Agility
I stupidly left Jem a little bit too close to the first jump so she knocked the first pole :( she got all her contacts though bless her, then for some reason despite her running straight at the weaves when I told her weave she span round to look at me but then when i turned her around again she did all 6 perfect first time :) i then span her round a corner too tight and she knocked another pole but then she finished nicely
Jumping
We didn't have enough time to walk this course but it was a nice up and down course. Jem did TEN weaves first time straight off with no funny business beforehand, it was such a joy to watch :) she sadly then knocked a pole as she came out of the tunnel so finished on 5 faults. I was really pleased with her round :)
My plan now is that I want to really work on Jems jumping as pole knocking seems to be our biggest problem at the moment, although I still want to work on her contacts, especially the a-frame. Jumping grids will be our plan for our next lessons (if of course my trainer agrees!!:P)
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Weaves
The weather was hot again today so the dogs did half an hour each, twice, instead of an hour each.
Elliot:
We did some jumping work and realised we really need to work on his forward drive (still!) as I was trying to back cross him after going round a corner and he kept just looking at me and going round the jump and doing all sorts of crazy things bless him, I think he was struggling a bit in the heat though. After his break we did some weaves work - we put him back to 3 inches and planned to work on "the walk" but it took us ages to get there as he kept not doing the weaves right when i was releasing and pen rewarding and then he kept wondering off and getting confused. Eventually we managed to do it with me going from the 5th pole on the right and 3rd on the left. We then did a few minutes of tyre work and he picked it up straight away,
Jemma:
We worked on her angled weave entrances today and on me working the weaves as part of a course and not as a seperate item within the course. Towards the end we were doing really well with Jem getting the entrances and doing all the weaves correctly and me remembering to move when she was in the weaves and not just watch her. I also improved my flowing arm movement and slowly got rid of the flickly flying arm I like(d) to do. I was really pleased with Jem, she really seems to understand the weaves now, we shall see what sunday brings!
Elliot:
We did some jumping work and realised we really need to work on his forward drive (still!) as I was trying to back cross him after going round a corner and he kept just looking at me and going round the jump and doing all sorts of crazy things bless him, I think he was struggling a bit in the heat though. After his break we did some weaves work - we put him back to 3 inches and planned to work on "the walk" but it took us ages to get there as he kept not doing the weaves right when i was releasing and pen rewarding and then he kept wondering off and getting confused. Eventually we managed to do it with me going from the 5th pole on the right and 3rd on the left. We then did a few minutes of tyre work and he picked it up straight away,
Jemma:
We worked on her angled weave entrances today and on me working the weaves as part of a course and not as a seperate item within the course. Towards the end we were doing really well with Jem getting the entrances and doing all the weaves correctly and me remembering to move when she was in the weaves and not just watch her. I also improved my flowing arm movement and slowly got rid of the flickly flying arm I like(d) to do. I was really pleased with Jem, she really seems to understand the weaves now, we shall see what sunday brings!
Monday, 22 June 2009
Todays lesson
It was really hot and muggy today so the dogs got hot and tired quite quickly bless them.
Elliot:
We got him down to 2inches on his weaves as he started just barging the 3inches, we also did more contact work and he is very good on the table/seesaw plank combo and when just doing the down plank of the dog walk but when doing the whole dog walk he seems to forget to touch the target, a a few more good clicker training sessions and hopefully this will improve! We also did some jumping work, and realised that we need a little bit of work on our long straight jumps and then front cross as if I leave it too late to start running he ends up rasing me and then not reading my body language that he needs to turn. We got there in the end though bless him.
Jemma:
We did some work on flick flacks and spreads, two of our problems from the weekends and I think with both it is just practise, the flick flacks mainly on the right-side and the spreads simply because she has only really seen them in competition and never trained them. We then did some weaves and she did brilliantly although she did make us chuckle a lot as after practising them a few times I was then meant to do a course that pulled her off the weaves first time (into a tunnel) and then sent her on to them later on, just to try and build up some speed before them and three times in a row I turned and called to direct her into the tunnel and she just went straight past me, into the weaves and did all six to the end and then looked most confused as to why I was so far behind her and facing the other way!!! Bless! We then decided so as not to loose her new found love of the weaves we would alter the course so I didn't have to pull her off them. We are going to have a weave challenging course out for us on wed apparently and possibly might try her on 12!!
