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| Photos by Matt Drobnik |
Showing posts with label Teeter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teeter. Show all posts
Friday, July 13, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Trial, Teeter, and Other Random Musings...
Sunday we took Lexi to a local indoor trial. As I've mentioned a few times, neither of my dogs are particularly successful on rubber matting, but it's so hard to resist a USDAA trial that is so close to home (it's about 25 minutes away).
Since the building is very small, they can only do Starters and Advanced, so Bentley stayed home. Because of the flooring (and lack of expectations) we only entered Lexi in the last 3 classes of the day; Standard, Gamblers and Snooker. I figured we'd see what she did on the teeter, and I figured it was worth a shot to finish her Advanced Gamblers and Advanced Snooker titles.
First I have to mention that the day took forever. We arrived a little after 9am. The order for the day was Jumpers, Steeplechase Finals, and then Standard, Gamblers and Snooker. Keep in mind that it was Starters and Advanced only, and there was no more than a page each for Championship and Performance in each event. We didn't run (there were only 2 events before Standard) until 1pm. The building is super small so we crated in the car, but it was really cold, so we had to leave the car on and just sat in the car for 4 hours. Not fun. And Lexi was not amused (Jonathan and I brought books, guess Lex forgot hers at home).
Advanced Standard: It went okay. It only took Lexi one extra try to get on the teeter, and I think that honestly it was due to the fact that she was unsure on the floor (you can see her slip multiple times in the video) and she would have had to change leads to get on the first time, and just opted to run past. I definitely think that's an improvement. She also had an off course, but that was more because Jonathan stopped and praised her after the teeter and didn't give her great cues when he released. She also slipped right when she got on the table and banged her face on it--poor thing! But, I was happy that she got on and didn't bounce off (something we've been working on at home inside). And her weave entry was nice!
Advanced Gamblers went very well. Lexi knocked a bar, but I think it's a combination of the flooring and her extended jumping style. One odd thing was that she wasn't getting into her 2o2o on the dogwalk without a lot of prompting. That is very unusual. I think it's because ALL we've worked in the past week or more is her 4-on on the teeter. So she was getting into a 4-on position on the dogwalk. I'm not sure what to do about that. Am I confusing her by asking for two separate criteria? Should I switch to a 2o2o on the teeter?
Lexi had no issue with the gamble, though I have to admit that my foot went across the line. I was feeling pretty guilty about it, but at least I know that Lexi would have done it regardless of where I was placed. I just looked down and realized I was on the line and got away from it as soon as I could. I got lucky that I was given a Q.
Advanced Snooker: A little ugly as far as connecting when it came to cues, collecting, and deceleration (I can say that because my husband doesn't read my blog-ha!) And unfortunately despite calling her off a couple off courses, she knocked a bar in the closing that prevented her from qualifying. Again, she rarely knocks bars so I attribute this mostly to the flooring.
It was a long day (3 runs in 8 hours!), but we still had a good time.
So my big question is this...should we change her teeter criteria to 2o2o to match her dogwalk and a-frame? Are we confusing her by teaching both? Or, is it just because we've focused so much on the teeter that she's gotten confused and once we even out our training (using all contacts) the confusion will disappear?
Since the building is very small, they can only do Starters and Advanced, so Bentley stayed home. Because of the flooring (and lack of expectations) we only entered Lexi in the last 3 classes of the day; Standard, Gamblers and Snooker. I figured we'd see what she did on the teeter, and I figured it was worth a shot to finish her Advanced Gamblers and Advanced Snooker titles.
First I have to mention that the day took forever. We arrived a little after 9am. The order for the day was Jumpers, Steeplechase Finals, and then Standard, Gamblers and Snooker. Keep in mind that it was Starters and Advanced only, and there was no more than a page each for Championship and Performance in each event. We didn't run (there were only 2 events before Standard) until 1pm. The building is super small so we crated in the car, but it was really cold, so we had to leave the car on and just sat in the car for 4 hours. Not fun. And Lexi was not amused (Jonathan and I brought books, guess Lex forgot hers at home).
Advanced Standard: It went okay. It only took Lexi one extra try to get on the teeter, and I think that honestly it was due to the fact that she was unsure on the floor (you can see her slip multiple times in the video) and she would have had to change leads to get on the first time, and just opted to run past. I definitely think that's an improvement. She also had an off course, but that was more because Jonathan stopped and praised her after the teeter and didn't give her great cues when he released. She also slipped right when she got on the table and banged her face on it--poor thing! But, I was happy that she got on and didn't bounce off (something we've been working on at home inside). And her weave entry was nice!
Advanced Gamblers went very well. Lexi knocked a bar, but I think it's a combination of the flooring and her extended jumping style. One odd thing was that she wasn't getting into her 2o2o on the dogwalk without a lot of prompting. That is very unusual. I think it's because ALL we've worked in the past week or more is her 4-on on the teeter. So she was getting into a 4-on position on the dogwalk. I'm not sure what to do about that. Am I confusing her by asking for two separate criteria? Should I switch to a 2o2o on the teeter?
