Tip in Performance Speed Jumping

I need to take a moment to say how proud I am of my girl. It is moments like this that make me stop and say how proud I am of my girl, recognize and appreciate the journey that we have been on. Tip is an amazing dog who has taught me so much. The dogs that I have trained after her certainly own her.

Tip ran Steeplechase last weekend. She won both days. The second day she had the fastest time of all dogs at any jump height. Her ground speed isn't the absolute fastest, but her turns are to die for. She has turned in some amazing times because she can cut a jump amazingly tight.


Video of the run

(Yes, her time was the fastest even with the weave bobble)

Running contact update

Tangle and I took a week or so off of running contacts. We were stalled in our progress so I wanted to give it a break and give myself time to think through what my response should be. I went from thinking about scraping the running contacts to having confidence that I could figure this out. (For the record, I am still not in love with the idea of how a running contact is trained.)

This morning we started on our adventure again. I decided that practicing being stuck wasn't a good idea, so I set up our next logical progression. jump-dog walk-jump.

Today's setup



Long story short--we were back up at our 80% range. You know, I have no idea why these things work in training, but they do. Maybe one theory is, if I change something, the dog has to go back to thinking and things improve! Would love to hear thoughts on this.

On other fronts we have worked more seriously on the teeter and Tangle is learning weave entrances! He is doing stellar at both!

Save the hands

My poor hands! They are battered and bruised from playing so much tug with my puppy. The blame is all mine, but I stand by my approach.

Tangle has been really bad about catching my hand along with the tug toy. But, here is why I haven't really trained the "don't get the hand" yet.

Tangle has been a good tugger, not an awesome tugger. He clearly loves the game, but doesn't want to hold on for dear life. I, on the other hand, want him to hang on once he has grasped it. Early on when I would end the game for a second or two when he caught my hand he would stop playing. He still does to a degree. Tug is such a great game for agility, distraction, and fun that I didn't want to train the tug out of him.

I have from time to time stopped the game for a pause, and then started when he let go of my hand. He always shy's off. I never say a word, just stop playing. Testing the water's from time to time, but I always see the hesitation begin.

I have tried the squirrel frisbees, long tugs, big knot tugs, he always "chokes up" and gets my hand.



So, last night I went on a mission to make a toy that might help protect my hand. I went to Petsmart and got a rope toy that had two tennis balls with holes in them. I decided to adapt my usual design for a tug and incorporate the tennis ball as a bigger marker of what end is mine and what is his. I am hoping that grabbing onto the tennis ball is not quiet as fun as the polar fleece tug.

In order to make sure the toy had huge value, I played with it last night, not allowing him to have it, this morning we did restrained recalls to the toy, and then, finally tug with the toy. He does love it. But then he loves all toys.

I think that I had some mild success with it. He does recognize that the tennis ball is on the toy, he doesn't really want to grab it while he tugs, but he did catch my hand when he tried to choke up. However, he does try to stay on his side of the toy!

I think that for now this toy is a keeper and I might be able to train him to stop making mince meat of my hand and still have fun tugging.

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!

Love the little gifts

Tangle's running contacts have seemed a little challenging over the last couple of weeks. I got his speed up, but haven't been able to return to the 80 percent mark in terms of hitting the contact.

A friend came over today to watch his contacts and see if she could offer some advice. Wouldn't you know it, his contacts were perfect!! I mean he hit them 100 percent. I can't say that I was unhappy, but it is a little frustrating when you really want the advice.

We did talk about one possibility. 1) I train early in the morning when he is the most energized. I am going to try in the afternoon and see if that changes anything.

So, I took Tangle out this afternoon. I was armed with a camera and figured if he was having troubles again at least she could see the video. Again, perfect.


I will just end the day thankful for the small gifts!

Out on a limb

I have read two blogs in the past couple of days that both made me pause and think. Then today for some odd reason (I love the way that works) I started thinking about how those two blogs related.