Elliot:
We got him down to 2inches on his weaves as he started just barging the 3inches, we also did more contact work and he is very good on the table/seesaw plank combo and when just doing the down plank of the dog walk but when doing the whole dog walk he seems to forget to touch the target, a a few more good clicker training sessions and hopefully this will improve! We also did some jumping work, and realised that we need a little bit of work on our long straight jumps and then front cross as if I leave it too late to start running he ends up rasing me and then not reading my body language that he needs to turn. We got there in the end though bless him.
Jemma:
We did some work on flick flacks and spreads, two of our problems from the weekends and I think with both it is just practise, the flick flacks mainly on the right-side and the spreads simply because she has only really seen them in competition and never trained them. We then did some weaves and she did brilliantly although she did make us chuckle a lot as after practising them a few times I was then meant to do a course that pulled her off the weaves first time (into a tunnel) and then sent her on to them later on, just to try and build up some speed before them and three times in a row I turned and called to direct her into the tunnel and she just went straight past me, into the weaves and did all six to the end and then looked most confused as to why I was so far behind her and facing the other way!!! Bless! We then decided so as not to loose her new found love of the weaves we would alter the course so I didn't have to pull her off them. We are going to have a weave challenging course out for us on wed apparently and possibly might try her on 12!!
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Agility Nuts 21/06/09 - We did it!!
Jumping:
Well due to a silly mummy Jem was eliminated - she went in to the weaves at full pelt and cracked her shoulder on the last one but did do them all correctly, however I thought she had missed the gap between 3 and 4 so made her do them again and this time she did miss that gap, she got it right again on the third attempt and then worked very nicely but did knock a pole. Next time I will pay more attention to what she is actually doing bless her!!
Take Your Own Line Agility:
A brill round and not only did she go clear but she also came FIRST!!!! Our first one (our highest up till today was a third!) so I was very proud of her bless her, hopefully it is the first of many!! Time - 22.26.
Agility:
Firstly she missed the contact on her A-frame - naughty girl. There was a flick flack in this and she completely ignored my "middle arm" so I set her up two jumps further back and tried again, this time she came in but then went out of completely the wrong jump but we tried to carry on and it didn't work so we decided to head straight to the end but I forgot where that was!! We managed to do the A-frame with a proper contact and then managed to get her over the last jump bless her!
Clockwork Tunnels:
We got half way round very nicely and then went in the wrong tunnel and then despite trying to carry on she kept going in the wrong tunnel and gonig the wrong way bless her but we some how made it across the finishing jump.
Pay on the Day Jumping:
She went clear but there were other fast little dogs so she ended up finishing fourth but rosettes only went to first place.
So 3 eliminations and a first, what a day!!
She is now 22 out of 48 in the league!
Well due to a silly mummy Jem was eliminated - she went in to the weaves at full pelt and cracked her shoulder on the last one but did do them all correctly, however I thought she had missed the gap between 3 and 4 so made her do them again and this time she did miss that gap, she got it right again on the third attempt and then worked very nicely but did knock a pole. Next time I will pay more attention to what she is actually doing bless her!!
Take Your Own Line Agility:
A brill round and not only did she go clear but she also came FIRST!!!! Our first one (our highest up till today was a third!) so I was very proud of her bless her, hopefully it is the first of many!! Time - 22.26.
Agility:
Firstly she missed the contact on her A-frame - naughty girl. There was a flick flack in this and she completely ignored my "middle arm" so I set her up two jumps further back and tried again, this time she came in but then went out of completely the wrong jump but we tried to carry on and it didn't work so we decided to head straight to the end but I forgot where that was!! We managed to do the A-frame with a proper contact and then managed to get her over the last jump bless her!
Clockwork Tunnels:
We got half way round very nicely and then went in the wrong tunnel and then despite trying to carry on she kept going in the wrong tunnel and gonig the wrong way bless her but we some how made it across the finishing jump.
Pay on the Day Jumping:
She went clear but there were other fast little dogs so she ended up finishing fourth but rosettes only went to first place.
So 3 eliminations and a first, what a day!!
She is now 22 out of 48 in the league!
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Agility Nuts 20/06/09 - 5 Fault Day!!
Jumping:
For some reason Jem got over excited and didn't see one of the jumps and so did a funny little twiddly bit getting us 5 faults, she finished 13th - 23.41s (w=20.60)
Tunnel Torment Agility:
Brill round but again she got over excited and did a twiddly bit (tis v odd as I am not aware she has done this before!) again getting us 5 faults - time was she was exactly 3 seconds faster than the winner and finished on 5th - 27.75!!
