Lessons in agility

I had booked Tooheys in for one of the sessions at a workshop with Toni Dawkins (one of the countries top agility handlers) this past sunday which I had been soo looking forward to for some time now. So you can imagine my extreme dissapointment when my car broke down on the weekend (again!!!) leaving me without any form of transportation to get to the training grounds and meaning I had to miss our session. So not happy!!

Thankfully though I was able to borrow transport to get to our lesson with Dave Jolly yesterday. We had a really good session (or at least I was happy with what I got out of it) and I feel like we should begin to make some real progress with these individual lessons. After all, it is my handling that needs all the work and needs someone in my ear all the time to break old habits. And its nice to be able to focus on handling and motivation without worrying about what other dogs are doing around us. I would like to keep track of how we're progressing so will try and do so here. So apologies to anyone who couldnt give a rats about agility training. Just tune it out.

A few lessons learnt - or re-learnt - from yesterday:
*Every single time he dropped a bar it was MY fault (funny that, given that on the whole isnt a bar knocker ;) ) - usually from me turning too early, too late or too fast. Take your pick.
*I need to start to cue any turns earlier (yep, already knew that..) - again to minimise him trying to turn midair and knocking poles, but mainly so he knows a turns coming up and we can tighten up his line between obstacles. Hes never going to be as fast as a fast long-striding dog so I need to be able to shave time wherever possible and make the most of his ability to turn tightly
* He looks at me far too much. In fact I never realised how much, but he is checking in with me between almost every obstacle at the moment. Its meant a few times he hasnt seen the jump until hes already on top of it and then had to go around/under it - this consistently happened with jumps on a diagonal close enough together that he really needed to bounce jump, but because he glanced at me he couldnt bounce.
* Be careful with my arms. I flick at obstacles far too much, but on the other hand keeping my arm up means to keep going and I shouldnt be suprised if he keeps going on a different path than the jump next to me.
* Trust my dog!!! Theres nothing wrong with making mistakes in training as long as you learn from them.

Im sure there was probably more points but they're the main ones that come to mind. As I said I really knew them all already but what I think Im doing and what Im actually doing are often 2 very different things.

And as for the contact front? Well Im ashamed to admit I changed my mind yet again. Tooheys went back to offering beautiful running Aframes which just messed with my plans. So my current frame of mind on the subject is that I do want a stationary position but one that is simillar to his original running contact behaviour so easier for him to default to, and also one thats easier for him to physically get into position at speed than our current stationary behaviour. Back to the drawing board, but at this point Im going back to targetting. Stay tuned, I may change my mind yet again after our 2nd lesson at Scrambles tomorrow.
Poor dog, what hope does he have if I cant sort myself out!

Contacts!

At the moment Im working nights, in a week on-week off fashion, not far out of London. Given that I still get sleep when not much is happening overnight, it means I have the days to spend at my leisure, and actually have some time for once to get the dogs out and about and do some training. So Ive decided to take up some private 1-2-1 agility lessons so we can focus on specific areas. Yesterday was the first of our lessons at Scramble agility club.

While we did a few sequences, we spent most of the lesson working on contacts and going back to basics. Its what we most definately need given we dont get enough access to maintain behaviours.

Tooheys was initially taught running contacts (despite my reservations prior), and had a really nice 3-4 stride A frame but it wasnt long before his dogwalk contact behaviour started deminishing. So last winter I retaught a new stationary contact behaviour away from the actual equipment, and earlier in the year I translated that behaviour to the equipment itself. Unfortunately I didnt get as much time to introduce it as slowly as I would have liked but he seemed to catch on.

So fastforward to now and Tooheys understands his contact behaviour quite well and he can perform it nicely on the dogwalk, but is struggling a little on the Aframe - he lost his nice running Aframe once we introduced the stationary dogwalk as he lost his massive drive over the top of the frame and started hesitating on the way down only to miss the contact. BUT he also has difficulty stopping himself in position at the bottom so will often overrun and then get himself back on into contact position.

So at the lesson yesterday we discussed the fact that theres no reason he cant have a stationary dogwalk and running Aframe. So we went back to basics to re-increase his drive over the frame and hitting his running target. And wouldnt you know it but the little sod insisted on taking up a perfect 2on-2off contact everytime..without his previous difficulty of stopping in position. Seems I have to decide I want something else for him to decide that he can do what I wanted in the first place!!! So 2on-2off Aframes it is. And hopefully only upwards from here!