Coaching vs. Instructing
No Reward Markers


Let me first take you back to my very first professional career of Musician. At first in music you most definitely have an instructor. One who teaches you the mechanics of your instrument and of music. Then as your skill and experience evolves you need less of an instructor and more of a coach. One who not only advises you on mechanical mistakes (of which you don't make nearly as many), but also helps you plan your experiences so that you can meet your goals. For instance, I want to be the first Oboist in the New York Philharmonic.

So, if you apply this to agility. When you first start out you definitely need an instructor. As time goes on and you and your dog become highly skilled and you begin to need more of a coach. So, if your goal is to win USDAA Nationals, this person would help you create strategies that will help achieve that goal. With every lesson they will instruct you with your goal in mind. They can design experiences that help you get there. For instance, you and your dog better know how to take the back side of a jump. Not important if your goal is to compete only at NADAC Nationals.

So, how does this apply to NRMs (No Reward Marker - isn't a correction. It simply lets your dog know that he needs to try something different in order to get the reward)?

In reading Susan Garrett's blog today she said a couple of things that I felt could be applied to humans as well:
1. A dog’s response to failure is entirely learned. In my experience, a successful human learner knows how to move beyond failure and try the next likely correct thing. They don't shut down from one failure if constantly encourages to try the next thing.
2. "Never to be used during the “value building” stage of any behaviour". This is during the shaping of a behavior. With a child/adult we have to give learning a very high value otherwise there is no incentive to keep learning.
3. "If a NRM is going to be used (during value testing) the massive amount of reinforcement that has been banked during the value building stage prevents any of my dogs from considering shutting down and leaving work." An instructor/coach should build reinforcement into their process so that the students loves what you are teaching and values you as the teacher.

Create the right balance for a student on what is going right as well as what should be improved.




So, all of this brings me to what makes a great instructor and coach? It is someone who has built a tremendous amount of value into their process of teaching the student. I believe that it is an instructor who takes the time to learn the student and their dog. Correctly assess what the students goals are (you could ask them), what reinforcement markers the student and the dog need and provides those.


We talk a lot about building the confidence of our dogs, we should do the same for our students. Positive reinforcement builds confidence. Instructors never get to be great coaches if they cause their students to shut down and stop the process.

All the great instructors/coaches that I have had in my life time all had one thing in common, I walked away feeling better about my skills after each lesson and always had homework on how I could improve.

Teach the student like we teach our dog "Click N Treat"

The IPad update

My husband bought me an IPad for Christmas. I had mixed emotions about it. 1) I know they are expensive and I didn't have a burning need for it 2) I am a techy/programmer by trade so of course the whole new technology thing was exciting.

I decided that I would start down the path of making my IPad as useful for agility as possible. I had NO CLUE what that meant so I had to define it along the way.

I found a course designer for the IPad, Agility IMap. It took me just a couple of minutes to figure it out and I love it. Easy to use and actually faster to draw a course than with Course Designer. The website has all sorts of great tips on how to get the most out of the app. My only wish item is that I can import between IMap and Course Designer. Frequently I share agility exercises with friends and we draw how we would have handled that.

IBook - I have a ton of PDFs with "how to" type information in them. It has been really handy for me to take the IPad out to the agility field and have the reference at hand. The added bonus, it doesn't blow away in the wind like my printed version does :)

Movies - I frequently load agility clips on the IPad. Either movies of my own dogs that I want to review over and over. For instance, my latest obsession is Tangle's running contacts. This is really handy to have these items on the go. I can take them to class and have my instructor review them as well.

A friend put all her runs into TV shows. I am not clear why she has them all on her IPad, but she finds it useful.

I subscribed to Clean Run's digital version. I download these and have them available off line.

In the Mary Ellen Barry seminar I tried to take notes on the IPad. I just couldn't type fast enough. So, I am going to get a "pen" that allows me to take notes on the IPad freehand. I want to see if that is better.

My next projects: 1) get wireless access out on the agility field so that I don't have to load all my PDFs into IBooks 2) Get a "pen" so that I can take notes on the Ipad.

Wishlist - a usb connector so that I could just load my videos right onto the IPad.