Helter Skelter:
The first and only course of the day with weaves in! They were second from the end and she did all 6 perfect first time sadly she then knocked the higher pole on the spread the last obstacle so another 5 faults - I thought she would do this as we havn't really trained spreads so definitely something we need to work on bless her. Pen was judging this one and gave us a judges special because it was the first time that in competition when I told Jemma weaves she actually looked straight at the weaves and was focused on them and doing them right bless her - hopefully we will get more weave practise tomorrow - that is something I never thought I would say!!! She finished 13th - 29.54 (w=27.98)
Agilty:
She did very nicely in this one but knocked the second to last pole so yup you guessed it giving us another 5 faults. She did this (and pos knocked the spread) because I knew we were going clear and so went go go go to try and speed her up that bit and i think that by doing this she did up the speed but kind of forgot what she was doing and so didn't pick her feet up enough bless her. She finished 12th but again in this course she would have been first on her time - 23.25, 1.06s faster than winner.
In pairs we paired up with a lady we didn't know and she went first and went clear but then forgot to take the baton, jem went clear until the last jump which she ran round, I think because I assumed she would take it and didn't work her properly right to the end so yet again we had 5 faults!!!
Its a knockout she went out in the first round bless her.
For some reason Jem got over excited and didn't see one of the jumps and so did a funny little twiddly bit getting us 5 faults, she finished 13th - 23.41s (w=20.60)
Tunnel Torment Agility:
Brill round but again she got over excited and did a twiddly bit (tis v odd as I am not aware she has done this before!) again getting us 5 faults - time was she was exactly 3 seconds faster than the winner and finished on 5th - 27.75!!
Helter Skelter:
The first and only course of the day with weaves in! They were second from the end and she did all 6 perfect first time sadly she then knocked the higher pole on the spread the last obstacle so another 5 faults - I thought she would do this as we havn't really trained spreads so definitely something we need to work on bless her. Pen was judging this one and gave us a judges special because it was the first time that in competition when I told Jemma weaves she actually looked straight at the weaves and was focused on them and doing them right bless her - hopefully we will get more weave practise tomorrow - that is something I never thought I would say!!! She finished 13th - 29.54 (w=27.98)
Agilty:
She did very nicely in this one but knocked the second to last pole so yup you guessed it giving us another 5 faults. She did this (and pos knocked the spread) because I knew we were going clear and so went go go go to try and speed her up that bit and i think that by doing this she did up the speed but kind of forgot what she was doing and so didn't pick her feet up enough bless her. She finished 12th but again in this course she would have been first on her time - 23.25, 1.06s faster than winner.
In pairs we paired up with a lady we didn't know and she went first and went clear but then forgot to take the baton, jem went clear until the last jump which she ran round, I think because I assumed she would take it and didn't work her properly right to the end so yet again we had 5 faults!!!
Its a knockout she went out in the first round bless her.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Another really good one :)
Elliot:
Lots of contact work for my little man - we started with the table with the see-saw plank leaning up against it, to build up his drive and target work. He really improved on this and was doing really well and we manged to greatly reduce the number of times he played "tiddly winks" with the disc, little toad. We then went on to the dog walk and back trained this until we did a couple of full dog walks with me geeing him up before hand and he had real drive to the target at the end and was actually touching it and not just running on. I shall do some work on this at the competition at the weekend in the practise ring to try and keep his focus. We also did a little bit of seesaw but he kept jumping of the side at the bottom so we shall work on this more next week. His weaves - wow!! - we did three lots of four inches (me releasing and pen rewarding) and then put them down to three inches and did the same thing and he got it right first time little smarty pants. We then did some with me recalling him and he was good until we did it with me on the left from the fifth weave. We shall be working more on his three inch weaves next week. We finisehd on some back cross work with four jumps and eventually we got there bless him, part of the problem was me trying to get to where i thought was the right position but because he is a speedy little demon I was turning WAY to late so he was running round the jump, once I sorted myself out he did very well. I have a feeling I will need my running shoes on when we get to competition!!!
Jemma:
More weave work for my little girl and she did super duper bless her. The only times she got it wrong was when she offered the weaves when I wanted her to do something else bless her. We did the weaves with a couple of jumps before hand and then put them in a course (twice!!). I am really excited about the competition at the weekend and just hope that I can remmeber exactly what I did today and do the same thing in the hope of enabling jem to get it right bless her. We also did some flick flack work which she was really good at when doing them on my left but not so good when doing them on my right, I really need to work on her focus on the right as for some reason it is REALLY bad comapred to on the left!! Think that was it for Jem as we did lots on the weaves and she got really tired bless her.
