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.
Showing posts with label agility video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agility video. Show all posts
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Monday, September 07, 2009
Little Miss Perfect & Speedy McCrazypants
We had a long, fun day at a DOCNA trial yesterday. A 2 hour drive means an early morning wake up call which typically means I'm in a terrible fog for my first few runs and maybe the whole day if I'm lucky. Somehow I managed to pull off a great day without the aid of caffeine.
Miss Lola had a perfect day, when does that ever happen??!! 4/4 Q's and one of them in the North American Challenge (NAC) which qualifies her for Championships in 2010. Her NAC run was beautiful, a clean run and first run of the day for me. It was the one run I cared about since I'm hoping she'll be sound still in a year's time and there's talk that Champs may be in Colorado. I was thinking I should have gone home right then because it wasn't going to get much better than that. But she went clean in her Standard runs too, though in both she had some distracted moments and ran off but I managed to get her back on course in plenty of time. It's worrying though and I'm keeping my eye on her for physical problems. Her Jumpers run was flawless with a little bit of barking at me for pulling an RFP on her. I hate that move but she's not been trained for my preferred alternative as Strummer has been so I'm stuck with it and neither of us are happy about it but we pull it off. She was the only dog in the 20" vet class so she automatically got 1st in all her classes but she's first of all the 20" dogs for some of her runs, can't remember which ones. I love running Lola, such fun my big-mouthed red girlie.
Strummer managed 3/5 Q's making a total of 7/9 overall which is pretty good for me, especially after the last couple of trials. He was 4/4 on his dogwalks and 6/6 on his A-frames but his teeter went right out the window and he missed every weave entrance. We'd been working on that too and he'd been doing great. He started out his trialing career without having weave issues so I'm not sure what's going on but the solution will be more practice with him being wound up. We've got 6 weeks or so until his next trial so plenty of time to work it out I hope.
He had a clean run and 2nd place in the NAC but I was behind and late in my handling, resorting to rear crosses at some places where I'd planned fronts. He had some wide turns and run-bys so he was a whopping 11 seconds behind first place. It wasn't the prettiest of runs but he did get all his contacts and made it through a full set of weave poles once I got him in them.
His first Standard run was a disaster. He had maybe 4-5 hours between runs and I was working every class I wasn't running in so I couldn't give him too much attention in between. He was wound up about as tight as he gets when I finally got him out and of course it was thundering and I tried to get him calm and focused but he was jumping out of his fuzzy skin. He had a wonderful flip from the dogwalk to the tunnel and his A-frame was good but otherwise something of a train wreck. Poor guy went sailing over the teeter and I yelled 'HEY!' at him and had him redo it properly but afterwards I realized that the poor guy probably thought it was the dogwalk. I'll have to work on that verbal 'teeter' cue so he knows what's coming. And also work the teeter while he's wound up.
His second Standard run was much better, a knocked bar after the dogwalk and then he got tangled up in the weaves and I didn't want to fix it. I got behind at one point because I slowed and waited behind to be sure he slowed for the teeter and I ended up not handling a serpentine as I wanted to but an otherwise nice run with a lot more calm and focus.
His Strategic Time Gamble run was very nice except for another bungled teeter. I whipped him around to have him do it again and you should have seen the look of terror in the judge's eyes as she ran backward to get out of his unexpected path. I felt bad but I had no idea she was there when I sent him around. Otherwise though it was a nice run and a Q.
His Jumpers run was fabulous, a Q and 1st place. 5.99 yps, and that was with a bobble at the start line when I inadvertently released him before I'd led out due to some confusion on my part about whether the timer was ready. I was behind on a line of 4 jumps so there was some slight confusion which cost a few fractions of a second. I'm convinced he can go over 6 yps if we have a perfect run. He was calm and focused when I took him out for this last run of the day. It only took 4 runs to wear him down. I need to figure out how to get this kind of calm out of him at the start of the day.
Of course I only have the 2 worse runs of the trial on video. I came home from the trial feeling really good about things then spent today pouring over the videos noticing all the bad stuff, especially my arm still flying up which I thought I'd had under control for the other runs but who knows. I probably shouldn't post them since they weren't a good representation of the trial as a whole but I've got them so may as well.
I spent every run either working or running except for the very first run of the day and didn't get home until nearly 7:30 pm so I woke up exhausted this morning. It's been a while since I've done a full day like that with a long drive. Plus I'm not used to running 2 dogs in 2 different levels, it meant an extra 5 courses to walk. It's good to get tired like that every once in a while though. I still managed a mountain bike ride up at West Mag though Jonny drove to a different parking lot so we could cut the 2 hour ride down to 1 hour, 25 minutes. It was a gorgeous, perfect fall day and I was glad I hauled my butt up there despite being so tired. Don't know how many more weekends like this we'll have up there.
Miss Lola had a perfect day, when does that ever happen??!! 4/4 Q's and one of them in the North American Challenge (NAC) which qualifies her for Championships in 2010. Her NAC run was beautiful, a clean run and first run of the day for me. It was the one run I cared about since I'm hoping she'll be sound still in a year's time and there's talk that Champs may be in Colorado. I was thinking I should have gone home right then because it wasn't going to get much better than that. But she went clean in her Standard runs too, though in both she had some distracted moments and ran off but I managed to get her back on course in plenty of time. It's worrying though and I'm keeping my eye on her for physical problems. Her Jumpers run was flawless with a little bit of barking at me for pulling an RFP on her. I hate that move but she's not been trained for my preferred alternative as Strummer has been so I'm stuck with it and neither of us are happy about it but we pull it off. She was the only dog in the 20" vet class so she automatically got 1st in all her classes but she's first of all the 20" dogs for some of her runs, can't remember which ones. I love running Lola, such fun my big-mouthed red girlie.
