Cik & Cap Update

Just wanted to start off by saying thanks to Diana for pointing out that Lexi missed her entries when I wasn't helping her--or shaping them.  She's definitely right!

It worked out well that we worked letter W the other day, because the following night we worked weaves in class, as well.  There was a course set up where the weave entry was exactly the same as the one where Lexi kept missing.  My instructor made a good point (that she has made before).  We need to work skills independently before we add forward motion.  As soon as I add forward motion, it becomes exponentially more difficult for Lexi to collect and do her job.  So, we should teach hard weave entries first, and then add the motion component a little at a time.

Soon I'll take an updated cik/cap video to share, but I've been lazy.  I did get my regular camera out today, though.  I got a few pictures of Lexi wrapping the pole.  She is definitely getting it!  And, it's already making her think a bit differently as she approaches other things.  I decided to teach her a new trick the other day, and she offered a weave around my leg.  So, I went with it and she's learning to weave around my legs.

W is for Weave!

Photo by Mike Lifer Photography

Finally got the chance to get outside and get some video of a training session.  It's nothing crazy--just more Alphabet Drills (have I mentioned how much I love this book?  It's perfect for a small yard and not a lot of equipment!)

Yesterday we worked on letter W, which as it turns out, stood for weaves!

Unfortunately the neighbor's dogs were outside all day, and Bentley didn't get to play at all.  In case I haven't mentioned it before, he is reactive (as are the neighbor's dogs) and I don't want him to get the chance to practice reactivity during agility--which should be fun and stress free for the dogs.

I'll take a moment to talk about Lexi's weaves.  She has always been a low and fast weaver--for which I am grateful.  Those are two things that I don't know how to teach!  Of course, the "fast" part comes with a price.  If she's going too fast, she sometimes doesn't want to slow down to get her entry.  We retrained her this past summer using the beginning stages of 2x2, combined with a lot of rear end awareness exercises and I think that helped.  But, as you'll see in the video, there are still approaches that she hasn't quite figured out.  I'd like to get that independent entry (priceless with a fast dog) but we definitely aren't there yet.

Weaves are one of the things that confuse me because I watch videos of top trainers with their dogs (Susan Garrett recently posted one of her dog Swagger while she used her NRM to let him know to try the entry again) and they have such patient, thoughtful dogs.  I'd love to see a video of someone with a dog who will do it wrong 99 times out of 100.  Does Lexi want to get it right?  Of course--she's a working dog!  But, does she also want to go fast?  You bet!  And those two don't always mix.  If I were to use an NRM over and over as she continued to miss her entry, I think she would give up--and I don't want that.  Of all things, her enthusiasm is what I love best (even if it has its drawbacks).  I say all of that to say that from a certain angle, Lexi will miss her entry 99 times out of 100.  Maybe even 100 times.  So, we decided to bring back the wires and see if that would help.  At certain points they do, and other times they seem to throw her off.

Here's a brief video with some high (and low!) lights.



In the first 4 seconds, I found it odd that she wanted to take that off set jump.  Of course I can see that she was trying to find her line (something we worked on quite a bit) but it really wasn't on the way to me.  She did this twice until I re-angled the jump and made it clearer.

Then you'll see that she blasts past the weaves.  I was able to eventually get her in from this angle, but only with serious deceleration on my part, as well as a bit of babysitting (waiting there with her).  From the other direction, she has less trouble.

Bentley's back! Earns a blue ribbon, and DH joins the dark side!

Here's an update on Lexi's rear end awareness/using her back legs to rotate around a target trick.  She's quite good at going this way (not so much the other way!)


And because I can't leave him out anymore, Bentley is back!  We have been doing a lot of the ball work, and walking, and slowly allowing him to do longer and longer sequences.  It has now been 2 months since his surgery and he's doing great!  He does seem to get tired a bit faster, but it's an endurance thing that we are building on.  Here's a video of the most he's done in awhile, and he was so happy about it!


I should also add a few other notes here.  This past weekend there was a local pet expo where some of our friends were doing a demonstration.  We went for fun (it was a lovely fall day) and the dogs really enjoyed it (though they were bummed that they couldn't participate in the agility demo!!)

