Weaves and Teeter and Tunnels!

This is Dhali in his favorite spot - underneath the plum tree laying in the grass :)  

Weeeee!  A video of agility!  Yes we have been working on something.  

Dhali has been very hesitant about the big teeter.  Of course, when I brought the little teeter outside to just play an easy game of 'bang it' he was all "I'm not scared!".  Crazy little guy.  

He's getting better and better about not biting me and hopefully I am getting better at giving him the right direction.  I'll have to wait and see what the official word is from Loretta, if I'm doing good/bad.

Look at him do the weaves!  He's figuring it out.  At first I had fences on either side, but he doesn't need them any more.  I'm not sure how they figure this stuff out, like running contacts, but they seem to get it.  A little bit every day.  

My goal is to have a fast, smooth running dog.  LOL!  I think that's everyone's goal.  It might take a long time, but I think it will be worth it :) 

Tibby makes a cameo appearance at the beginning of the video.  She really does not like to do agility, but she likes hot dogs, so she will bang that *%&#* teeter until she gets some hot dogs or I take her away.  She is such a funny dog.  Crazy that she is the most willing to do the teeter, when it was THE scariest thing to her in the beginning.  It took a long time just to shape her to look at and take one step toward the teeter.  Now she won't get off it! 

The Two Opposites

A couple videos!

Dhali showing off what he can do at 9 months.  He's fast!  The first half of the video I have a few treats in one hand and no toy.  Most of the time he can play without a toy and without biting, but sometimes he just can't help himself.  Sometimes he is naughty - then he gets a time out.  He was much better after the time out.  It helps us both to regroup.  He thinks treats are OK, but running fast is so much more fun.  He could live without the treats.  A lot of times we run and play 'agility' without treats or a toy.  Just running around having fun.

Why are the weave poles in front of the tunnel?
Because I moved them over there, forgot they were there and then just left them, because they slow Dhali down a bit.  He's not really weaving, but it helps him to collect a little coming out of the tunnel.

So what is Dhali like at 9 months?  He is the cuddliest whiny nut job I know!
Right now he is leaning up against me with his head on my shoulder.  If he could read I would think he was trying to read this post!

He whines and complains a lot.  Sometimes I can figure out what he's complaining about, but other times he's  just complaining, because he wants to complain or he's bored.

He likes to bring me toys when he's bored.  We play tug and fetch.

He's always ready for a game.  If I even look like I might be thinking about playing he's all over me.  He's a silly happy guy.

Pretty much Tibby's COMPLETE opposite.
Except for the cuddling thing.  She slept on my chest for 2 hours Saturday when we were taking a nap.  She likes to be in my lap ALL the time and gets pretty jealous of Dhali. when he's in my lap instead of her.

Dhali smiles all the time and Tibby sighs all the time.  Glass half full / glass half empty.

I love them both - probably even more because they are SO totally different.

Silly Dhali.

And serious Tibby.  She knows how to do the teeter thatkyouverymuch.  They are both silly in their own ways!  She's so cute with her little attitude.  I'm not sure if you can hear it, but at one point when I try to get her to go to the other end of the teeter she huffs at me, "Duh, I know what I'm doing."

Just recently she's started to want to do some of the stuff Dhali gets to do.  She's really into heeling right now.  Not sure how she learned that, but she can even do backing up heeling.  I was very impressed with her!

After learning agility training with Tibby - slow speed.  I feel like I'm re-learning everything with Dhali - fast speed.  

They are both good dogs :)

Blog Action Day - Backyard Training

So Dog Agility Blog Event for 2012 or Action Day?  

is Backyard Training.

With Tibby's issues I have been doing most of her training in the basement.  Although there was a period of time when she didn't like the basement any more either.  So I just trained Dhali!  Outside, inside - he doesn't care.  Now Tibby will go downstairs, but she still isn't interested in doing much training (hope the meds. will work eventually!), but she is surprisingly interested in playing with the teeter.  I think she has always liked contacts because, 1 - I put a ton of time into them and 2 - they are always the same, which Tibby likes. 

So where and why do we train at home?  Where: backyard 50x30 bumpy grass/dirt/weeds.  When I first brought Tibby home my yard looked like this and this and this and this - then Tibby arrived and I did this, but it still looked like this.  Can you imagine me as your neighbor LOL!  

So I had Tibby and we started doing agility and the yard moved on to this .  But I still had my pond that I had hand dug 14 times.  YES 14 TIMES.  It was 5 feet deep too - *sigh*.  I liked my pond a lot.

Now my yard looks like this:

Sooooo boring.  And it's not flat.  I try and try to get it flat and nope, bumpy.  ARGH!  I hate grass.  And it's muddy.  I would love to cover it all with artificial turf, but that would cost like $25,000.   Well, that's not gonna happen!  It's good training for the pups (and me) to run on it though.  Very difficult to run on and you get a good work out.  Especially in the dark - might break an ankle in one of Dhali's freshly dug holes too.

So now why: We train at home, because it is the only option.  1- Because of Tibby's anxiety issues and 2 - Because I live in the middle of an agility black hole (not just agility - ALL dog training).  1 hour drive/65 miles to take a class.  2+ hours/120+ miles to take an actually good class.  Ring rental?  Nope.  I could drive for hours and still not find a ring rental, because I'm not a club member or taking a weekly class.  Stupid rules!  It would actually be cheaper for me to buy all my own equipment - gas isn't cheap!  Plus when I have taken a class: I drive for 2 hours/leave work early/brave snowy, icy roads and my dog gets 2 mins. of attention and working time in the class.  2 hours = 2 mins?  Not worth it.

