The practice field finally dried out and I've had a few practices with both dogs. Lola isn't working on much, mostly distance and sending work since that's our weakness right now. I'm mostly using her to help Strummer learn to control himself while other dogs are running agility and because she loves to go to the field to play.
I've also had a chance to see where we are with the dogwalk. First session was not so great, it had been weeks so it wasn't surprising. It wasn't awful but not as good as I was hoping for. Second session was nearly perfect though and I've got that video posted below. There was one miss (and I think also one hit) that doesn't show up on the tape because he was going the other way and it was off camera. All the others were hits.
Running Dogwalk 2-3-2010, Strummer from colliebrains on Vimeo.
And here are some short clips of where Strummer is at with his self-control issues. Not very exciting, mostly for my own reference. I missed shooting a lot of this training because I kept thinking the camera was on when it wasn't or he was out of the shot.
A-frame
Untitled from colliebrains on Vimeo.
Tunnel
Untitled from colliebrains on Vimeo.
I'm finding the filming distracting to the training but it's so helpful to have video of the training. More practice with dealing with it all I guess. I long for the days when I went to the field with a ball and some treats and we ran around and did whatever and I didn't spend so much time worrying over the gizmos-video camera, tripod, remote treat gizmo, sheesh, I feel like I'm filming a documentary.
Let's not even talk about how Strum's weave poles went. I think I pushed him way too much this session. Each little session was too long and not enough rest in between. It's so good to be out there practicing I got carried away and forgot my good dog training skills. The weaves were at the end and I think his poor brain was fried. The self-control stuff is very difficult for him and it fries his brain. I've been doing a lot of stuff at home but few distractions rival another dog doing agility.
The next 4 days are an agility seminar which includes a weave pole session so hopefully I'll have some good training ideas for next week. I've been wanting to do a post on Lola's table training and I will get to it but probably not for a week or two.
This is why I don't videotape more. I try to concentrate on the dogs if I'm serious about it, which makes it hard to concentrate on the video, and of course if I'm not being serious about it, usually no point in videotaping.
ReplyDeleteBut you (& others) are reminding me of how useful the danged videos are.
Yeah, it's useful but so time consuming between lugging all the equipment, setting it up then reviewing the video. But it's so helpful if you train alone.
ReplyDelete