Jonathan was asked to run our instructor's dog since she was injured, and here he is "joining the dark side"!!

Also, our babies were so well behaved!  Bentley won the "Simon Says" contest.  Really, it was just a competition of what dogs could do what tricks.  Lexi was eliminated because we never taught her to shake.  Here are a few pics of Bentley's big win! :)

Awesome evening!

I feel like I usually blog negative things...so tonight, a positive post!  Lexi had a GREAT night in class!

She nailed every. single. one. of her weave entries (and we did quite a bit of weaving)!  She even hit one at a 90 degree angle, with a RC right on top of the weaves.  It was a thing of beauty.

Then, our instructor for the night (who doesn't know us as well as our usual instructor) said that since Lexi was more "experienced" and "reliable" that we could try to make the entries a bit harder.  I looked at Jonathan like maybe she was talking about a different Lexi!!!

Lexi weaving video

Here's a video to prove that she's making progress!  She would never have made some of these weave entries a month ago...

Weaving issues

I'm sure I've mentioned this in many other posts, as it has been an ongoing issue with little miss speed demon...she has had a lot of trouble with weave entries.  But, it's not as if she doesn't know the entry, or misses the entry.  She just blows by them.

My initial thought was that she didn't have enough value for the entrance/poles.  So, we worked 2x2s.  But, as soon as we got back up to speed, we had a similar problem.

So, then I started thinking that it was collection.  She wasn't getting on her rear and collecting to get into the poles.   So, we started working on collection and rear end awareness.  But, then we started our Contacts & Weaves class, and noticed that she DOES collect and get on her rear for her entry.

I pulled our trainer aside to ask why she felt that Lexi was having this problem, because I wasn't sure what else to do.  She suggested that we create a negative consequence for Lexi missing the poles.  And by that she suggested maybe pulling her out and marking it, or putting her in a down stay, or even putting her in the crate for a minute to make her think about her mistakes.  Her thought was that Lexi doesn't care enough about getting it right.  Her reward is agility.  So when she makes a mistake, she just gets to go again, which she loves. So she is essentially rewarded for messing up.  I think that sort of makes sense, because Lexi does love agility. She would do it for no treats...she clearly just loves to run and do the equipment.

I was a little skeptical about the negative consequence because Lexi, at home, can be quite sensitive.  Once my husband yelled at her while they were upstairs, and Lexi went downstairs and refused to come up and just watched him from a distance for the rest of the evening.  But on the other hand, when Lexi does agility, she is a different dog.  She is happy, confident, and crazy!  And clearly, what we're doing is not working.  It's clear that Lexi doesn't care if she does it correctly or not.

Well, we tried it one evening.  We just started marking her misses a bit more negatively (we used to say "what happened?" in a friendly voice, and we started being a bit more negative) and it was a huge failure.  Lexi started to worry.  I saw it right away.  I felt HORRIBLE.  She started to hesitate at the weaves.  She might get in, and then start walking.  Or she might miss, and just stop and stand there.  It was really hard to watch.  I know it's a fine line, but I couldn't watch my happy, confident dog start to worry.  And maybe I've created this happy, fun-loving monster, but I'd rather that than a dog who second guesses herself.  So, we ruled out that approach.

A few weekends ago we drove up to Cleveland for a Stuart Mah seminar.  Stuart knows us (and our dogs!) very well.  I will try to do a write up of the seminar soon, but we mentioned Lexi's issues to Stuart, and I think he pinpointed it right away.  It ties in with everything he has been telling us about her from day 1.  She doesn't care about the details.  It's too hard to slow down and make an entrance, so she doesn't bother.  The harder part is figuring out how to address this.  If we were training with Stuart every day, it would be easy...but we're not (see this post to see his previous comments about Lexi's issue with details).

Basically, we're going to try to reward her for coming in and making turns.  So for example, if she misses a turn to the weaves, we mark it, then try again but have a cookie out and feed her correctly in line with the weaves (but before them).  Easier to see than explain, and also easier to do when Stuart is there!

We'll see how it goes...I think she's doing better already.

