Simplify, the message of the day!

I had a great private lesson with Stacy Peardot-Goudy today. First time I have ever had a private with her. I have done seminars with her and always like them.

We reviewed Tangle's DW performance. He was not 100 percent at her place and I am actually glad for that. Not much to talk about when something is perfect. She gave me some great proofing ideas and again reiterated the fact that when training running contacts you make a couple of strides forward and sometimes you go backwards. Tangle is driving to a dead toy. At this point I should start to move the toy "around the clock" and test his knowledge of coming off he contact straight.

I have felt stuck in figuring out how I wanted to train Tangle's teeter. There is some information out there in the wild, and I had talked to some friends, but for some reason I was still feeling stuck. Stacy and I had some good discussion around training the teeter and the message was to simplify my method. She thought I was going to be teaching too many things and it would be more effort. Won't do any harm, but was it really necessary? Stacy trains the 2o2o behavior first. She always has the end of the teeter move some (stressing that this is really important for running contact dogs). Movement, you stop, no movement, you run! Then once she has completely proofed the 2o2o, she sets the teeter on its lowest setting and begins to run the dog completely across (no back chaining). By this time the dog is fairly driven to get to the end and doesn't need the back chaining.

Stacy and I had a great discussion on training flatwork with jump uprights. She trains her flatwork with jump uprights. She trains jumping separately. She felt that we could be doing more in this area and gave me some great suggestions on where to go. We worked a bit on serpentine. I got a really good explanation and understanding of teaching them to a baby dog!

Not all of this was new news, but I guess I am a private lesson kind of girl. I really need to have explanations and discussion around my lessons so I feel like I really have the concept down!

What is between Foundation and your first agility trial?

Yes, I know, back to back blogs! I wanted to do a separate blog on this since it is such an important topic to me and it marks the beginning of my quest.

From the moment I got Tangle I suddenly became aware of a HUGE GAPPING HOLE in resources on a certain agility topic!!!

There are tons of foundation books, DVDs, classes etc... out there to teach a puppy basic skills that will be needed to get through life and be a half decent agility dog. I have tons of help teaching my puppy how to nose touch, tug, self control, rear end awareness, crate games, basic cone work etc...

There are tons of resources (DVDs, books, websites) out there to help me analyze a course, teach a particular obstacle (or all of them), enter a trial, handling strategies, etc...

So, what I wonder or ask, is there something in between going around one cone and running your first sequence? I don't think that my pup will just spontaneously know how to do jump, jump, rear cross, jump, jump without something leading up to that ,will he?

OK, I do know the answer to that question, and I do know how to teach some of it, but how did I learn? Trail & error, asking people, taking a class/seminar. Most of us train alone the great majority of the time, so resources in learning are critical.

I want awesome resources and examples. I don't want Tangle to be a "half decent" agility dog, I want him to be an amazing agility dog. I am bias, a "how to" agility book that takes me from a nose touch to running a whole course in 12 chapters isn't going to cut it.

To be fair, I will say there are several books out there (at least for APHS) that help you develop some of those skills, but they are only in book form. That is awesome if I am not a visual learner (ops, I am).

I am looking for visual resources and great examples of cone work with motion, one/two jump work with motion, small sequences with cones, APHS jump drills on video.

Know of any?


(disclaimer: I don't want to use YouTube as my visual resource, if I don't know much how do I know that this example of backyard training is a good one?)

The boys were on FIRE!

I took all three dogs to the field today, been a while since that happened.

I decided to take a pulse check on where Tangle was when working around the other dogs. I put the other dogs in the yard which is right next to the agility field. I was fully prepared to have to back down and lower the distraction at the first sign of trouble. First I warmed Tangle up with recalls, he did awesome, 100%. OK, I ramped it up a little. Next we did flatwork, at a walk first and then at a trot. Tangle did awesome, never once ran over to see where the other dogs were.

Interesting to me, he completely understands following body motion and really has since day one! That is his natural talent for sure. I didn't fully appreciate it until I watch a couple of other puppies work and it wasn't the same level of understanding.

Split starts barking because he is getting left out, still Tangle is with me.