Lots of contact work for my little man - we started with the table with the see-saw plank leaning up against it, to build up his drive and target work. He really improved on this and was doing really well and we manged to greatly reduce the number of times he played "tiddly winks" with the disc, little toad. We then went on to the dog walk and back trained this until we did a couple of full dog walks with me geeing him up before hand and he had real drive to the target at the end and was actually touching it and not just running on. I shall do some work on this at the competition at the weekend in the practise ring to try and keep his focus. We also did a little bit of seesaw but he kept jumping of the side at the bottom so we shall work on this more next week. His weaves - wow!! - we did three lots of four inches (me releasing and pen rewarding) and then put them down to three inches and did the same thing and he got it right first time little smarty pants. We then did some with me recalling him and he was good until we did it with me on the left from the fifth weave. We shall be working more on his three inch weaves next week. We finisehd on some back cross work with four jumps and eventually we got there bless him, part of the problem was me trying to get to where i thought was the right position but because he is a speedy little demon I was turning WAY to late so he was running round the jump, once I sorted myself out he did very well. I have a feeling I will need my running shoes on when we get to competition!!!
Jemma:
More weave work for my little girl and she did super duper bless her. The only times she got it wrong was when she offered the weaves when I wanted her to do something else bless her. We did the weaves with a couple of jumps before hand and then put them in a course (twice!!). I am really excited about the competition at the weekend and just hope that I can remmeber exactly what I did today and do the same thing in the hope of enabling jem to get it right bless her. We also did some flick flack work which she was really good at when doing them on my left but not so good when doing them on my right, I really need to work on her focus on the right as for some reason it is REALLY bad comapred to on the left!! Think that was it for Jem as we did lots on the weaves and she got really tired bless her.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Clever Jembe
Agility today:
Elliot
We did lots of handling work (using front crosses) - I need more confidence in him/we need to work on him doing turns with me at a distance so that I can move and get in the right positions for front cross. I also need to do more change of arm work just to really ingrain it in him. I also need to learn to MOVE - I like to stand and "admire my handiwork" as pen put it - ie when he has gone into the tunnel I stand and wait for him to appear out the other end before moving, i did improve on this though towards the end!! I also need to work on the jumps in a step shape with him working it as a straight line. We then did some weaves, starting on 4inches and after spending five minutes of him keep getting it wrong, once he got it right the once he got it right everytime bar i think once out of 20ish. We then moved them into 3inches and he got very confused and it took us lots of work, going back to 3 weaves and then four but then we couldn't get him to do six and he was just getting stressed and confused so we went back to 4inches and he did 6 of them right three times straight off!! Funny little dog. Tomorrow it will be contact work, backcrosses and weaves.
Jemma:
Well what can I say, what a little star. It was weaves we worked on today and wow, she got them wrong only twice out of over 30 I would of thought. She was brill, we went straight for doing 6, me recalling her, then recall over my shoulder from 5,4,3 then 2 then walking with her then me jogging then running with her. We then did bent tunnel, weaves and she was brilliant - once her excitement levels built up we found her problem, she got the entrance and exit every time but kept loosing her footing and missing the gap between 3 & 4. We then put the weaves as obstacle 15 in a course (after the tunnel), and the first time she lost her footing, the second time of doing the course however she did them perfectly (i hung back slightly) and then completed the course nicely too. We then put them after the cloth tunnel, as we hadn't done cloth tunnel weaves before we started doing just these two. To start she kept coming out of the tunnel and doing the jump she had in the course before, i then recalled her through the weaves from the tunnel exit - brill. I then tried recalling her through the tunnel and weaves - haha, bless her, she kept running round the tunnel and then doing the weaves perfectly, after she had done this about 5 times we took out the jump that was causing her the problem and I ran with her doing cloth tunnel, weaves and called her to me as she came out the tunnel and then sent her into weaves, just to straighten her up. This worked well so we then went on to do the course. She did the weaves really well but I did the same as with elliot and kept "admiring my handiwork" but once I stopped doing this we got round this course brilliantly. I was very proud of her today, I just hope she continues to go in this direction with her weaves :)
Elliot
We did lots of handling work (using front crosses) - I need more confidence in him/we need to work on him doing turns with me at a distance so that I can move and get in the right positions for front cross. I also need to do more change of arm work just to really ingrain it in him. I also need to learn to MOVE - I like to stand and "admire my handiwork" as pen put it - ie when he has gone into the tunnel I stand and wait for him to appear out the other end before moving, i did improve on this though towards the end!! I also need to work on the jumps in a step shape with him working it as a straight line. We then did some weaves, starting on 4inches and after spending five minutes of him keep getting it wrong, once he got it right the once he got it right everytime bar i think once out of 20ish. We then moved them into 3inches and he got very confused and it took us lots of work, going back to 3 weaves and then four but then we couldn't get him to do six and he was just getting stressed and confused so we went back to 4inches and he did 6 of them right three times straight off!! Funny little dog. Tomorrow it will be contact work, backcrosses and weaves.
