Flipping Out in the Backyard

I've not been doing much backyard training lately because my yard is very small and only good for working on foundation type behaviors and we're at a point where training sequences is more important.  I've found that with a fast, big strided dog the backyard foundation stuff is not enough, I need to take it to somewhere where he can stretch out and run and learn to execute the obstacles at speed, especially the weave poles.

However I do want to participate in Blog Action Day and after last weekend's DOCNA trial which had many dogwalk - 180 degree turn to tunnel scenarios, I had a few people asking about Strummer's flips with the running dogwalk.  He was 5/5 with that dogwalk/tunnel scenario at this trial and you can see a few of his runs in the post below.

So I thought I'd re-post the backyard portion of the training I did for that.  I also have posts about taking it to the full dogwalk and you can find those by clicking on the 'running dogwalk' label and looking around October 2010 or so.  The following are 2 posts from October 2010.

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I've been on a mission to get the 180 degree flip from dogwalk to tunnel on a verbal.  I thought I mostly had it but DOCNA Champs showed me that oh no I don't.

Even though I have a practice tunnel I decided to use a plastic lawn chair for him to run around because for one I could get in a lot more reps without having to wait for him to run through the tunnel and also because it's a wider turn and easier on his body.  In theory anyway.  That silly dog refuses to have any respect at all for his body no matter how I try to help him.

I've been working with the chairs for a few days now, several quick sessions a day and it took a good 3 days before he seemed to have any clue as to what I wanted.  After he failed for the third time in a row I'd give him some physical cues to help him then take them away and he'd be back to making mistakes, ie not turning away on the verbal cue and running straight ahead.

Yesterday's last session saw over 80% success though as did this morning's so this afternoon I broke out the tunnel and he's been near perfect.  Sort of.  After watching the video I'm not entirely happy with the performance.  He's not running to the bottom and turning but rather turning before reaching the end and sliding down the plank a bit.  He hits the yellow but if he takes to diving in the tunnel before running through the bottom of the plank he could easily start missing and in fact he did this on the A-frame at Champs.  He wasn't running to the bottom either with the chair and I was rewarding it.  The last rep isn't too bad and part of the problem I think is that I need to repaint/resand my contacts.  Glad I finally shot some video before I got too far along.

Some of the reps were straight ahead runs to a jump that was off screen.  My camera doesn't zoom out far enough to catch all the action and my yard is so small I can't place it farther away.  I had a lot of reps go straight because I don't want him learning to automatically dive into a tunnel whenever he sees one under the dogwalk.  He was starting to do that last summer.

Though I want the turn on a verbal I have been helping him out by remaining stopped and facing the side of the dogwalk towards the way I want him to turn when there's a turn and facing straight and moving forward when I want him to go straight.  If I want him to turn towards me I call his name and face the direction I want him to turn and indicate with an arm.  I'll get some video of that.  I didn't think he was having problems with that but now I want to see for myself on video what's going on.



Dogwalk Turns 10-2-2010 from colliebrains on Vimeo.

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After some thought I decided to try using the prop of the pole to help Strum run all the way to the bottom before turning.  As I said in the comments on a post below I'm not fond of props and this is largely because I'm so crap at both using them and fading them.  I don't have a lot of faith in them either so I avoid them for the most part.  But I thought I'd take the opportunity to learn how to use them.  I wanted to use the running dogwalk experiment to improve my training techniques and here is one that could use some improvement.  Well, you can see from the videos below how that worked out.  In short, the pole only seemed to confuse and cause leaps and jumping off the side early to avoid it.  So after giving it the good old college try for a grand total of 2 days/training sessions I said adios to the prop. and the next session I had perfect turns.  I did have a training session on the A-frame/tunnel with my training partner but the mechanics of that turn is very different from the dogwalk.  Still it probably helped some.


Monday's session with the pole



DOGWALK TURNS 10-4-2010 AFTERNOON from colliebrains on Vimeo.


I had a theory that he was cueing off my lack of motion and shoulder position (ie facing the direction I wanted him to turn) rather than the verbal so I tried running forward and saying 'turn' and sure enough he went forward the first time.  I tried it again with a little less forward motion and he surprised me by taking the turn.  Maybe he is learning the verbal after all.


Tuesday's session with the pole

DOGWALK TURNS 10-5-2010 from colliebrains on Vimeo.