Strummer managed 3/5 Q's making a total of 7/9 overall which is pretty good for me, especially after the last couple of trials. He was 4/4 on his dogwalks and 6/6 on his A-frames but his teeter went right out the window and he missed every weave entrance. We'd been working on that too and he'd been doing great. He started out his trialing career without having weave issues so I'm not sure what's going on but the solution will be more practice with him being wound up. We've got 6 weeks or so until his next trial so plenty of time to work it out I hope.
He had a clean run and 2nd place in the NAC but I was behind and late in my handling, resorting to rear crosses at some places where I'd planned fronts. He had some wide turns and run-bys so he was a whopping 11 seconds behind first place. It wasn't the prettiest of runs but he did get all his contacts and made it through a full set of weave poles once I got him in them.
His first Standard run was a disaster. He had maybe 4-5 hours between runs and I was working every class I wasn't running in so I couldn't give him too much attention in between. He was wound up about as tight as he gets when I finally got him out and of course it was thundering and I tried to get him calm and focused but he was jumping out of his fuzzy skin. He had a wonderful flip from the dogwalk to the tunnel and his A-frame was good but otherwise something of a train wreck. Poor guy went sailing over the teeter and I yelled 'HEY!' at him and had him redo it properly but afterwards I realized that the poor guy probably thought it was the dogwalk. I'll have to work on that verbal 'teeter' cue so he knows what's coming. And also work the teeter while he's wound up.
His second Standard run was much better, a knocked bar after the dogwalk and then he got tangled up in the weaves and I didn't want to fix it. I got behind at one point because I slowed and waited behind to be sure he slowed for the teeter and I ended up not handling a serpentine as I wanted to but an otherwise nice run with a lot more calm and focus.
His Strategic Time Gamble run was very nice except for another bungled teeter. I whipped him around to have him do it again and you should have seen the look of terror in the judge's eyes as she ran backward to get out of his unexpected path. I felt bad but I had no idea she was there when I sent him around. Otherwise though it was a nice run and a Q.
His Jumpers run was fabulous, a Q and 1st place. 5.99 yps, and that was with a bobble at the start line when I inadvertently released him before I'd led out due to some confusion on my part about whether the timer was ready. I was behind on a line of 4 jumps so there was some slight confusion which cost a few fractions of a second. I'm convinced he can go over 6 yps if we have a perfect run. He was calm and focused when I took him out for this last run of the day. It only took 4 runs to wear him down. I need to figure out how to get this kind of calm out of him at the start of the day.
Of course I only have the 2 worse runs of the trial on video. I came home from the trial feeling really good about things then spent today pouring over the videos noticing all the bad stuff, especially my arm still flying up which I thought I'd had under control for the other runs but who knows. I probably shouldn't post them since they weren't a good representation of the trial as a whole but I've got them so may as well.
Untitled from colliebrains on Vimeo.
I spent every run either working or running except for the very first run of the day and didn't get home until nearly 7:30 pm so I woke up exhausted this morning. It's been a while since I've done a full day like that with a long drive. Plus I'm not used to running 2 dogs in 2 different levels, it meant an extra 5 courses to walk. It's good to get tired like that every once in a while though. I still managed a mountain bike ride up at West Mag though Jonny drove to a different parking lot so we could cut the 2 hour ride down to 1 hour, 25 minutes. It was a gorgeous, perfect fall day and I was glad I hauled my butt up there despite being so tired. Don't know how many more weekends like this we'll have up there.
Monday, March 02, 2009
NADAC Trial
No Q's for Strum on Sunday but he had some nice runs and once again was a very good boy at the trial site and in the ring. His only naughtiness was lungeing at the dog still running the Jumpers course while we were entering the ring. The judge wanted us in the ring while the other dog was only halfway through the course and this was tough for Strum. He didn't bark though and the other dog never noticed him but he was a bit rattled on the start line at first and I took an extra moment to let him settle before I left him for my lead out. I want to condition him to relax when I put my hand on his side for just this sort of situation. We're working on it but he's not quite there yet. In any case he was fine in the end, held his stay and had a beautiful run with the only fault being a knocked bar. Well, knocked jump standard actually. I'm not sure how he managed to take the whole thing down but that's my Strum. It's not clear from the video what went wrong but my thought is that I moved too quickly when I cued the turn and the harsh cue caused him to misjudge the turn. I thought about putting a front cross in at that turn then a rear at the 180 then another front when we came around the turn again. I only saw one person do this in Open (nearly identical course) and she had the fastest run with a BC who's fast like Strum. Most everybody else handled that turn as I did. The course was not terribly exciting which is my big beef with NADAC these days. I handled the whole thing without a single side change. I almost put those extra crosses in just to make it more interesting but in the end decided to handle it the way I thought was best and it did expose a weakness so it was just as well.
No Q in Tunnelers either but it was another nice run. I was almost through the course and I got too far ahead of him and he wasn't clear on which end of the next tunnel I wanted and just my luck he guessed the wrong end. Don't ask me how I managed to get ahead of him on a blazing fast Tunnelers course. At that moment someone yelled 'Go Elayne' (they were cheering everyone on at the end) and I was distracted and went forward too quickly when I should have hung back a bit. Normally I don't notice the crowd at all, not sure why I was distracted but I'll have to remember to stay focused on the task at hand next time. Still I was pleased with his run, a huge improvement over his first Tunnelers run back in December where he ran by half the tunnels. The big lessons of this run were that I need to be more patient and I'm woefully out of shape.
NADAC always seems to have some weird new thing going on and this time for me it was hoops on the Weavers course and 24" spaced weave poles. I wasn't overly worried about either mostly because we were there for practice. The first hoop was the first obstacle on course so I didn't want to lead out since I wasn't sure if Strum would try to run around it. He ran through it no problem but this put me further behind than I would have liked and lead to some less than desireable handling. The other hoop was in the flow of the course and I ran him in a path straight for it and he went through it no problem. The 24" poles were no problem either. He had a nice run, the only mistake being a run-by on a set of weaves. I called him back to me and reset him in the poles and still with all that wasted time he managed a Q and 3rd place out of 14 dogs.