Contact Proofing (and more ball work)

As usual, I'm behind on my posts.  Did I mention that I just started working again?

Anyways, I did say before that we had started a new class on contacts and weaves.  I was pleased with Lexi's work in class, though she did break a few times (when we ran past her, when we FCd the first time) but she quickly learned the drill and seems to be doing much better.

Here's a quick list of some of the things we did in class to practice proofing:

-Run past, FC, BC, RC, throw a treat on the ground, do jumping jacks, say words that sound like the release word, etc..
-Test the dog's recognition of its release word by not moving your body at all, but saying your cue (no problem for Lexi, "okay!" is her favorite word!)

A couple things I tend to forget:

1.  Remember, no reinforcement (or even a NRM) if the dog misses and has to be placed back on or has to try again.  You can give a marker at that point "Yes, that's it!" but no reward.
2.  Always reward the dog looking ahead with a low topline.  You can work this my having the dog stretch and reach for the treat a bit.  The dog should scoot its front legs to reach.

An interesting thing that I learned (that makes sense) is that dogs are usually more likely to break a 2o2o when the handler uses a front cross versus using a blind cross.  This is because a FC puts pressure on the dog, but when you release the pressure (complete the cross), the pressure is released and the dog responds to the release of pressure by breaking.  A blind cross never puts pressure on to begin with.  Obviously not advocating one over the other, just something to think about (and train for!)

Here's a video of Lexi at home working on some of the things we practiced:



We also worked weaves in class and Lexi did great.  Of course, we were only doing straight approaches, but that's when our instructor said that Lexi slowed down, collected, and go on her rear (HOORAY!).

A drill that I found particularly helpful was where you put your dog in a stay and lead out farther and farther into the weaves until eventually you can stand at the end of the weaves, then release your dog and they are to find the entrance and weave entirely on their own.  The reason that this is helpful is that it teaches your dog to ignore your motion in the weaves.  The weaves are the only obstacle where we want them to do that.


Here's more of Lexi's ball work:

2x2 Weaves Continued

We have continued to work Lexi on Susan Garrett's 2x2 Weave Pole system. I already have a complaint about it...it's billed as "12 Poles in 12 Days" and that is SO unrealistic for the average dog/handler. The idea is that you work several short sessions per day, but I find that we are having to stay at certain "Days" longer than others.

We've been on Day 4 now for about 4 days! This is the day where the second set of two poles comes into play, and comes closer and closer to the first set of 2, until they are weaving a straight set of four poles. We made it there, but I wasn't getting the entries I was hoping for (the whole reason that we're doing this!) I think we need to take a step back. Today and tomorrow I plan on working on some of the harder entries. I'll start by going back to two poles only, and working tough entries keeping my reward line consistent. I'll also go ahead and add the second set (keeping the first angled) and reward for the entry of the first set. Then, I'll move the two sets close together, but keep the first set angled so Lexi can be successful getting her entry into the four. Hopefully that will keep her learning. She did see a couple sets of 6 and 12 last night in our practice, and I felt like she was hitting entries more frequently, but still missing the majority of the time when we were coming at any angle at all.

Here's the video of a few sessions in the past few days:

2x2 Weaves

I am finally starting to catch up on the videos that I have.

From the trial videos you'll see that weaves have become quite an issue for Lexi. Clearly, she isn't collecting, and sees no value in the first couple poles. So, on the recommendation of several of my friends, we've decided to use Susan Garrett's 2x2 weave training. Luckily, a friend offered to lend me her DVD.

I'm taking videos sporadically, so please remember that what you're seeing is not the entire process. We started 7/6 (Wednesday) and work Lexi several short sessions a day. Luckily, I've found a toy that she does enjoy working for, so it's made the process a bit easier. I tried originally throwing treats, but they would get lost and she would spend too much time looking for them in the grass, and then being distracted by the smell at the next session. So, I pulled out a toy that we had used with Bentley in the years past (he never got the hang of it) and filled it with my husband's sock, Lexi's favorite toy that she's not allowed to have! It has worked really well. (You can get it at Clean Run for $15)