Lexi had no issue with the gamble, though I have to admit that my foot went across the line. I was feeling pretty guilty about it, but at least I know that Lexi would have done it regardless of where I was placed. I just looked down and realized I was on the line and got away from it as soon as I could. I got lucky that I was given a Q.
Advanced Snooker: A little ugly as far as connecting when it came to cues, collecting, and deceleration (I can say that because my husband doesn't read my blog-ha!) And unfortunately despite calling her off a couple off courses, she knocked a bar in the closing that prevented her from qualifying. Again, she rarely knocks bars so I attribute this mostly to the flooring.
It was a long day (3 runs in 8 hours!), but we still had a good time.
So my big question is this...should we change her teeter criteria to 2o2o to match her dogwalk and a-frame? Are we confusing her by teaching both? Or, is it just because we've focused so much on the teeter that she's gotten confused and once we even out our training (using all contacts) the confusion will disappear?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
A Fun Post, and very very brief Teeter Update
First, the teeter update. Apparently turkey is all it took. Lexi is doing the teeter in the living room every which way she can think of (it's currently at around 18" high). She'll jump on one end, get into position. She'll even turn around and go right back to the other end (though I try not to encourage that!) Anyways, this is the Lexi that I know, whose motto is "the world is my playground!" And that's exactly how I want her to feel about the teeter. Next steps are to raise it to full height (probably in a day or two) and then sloooowly start to alter the tipping point using weights.
And since we don't have any tricks on video, I thought I'd share this fun one from November. I got this little robot hamster for Christmas the year before and have discovered that the dogs (mostly Lexi) hate it! Bentley just loves any excuse to bark!
And since we don't have any tricks on video, I thought I'd share this fun one from November. I got this little robot hamster for Christmas the year before and have discovered that the dogs (mostly Lexi) hate it! Bentley just loves any excuse to bark!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Alphabet Drills and a Teeter Update
For Christmas I got the Nancy Gyes Alphabet Drills book. It is AWESOME. I will never be looking for sequences to practice ever again. Just one letter can keep you busy for weeks. I love that each set up is simple and small enough for a medium-sized yard. I should also point out that the first thing that Bentley did was eat the packaging around the DVD and ruined it. Nice.
Anyways, here's a quick video of letter A, AKA box drills (I'm behind on videos, and this one was taken right after Christmas)
Thought I'd give a quick teeter update. This evening we lowered the teeter and tried to work more independent driving. Jonathan reported that she would do it if he amped her up, ran with her, or encouraged her, but was less likely to do so if he just stood there, even with cheese on the end. I decided to see if she would push herself more for turkey, and that's what we used this evening (just a note that each session is very short, maybe 10 reps?) She had no issue going to the end. A couple times I held the teeter in place and let her eat turkey out of my hand as I held it, and then dropped it as she continued to eat. She had no issue with that (too busy eating to notice, I think!)
In class tonight she did the teeter on the first pass (and off of a forward send, which has been a scenario where she's opted to go around before). I filled our trainer in on the issue and she felt that we were doing the right thing, just that I pushed her too hard by holding it immediately. She recommended changing it just slightly every other day or so (by 1-2 lbs of weight). I didn't think of it, but she made the point that if the teeter usually starts to tip right before she steps in the yellow, and I held it until she got to the end, I essentially changed the tipping point by 36" (the size of the contact zone). That's a HUGE change.
Diana (my favorite blogging friend over at http://4dogcraziness.blogspot.com/) recommended that we try the two table method, and I like that idea. But, we don't have two tables here...in fact we don't even have one! But, I'm going to try to set this up during our building rentals this month to change up our methods a little bit.
Thanks to those that have contacted me with suggestions!
Anyways, here's a quick video of letter A, AKA box drills (I'm behind on videos, and this one was taken right after Christmas)
Thought I'd give a quick teeter update. This evening we lowered the teeter and tried to work more independent driving. Jonathan reported that she would do it if he amped her up, ran with her, or encouraged her, but was less likely to do so if he just stood there, even with cheese on the end. I decided to see if she would push herself more for turkey, and that's what we used this evening (just a note that each session is very short, maybe 10 reps?) She had no issue going to the end. A couple times I held the teeter in place and let her eat turkey out of my hand as I held it, and then dropped it as she continued to eat. She had no issue with that (too busy eating to notice, I think!)
In class tonight she did the teeter on the first pass (and off of a forward send, which has been a scenario where she's opted to go around before). I filled our trainer in on the issue and she felt that we were doing the right thing, just that I pushed her too hard by holding it immediately. She recommended changing it just slightly every other day or so (by 1-2 lbs of weight). I didn't think of it, but she made the point that if the teeter usually starts to tip right before she steps in the yellow, and I held it until she got to the end, I essentially changed the tipping point by 36" (the size of the contact zone). That's a HUGE change.