Next we did cone work, first single cone just for food and then two cones for food and then toys. I did both the stand in the middle, send, FC, and send to the next. Then the stand a send to one with forward motion and the other with lateral motion. Tangle's sends were beautiful today. On average I was sending him about 12 feet or so. He would drive out, round the cone with the same speed, accelerate into the turn and speed back to me. His speed is beginning to pick up which is awesome. He does still "offer" the cone to me without me asking. He just gets a "good boy", but no huge reward. In the long run I don't want him offering obstacles. I want him to wait until he has been queued.

We ended the session with a great game of table, Tangle's favorite game. This time I threw him a little twist and asked him the lie down a couple of times before I would start the game.

Never once did Tangle get distracted by the other dogs who by this time were barking and whining (that is a whole other training topic).

Next to work out was Split. I warmed him up with the extension and collection work. That boy is so awesome. Totally understands his foundation. I wonder if the herding has something to do with it. Both boys are very herdy and both are awesome at the foundation work. Next we worked small sequences with contacts in them. Split was awesome. He hit his contacts 100 percent of the time. I ran past, front crossed, stopped and started again, he remained through it all on the DW. His running contact was a little slow, but accurate. Speed will come in time. I worked some turns out of tunnels with Split for fun. RC before he goes into the tunnel, does he come out running in the correct direction? Boy did awesome. Lastly we ended with weaves-fetch which he loves. I worked on speedy entries, and some lateral motion. Seems like 24 inch poles have made all the difference in the world!!

I won't leave Tip out. She did really well except for waiting her turn. :)

Three dog training

Well, Tangle is getting to the age where he gets to take part in the daily ritual of training. I am excited and overwhelmed at the same time. I had developed a nice routine with the 'black and whites' and now I need a new routine!

This morning I jogged over to the agility field. The job actually starts our training for the morning. All three dogs were on their best behavior since yesterday they all got sent home (during the job) for not listening. Believe me, the older two knew EXACTLY what was going on.

First thing I learned, Tangle can't be in the middle while jogging. Has nothing to do with size or age and everything to do with the fact that he is a brat! He runs along holding on to Split's ear. Split is too kind to do anything about it.

I started this morning's drills with jump grids, Tangle in a kennel, Split on the table and Tip got to go first. I am maintaining the jump grids that I pounded so hard in August to get Tip's rear stronger. Tip did an excellent job, so much so, I raised the bars to 22" for her. She did great.

Next was Split. Split really does hate jump grids and it is hard to make them exciting. Can't really use a toy since he will solely focus on the toy and not the job. He stuck with me today and was a happy camper through the drills. He always does a great job because he is a powerful pup and he wants to please.

(Split and Tip's stay on the table while the other is working is getting better too)

Next we worked on jump skills and the broad jump. Probably inspired by Mary-Ellen Barry's article in Clean Run and that I got to use my new broad jumps.

Both dogs did great, although in the beginning they wanted to cut the corners. Didn't take much to convince them that was not going to work for me. The red and pink paths were the hardest, you have to have your timing down well when you cue them to 'switch'. I decided that turning on the flat before the jump was the best course of action.

Tangle's training this morning was continued work on Mary Ellen Barry's method of proofing contact end behavior on the flat. I am using this for startlines and a good understanding of releases. We started with rear crosses on this exercise today.

Next we worked on increasing speed when driving to 'dead' toys. He was doing much better today then two days ago. Probably helped that we went nuts in the living room last night doing this :)

Then we worked on our recalls to heal on the flat. He really has not had any problems understanding any of the recalls. We are just trying to perfect the heal position from all of these positions.

Greatful for an excellent practice

Today I took Tip and Split over to the house for a practice. We worked on some short courses authored by Kathy Keats (on the Cleanrun site) and some jump grids.

First I worked Split prepared that we might have to scrape the course work and go back to circle drills (he was a little wild yesterday). Split was 100 percent in the game and ran the courses exactly like I asked! It was a great course because we had an opportunity for me to work on my timing with him. I am trying to better hone when I can cue and good and when I need to wait and be patient! In general I need to wait when I need collection--working on being better about that.

Tip did an AWESOME job on the same course. Very tight, not straight forward and she ran it clean. Man she still amazes me how far she has come. She watches me so close now!

We need worked on jump grids. I went back to the tunnel, three collected jumps and an extended jump. I felt that I had more to learn in terms of timing with the dogs. It was very fun to play with this. Split needs me to be slightly more patient with him on the collected jumps. Tip, she gets the cue and then I can go. In some ways Split is way more sensitive to my lack of motion that Tip.