This session saw even more goofiness with the pole.  After that I decided I'd leave the poles to the strippers and figure out something else for next session.


Tuesday evening I met at my training partner's house to practice teaching verbal discriminations and turns for the A-frame/tunnel.  He was 100% with his turning cue, even with some forward motion on my part.  He was not 100% on his verbal for the tunnel vs A-frame so I helped him out with some physical cues but by the end I think he was starting to get the idea.  Verbals are hard, it'll take a lot more work but what I saw was encouraging.  I still question his ability to ever learn to process a verbal that doesn't have some physical cue to back it up during a course when he's flying full speed.  I think where it might work are instances where the physical cue is weak and the verbal will be extra information, like when the dogwalk and tunnel entry are close together and the physical cues to indicate one over the other are subtle and maybe not all that clear, the verbal can help him out.  In theory anyway.  We'll see how it works out in practice.


Wednesday's session, no more pole



DOGWALK TURNS 10-6-2010 from colliebrains on Vimeo.

I cheated a little here and positioned the tunnel opening so it was next to and a bit forward of the dogwalk plank.  This was to encourage him to run all the way down.  I'll inch the tunnel back a bit over more sessions to make sure he doesn't start to dive in from the side given the opportunity.  This session he started anticipating the turn and even turned with forward motion on my part for one rep.  And I rewarded it with a yes!  Next rep he started to do it again then stopped himself.  Third time was a charm and he went forward no problem.  I need to remember to put a lot of forward reps into each session like I did when I was starting out.

This post is part of Dog Agility Blog Action Day.  You can go here to see more posts on Backyard Training.

Almost Perfect DOCNA Weekend

I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful weekend.  Weather was sunny with temps. in the 60's, maybe even 70 on Sunday, a wonderful indoor Farmers/Holiday Market next door to the trial and the little Stinkbutt managed to Q on 8/9 runs, got 8/9 dogwalks and missed only one weave pole entry.  The only run he didn't Q on was Traditional Gamblers and it was a difficult sort of gamble for him, something we don't train and not a lot of people Q'ed anyway.  But he had a fabulous opening and I didn't feel the least bit bad about missing the gamble.  The rest of the runs were focused and fast and fun.  A few handling blips on my part but nothing bad enough to cause an off course (except for an accommodating run I was doing for Trigility).  Not sure what else to say about the weekend other than I was thrilled. 

And I had fabulous homemade tamales on Sat. and crepes on Sun. from the Farmer's Market.  This is one of my favorite trials because I always get a wonderful lunch.  And the bonus of a friend unexpectedly dropping in to watch.  I came out of the ring after one of my Standard runs and there she was.  She had been at the Farmer's Market and saw the dogs warming up outside so she came in the arena building and happened to come in right in the middle of one of our runs.  What are the chances of that?

Somebody else had some big fun too (photo from USDAA Nationals)

There was even a tricky part to one of the Standard courses:

The tricky part was the line of jumps after the #13 tunnel through 18.  I tried to do a perpendicular rear cross between 16 and 17 but I think I rushed it a bit and was too far ahead, stopped too soon and didn't show enough motion for the #17 jump so Strum stalled a bit but he got it eventually.  The only people who I noticed had a smooth run through there were folks with little dogs who put a front in between 16 and 17.  I thought about a front there but didn't like the line it set for 17 to 18 since I'd have to push a bit to get the turn between 16 and 17. 

Jumpers was uneventful.  Yet more pinwheels into pinwheels with a little bit extra challenge provided by a box.

Here's some video of a few runs from Saturday for the course maps shown above.  No video at all from Sunday since I was 2nd-3rd dog on the line all day and didn't have time to ask people to tape me.

DOCNA JUMPERS, STANDARD, SNAKES from colliebrains on Vimeo.


After the embarrassment of riches from the weekend I decided to check Strum's records to see how far we were from his MEX (DOCNA's version of ADCH, MACH, NATCH, etc.).  Last time I checked it seemed like we were half way there, especially in Standard but after this weekend he needs only 1 Gamblers and 4 Standard (requirements are 15 Standard, 10 Gamblers, 10 Jumpers).  Not too bad considering we only did 3 DOCNA trials this year and only 1 day of 1 of those trials.  Our next DOCNA trial is in Feb. and they're only offering 3 Standard classes so even with 100% Q rate we can't finish it then.  The next DOCNA trial I have planned after that isn't until August and the next after that in October so it could easily be another year until he gets his MEX but it's funny to think he's so close.  There are a couple more DOCNA trials in May and July but I wasn't planning on them for various reasons and the MEX isn't enough incentive to get me to go since we're in no hurry.