Diana (my favorite blogging friend over at http://4dogcraziness.blogspot.com/) recommended that we try the two table method, and I like that idea. But, we don't have two tables here...in fact we don't even have one! But, I'm going to try to set this up during our building rentals this month to change up our methods a little bit.
Thanks to those that have contacted me with suggestions!
Teeter Boot Camp
Well, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought!
Lexi has had a teeter issue for several trials now. Sometimes she does it, sometimes she doesn't. She's had this issue since as far back as I can remember. We've retrained the teeter probably 3 times (basically just starting over and rebuilding confidence) and we're still not progressing. It seems like 1 step forward 2 steps back.
It's clearly a confidence issue. She knows the end criteria and I don't even remember EVER having to correct her for coming off the teeter, or flying off, or somehow or other not making her criteria (which is 4-on). But, when a teeter doesn't do what she expects (typically it's when she finds a really heavy teeter that doesn't drop when she immediately gets to the end, or even vice versa), she freaks out and avoids it for the next who knows how long.
We've been teaching her the teeter using Wendy Pape's method (breaking it down into its components, bang, height, position, release, etc...) I'm not sure if that was a contributing factor or not because the issue didn't show up until she was spooked for a reason, or even no reason.
I think I knew all along what needed to be done, but it doesn't sound like much fun. Stuart confirmed my suspicions, and we were off to teeter boot camp. We borrowed a teeter from a friend and it now resides in our living room (oh if my non-dog friends could see me now!) and Lexi is going to learn to get into position at different tipping points using weights.
I thought it would be easy. But on the first attempt, she was weirded out by equipment in the house, and we had to start with just the bang and getting into position just on the down side. Well, we moved on past that pretty quickly (I should also note it is not at full height) and went on to doing the whole thing. When we originally retrained Stuart told us to not encourage her, but to allow her to find the tipping point on her own. That is VERY hard to do as she'll go halfway up, decide it's not doing what she wants, and come back and get into position on the side that's already on the ground. I'm trying not to lure her as I want her to think about it, but I keep thinking that if I lure her, maybe she'll realize it's not so scary.
She did it fine last night, and so this morning I decided to up the criteria and sometimes hold the teeter so she would have to run to the end before it moved. SETBACK! After I did that once, she didn't want to do it again. I resorted to luring, and she still wasn't interested. If my girl isn't interested in squeeze cheese, then I know I've pushed her too far (bad mom!) so we took a break and did something fun for cheese. When Jonathan gets home we're going to have to lower the teeter even more and work on going to the end.
I guess I'm just not sure how to fix this if she's going to get worried every time she gets to the end and it doesn't move and we have to start over...any advice?
Lexi has had a teeter issue for several trials now. Sometimes she does it, sometimes she doesn't. She's had this issue since as far back as I can remember. We've retrained the teeter probably 3 times (basically just starting over and rebuilding confidence) and we're still not progressing. It seems like 1 step forward 2 steps back.
It's clearly a confidence issue. She knows the end criteria and I don't even remember EVER having to correct her for coming off the teeter, or flying off, or somehow or other not making her criteria (which is 4-on). But, when a teeter doesn't do what she expects (typically it's when she finds a really heavy teeter that doesn't drop when she immediately gets to the end, or even vice versa), she freaks out and avoids it for the next who knows how long.
We've been teaching her the teeter using Wendy Pape's method (breaking it down into its components, bang, height, position, release, etc...) I'm not sure if that was a contributing factor or not because the issue didn't show up until she was spooked for a reason, or even no reason.
I think I knew all along what needed to be done, but it doesn't sound like much fun. Stuart confirmed my suspicions, and we were off to teeter boot camp. We borrowed a teeter from a friend and it now resides in our living room (oh if my non-dog friends could see me now!) and Lexi is going to learn to get into position at different tipping points using weights.
I thought it would be easy. But on the first attempt, she was weirded out by equipment in the house, and we had to start with just the bang and getting into position just on the down side. Well, we moved on past that pretty quickly (I should also note it is not at full height) and went on to doing the whole thing. When we originally retrained Stuart told us to not encourage her, but to allow her to find the tipping point on her own. That is VERY hard to do as she'll go halfway up, decide it's not doing what she wants, and come back and get into position on the side that's already on the ground. I'm trying not to lure her as I want her to think about it, but I keep thinking that if I lure her, maybe she'll realize it's not so scary.
She did it fine last night, and so this morning I decided to up the criteria and sometimes hold the teeter so she would have to run to the end before it moved. SETBACK! After I did that once, she didn't want to do it again. I resorted to luring, and she still wasn't interested. If my girl isn't interested in squeeze cheese, then I know I've pushed her too far (bad mom!) so we took a break and did something fun for cheese. When Jonathan gets home we're going to have to lower the teeter even more and work on going to the end.
I guess I'm just not sure how to fix this if she's going to get worried every time she gets to the end and it doesn't move and we have to start over...any advice?