The first day is spent teaching the dog to value the first two poles. You work on sending the dog through the poles, and rewarding ahead (to keep the dog focused ahead). Lexi didn't have any trouble with this, so the next day we moved to the next step, which was to work the entries of the poles from different angles. It took Lexi a bit more time to realize that we weren't going to throw it if she just ran in the general direction of the poles, but several sessions later she seemed to understand. In the video you'll see that she is still spending some time looking back at me, or barking at me to throw the toy rather than interacting with the poles. We made sure that she was moving quickly ahead before moving to Day 3. Here's a quick clip of some of our earlier reps at this step:

Collection exercises

Everyone loves to tell us that Lexi needs to learn to collect. Unfortunately, being novice handlers, it's something that we're still learning how to do. This started with one of our lessons with Stuart where we learned that Lexi is always jumping in extension, and it causes her to take wide turns, and sometimes knock bars.

Unfortunately, an hour with Stuart isn't enough to fix the issue, it's something that takes constant work. I could list the things that we've done with Lex to work on this, but I don't think there's enough room (or time) on this blog! Jump grids have played a big role, as have jump boxes, working on tight turns, turns out of tunnels, using a command to indicate a change ("shhh"), but nothing has shown us a great deal of success. But! We aren't giving up.

I spoke with a friend of ours who recommended working on the flat some to reward staying with us and reading speed changes. Lexi read our speed changes very well. It's almost like when she sees the obstacles, she loses her mind. But, I've come to find that a great deal of it is because of my poor timing, so I'm trying to improve as well.

This issue also pops up when working weaves. You may have noticed that at our last trials, the weaves have been an issue. Lexi consistently goes wide and misses her entrance. It isn't because she doesn't know how to enter (she does), it's because entering from an angle often forces her to slow down, and she chooses not to. So she swings out wide, and enters when it's easier for her. So, we're working on that as well. I think the future holds some 2x2 weave training to help with that.

Here are a few drills that we worked on last month:

Okay, I forgot that YouTube doesn't show my captions. Here is what we worked on, in order:
1-- Circle work, rewarding for attention to speed changes
2--Circle work, including crosses
3--Circle work, then a send, rewarding a tight turn
4--Collection with jumps, rewarding collection
5--Collection prior to the weaves
6--Big scary neighbor dog comes out, forcing us to stop. Also, forces us to put up a fence.

Random video updates

Bentley's contacts are worsening, if that's possible.  We tried putting a jump (or standard) at the bottom of the contact obstacle to get him to change his stride, but he refuses.  He either continues to jump from right above the yellow, or jumps off the side of the dogwalk in order to not have to adjust his stride.




Lexi's weaves are progressing fairly well.  She knows her job, she just sometimes gets too focused on the obstacle ahead and pops out around pole 10.  We're working on it...




Here's a good video that showcases one of Lexi's strengths...her responsiveness to differences/transitions between obstacle and handler focus.

Update on Lexi's Weaves

Lexi's weaves are coming along...this is a slow process.  I have a video from about 10 days ago that shows her on the weaves at the house with no wires.  She misses them once.  The end of the video has a clip of her in the weave-o-matics.



Although she is weaving at home with no wires, it is taking a bit of time for this to translate to the real weaves at the field.  I'm not sure if it's the weaves, the location, or the spacing (ours are 22", the field has 24").  We have had to backchain a little with the help of one our trainers and use our hands to get her started with the weaving motion.

Sunday at run-thrus Lexi weaved the entire 24" weaves with no help from me!  Of course I lined her up square with them, but I was so proud!  We will just have to keep working them.

Lexi weaving (1.5 months in)

We've been working Lexi's weaves the past few days, but as I mentioned, she didn't get much training over the holidays (we were out of town for 2 weeks).  That being said, she is back on track and we are now down to just one wire on each end to help her get her entrance.

We did try her on the "real weaves" at the field, and it was no good.  It definitely didn't translate.  We will be keeping her on these two wires for a few more days until she gets it without making a mistake.  In this video, you can see her pop out twice.

Christmas Update

Just had to post that we're still here...just traveling quite a bit for Christmas.