His Jumpers run on Saturday was nice but with a wide turn and a refusal at the last jump. I was far behind on a straight run of jumps and he stopped right in front of the last jump. I caught up and sent him over and despite the wasted time he still managed a Q and his first 1st place out of 12 dogs. I was surprised by that because in NADAC you usually have to be tight to get a good placement especially in Novice because the courses are so easy and few people fault.
Of course I don't have his clean runs on video but oh well. There's some bonus footage at the very end of Teddy, one of my favorite dogs and our Trigility teammate from DOCNA Champs. The person filming me happened to catch some footage of him walking to the line. I hope his owner doesn't mind but Teddy is the coolest, I couldn't bear to cut him out.
No Q in Tunnelers either but it was another nice run. I was almost through the course and I got too far ahead of him and he wasn't clear on which end of the next tunnel I wanted and just my luck he guessed the wrong end. Don't ask me how I managed to get ahead of him on a blazing fast Tunnelers course. At that moment someone yelled 'Go Elayne' (they were cheering everyone on at the end) and I was distracted and went forward too quickly when I should have hung back a bit. Normally I don't notice the crowd at all, not sure why I was distracted but I'll have to remember to stay focused on the task at hand next time. Still I was pleased with his run, a huge improvement over his first Tunnelers run back in December where he ran by half the tunnels. The big lessons of this run were that I need to be more patient and I'm woefully out of shape.
NADAC always seems to have some weird new thing going on and this time for me it was hoops on the Weavers course and 24" spaced weave poles. I wasn't overly worried about either mostly because we were there for practice. The first hoop was the first obstacle on course so I didn't want to lead out since I wasn't sure if Strum would try to run around it. He ran through it no problem but this put me further behind than I would have liked and lead to some less than desireable handling. The other hoop was in the flow of the course and I ran him in a path straight for it and he went through it no problem. The 24" poles were no problem either. He had a nice run, the only mistake being a run-by on a set of weaves. I called him back to me and reset him in the poles and still with all that wasted time he managed a Q and 3rd place out of 14 dogs.
His Jumpers run on Saturday was nice but with a wide turn and a refusal at the last jump. I was far behind on a straight run of jumps and he stopped right in front of the last jump. I caught up and sent him over and despite the wasted time he still managed a Q and his first 1st place out of 12 dogs. I was surprised by that because in NADAC you usually have to be tight to get a good placement especially in Novice because the courses are so easy and few people fault.
Of course I don't have his clean runs on video but oh well. There's some bonus footage at the very end of Teddy, one of my favorite dogs and our Trigility teammate from DOCNA Champs. The person filming me happened to catch some footage of him walking to the line. I hope his owner doesn't mind but Teddy is the coolest, I couldn't bear to cut him out.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Running Dogwalk
I've got some video of one of Strummer's practice sessions on the full dogwalk. The heading on the video is wrong, it says 9/12 hits and that not all runs are shown. Those were the stats for an earlier practice session, this one was 5/7 hits and all runs are shown in the video. The quality is not great and the background is distracting but there was nothing I could do since the fence was too close to the other side of the dogwalk so I couldn't shoot facing the other way. This is more of a documentation for myself of where we're at in the training process but maybe it's helpful to someone who doesn't mind crappy video so I'll share it.
Had another practice session yesterday after a little break for the weekend trial and recovery thereof. Results were 7/11, not so great. The pattern seems to be that he misses the early reps then realizes, huh, that's not working for me and he goes back to doing it right which to me means he's still very much in the learning process. He did have one of the worst leaps ever though from the top 3rd of the downside plank. Usually when he misses he still gets a back leg in or he just misses the top of the yellow with his front feet, he doesn't usually deliberately launch from the top of the plank (that's Cody's specialty). My guess is that something distracted him though hard to say. So far it's an anomoly so I'm not going to worry about it too much unless I see it cropping up again.
We're going to a fun match up at Power Pups again this weekend and since he was 100% on the dogwalk up there last time we went I'm going to try doing it in a sequence. I'll also take Lola up there to work on her table. Should be fun, it's supposed to be 60 degrees, hopefully I can get some biking in too. Crazy weather for February.
Had another practice session yesterday after a little break for the weekend trial and recovery thereof. Results were 7/11, not so great. The pattern seems to be that he misses the early reps then realizes, huh, that's not working for me and he goes back to doing it right which to me means he's still very much in the learning process. He did have one of the worst leaps ever though from the top 3rd of the downside plank. Usually when he misses he still gets a back leg in or he just misses the top of the yellow with his front feet, he doesn't usually deliberately launch from the top of the plank (that's Cody's specialty). My guess is that something distracted him though hard to say. So far it's an anomoly so I'm not going to worry about it too much unless I see it cropping up again.
We're going to a fun match up at Power Pups again this weekend and since he was 100% on the dogwalk up there last time we went I'm going to try doing it in a sequence. I'll also take Lola up there to work on her table. Should be fun, it's supposed to be 60 degrees, hopefully I can get some biking in too. Crazy weather for February.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Running Dogwalk Practice
I shot some video of our last practice before I left for Chicago. Plank/table at 4' in the backyard. The first session was his worst ever in the backyard but somewhat typical of what I see out at the practice field when he's having a bad day-8/14 hits (45%). Second session was a few hours later and that was more typical of what I've been seeing in the yard-10/10 (100%). The only explanation I can come up with for the difference is that the plank was set high on the table for the first session. He had to get on it from the side and I'm guessing it threw off his striding. I lowered the plank for the second session and he was able to manage a more straight on approach. The bad part is that his approach shouldn't matter, he should adjust his stride to hit the bottom no matter where he hits the top. I'm hoping he'll catch on eventually with enough reps but this part of the lesson seems to be eluding him. The more hopeful possibility is that he learned what he was supposed to do from the first session because of all the failures. The good news is that he's not jumping, I suppose that's something. I'm going to start backchaining the 4' dogwalk out at the practice field when I get back. Will be interesting to see how the first few sessions go after the short break.