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| Inconspicuous, isn't it? :) |
Monday, January 2, 2012
St. Louis Trial: Lexi
As previously posted, this weekend we went to St. Louis for a trial. To sum it up, it was a great finish to 2011 and an awesome start to 2012!
The first thing I want to say is how much better the entire trial felt mentally. I think the two contributor to that were the mantra I wrote on my hand (see previous post), and something we made sure to do this trial. Before every one of Lexi's runs, the person running her went outside and threw the toy with her (even when it was freezing and windy!) for at least 5-10 minutes each time. Not only did it put Lexi in the right place, but it calmed my nerves SO much. It was just a very good feeling. I was happy no matter what happened!
Day 1:
Advanced Jumpers Q: I had to call her off the tunnel (bad mom!) and see some places where I could have been clearer, but Lexi did really well. Her FCs were really nice, and she converged really well. I stopped and waited for her a couple times (most notably out of the tunnel) and I'm really trying to break that habit! But this was her third Q and therefore her Advanced Jumpers (AJ) title!
Advanced Gamblers: The gamble was the teeter and I knew that it probably would be an issue. As I've documented, Lexi has a weird teeter issue and it has flared up again since what happened at LCDA back in November. I decided to try and test the teeter beforehand (since I knew I couldn't Q anyways if she wouldn't get on) and sure enough...she was having none of it. The scary teeter monster strikes again! Her avoiding the DW the first time is similar--maybe she thinks it's the teeter at first?
Advanced Snooker Q: A little "fast and loose" in this run, but it was a Q, and Lexi did eventually get on the teeter. I had high hopes that after she got on the teeter in this run that she would realize it wasn't so bad...but unfortunately the issue continued.
Advanced Standard: Teeter monster strikes again! So you'll see that she is still weirded out by the teeter here. On the plus side, she did eventually get on. Also, Jonathan didn't cue deceleration for the table, and that's an obstacle that we honestly don't train enough (Lexi looks unsure what to do!) And we have learned that Lexi prefers any obstacle over a contact, so we can't get lazy and expect her to make a turn to a contact (here you see she takes the tunnel instead of the a-frame). She nailed her weaves, though, and I was quite happy as we've worked that a lot!
Steeplechase Q: My baby's first tournament qualifying leg! Lexi was great. The only issues in this run were mine (didn't cue turns fast enough)...but Lex was perfect. Great weave entry, great FC in a place where I was concerned that she'd go wide (at 11 seconds) and get an off course. But I made it a point to keep moving and she followed! She even came in first--woohoo!
Day 2:
Advanced Gamblers Q: Wanted to try the teeter again...but nothing doing! Luckily I planned it out so that we would have enough points even if she didn't do the teeter. I was very impressed with her distance with the RC to the DW. What a good girl! And she even held her 2o2o ALL weekend!
Advanced Snooker Q: In order to Q we knew Lexi would have to do the teeter, and luckily, she did! I don't know if she preferred the teeter in this ring, or what, but it seemed like she would at least eventually get on for Jonathan! They even did all 7s together. Anyways, I liked Lexi's recall at the beginning--she didn't even think about taking anything on her way to Jonathan!
Advanced Standard: Again, the teeter monster strikes. Other than that, a nice run! RTH before the weaves could have been better, but Lexi didn't cut behind and eventually got on the right side. Also, awesome DW contact!
Masters Standard Q: This run almost made me cry. What a good girl Lexi was! A few months ago I would have never imagined she could Q in Masters Jumpers. She even saved my butt a few times when I forgot where I was! The end was a bit choppy when I realized I couldn't get the FC in I was hoping for (you see me waiting to make the RC), but still, excellent! Lexi had the best time (23.6) out of all the Championship dogs--including some very well known BCs! She would have been even faster if I had done a better job at the end. What an excellent girl! (Also, notice a tiny bit of collection around 25 seconds--hooray!)
Steeplechase Finals 2nd: We decided to stick around for finals to see if we could make a little money :) And we did! In fact, Lexi almost came in first INCLUDING her 5 pt. fault at the broad jump. I was worried, but luckily she just sort of ticked it with one foot. This was the first time I used a blind cross in competition, and Lexi, like a good girl, didn't break. She also nailed her weaves. She did miss my FC at the beginning, but I wasn't quick enough to signal it because I was worried she might push to the a-frame. Perfect RC to the tunnel, though!
All in all, an awesome showing for the baby. Now we have to think of the best way to address her teeter issue! Looking for any suggestions!
(Bentley's post to come...this was a long write up!)
The first thing I want to say is how much better the entire trial felt mentally. I think the two contributor to that were the mantra I wrote on my hand (see previous post), and something we made sure to do this trial. Before every one of Lexi's runs, the person running her went outside and threw the toy with her (even when it was freezing and windy!) for at least 5-10 minutes each time. Not only did it put Lexi in the right place, but it calmed my nerves SO much. It was just a very good feeling. I was happy no matter what happened!