Final Stats

 Specialist Standard 1 Saturday Q - 1st place

 Specialist Snakes and Ladders Saturday Q - 1st place

Specialist Jumpers Saturday Q-1st place

Specialist Standard 2 Sunday Q - 2nd place

Specialist Standard 3 Sunday Q - 1st place

Specialist Time Gamble Sunday Q - 1st place

Specialist Jumpers Sunday Q-2nd place

Specialist Sunday Trigility Q - 2nd place


Titles

Specialist Jumpers Agility Merit Award (10 Jumpers legs)

Bronze Specialist Trigility Merit Award (earned at last trial in October)


Obstacles

Dogwalks
8/9 (89%)

A-frames
10/10 (100%)

Teeters
9/9 - 100%, though the first one of the day was iffy

Weave pole entries
7/8 (88%), 1 missed entry, my fault, handling error, no pop-outs

1 bar down - my fault, handling error in Gamblers

No off courses (except an accommodating run for Trigility, came over the A-frame and was supposed to flip to a tunnel but put a few paws back on the A-frame before eventually going in the tunnel)

Helpful Tips

Here are a few lessons from this morning's Kangoo boot camp class.

1.  Don't wear your 12 year old sports bra that you normally reserve for dog walking and lawn mowing to Kangoo class.

2.  If you insist on wearing the 12 year old sports bra, don't put it on inside out.

3.  It's best to get up early enough for some pre-workout caffeine (see above).

4.  If it's cold out and you're the only one who shows up and you didn't have time for breakfast and the instructor informs you that she's feeling especially energetic it might end up being a challenging workout.

5.  'Now let's go do some intervals' is not exactly what you're hoping to hear after the Kangoo calisthenic/dance session where your main goal was not to puke on the fancy pants tennis courts.

6.  'One more interval and we're done', are the sweetest words in the English language.

5.  Ooooh my abs.  Because after the dancing/jumping and intervals there's a mile cool down run in regular shoes and an ab workout.

6.  This is maybe not the best idea when you have an agility trial the following day.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.  It was great to have a hard, 1 1/2 hour workout and I love the Kangoo boots and there's no way I would have pushed myself that hard on my own.  Not because I'm unmotivated but because I have a strong sense of self-preservation and don't like to push myself to the edge of puking.  But something about the hyper sped up dance versions of 'Billie Jean' and 'My Sharona' makes you want to keep going, fast as you can.

The best part though is that I'm finally starting to have some rhythm and coordination.  Even the instructor noticed and commented that I'm doing much better than when I first started so it wasn't just in my head.  Though I did have a chat with myself before going to class about acting like I knew what I was doing and not thinking too much about it and that helped a lot.  I'm doing yet another sports hypnotist training right now, can't ever have too many techniques and this instructor has some innovative stuff, and it reminds me that I can do this stuff for myself as well as my clients.

This weekend is a DOCNA trial and sore abs and quads aside, I'm looking forward to it.  I've been practicing regularly twice a week after pretty much taking the entire summer off and I'm starting to see some good results, especially with the weave poles.  So much awesome with the weave poles at both practices this week.  Seemed like we'd turned a corner after a practice session last week.  Probably still a bit of work to be done before I see the improvements in a trial but I'm hopeful for tomorrow.

No ambitious goals for tomorrow, just run and have fun and pretty up those weave pole entries and nice smooth handling.  Haven't been practicing dogwalks, those will be what they will be.  Trial is less than 20 minutes away so I can sleep in but still I'll have to wake up in enough time to get some caffeine.  And I'm throwing out that 12 year old sports bra just to be on the safe side.

USDAA Weekend

The big suspense for this weekend was whether or not we'd get our final Starters leg for our AD title and our ticket out of Starters.  I've been unwilling to spend too much money on Starters games classes, hoping to get our minimum in the games but those Standard legs have been stubborn - a missed dogwalk here, a knocked bar there, so many 5 fault Standard runs.  We had titled out of Gamblers and needed one more Snooker leg so I entered those classes but I didn't want to blow the money on Starters Pairs and Jumpers so only entered 1 class - Standard - on Sunday in case we didn't get the Q on Saturday.  Kind of putting  all our eggs in the Standard basket.  But I was about in tears at the thought of hanging around until the end of the day for Starters Jumpers.

