins from Loretta's place I got behind 4 cars that were stuck behind a truck going (at the fastest) 40 mph!!!!  If you can't drive the speed limit - pull over!  I was trying to stay relaxed and calm, so I wouldn't arrive at the lesson all stressed out, but I think I failed :P  

Dhali really liked Loretta's sheep.  I was trying to get him to potty (ha,ha,ha) and Dhali was more interested in the sheep.  "They run away!  Yay!  Let's chase them!"  Um, no.

Dhali was a little nervous for the first 10 mins. inside the barn.  I think that was pretty normal - totally new place with a new person (Loretta) and he did a little sniffing around.  Once he figured out we were there to play - he was great :)  He likes to play!

My favorite parts were when Loretta was handling him - he did so good with her.  He gets it - I'm the one who needs the work!  It was really beautiful to see him running.  Wish I had a video!  

I got a lot of good information to work on and Loretta said I've done a good job with him (Yay!).  After his little nervous bit at the beginning he worked for the entire hour - really hard too.  We were both out of breath most of the time :P  

It was so worth the long drive!

P.S.  Dhali ate like a pound of meat treats at the lesson and then came home and ate his dinner - he also wasn't tired.  I was though!

Working on some of the sends Loretta taught us.  I need to look at the jump and not cute little Dhali!

And this is Dhali's channel work.  This is his 3rd time on the channel and his first time outside with it.  I think he is doing really well.  He's fast.

ST Foundations Class - Lesson 5

We didn't do this lesson.  This was way too advanced for us, but here are the videos of what we did work on.











So as you can see WE DID A LOT OF OTHER STUFF!!! LOL! We have been very busy. It's fun playing with a dog that wants to play (most of the time).



Lesson 5
O.k., things are getting somewhat more complicated now! Now that you mastered the serpentine, we’ll look into other options with that set up too, but first, let’s train some of
1. out/around/back
Push the dog on the other side of the jump by stepping with your left foot if the dog is on your left side towards the left wing/stanchion (and the opposite), saying your verbal and rewarding after he takes the jump. Every next try, help somewhat less on the take off side and move more on the landing side -- see the video. This is again the question of commitment: the dog should understand to take the jump you showed even if you are already moving away already (helps in serpentines too!)


2. serpentine vs. threadle vs. pushes

Now let’s try two pushes in a row on serpentine setting. If that goes well, you can try a threadle too, using your collection body language, together with cik/cap before the dog takes the jump and then “come” as soon as his front feet hit the ground -- rewarding from your hand for coming to you. Once that goes well, try two in a row: when the dog comes to hand, don’t reward but cue cik/cap for the next jump and then reward the ”come”.

Once you can do two pushes or threadles in a row, try three. And if you manage to do three, you can even try four! It’s harder for every next jump, so make sure you progress slowly so that the dog is mostly successful. Start with a wrap to tunnel to have good speed. Mix in some serpentines too to keep them attentive to your body language and make sure, you train them both ways, so that the dog exits the tunnel on your side of the jump sometimes and sometimes on the other. The pushes and the threadles, sometimes do with the dog on the left, sometimes on the right.

Don’t worry to master it in 2 weeks, it takes more than that, but do try to do some of this.

3. sequence: a little more complicated this time, so again, run it in parts and definitely walk it several times first, rehearsing your body language AND when to say what! -- It gets complicated now as it includes everything we learned so far (wraps, extension, sends, serpentines, out/back/push).


Let’s start with a wrap to the tunnel, then blind or front cross when the dog is in a tunnel, show 3 (you can call it “right” if the dogs knows directionals), cue collection (front cross) and use “cap” for 4, then 5 is “cik”, send to tunnel and cue extension for 7 (meaning: RUN!), push for 8 (say “out/back/push”), RUN for 9, wrap 10, push/out/back for 12 and handle 13 as a straight line (it’s a serpentine from 12 to 13). Have fun!

And here is my video of the sequence without 10 and 11, I completely forgot that part! Looks like I should be printing the courses out too! But I guess it can help some anyway, I also included serpentine, threadle and pushes, I hope I got that part right!

Silvia Trkman Agility Foundations Class Lesson 4

Lesson 4

1. straight line as a serpentine: now that you mastered straight lines too, it’s time to show the dog they can come in different forms Let’s try angling the jumps as you can see in a video, still working on extension vs. collection. Keep angling the jumps all the way to a serpentine. You should still throw in some wraps to keep them attentive to possible collection cues.
Showing the angling in 4 steps, but try to go even more gradually and make it a serpentine in 6 or 7 steps:



2 Sequencing



With long-strided dogs, 10 will be hard – so you can simply take the other entry instead.
3. let’s check how far you have got with weave entries: send in your “top 5″ – choose the 5 hardest entries your dog found, the 5 you are most proud of.

What I said, "I know you said to only send the best weaves, but we haven’t done them at all, so this is all the weaving we have done so far. I don’t really get what I’m supposed to be doing. I think I have to wait until she gets more commitment to doing them before I start with the distractions - right? The 2nd video is what we did today. Tibby was having so much fun! I’ve started doing a ‘dying rabbit’ sound that Tibby likes. Later in the day I tried to do the sequence, but Tibby was too tired. I think she likes the straight running parts the best. I left in a lot of the parts where we are playing.'

What Silvia said, "Yeap, for the weaves, you are trying too complicated stuff too early in the process. I would still work with something at the end for her to focus on and releasing her to it from very slight angles. With something at the end for her to focus on, you should be able to do some work for independence (doing different stuff when she is in), but you sure need something at the end for now to be able to do that. Rewarding from hand is not yet a good idea. And yes, she sure seemed to like that straight line! You can mostly work on that for now if that’s what she loves the most. Still, make sure to not do too much, I think two sessions per day, if they include more as for example one or two straight lines, are too much for her for now. Definitely don’t push her to do it if she doesn’t feel like it! "

Up and Away

Some more jumping pictures.  We had a really good training session Sunday morning.  Tibby was racing around through the tunnel and taking jumps all over the place.  We ran one sequence and then I wanted to figure out my handling better, so I was walking it through by myself.  Tibby decided I was taking too long so she ran the sequence by herself - all 4 parts of it!  It was jump, tunnel, jump, jump.  Smarty pants.

Just Jumping

I took a bunch of pictures of Tibby jumping on Saturday.  I'll be posting them over the next week or so.  I think she looks so pretty when she's jumping! 

I was working on an around the clock jumping exercise with her AND taking pictures.  I had her targeting a plastic target on the grass.  So I would set her up to take the jump, I would get in position to take the picture and then tell her to jump.  She would take the jump and run to the target.  It worked really well.

I eventually had her set away from the jump and the target was straight in front of her, but she took the jump and then ran to the target.  Smart girl!