Day 1:
Advanced Jumpers Q: I had to call her off the tunnel (bad mom!) and see some places where I could have been clearer, but Lexi did really well. Her FCs were really nice, and she converged really well. I stopped and waited for her a couple times (most notably out of the tunnel) and I'm really trying to break that habit! But this was her third Q and therefore her Advanced Jumpers (AJ) title!
Advanced Gamblers: The gamble was the teeter and I knew that it probably would be an issue. As I've documented, Lexi has a weird teeter issue and it has flared up again since what happened at LCDA back in November. I decided to try and test the teeter beforehand (since I knew I couldn't Q anyways if she wouldn't get on) and sure enough...she was having none of it. The scary teeter monster strikes again! Her avoiding the DW the first time is similar--maybe she thinks it's the teeter at first?
Advanced Snooker Q: A little "fast and loose" in this run, but it was a Q, and Lexi did eventually get on the teeter. I had high hopes that after she got on the teeter in this run that she would realize it wasn't so bad...but unfortunately the issue continued.
Advanced Standard: Teeter monster strikes again! So you'll see that she is still weirded out by the teeter here. On the plus side, she did eventually get on. Also, Jonathan didn't cue deceleration for the table, and that's an obstacle that we honestly don't train enough (Lexi looks unsure what to do!) And we have learned that Lexi prefers any obstacle over a contact, so we can't get lazy and expect her to make a turn to a contact (here you see she takes the tunnel instead of the a-frame). She nailed her weaves, though, and I was quite happy as we've worked that a lot!
Steeplechase Q: My baby's first tournament qualifying leg! Lexi was great. The only issues in this run were mine (didn't cue turns fast enough)...but Lex was perfect. Great weave entry, great FC in a place where I was concerned that she'd go wide (at 11 seconds) and get an off course. But I made it a point to keep moving and she followed! She even came in first--woohoo!
Day 2:
Advanced Gamblers Q: Wanted to try the teeter again...but nothing doing! Luckily I planned it out so that we would have enough points even if she didn't do the teeter. I was very impressed with her distance with the RC to the DW. What a good girl! And she even held her 2o2o ALL weekend!
Advanced Snooker Q: In order to Q we knew Lexi would have to do the teeter, and luckily, she did! I don't know if she preferred the teeter in this ring, or what, but it seemed like she would at least eventually get on for Jonathan! They even did all 7s together. Anyways, I liked Lexi's recall at the beginning--she didn't even think about taking anything on her way to Jonathan!
Advanced Standard: Again, the teeter monster strikes. Other than that, a nice run! RTH before the weaves could have been better, but Lexi didn't cut behind and eventually got on the right side. Also, awesome DW contact!
Masters Standard Q: This run almost made me cry. What a good girl Lexi was! A few months ago I would have never imagined she could Q in Masters Jumpers. She even saved my butt a few times when I forgot where I was! The end was a bit choppy when I realized I couldn't get the FC in I was hoping for (you see me waiting to make the RC), but still, excellent! Lexi had the best time (23.6) out of all the Championship dogs--including some very well known BCs! She would have been even faster if I had done a better job at the end. What an excellent girl! (Also, notice a tiny bit of collection around 25 seconds--hooray!)
Steeplechase Finals 2nd: We decided to stick around for finals to see if we could make a little money :) And we did! In fact, Lexi almost came in first INCLUDING her 5 pt. fault at the broad jump. I was worried, but luckily she just sort of ticked it with one foot. This was the first time I used a blind cross in competition, and Lexi, like a good girl, didn't break. She also nailed her weaves. She did miss my FC at the beginning, but I wasn't quick enough to signal it because I was worried she might push to the a-frame. Perfect RC to the tunnel, though!
All in all, an awesome showing for the baby. Now we have to think of the best way to address her teeter issue! Looking for any suggestions!
(Bentley's post to come...this was a long write up!)
Friday, February 11, 2011
Lexi's contacts
Lexi continues to do pretty well on her contacts. I would say that she is self-releasing about 10% of the time. But, when she does, we just ignore it. It's hard to do..
Here's a video of her most recent attempts. (Please notice her teeter performance near the end...thanks Stuart, it's going well!)
Here's a video of her most recent attempts. (Please notice her teeter performance near the end...thanks Stuart, it's going well!)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Stuart Mah: Contact Advice, Lexi
Again, we had the opportunity to work with Stuart at our club. This time, he offered private seminars, which were great since we had a lot of specific contact questions to ask.
We started with Lexi, and I'll explain our issues and his comments below.
1. Slow 2o2o. Recently Lexi has developed a bit of a creep down the down side of both the dogwalk and the a-frame. She is able to eventually find her position, but it is slow. I was very worried that we would end up with what Bentley had (that led us to his running contacts).
His thoughts were that Lexi is slowing down because when she misses the contact, our reaction was to pick her up and put her back into position. She's interpreting that to mean "you're running too fast". Stuart compared her thought process to the idea of a person getting a ticket for speeding. After that, you're a little gun shy, and you don't drive as fast.