We did bring the weave poles with us for Lexi's training, but it hasn't been going well.  First, it snowed while we were in Virginia, so that made training impossible.

Then, we brought them to the beach, but the ground is very uneven, so Lexi has really been struggling.  We even cut it down to 6 poles to just work on them all the way closed, and she has struggled.  I don't know if it's better for us to stop training since we might be messing her up, or some training (even if she struggles) is better than none.

Lexi weaving (1 month in)

I had way too much fun making this...



I think her entries are looking really nice!

As to the channel weaves, she has them all the way closed, and we've taken off 4 wires.  Looking good!

Lexi weaving (2 weeks in)

We've been a little lax on our weave training.  I'm still hoping that Lexi will be weaving come February, but with the holidays coming up, I'm not sure.  We will have to really get working if we want to get there.

Here she is in our backyard doing a set.  I had just closed them a bit, we have about an inch left before they are shut all the way.  I want to build up a little more speed and independence before I totally close them.  Oddly enough, she seems to be doing great with the entry.  In fact, I don't think I've seen her miss at all.  She did jump out at the end a couple times in her hurry to get to the next obstacle.

I tried to incorporate some of the things that we learned from Stuart in our training.  First, I'm trying not to do just the weaves over and over, but to quickly incorporate it into sequences.  Secondly, I'm trying not to do the same sequence over and over (this is hard to do in a tiny backyard!).  And third, I'm already trying to get her to take responsibility to get into the weaves while I move away (you can see me do it in the video on the way back, I bring her in, then send her out, and I'm already moving away).

Lexi is learning to weave

It is finally that time...Lexi is 13 months old, and it is time for her to learn how to weave.  I remember this being a particularly painful process with Bentley.  At one time, I remember saying "he is never going to get it".  We taught Bentley using a combination of channel weaves and weave-o-matics.

I would love to try the 2x2 method, but other than the DVD, there really aren't any resources (people) that I know that have done this.  If I try a new method, I like being able to ask someone questions as I progress.  I also don't learn well via DVD.  So, we'll go with the channel method for now.

Lexi has seen channels a couple times, but it's been awhile, and the channels were wide open (she was just a baby at the time).  Once we get the club's weaves (we're lucky enough to be able to borrow them), Lexi will be on a strict regimen of several short training sessions every day.

Here's her (short) work today. I was at the field by myself, so video taping was a huge pain...

Disappointing Run Throughs

Yesterday we went to run throughs with our club.  I was looking forward to truly testing Bentley's contacts.

Unfortunately, it was REALLY ugly.  He missed just about every contact when running in sequence.  I was really bummed out.  We've worked so hard, and I felt pretty disappointed.

In retrospect, we just have some more work to do.  It's really hard for Bentley because we had been clicking and treating for every correct run.  Sometimes he had to wait for his treat for a couple obstacles, but never several.  I was afraid that the lack of feedback would be hard for him, and not only was I right, but he struggled before we even got to the next obstacle.

Take 1:
The highlights: He really does an excellent job with the pinwheel.  I was really happy about that as it's something we've worked on.  He also reads the front crosses well.
The bad:  His teeter is really bad.  We have yet to work on training it, and it shows.  I'm just hoping that he doesn't get faulted in our trial this coming weekend.  You'll also see that I don't handle the discrimination between tunnel/dogwalk well, and it frustrates Bentley.  And then, of course, his contact is bad.



Take 2:

Again, great pinwheel/front cross, not so good teeter, and he misses the discrimination again, but picks it up quicker.  Then he jumps off the contact, again.

Take 3:

He is super tired and hot in this video.  The humidity has been through the roof, and Bentley just shut down.  In the pinwheel he actually leaves me.  This has literally NEVER happened.  Then, he doesn't lay down on the table.  He just looked at me like "please no".  I should have stopped there, but I was really hoping he'd get the contact this time.  Of course not.  I did put him back up and make him be successful.  We also finished the course, and he did well on the a-frame and the weaves looked nice as well.

All in all, I was pretty frustrated.  That being said, I know it was hot and Bentley was tired.  I'm just getting worried about this weekend.  I was hoping he would be ready, but this may be too soon.