There was an interesting discussion on Facebook's running contact group about the notion of a rotary gallop. The idea is that if a dog is doing a rotary gallop across the dogwalk he will hit the yellow. I've been looking very closely at the video, frame by frame on my t.v. and it looks to me like Strum's doing a transverse gallop but it's so hard to see with the quality of the video and my VCR. I'm going to see if I can get some still photos. I'm not sure if the distinction between tranverse and rotary is important. In any case Strum is doing the same gait down the plank when he hits and when he misses and he has one hit where he's doing some weird combination of gaits. It's impossible for me to distinguish his gait when he's running anyway so it's not something I can select for in training but it's interesting to look at after the fact. Yeah, I know, I'm a geek.
There was an interesting discussion on Facebook's running contact group about the notion of a rotary gallop. The idea is that if a dog is doing a rotary gallop across the dogwalk he will hit the yellow. I've been looking very closely at the video, frame by frame on my t.v. and it looks to me like Strum's doing a transverse gallop but it's so hard to see with the quality of the video and my VCR. I'm going to see if I can get some still photos. I'm not sure if the distinction between tranverse and rotary is important. In any case Strum is doing the same gait down the plank when he hits and when he misses and he has one hit where he's doing some weird combination of gaits. It's impossible for me to distinguish his gait when he's running anyway so it's not something I can select for in training but it's interesting to look at after the fact. Yeah, I know, I'm a geek.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Strummer's First Trial
First off can I say what an awesome husband I have? He came to the trial at 2:00 to videotape us and cheer us on. We didn't have our Tunnelers run until around 4:40 and our Jumpers run was at 6:40. Now he likes watching agility and was especially keen to see Strummer's debut but he doesn't love it that much that he wants to sit around for over 4 1/2 hours to watch less than a minute of Strummer in the ring, especially when they turned the heat off at 5:00 and it got so cold he was shivering and he had hardly eaten all day, etc. Heck, I don't love agility that much either.
The highlight of the trial for me was Strummer's behavior. I worked so hard on that and yesterday it paid off. He had absolutely no problems around the crowds of other dogs, had wonderful focus on me, no lunging at the dogs in the ring, nothing even approaching an outburst, what an awesome boy when I think about how far he's come. I realized I need to teach him a few more tricks and improve on the ones I've already taught him so he has more to do while he's warming up and waiting his turn.
His first run was Tunnelers and it was a bit wild. He had a zillion run-bys, not entirely sure why. On the one hand you could argue that we never practice a whole course of just tunnels so maybe he was confused but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it was something with my handling. I was mad at myself afterwards for having him go back and redo every tunnel that he missed. My plan, as it always is, was to keep going if he missed a tunnel, not sure what gremlins took my brains hostage and made me do otherwise. Honestly I could care less about a novice tunnelers Q. I'm not sure how much NADAC we'll end up doing anyway, I only signed up for this trial because it was 20 minutes from my house at the arena where Strum takes classes and goes to practice run-throughs so I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to get some trial experience. And it was.
After that crazy Tunnelers run I was determined we were going to do better in Jumpers. The course was easy, no side changes for the way I chose to handle it and only one trap. He had a beautiful fast run and I had a stupid timing error with my handling, pulling him off a jump. At least I was early with my cue and not late but in essence I ended up calling him off a jump he was supposed to take. Poor guy did it too, he's such a good boy. I felt terrible about confusing him. Highlight of the run was his recall to heel on a 3 jump lead out. We've practiced this a zillion times with 1 or 2 jumps but not so much with 3. He collected perfectly and had a nice turn. What a nice startline stay too, I was most nervous about that. He broke his stay at the warm-up jump a couple of times which was unusual, I think I've been careless about pairing too much motion with my arm and his verbal release. He was solid in the ring for both runs but I'll have to proof that stay a bit more so there's no confusion in his mind.
I thought his jumping looked nice for a baby dog, no ticked or knocked bars and nice take-off and landing points for most of the jumps. Still I think I need to work more jumping drills. I've been slacking off of those lately because of the focus on weave pole training. I hate to work him on too many strenuous things at once.
I didn't hang around to find out what his placement was but even with the 4 seconds lost to the refusal he was 6 seconds under course time. Technically it was a Q because NADAC doesn't charge refusals but again I don't care all that much and it didn't feel like it should have been one. Didn't even think to pick up his Q ribbon. Jonny thought I should have since it was his first but oh well. It would have ended up lost in a pile somewhere anyway.
Poor guy was exhausted when we finally got home. I'd taken him and Cody for a 3 mile walk/run in the morning before the trial. I left him in the car rather than bother with a crate inside where it was noisy and crowded but I have no idea how much he rested. He seemed calm enough when I went to get him out of the car but who knows if he slept any.
Can't wait for our next trial, he's a kick in the pants to run. I signed him up for a DOCNA trial at the same venue in February. Not sure if his contacts will be ready for the ring but I figure we can run past them if we have to. I'm more interested in getting some ring experience at this point and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to do it at a laid back one ring trial on his home turf.
The highlight of the trial for me was Strummer's behavior. I worked so hard on that and yesterday it paid off. He had absolutely no problems around the crowds of other dogs, had wonderful focus on me, no lunging at the dogs in the ring, nothing even approaching an outburst, what an awesome boy when I think about how far he's come. I realized I need to teach him a few more tricks and improve on the ones I've already taught him so he has more to do while he's warming up and waiting his turn.