The first extremely interesting bit of information that Stuart shared is that he would recommend that we go to a running contact with her. His words, "if I wanted to just do well locally, I'd do 2o2o. If I want to compete nationally, I need the running" (even with a quick release, you lose time with a 2o2o). Also, he thinks her stride might be pretty conducive to running, even more so than Bentley because she's smaller.
But, he said that if we want to teach 2o2o, we have to let her blow through a contact. So, if she misses it, we let it go. If we stop and mark it, she will slowly creep down the next time. Obviously she doesn't get a reward, but we can't mark it as a mistake. According to Stuart, "we have to let her blow through it and miss on occasion, because the alternative is that she'll creep the next time to get it done". Stuart said that we'll take our lumps initially with a running, but in the long run it will be worth it.
If we want to teach a running, she has to learn to focus, and still move. That means she'll blow a few at first.
We decided to work on speeding up her 2o2o for the next couple weeks. Stuart will be back in February, so we'll re-evaluate at that time.
We ran our first dogwalk, and it took Lexi 4 seconds. Not great. We have to first learn to ignore mistakes, and teach her to speed up. To speed her up, we added a secondary target beyond the first (behind another jump not too far away). Also, we kept the energy up the whole run, encouraging Lexi to go faster. On her second attempt, it took her 3 seconds. On the third attempt, she was easily under 3 seconds.
2. Barking/Herding in between runs: Lexi has a tendency to bark and jump around my feet while I'm walking from obstacle/sequence to sequence. I always interpreted it as bad, and asked Stuart if I should discourage it. His answer in short, "no". She just thinks we are running a sequence and is asking me for information.
3. Lexi's crazy "go go go" attitude: Lexi loves agility, and she often can be seen barking or going nuts up at the field. Also, everything she does is fast (sometimes at the sacrifice of details). Several people in our club have mentioned this, and we do have a few people in our club with crazy second dogs. I have been very worried that Lexi is going to turn into a dog that forgets to focus when she's in the ring. So, I asked Stuart if he saw that in Lexi, and if so, what should we do about it.
He asked us what we do at home, and I assured him that we work on control all the time. Lexi has to wait for everything: dinner, treats, leash, going outside, playing with a toy. He agreed that this is extremely important. He said that the tendency for people with slow first dogs is to cut the second dog a lot more slack, and to allow them to get away with things and to be a brat.
He said the key is that we need to be in charge of the pace of things. He set up a short sequence ( a circle with 3 jumps and a tunnel) where I was to run the circle at full speed, and then on the second pass, slow down and have Lexi slow down as well. Lexi's so cute...because Stuart was just going to show me as an example, but she started to run with him, and performed correctly. She immediately slowed when Stuart did and looked to him for further instruction. Lexi allows us to dictate the pace, which indicates that there isn't a problem. According to him, "you need the drive to win, but you need the control to qualify". If she's missing turns or floating wide, it's probably us.
4. Teeter: As I posted previously, Lexi has now gone through 2 periods of fear when it comes to the teeter. Stuart believed this is because Lexi understands everything about the teeter except what makes the teeter move and more importantly, what makes it stop moving. He recommended lowering the teeter and putting a target at the end. It is her job to run from one end to the other. We are not supposed to say anything, especially if she slows down or starts to look confused. We will continue to slowly move the teeter up.
We started with Lexi, and I'll explain our issues and his comments below.
1. Slow 2o2o. Recently Lexi has developed a bit of a creep down the down side of both the dogwalk and the a-frame. She is able to eventually find her position, but it is slow. I was very worried that we would end up with what Bentley had (that led us to his running contacts).
His thoughts were that Lexi is slowing down because when she misses the contact, our reaction was to pick her up and put her back into position. She's interpreting that to mean "you're running too fast". Stuart compared her thought process to the idea of a person getting a ticket for speeding. After that, you're a little gun shy, and you don't drive as fast.
The first extremely interesting bit of information that Stuart shared is that he would recommend that we go to a running contact with her. His words, "if I wanted to just do well locally, I'd do 2o2o. If I want to compete nationally, I need the running" (even with a quick release, you lose time with a 2o2o). Also, he thinks her stride might be pretty conducive to running, even more so than Bentley because she's smaller.
But, he said that if we want to teach 2o2o, we have to let her blow through a contact. So, if she misses it, we let it go. If we stop and mark it, she will slowly creep down the next time. Obviously she doesn't get a reward, but we can't mark it as a mistake. According to Stuart, "we have to let her blow through it and miss on occasion, because the alternative is that she'll creep the next time to get it done". Stuart said that we'll take our lumps initially with a running, but in the long run it will be worth it.
If we want to teach a running, she has to learn to focus, and still move. That means she'll blow a few at first.
We decided to work on speeding up her 2o2o for the next couple weeks. Stuart will be back in February, so we'll re-evaluate at that time.