Saturday's Standard course, well, it wasn't looking good for the dogwalk.

The dogwalk and weave poles are our 2 worst obstacles so of course the main challenge to the course is a difficult weave entry off of the dogwalk.  The masters and advanced courses had this same challenge and most everybody struggled with it.  Even many dogs that made the entry struggled to hang on and popped out.  It looked like the kiss of death for a running dogwalk.

Thankfully the Gamblers course had the chute through the weaves set-up so I was able to practice the sequence ahead of time.  And Strummer missed both the dogwalk contact and the weave entry.  I was behind and he curled to the left and nearly took the chute, a fate that several dogs suffered in all the classes.

So for Standard my plan was to be way ahead.  I thought about a blind or front cross at the end of the dogwalk but thought I'd likely end up blocking his view of the poles.  In the end I stayed near the end of the up ramp as he exited the tunnel, stayed still and kept eye contact just long enough to make sure he made it onto the up ramp and then ran like hell, thankfully making it to the weaves before him with him on my right.  He still missed the entry but got his dogwalk contact and I was able to quickly bring him around and send him back in to the weaves.  No refusals in Starters so we were o.k.  I managed to keep my head for the rest of the course, even got some nice collection and a tight turn into the tunnel at Jump 11.  A front cross between 13 and 14 and we were out of there.  And out of Starters at 7 1/2 years old.  SO happy.  I was tempted to ask the judge if I could have a victory lap.  1st place as well, icing on the cake.

And as if my cake needed any more icing, the club offered next day move-ups so I was able to enter Advanced Standard on Sunday.  And the little stinker got another Q and 1st place, putting me into diabetic shock.  Maybe we'll even make it to masters before it's time to retire.

The course was fun, very similar to masters, just a couple of angles tweaked on a few jumps but otherwise the same course.

Strum missed the teeter to weaves entry but no refusals in advanced.  I don't often practice contact to weaves and this is the second trial I've seen a challenging dogwalk to weaves entry in Starters (the other one was even worse) so it's a good reminder that I need to practice that sort of thing.  There was also a challenging dogwalk to weaves challenge in Grand Prix Semis at Nationals this year.  Not something that typically occurs to me to practice.  Most dogs got this entry o.k. though some were lost to the tunnel.

The judge's counting at the table startled Strummer a bit.  I told him he was a good boy and he seemed o.k. but that's another thing to practice.  Might have to start going to my club's course run-throughs to practice that.

In all a fun but short weekend for me since I had only 1 class on Sunday morning.  The trial had a very small entry, only 16 dogs in master standard and 11 in P3 standard.  Can't ever remember such a small masters class.  There was an AKC trial going on so maybe that was part of it.  The trial was done before 4:00 on Saturday and I was done just after 9:00 a.m. with my one run on Sunday.  Don't know if Strummer has ever Q'ed both Standard runs in a weekend so I was very very happy and so ecstatic to be out of Starters.  Not too much difference typically between masters and advanced so we'll finally be able to enjoy some more challenging courses.  I really enjoyed the judge and her courses this weekend.  She was awesome with the nesting so the course changes moved quickly and she had some fun, creative challenges.

The only downside was that the club didn't turn on the heat.  It was warm enough outside, 50's and sunny, but freezing inside the arena, even at mid-afternoon.  It was fine while you were running but the rest of the day . . . brrrr.  And I jump set for 4 classes on Saturday but was still cold.  Thankfully only had the one run on Sunday.  I'm hoping enough people will say something that they'll put the heat on for the Dec.-Jan.-Feb. trials.  I know the club is trying to save money but this is a false economy if everybody is miserable all day long.  I'll bet most people, myself included, would happily have paid and extra $2 per day to put the heat on and if Dec. is bad as well I may pull my entry for Jan. and skip Feb.  Hard to pass up trials that are just 20 mins. away but agility is not worth being cold like that all day long.

Nonetheless looking forward to DOCNA at the same venue in 2 weeks.  Maybe we're on a roll with this dogwalk thing.