His first run was Tunnelers and it was a bit wild. He had a zillion run-bys, not entirely sure why. On the one hand you could argue that we never practice a whole course of just tunnels so maybe he was confused but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it was something with my handling. I was mad at myself afterwards for having him go back and redo every tunnel that he missed. My plan, as it always is, was to keep going if he missed a tunnel, not sure what gremlins took my brains hostage and made me do otherwise. Honestly I could care less about a novice tunnelers Q. I'm not sure how much NADAC we'll end up doing anyway, I only signed up for this trial because it was 20 minutes from my house at the arena where Strum takes classes and goes to practice run-throughs so I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to get some trial experience. And it was.
After that crazy Tunnelers run I was determined we were going to do better in Jumpers. The course was easy, no side changes for the way I chose to handle it and only one trap. He had a beautiful fast run and I had a stupid timing error with my handling, pulling him off a jump. At least I was early with my cue and not late but in essence I ended up calling him off a jump he was supposed to take. Poor guy did it too, he's such a good boy. I felt terrible about confusing him. Highlight of the run was his recall to heel on a 3 jump lead out. We've practiced this a zillion times with 1 or 2 jumps but not so much with 3. He collected perfectly and had a nice turn. What a nice startline stay too, I was most nervous about that. He broke his stay at the warm-up jump a couple of times which was unusual, I think I've been careless about pairing too much motion with my arm and his verbal release. He was solid in the ring for both runs but I'll have to proof that stay a bit more so there's no confusion in his mind.
I thought his jumping looked nice for a baby dog, no ticked or knocked bars and nice take-off and landing points for most of the jumps. Still I think I need to work more jumping drills. I've been slacking off of those lately because of the focus on weave pole training. I hate to work him on too many strenuous things at once.
I didn't hang around to find out what his placement was but even with the 4 seconds lost to the refusal he was 6 seconds under course time. Technically it was a Q because NADAC doesn't charge refusals but again I don't care all that much and it didn't feel like it should have been one. Didn't even think to pick up his Q ribbon. Jonny thought I should have since it was his first but oh well. It would have ended up lost in a pile somewhere anyway.
Poor guy was exhausted when we finally got home. I'd taken him and Cody for a 3 mile walk/run in the morning before the trial. I left him in the car rather than bother with a crate inside where it was noisy and crowded but I have no idea how much he rested. He seemed calm enough when I went to get him out of the car but who knows if he slept any.
Can't wait for our next trial, he's a kick in the pants to run. I signed him up for a DOCNA trial at the same venue in February. Not sure if his contacts will be ready for the ring but I figure we can run past them if we have to. I'm more interested in getting some ring experience at this point and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to do it at a laid back one ring trial on his home turf.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Crazy Dog Lady Fashions Presents...
I went a little crazy this weekend with the running dogwalk practice/video thing. On Saturday I decided to try Strummer out on the full dogwalk lowered to 2'. He had a great week in the yard with the 22" table, the reps went something like 20/21, 24/26, 30/30, 28/30 all with the treat gizmo for reward so I figured I wasn't pushing him hard enough and that the 24" table wouldn't be much of a challenge. I was so sure I'd have rave reviews of his first time on a full lowered dogwalk but I'm afraid the results were dismal. 1/9 hits (11%) (one was iffy and I didn't count it) and I rewarded 3 of those misses though one was the iffy one. Luckily my timing with my clicks was way off for the misses and good for the one hit but that's about the only positive thing to say about the training session. Well that and his speed. How awesome will his dogwalk be when I finally get it right? The clicks for the misses were probably late because I wasn't sure and decided to reward in the end. Jonny shot some video for me and I feel obliged to post it even though the results are not at all what I wanted. But it's important to document the bad stuff as well as the good. The best part of the video is the start where my snarky husband says, 'This video brought to you by Crazy Dog Lady Fashions'. Unfortunately this is a common dog outfit for me for winter and in fact it gets worse. I knew it was bad but I didn't realize it was quite that bad. It was snowing while I was taping so every once in a while there's a white streak on the video, couldn't do much about that.
Saturday's training session w/ the full lowered dogwalk:
Yesterday's performance was still bugging me today so I decided to run Strum back to the field to try some backchaining. I'm not sure if he was having problems because he still doesn't understand the concept of adjusting his stride to hit the yellow zone or if he understands but couldn't figure out how to control himself to do it. He's so fast and big strided, there's little room for error. Or maybe he simply didn't generalize the idea of the plank/table set-up at home to the dogwalk at the practice field. I've worked the plank/table set-up at the practice field but not all that often and not recently that I can remember. I put the table next to the up side of the down ramp so he had a way to get up on the dogwalk and I tried some reps. Then I gradually moved the table back so he would have more of a running start. The further back the table went, the worse his results. I made a big mistake of doing way too many reps. I should have stopped at 15, his success rate would have been 14/16 (89%). Instead I did a whopping 34 reps for a final tally of 21/34 (62%). The good news was that my timing with my clicks was much improved and I only rewarded one miss (by mistake of course). Toward the end of the session when he was starting from further back and having more misses I decided to move him closer so he could have some success and he did. I didn't have the patience to edit 7 minutes worth of training video so I included the reps at the beginning of the session and the end. It's mostly to document the process so I don't feel like I need every single rep recorded for posterity.
On a positive note, his weave entry training is coming along really well. I don't like to work him 2 days in a row on weaves but as we were leaving I couldn't resist doing just a few reps and he was perfect, getting entries that were plaguing him at the beginning of the week and flying through a set of 12 poles after a tunnel. Whee.