I will throw in here a word about Tangle's practice last night. First we worked on recall. Boy do I need to shake this up. When he sees the treat bag he is ON IT and knows the game. It is probably time to up the distraction a little and see how he does. Maybe a park this weekend. Next we worked on sit, tug (from Susan Garrett's book). He got really good at this one as well. My goal is to get a really fast sit with him which he is well on his way to achieving! We are also playing the ready, set, OK game with tug. As soon as he hears "ready" his butt is down waiting for the next round to begin! Such a bright boy. Tangle has been getting daily walks with a little running in there (not much). He sees horses, goats, skid streer's, dogs, people, birds, etc.. We make it a little further every day.

Good Dogs!

We had a great practice this morning. Only two bars down for Tip and they were my fault. Split did an excellent job with collection.

We worked on the first two exercises of the World by the Tail posted on clean run. Happy to report, all the problems were mine which is the way I like it. Dogs were listening and following really well.

This course went well. I put a FC between 4-5, 10-11,11-12. With Split the FC was essential between 11-12, otherwise he extends. Need to work on lateral motion with him.

This was the second course:

I had a hard time working this course. The movements that I needed to do just was not nature. The green path showed the way I ended up running this course as well. I kinda made up my own course. We will work on this one again.



After we worked these I worked on contacts and weaves. Split and I have been doing a "hit-it" exercise in preparation for moving him to a running AFrame. He always gives me a four on the floor and does not like the 2o2o. Since he is a completely biddable dog I am included to believe that he is telling me something and that the 2o2o hurts him. Hence, moving to a running. This exercise I believe is going to have the added benefit of helping him with independant drive. Since he must seek out the box, jump in it and run, this encourages more independance than I typically see from him.

Back to School

Jogged over to the agility field today and setup the "Back to School" course (http://www.cleanrun.com/images/features/09_09_Exercise.pdf). Couldn't work on it since the snow was about an inch deep. As in typical Colorado style it will be 60 degrees this afternoon and I will run the course then.









Worked on exercise 1 & 2. Always surprises me how different the dogs are. I ran the exercise first with Tip. The first time we ran it, she read 5-12-6 as a serpentine. I was layering the #12 jump. Didn't know that she recognized serpintines. Her trouble spots were in the area of 6-7-8. She really wanted to go to 6-8. Then it was hard for me not to get some extension over #7.









Split did a great job on most of the course however I have trouble cueing #14 properly. Also the first time we ran it I converged on his path to #5 and pushed him off the jump. He needed a 'jump' command so that he would not push out.









Exercise #2 - This one seemed a little easier. I did get extension over #10 and #11 so I need to work on deceleration cues with both dogs.









I then worked some on weave entries. Over the next several weeks I will do around the clock weave entries. I also wanted to do a tunnel at the end of the weaves since that is REALLY hard for Split to ignore in a trial.

It is a new day and we ran the last two exercises in the series today. Both dogs did much better at collection today, I was really please. Their strides were very appropriate, collecting when asked and extending when asked. Tip had trouble knocking bars on the jumps that are 3' wide. When I exchanged those jumps for 4' wide jumps the bars stayed up.

We also worked more on weave entries. Tip had more trouble with this next one that Split did. Split tends to collect a little more before the entry hence the ease of making it. We will keep working on this one.

Worked on the exercise below this morning. The opening was really fun. I first ran this with Tip. I did a pull from 2-3, very nice tight turn. I practice this several different ways front cross after 3, rear cross before 4, turning between 4-5, turning out at 4 (toward 7), turn out after 5. The best plan for Tip was front cross after 3, bring her in between 4-5 with a RTH, and then turn her out after 5 and front cross 6.

Split was kind of fun. I first opened the way I did with Tip, standing very close to #2 (on the side of #3). He went very wide. Then I stood more in the middle of #2 to get his path shaped before he jump--WORKED LIKE MAGIC. Ran 4-5-6 the way I did with Tip, but the front cross after #6 was essential for Split. I would like to work on a pull after 6 since that is a good skill to have, but if I was running at a trial the front cross would be the way to go right now.

Rest of the course was cake with both dogs.