We ran our first dogwalk, and it took Lexi 4 seconds. Not great. We have to first learn to ignore mistakes, and teach her to speed up. To speed her up, we added a secondary target beyond the first (behind another jump not too far away). Also, we kept the energy up the whole run, encouraging Lexi to go faster. On her second attempt, it took her 3 seconds. On the third attempt, she was easily under 3 seconds.
2. Barking/Herding in between runs: Lexi has a tendency to bark and jump around my feet while I'm walking from obstacle/sequence to sequence. I always interpreted it as bad, and asked Stuart if I should discourage it. His answer in short, "no". She just thinks we are running a sequence and is asking me for information.
3. Lexi's crazy "go go go" attitude: Lexi loves agility, and she often can be seen barking or going nuts up at the field. Also, everything she does is fast (sometimes at the sacrifice of details). Several people in our club have mentioned this, and we do have a few people in our club with crazy second dogs. I have been very worried that Lexi is going to turn into a dog that forgets to focus when she's in the ring. So, I asked Stuart if he saw that in Lexi, and if so, what should we do about it.
He asked us what we do at home, and I assured him that we work on control all the time. Lexi has to wait for everything: dinner, treats, leash, going outside, playing with a toy. He agreed that this is extremely important. He said that the tendency for people with slow first dogs is to cut the second dog a lot more slack, and to allow them to get away with things and to be a brat.
He said the key is that we need to be in charge of the pace of things. He set up a short sequence ( a circle with 3 jumps and a tunnel) where I was to run the circle at full speed, and then on the second pass, slow down and have Lexi slow down as well. Lexi's so cute...because Stuart was just going to show me as an example, but she started to run with him, and performed correctly. She immediately slowed when Stuart did and looked to him for further instruction. Lexi allows us to dictate the pace, which indicates that there isn't a problem. According to him, "you need the drive to win, but you need the control to qualify". If she's missing turns or floating wide, it's probably us.
4. Teeter: As I posted previously, Lexi has now gone through 2 periods of fear when it comes to the teeter. Stuart believed this is because Lexi understands everything about the teeter except what makes the teeter move and more importantly, what makes it stop moving. He recommended lowering the teeter and putting a target at the end. It is her job to run from one end to the other. We are not supposed to say anything, especially if she slows down or starts to look confused. We will continue to slowly move the teeter up.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Teeter training
So tonight I'm a little frustrated.
If you look back to the post dated 11/11, you will see that I mention that Lexi had a weird set back with the teeter, and we essentially had to start her training over again. I never could pinpoint exactly what "spooked" her--she didn't have an accident, and we were treating the teeter normally.
Well, I would say that a couple days ago I commented that her teeter was looking nice, and that she had started to bend her knees to brace for the bang. I chalked up her original fear to maybe her getting hurt since she wasn't bracing herself.
Bad news. Tonight we were working intervals with the teeter and Lexi was doing great. She never had a refusal, never even missed her contact, or hesitated. She was doing great.
We stopped working with her (put her in a down stay) and started working with Bentley. He did about 5-10 short sequences, and we decided to work Lexi again. The first thing she did was refuse the teeter. I corrected her, and we tried again, and she hopped on and hopped off. She then refused to touch it, and appeared scared. It took me a lot of coaxing to even get her to bang it (just with her front paws, and the board close to the ground). I have no idea what happened.
I don't know what to do, nor do I know why she is acting this way. We are going to try again tomorrow, but I have a feeling I know what the outcome will be. I can't keep retraining the teeter...what is going on?!?
If you look back to the post dated 11/11, you will see that I mention that Lexi had a weird set back with the teeter, and we essentially had to start her training over again. I never could pinpoint exactly what "spooked" her--she didn't have an accident, and we were treating the teeter normally.
Well, I would say that a couple days ago I commented that her teeter was looking nice, and that she had started to bend her knees to brace for the bang. I chalked up her original fear to maybe her getting hurt since she wasn't bracing herself.
Bad news. Tonight we were working intervals with the teeter and Lexi was doing great. She never had a refusal, never even missed her contact, or hesitated. She was doing great.
We stopped working with her (put her in a down stay) and started working with Bentley. He did about 5-10 short sequences, and we decided to work Lexi again. The first thing she did was refuse the teeter. I corrected her, and we tried again, and she hopped on and hopped off. She then refused to touch it, and appeared scared. It took me a lot of coaxing to even get her to bang it (just with her front paws, and the board close to the ground). I have no idea what happened.
I don't know what to do, nor do I know why she is acting this way. We are going to try again tomorrow, but I have a feeling I know what the outcome will be. I can't keep retraining the teeter...what is going on?!?
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Contact work
Just a quick post with a couple videos from last night.
The first is Lexi's teeter. About a month ago she refused the teeter, and has been spooked ever since. She hasn't had a bad experience, and we're really not sure where this came from. That being said, we basically had to start her teeter training all over. She's not 100% ready yet, but here's her gaining confidence on the teeter, not quite at full height.