 Trial Stats

Starters Standard  Q, 1st place

Advanced Standard Q, 1st place



Titles:  Starters Standard
            AD

Dogwalks:  2/3 (67%) 

A-frames:  4/4 (100%)

Weave entries:  0/3 (0%)   didn't pop out at all

Knocked bars:  None

Teeters:  3/3 (100%)

Table: 2/2 (100%) fast, perfect table, worried with judge's count though

Off courses:  1 in Snooker, 1 in the opening of Gamblers

No refusals or run-bys except at the weave poles.

Some Things Never Change

Found this old file folder and it's from right about the time we got Lola at 8 weeks old.  As you can see by her little puppy prints she was 'helping' me with my taxes.

She turns 12 next month and is still as 'helpful' as ever.

Sassy Lassie

Fun Day In the Dirt

Started the day off with an early morning agility practice.  I've got two people to practice with now and this morning's practice was at an indoor barn on dirt.  Half my trials are indoors on dirt and I almost always train outdoors so this is a nice opportunity.  Plus my training partner is very focused on the details.  Getting around the course isn't enough, she wants to tighten up every turn, get the lines right, fractions of a second matter.  Normally I'm mostly focused on merely getting around the course so this will sharpen up my handling for sure.  Plus it's so important to have precise handling for Strummer.

I love practice.  You get all the do overs you want plus you can try it this way then try it that way.  Fun.  We worked on a course courtesy of Agility Nerd.  We didn't do the big course but rather the 4 small exercises at the bottom of the page.  Very challenging and lots of fun plus the bonus of we only had to set up 5 jumps and a tunnel.  Because the equipment has to be pulled out and put away every time so the horses can play when we're through.  Lots of great stuff over at Agility Nerd but duh, I'm sure I didn't have to tell you that.

I didn't have any clients this afternoon so I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous fall weather we've been having and hit the Boulder Valley trails on my bike.  It was shorts and t-shirt weather, high 60's I think and plenty of lovely warm sunshine and blue skies.

I tried to get a photo of this coyote but he had moved quite a distance away by the time I got my camera out.  It looks like he's trapped in suburbia but really he's on a big field of open space.  He went towards the houses to avoid me and a woman with a dog who had stopped to watch.

That's it for the photos, too busy enjoying my ride to stop.  I've got a backlog of photos from some hikes but I'll get to them eventually.

Okay, OKAY, I voted already

Sheesh.  You would think voting in a swing state would make you feel good, like for once your vote actually counted for something.  But the barrage of attack ads we've been drowning in since last spring has me numb.  I didn't do early voting this time around for no good reason other than I did the math and figured it would be easiest to wait until election day and simply go to the polling place that's a short walk from my house.  In theory this was a good plan.  I had a nice walk on a beautiful, sunny fall morning and there was no line at all when I got there.  Much easier than driving somewhere.  The problem is that the Democrats have been hounding my house for days to make sure I vote, yesterday they even came twice, and the dogs go off their heads every time they knock on the door.  They even came to my house today after I'd already voted.  Now I get it, and really I should be thankful that they're out there pounding the pavement, fighting the good fight, making sure, among other things, that we don't roll the country back to the 50's and I can continue to get birth control pills through my husband's employee health insurance.  Because endometriosis is a bitch people, and birth control pills aren't cheap.  But I'm oh so weary.  And so is Lola.

I beg of you, please to let it be over.

As for the dogs, Strummer is an anarchist and doesn't vote because, 'it only encourages them'.

Lola votes but always writes in her own name.

And good luck getting Cody to move.

I'm tempted to plaster signs all over the house that say, 'YES, I voted, please for the love of my sanity and my eardrums do not set my dogs off.'  Or I could take advantage of all the door knocking and actually do some training but probably I'll just stuff earplugs in and hunker down for one more day. 

I'd almost be relieved with less than a day to go but now I have to make it through the hell of Christmas which not so mercifully has started already.  Is it January yet?

You Know You've Hit Rock Bottom

when you're pilloried on South Park.  I haven't laughed this hard at t.v. in a long time - South Park takes on Lance Armstrong and hits everything right on the head in hilarious fashion.  This episode has everything - Jesus on HGH, Dr. Seuss, the farmers in Belarus - pure genius.  A welcome relief from all the grating election coverage/commercials/cajoling, etc.