The other people that train at the field must think I'm crazy because I was leaving at 10 am with Cody & Lola when they arrived then returned again at around 12:30 just as they were leaving. I took Team Old School out there in the morning to do the weave and contact exercises that were set up. They did fairly well, no missed contacts at all (maybe some dogwalk ups, I wasn't paying attention to that) and I think only 1 or 2 missed weave entries per dog. It was cloudy and nice and cold-low 30's I'd guess-and the dogs were running wild. Fast, happy, excited hyperpants dogs, I love winter agility. I was overdressed in that puffy vest and sweating by the end of it. Now if only the serious snow will hold off for another few weeks so I can get that darn dogwalk perfected.
Saturday's training session w/ the full lowered dogwalk:
Yesterday's performance was still bugging me today so I decided to run Strum back to the field to try some backchaining. I'm not sure if he was having problems because he still doesn't understand the concept of adjusting his stride to hit the yellow zone or if he understands but couldn't figure out how to control himself to do it. He's so fast and big strided, there's little room for error. Or maybe he simply didn't generalize the idea of the plank/table set-up at home to the dogwalk at the practice field. I've worked the plank/table set-up at the practice field but not all that often and not recently that I can remember. I put the table next to the up side of the down ramp so he had a way to get up on the dogwalk and I tried some reps. Then I gradually moved the table back so he would have more of a running start. The further back the table went, the worse his results. I made a big mistake of doing way too many reps. I should have stopped at 15, his success rate would have been 14/16 (89%). Instead I did a whopping 34 reps for a final tally of 21/34 (62%). The good news was that my timing with my clicks was much improved and I only rewarded one miss (by mistake of course). Toward the end of the session when he was starting from further back and having more misses I decided to move him closer so he could have some success and he did. I didn't have the patience to edit 7 minutes worth of training video so I included the reps at the beginning of the session and the end. It's mostly to document the process so I don't feel like I need every single rep recorded for posterity.
On a positive note, his weave entry training is coming along really well. I don't like to work him 2 days in a row on weaves but as we were leaving I couldn't resist doing just a few reps and he was perfect, getting entries that were plaguing him at the beginning of the week and flying through a set of 12 poles after a tunnel. Whee.
The other people that train at the field must think I'm crazy because I was leaving at 10 am with Cody & Lola when they arrived then returned again at around 12:30 just as they were leaving. I took Team Old School out there in the morning to do the weave and contact exercises that were set up. They did fairly well, no missed contacts at all (maybe some dogwalk ups, I wasn't paying attention to that) and I think only 1 or 2 missed weave entries per dog. It was cloudy and nice and cold-low 30's I'd guess-and the dogs were running wild. Fast, happy, excited hyperpants dogs, I love winter agility. I was overdressed in that puffy vest and sweating by the end of it. Now if only the serious snow will hold off for another few weeks so I can get that darn dogwalk perfected.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Running Dogwalk, 11-22-2008
Finally had a chance to shoot some video. Light was terrible in my yard at that hour and I had to shoot from that weird angle or I'd be shooting into the sun but oh well. I started out the session as normal with the treat gizmo and he was 12 hits/13 reps, 92% (missed the 5th rep). Then I put the gizmo away and put his tug under the flower pot. I mixed in some reps where I had the toy on me. He was 8/9, 89% (missed the first rep, definitely overexcited) for the toy under flower pot and 6/6, 100% for the toy on me (32/34, 94% for the whole session). BUT he was looking at me for all but one of each type of toy rep. Of the reps where he was looking at me with the flower pot/tug for reward he was looking at me at the very end of the board for 7/7. Of the reps where he was looking at me and I had the toy on me he was looking at me as he was coming down the board for 4/5, looked at me at the end of the board for 1/5. None of this is terribly surprising but it's interesting to see it all broken down into numbers, at least for me. The moral of the story is that he's going to look at me if I use a toy. I imagine if I use the flower pot/toy more often he'll start looking ahead again but then I have the same problem of fading it away. One answer is to stop rewarding the hits unless he's looking/running forward. But I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it, it's taken me so long to get that hit at the bottom. On the other hand I fear we'll never progress if I don't up the ante a bit. The other option is to add a jump or tunnel after the plank and reward him after that and I like that option a lot better but the problem is that I have no more room in my yard, I can only do it out at the practice field. So I'm back to thinking that maybe I'll stick with the treat gizmo for 2 more weeks and wait until he's solid on the low dogwalk before I worry about proofing and fading the gizmo. At some point I'll have to work on proofing/fading in the yard too just to get enough reps in but I'll start out at the field where my options are more practical.
Here's the video. Feel free to 'tsk tsk' all you want at my late clicks, wow my timing was bad for some of those. I need to tape more often so I can keep tabs on any bad habits I'm getting into.
Here's the video. Feel free to 'tsk tsk' all you want at my late clicks, wow my timing was bad for some of those. I need to tape more often so I can keep tabs on any bad habits I'm getting into.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
DOCNA Champs Video-Day 2 and Finals
Finally got the rest of the DOCNA video uploaded. I know, you've all been watching the video from USDAA Nationals and here I come along with video of my vet dogs and amateurish handling. Oh well, at least my music is way better. Who's in charge of the music at USDAA Nationals anyway? Awful!!! Sorry, but it is appallingly bad. Subjecting an entire stadium full of people and who knows how many people on the web to Alphaville's 'Forever Young' at the end of the Veteran's Showcase was cruel and unusual punishment and wrong on so many levels. And don't even get me going about 'Luka', one of the worst songs ever and a terrible ear worm. Nothing says 'Congratulations on winning USDAA Nationals' like a horrid soppy ballad about child abuse. That gets stuck in your head for your long drive home.