Plus at home I can stop training if it isn't working and I don't feel like it was wasted time.  We'll try again tomorrow.  In a class, after all the effort I put into getting there, I want magic things to happen!  

Does that stop me from dreaming about the perfect house with the perfect agility yard?  No, I have been known to creepily check out nice houses with big yards.  And fenced in yards?  Whoo hoo!  The trifecta of perfection!

I also drive slowly past all large flat pieces of land and imagine fencing them in.  Is it wrong to have a dream? Remember I'm the person who re-dug a pond 14 times by hand. :P

Now the basement was created just for agility training - just for Tibby and now Dhali too!  I have my big teeter down there and the channel weave poles.  Those 2 things stay downstairs, because the teeter is too nice to take outside LOL! - it was expensive! and the weave poles don't sit on the ground right.  Like I said the ground is bumpy - grrrr bumpy grass >:(

Also there is a long plank for dog walk training.

I also have the 'inside' tunnel that stays in the basement.  It's all nice and clean. 

I have carpet on the floor and extra thick padding underneath the carpet.  

Outside I have 5 jumps,  2 tunnels and some versa weave poles plus a plank for dog walk training.

The jumps and travel teeter go both inside and outside.  I just have to wash them off a lot if they are coming inside, which takes a long time, so usually if something comes inside it might not go back outside for a looong time.  Until I forget about how long it took me to clean all the yard dust off of it!

I don't know if it is possible to train a dog with just a handful of equipment in a backyard/basement, but I'm trying my best!

The other Blog Action Day posts are here 

Dhali wants to be a MAX200 model.

Tibby is tired.  Drugs kicking in?  or just tired from the stressful appointment?

Personal Play

I have been reading Denise Fenzi's blog and watching her training videos with her puppy.  I have learned a lot about playing with a dog.  Sometimes I want to slap my past self!  I really, really didn't know how to speak 'dog' when Tibby was a puppy.  Sorry Tibs :(  I'm trying to do better though! 

I love watching a whole string of the videos of Denise Fenzi's puppy Lyra and see the progression.  It's neat to see how her puppy learned and changed.  I like the way Denise interacts physically with Lyra.  When Tibby was a puppy I (extremely unfortunately) took the advice that any time Tibby tried to play with me physically - jumping on me, mouthing, pulling on my clothes - that she was trying to be dominate.  When in reality.....she just wanted to play and needed some redirection.

I'm still learning and I don't understand it all.  It being playing.  So I don't want to write like I'm some authority on it.  My attempts to play with Tibby are pretty hilarious.  I'm sure Tibby thinks I'm a little....slow.  But we are having A TON O' FUN!!!  We play a lot. 

Last night I tried personal play without a toy.  Tibby LOVED it!  She was better playing with me than with her favorite tug.  She played with me and I have the scars to prove it!  LOL!  Nah, not scars, just little scratches.  We wrestled and she chased me and I chased her and Tibby ran around like a crazy beast.  And then tonight we played again!  Even better - Tibby offered banging the teeter to start our play game.  Every time I would start to slow down, she would bang the teeter again - like a restart button!  Because OF COURSE I go crazy when she bangs the teeter!  Hee hee :)  She loves it :) 

So as a re-cap:  My hard to motivate dog likes to play with me :)  No toys or treats in sight.

Videos From Thrusday's Lesson

Two videos from our lesson on Thursday with Loretta. Lots of fun :) I like how happy Tibby looks playing on the dogwalk. She loves RC training. I was so happy to see that she did understand what we wanted and she would try hard to hit the contact, if she missed it the first time.

Teeter Tippy

This video is a little bit old, but our agility activities have been few this past week.  The video is sped up, because it was kind of boring to watch - cute, but boring.  I showed it to Silvia and she said it didn't look too bad -

"It actually looks pretty good to me, especially those after 1:30 yes! But sure, it can’t hurt if you do some jumping on the end to ride it down again to make the end even more fun. It’s not unusual that they can’t hold the position on their fastest tries… I have to admit that with my dogs, since fast is always my major goal , I mostly relax the criteria some for the sake of speed and then revisit it again if I start to get fly-offs."

So I did a few sessions with the teeter lowered flat on the ground, then I changed my mind and put it up to full height (which is very high, I don't blame dogs for questioning our sanity when we ask them to run up it) and I am having her run up the teeter for cheese smushed on the end and then taking her off - we do that 5 times a day.

I'm hoping that this will make her run to the end of the teeter and then ride it down, but I'm thinking that Tibby might have other ideas.  Oh, well it's an easy and fun thing to play at. 

First Teeter In Class

Probably not my best training choice.  I was just so tempted to see if Tibby would do the teeter.  Bad me.  She did it, but some how it didn't really make me happy :(  I want her to like the teeter, but I keep messing around.

Points for Tibby though.  She went on a new teeter - not rubber (which is the only kind she's been on before).  Good job baby Tib.

I could just not show the stuff that we mess up, but I think it's important to show everything....boo boos and gold stars.  Otherwise it's not very realistic - is it? 

Annnnnnd poor Zoe.  It looks like Zoe's Mom pulled her off the teeter with her harness the first time??  That was an accident, but poor Zoe.  If Tibby is hesitant about it, Zoe is super freaked out about it.  She's scared of everything about agility.  She shakes and pants the entire hour.  Although she does go right up that teeter the second time.  And she went over the A-frame on her own twice, soooo maybe she's starting to like it?  Tibby got to play on the table for a second too.  Again I'm pushing for too much too fast.  Bad, bad me.

Teeter - Almost There!!

Look at how great Tibby is doing with her teeter!  It's not at full height, but still she is doing awesome!  I can't believe I forgot to post this video last week!  I was so excited when she first did it!

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!