Now Lexi on the dogwalk. She doesn't need the target plates, but I think we'll leave them down for practice to reinforce her driving to the bottom.
And Bentley's dogwalk. Still needs a lot of work. We've put hoops on the end to work more on him keeping his head down and driving rather than jumping off the end (which he's still doing).
The first is Lexi's teeter. About a month ago she refused the teeter, and has been spooked ever since. She hasn't had a bad experience, and we're really not sure where this came from. That being said, we basically had to start her teeter training all over. She's not 100% ready yet, but here's her gaining confidence on the teeter, not quite at full height.
Now Lexi on the dogwalk. She doesn't need the target plates, but I think we'll leave them down for practice to reinforce her driving to the bottom.
And Bentley's dogwalk. Still needs a lot of work. We've put hoops on the end to work more on him keeping his head down and driving rather than jumping off the end (which he's still doing).
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
More practice
Lexi has continued to work on her teeter. She has been having trouble making the connection about not jumping off on the end. So we're working a lot on the "bang" in her 4 on position.
Bentley did more A-frame work:
Lexi was really moving in a short sequence:
Bentley did more A-frame work:
Lexi was really moving in a short sequence:
Some A-Frame Work
We finally had a break in the weather...and were able to get out to do some A-Frame and teeter work with the pups.
First, Lexi.
I think she is looking really good! We are trying some proofing things with her 2o2o (note the running!) She did pull off once, but seemed to understand after that. She's coming over the top nicely, but she is slowing and skidding down. I assume as she gets stronger that it will get a bit more fluid.
I'm also really impressed by her handling. This is her first time doing a sequence at 16 (we only left them there for 2 runs for her) since she is just about 11 months old. She seems pretty obstacle focused, which is a change.
Now, Bentley. He actually missed three A-frame contacts the other day in practice. I was really surprised, and very disappointed. We took him out tonight, and he did great! He didn't miss a single one! I'm not sure what the deal was...but I'm going to keep changing the angle of the obstacle after the A-frame to continue to challenge him (and remind him where the yellow is!)
In the videos, note that he is doing a really nice out. It might not seem far to most people, but it's amazing for us. He also independently completes the A-frame after my husband stopped running. I'm very happy about that. His RC was also quite nice.
We then switched and did a little teeter work with Bentley. His teeter isn't a huge priority of mine. It's not great, but it works. As long as I can get him to get through the yellow before our quick release, I'm happy. He also gets a nice out on a 6-weave pole set. That's usually really tough for him.
We also worked the teeter with Lexi some...and I think she's starting to get it! She had been having trouble popping off as soon as the teeter banged. Almost like she couldn't hold it. We were letting her jump up the side, bang it, and get into position, but she had no trouble with that. But as soon as we put her on the end and she ran down, she would get bumped off. Today we put her on halfway at about mid-height, and let her run down and bang it. I think she is learned to crouch down and balance herself, and did really well with this.
First, Lexi.
I think she is looking really good! We are trying some proofing things with her 2o2o (note the running!) She did pull off once, but seemed to understand after that. She's coming over the top nicely, but she is slowing and skidding down. I assume as she gets stronger that it will get a bit more fluid.
I'm also really impressed by her handling. This is her first time doing a sequence at 16 (we only left them there for 2 runs for her) since she is just about 11 months old. She seems pretty obstacle focused, which is a change.
Now, Bentley. He actually missed three A-frame contacts the other day in practice. I was really surprised, and very disappointed. We took him out tonight, and he did great! He didn't miss a single one! I'm not sure what the deal was...but I'm going to keep changing the angle of the obstacle after the A-frame to continue to challenge him (and remind him where the yellow is!)
In the videos, note that he is doing a really nice out. It might not seem far to most people, but it's amazing for us. He also independently completes the A-frame after my husband stopped running. I'm very happy about that. His RC was also quite nice.
We then switched and did a little teeter work with Bentley. His teeter isn't a huge priority of mine. It's not great, but it works. As long as I can get him to get through the yellow before our quick release, I'm happy. He also gets a nice out on a 6-weave pole set. That's usually really tough for him.
We also worked the teeter with Lexi some...and I think she's starting to get it! She had been having trouble popping off as soon as the teeter banged. Almost like she couldn't hold it. We were letting her jump up the side, bang it, and get into position, but she had no trouble with that. But as soon as we put her on the end and she ran down, she would get bumped off. Today we put her on halfway at about mid-height, and let her run down and bang it. I think she is learned to crouch down and balance herself, and did really well with this.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wendy Pape's Teeter Method
We have been working on Lexi's teeter using Wendy Pape's teeter training method. We don't have a finished product yet, but all of the steps can be found in her DVD, Teeter From Start to Finish, available here:
http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1891&ParentCat=222
Here is Lexi's work thus far. You will note that we did not video all the steps..and we don't yet have a finished product!
http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1891&ParentCat=222
Here is Lexi's work thus far. You will note that we did not video all the steps..and we don't yet have a finished product!
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