Anyway, where was I now? Oh yes, my own videos. Course maps are here if you want to follow along. First up is the North American Challenge which is DOCNA's version of USDAA's Grand Prix. Lola's run was clean and went well except for the part where I got lost for a moment and nearly sent her up an off course A-frame. Cody's run is pure comedy. Or tragedy. Depends how you look at it. He starts off by popping out of the weaves at 10 then I over rotate my shoulders and send him into an off course tunnel. After that he's running wild, flying leap off the dogwalk, runs behind me to take an off course jump at the serpentine then completely bypasses the A-frame.
Next we have Day 2 Standard and Jumpers. Cody's Standard run is not bad aside from popping the weaves again and a few wide turns esp. on a turn after the A-frame. It's clean anyway and combined with his Day 1 run it's good enough for 2nd place and to get him into the Finals. Lola's run is both blurry (camera malfunction) and a bit problematic at the start. She's not at all happy with my handling of the tricky opening and has some words for me. Once I get her going though the rest of the run is nice and clean. No refusals in DOCNA and the vet course times are very generous.
Cody's Jumpers run is so nice except for a botched front cross at the start that somehow sends him over the wrong side of a jump. If not for that he would have made the Finals. Oh well, a nice run anyway. Lola's Jumpers run is clean but on the slow side. I barely got her off of the start line because she was freaking out over a dog in the practice area which was right next to the start line. Poor thing but she got over it and did the run though not with as much speed or confidence as I would have liked. Still, can't complain about a clean run especially when it looked like she wasn't going to run at all.
Oh and they made us wear those tie dyed shirts. Tie dye is not normally my thing and I thought I'd be horribly embarrassed having to wear it but the shirts were actually pretty nice and I've even worn it since of my own accord. In front of friends no less. They were shocked and teased me mercilessly but oh well, I gotta be me.
Finally here are the runs from Day 3 Finals. Lola's runs were both clean and very nice. Was thrilled to pieces with her. Cody took an off course yellow tunnel in Standard but otherwise was running with a happy enthusiasm that I could hardly be upset about.
Next DOCNA trial is in February with the same judge we had at Nationals which I'm very happy about, she was a great judge. Also should be Strummer's first 'real' trial if I can get his contacts down by then. Better stop typing and get back to training.
Anyway, where was I now? Oh yes, my own videos. Course maps are here if you want to follow along. First up is the North American Challenge which is DOCNA's version of USDAA's Grand Prix. Lola's run was clean and went well except for the part where I got lost for a moment and nearly sent her up an off course A-frame. Cody's run is pure comedy. Or tragedy. Depends how you look at it. He starts off by popping out of the weaves at 10 then I over rotate my shoulders and send him into an off course tunnel. After that he's running wild, flying leap off the dogwalk, runs behind me to take an off course jump at the serpentine then completely bypasses the A-frame.
Next we have Day 2 Standard and Jumpers. Cody's Standard run is not bad aside from popping the weaves again and a few wide turns esp. on a turn after the A-frame. It's clean anyway and combined with his Day 1 run it's good enough for 2nd place and to get him into the Finals. Lola's run is both blurry (camera malfunction) and a bit problematic at the start. She's not at all happy with my handling of the tricky opening and has some words for me. Once I get her going though the rest of the run is nice and clean. No refusals in DOCNA and the vet course times are very generous.
Cody's Jumpers run is so nice except for a botched front cross at the start that somehow sends him over the wrong side of a jump. If not for that he would have made the Finals. Oh well, a nice run anyway. Lola's Jumpers run is clean but on the slow side. I barely got her off of the start line because she was freaking out over a dog in the practice area which was right next to the start line. Poor thing but she got over it and did the run though not with as much speed or confidence as I would have liked. Still, can't complain about a clean run especially when it looked like she wasn't going to run at all.
Oh and they made us wear those tie dyed shirts. Tie dye is not normally my thing and I thought I'd be horribly embarrassed having to wear it but the shirts were actually pretty nice and I've even worn it since of my own accord. In front of friends no less. They were shocked and teased me mercilessly but oh well, I gotta be me.
Finally here are the runs from Day 3 Finals. Lola's runs were both clean and very nice. Was thrilled to pieces with her. Cody took an off course yellow tunnel in Standard but otherwise was running with a happy enthusiasm that I could hardly be upset about.
Next DOCNA trial is in February with the same judge we had at Nationals which I'm very happy about, she was a great judge. Also should be Strummer's first 'real' trial if I can get his contacts down by then. Better stop typing and get back to training.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Video from DOCNA Champs, Day 1
Finally some more video from DOCNA Champs. Here's Day 1 Standard and Jumpers for both dogs and Gamblers for Cody. His Gamblers run wasn't all that stellar and for the gamble when I tried sending him back out to the jump he retook the tunnel instead and then did the gamble perfectly. I only included the video because he looked so happy and pleased with himself at the end of his run.
Cody had a nice Jumpers run. Lola stopped to sniff somewhere along the way and initially I thought it was because I'd stressed her out with an ill-timed rear cross. However when I transferred the video onto video tape and watched it on t.v. on a bigger screen I realized there was a dog running in the warm-up area right near where she stopped. I also realized that the following day when she didn't want to leave the start line for her Jumpers run there was also a dog running in the warm-up area right next to the start line. I'd initially thought she was tired and had had enough since her run was around 6:00 p.m. For some reason that warm-up area and having to run while other dogs were running in it freaked her out. She's fine at the practice field with other loose dogs running courses on other parts of the field but I guess this was way different for her somehow. She's such a sensitive little girl considering what a bossy loud mouth she is at home.
The tricky part of the Standard course for me was the opening. Lola had a bad tire crash at a USDAA show some years ago and I can't lead out on the tire or she runs past it so I had to run with her and front cross. Most people did some kind of lead out. Cody broke his stay so I couldn't even get the front cross in for him. I had to run with him and do a rear cross which worked out fine. I've been experimenting with front crosses at a serpentine instead of staying on one side for a proper serp and I'm not sure I liked that option for this course. Lola had some wide turns but maybe this is a timing issue with my handling (was late with the front crosses). This is a handling system thing, not sure I agree with it for the older dogs who have no trouble with serps but we'll see how it goes with Strummer. Nothing like experimenting with handling at Champs, like wearing a brand new pair of running shoes on marathon race day.
Course maps are posted here or just scroll down a wee bit too see them, I'm too tired to repost them.
Cody had a nice Jumpers run. Lola stopped to sniff somewhere along the way and initially I thought it was because I'd stressed her out with an ill-timed rear cross. However when I transferred the video onto video tape and watched it on t.v. on a bigger screen I realized there was a dog running in the warm-up area right near where she stopped. I also realized that the following day when she didn't want to leave the start line for her Jumpers run there was also a dog running in the warm-up area right next to the start line. I'd initially thought she was tired and had had enough since her run was around 6:00 p.m. For some reason that warm-up area and having to run while other dogs were running in it freaked her out. She's fine at the practice field with other loose dogs running courses on other parts of the field but I guess this was way different for her somehow. She's such a sensitive little girl considering what a bossy loud mouth she is at home.
The tricky part of the Standard course for me was the opening. Lola had a bad tire crash at a USDAA show some years ago and I can't lead out on the tire or she runs past it so I had to run with her and front cross. Most people did some kind of lead out. Cody broke his stay so I couldn't even get the front cross in for him. I had to run with him and do a rear cross which worked out fine. I've been experimenting with front crosses at a serpentine instead of staying on one side for a proper serp and I'm not sure I liked that option for this course. Lola had some wide turns but maybe this is a timing issue with my handling (was late with the front crosses). This is a handling system thing, not sure I agree with it for the older dogs who have no trouble with serps but we'll see how it goes with Strummer. Nothing like experimenting with handling at Champs, like wearing a brand new pair of running shoes on marathon race day.
Course maps are posted here or just scroll down a wee bit too see them, I'm too tired to repost them.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
DOCNA Champs Warm-Up Trial
Another disappointing hike in Prescott National Forest at Lynx Lake this morning, just 1 1/2 miles because Cody launched a protest right at the start. I felt like he needed some kind of minimal exercise and the other dogs certainly needed something but I fretted over whether he was injured or would be too tired for his agility run later in the day or whether his pads were sore from walking on the rocks or or or. . . Yes, I know, I'm neurotic, worry worry worry.
Today was a warm-up trial for DOCNA Championships. It was a real trial, not a fun match type thing, and the Q's counted towards titles. I only entered the dogs in standard so they could get a feel for the ring and equipment but not fry themselves out with 4 days of agility in a row. The course had a few challenge areas, both of them coming out of the straight yellow tunnel under the A-frame. I handled Lola with a blind cross after the first pass through the tunnel and that didn't work so great. I botched the cross and got in her way but she pulled it off, just. I suppose if I'm going to do blind crosses in trials I should actually practice them now and again. I did a rear cross for Cody and it worked nicely. I'm not sure it would have worked so well for Lola, I've been having problems with them in situations like that and we need some practice. The second pass through the tunnel was a horse race if you couldn't do a turn off the A-frame into the tunnel without some distance which I can't with Cody. We practiced this very thing before Champs because I knew it would come up but there's only so much I can do with a 10 year old dog. It was a struggle to get him in the tunnel and when I finally did I realized how far behind I'd be when he came out and swore to myself under my breath-right in front of the judge. Doh. I hoped she wouldn't call it, I was quiet and swearing at myself, not the dog who was in the tunnel at the time but still you never know how a judge will react. After his run I saw her consulting with the woman running the trial and I thought 'oh great' but as it turned out they were talking about something else and she didn't call me on it. Phew. Let's see if I can keep my potty mouth under control for the rest of the trial though. That would be a good plan. Both dogs ended up with fast, clean runs and first places though Lola was the only dog in her class (20" vet) and Cody had only 4 dogs or so in his class (16" vet). I was really happy with how they were running, especially Lola who was 20 seconds under course time. If they run like that for the rest of Champs I'll be thrilled. Tomorrow is a full day, better get some rest.
Today was a warm-up trial for DOCNA Championships. It was a real trial, not a fun match type thing, and the Q's counted towards titles. I only entered the dogs in standard so they could get a feel for the ring and equipment but not fry themselves out with 4 days of agility in a row. The course had a few challenge areas, both of them coming out of the straight yellow tunnel under the A-frame. I handled Lola with a blind cross after the first pass through the tunnel and that didn't work so great. I botched the cross and got in her way but she pulled it off, just. I suppose if I'm going to do blind crosses in trials I should actually practice them now and again. I did a rear cross for Cody and it worked nicely. I'm not sure it would have worked so well for Lola, I've been having problems with them in situations like that and we need some practice. The second pass through the tunnel was a horse race if you couldn't do a turn off the A-frame into the tunnel without some distance which I can't with Cody. We practiced this very thing before Champs because I knew it would come up but there's only so much I can do with a 10 year old dog. It was a struggle to get him in the tunnel and when I finally did I realized how far behind I'd be when he came out and swore to myself under my breath-right in front of the judge. Doh. I hoped she wouldn't call it, I was quiet and swearing at myself, not the dog who was in the tunnel at the time but still you never know how a judge will react. After his run I saw her consulting with the woman running the trial and I thought 'oh great' but as it turned out they were talking about something else and she didn't call me on it. Phew. Let's see if I can keep my potty mouth under control for the rest of the trial though. That would be a good plan. Both dogs ended up with fast, clean runs and first places though Lola was the only dog in her class (20" vet) and Cody had only 4 dogs or so in his class (16" vet). I was really happy with how they were running, especially Lola who was 20 seconds under course time. If they run like that for the rest of Champs I'll be thrilled. Tomorrow is a full day, better get some rest.
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