Jemma:
Well what can I say, what a little star. It was weaves we worked on today and wow, she got them wrong only twice out of over 30 I would of thought. She was brill, we went straight for doing 6, me recalling her, then recall over my shoulder from 5,4,3 then 2 then walking with her then me jogging then running with her. We then did bent tunnel, weaves and she was brilliant - once her excitement levels built up we found her problem, she got the entrance and exit every time but kept loosing her footing and missing the gap between 3 & 4. We then put the weaves as obstacle 15 in a course (after the tunnel), and the first time she lost her footing, the second time of doing the course however she did them perfectly (i hung back slightly) and then completed the course nicely too. We then put them after the cloth tunnel, as we hadn't done cloth tunnel weaves before we started doing just these two. To start she kept coming out of the tunnel and doing the jump she had in the course before, i then recalled her through the weaves from the tunnel exit - brill. I then tried recalling her through the tunnel and weaves - haha, bless her, she kept running round the tunnel and then doing the weaves perfectly, after she had done this about 5 times we took out the jump that was causing her the problem and I ran with her doing cloth tunnel, weaves and called her to me as she came out the tunnel and then sent her into weaves, just to straighten her up. This worked well so we then went on to do the course. She did the weaves really well but I did the same as with elliot and kept "admiring my handiwork" but once I stopped doing this we got round this course brilliantly. I was very proud of her today, I just hope she continues to go in this direction with her weaves :)
Monday, 15 June 2009
Its been a while
I have had my uni exams the past month so the dogs training has sadly taken a bit of a back seat but now they are over the training is back on!:)
We have been home just over a week now and have had a couple of agility lessons. Jemma had an amazing lesson doing weaves, we started on four and then did four space four and then decided to do six. She only got it wrong twice i thing in the whole training session doing them!! I have also done some handling work with her and she did well with that too, it was mainly me that needed to remember how to handle rather than her how to follow my body language!!
Elliot also did really well and remembered everything. The value work I did with the one jump has really helped him, he now takes jumps of his own free will, something he never did before, however this hasn't translated as much as I had hoped so I think now we need to do lots of work on building my distance from the jump sideways to help us. His contacts have sadly gone backwards I feel so we need to do some more work on this. His weaves are also greatly improving, he is down to 4 inches now and next time we are going to take him down to 3 inches and put a jump in front I think. Tonight I took him to a group lesson as he is VERY friendly towards people and dogs at the moment I having only ever trained him in private lessons I worry that when I get him to a competition I will loose him as he will find the atmosphere more exciting than working. It turned out that when doing jumps he wasn't bothered at all about the other dogs, however when doing contacts he couldn't concentrate at all and just kept watching what else was going on. I think in a competition our problem will come if I go wrong in a course or loose him because then he will loose his focus and notice the other dogs/people and i can see him doing a runner. At least we now have a better idea of how to go forward with his training.
Well I shall leave it at that for now and update after every lesson I have now I have more time!!
We have been home just over a week now and have had a couple of agility lessons. Jemma had an amazing lesson doing weaves, we started on four and then did four space four and then decided to do six. She only got it wrong twice i thing in the whole training session doing them!! I have also done some handling work with her and she did well with that too, it was mainly me that needed to remember how to handle rather than her how to follow my body language!!
Elliot also did really well and remembered everything. The value work I did with the one jump has really helped him, he now takes jumps of his own free will, something he never did before, however this hasn't translated as much as I had hoped so I think now we need to do lots of work on building my distance from the jump sideways to help us. His contacts have sadly gone backwards I feel so we need to do some more work on this. His weaves are also greatly improving, he is down to 4 inches now and next time we are going to take him down to 3 inches and put a jump in front I think. Tonight I took him to a group lesson as he is VERY friendly towards people and dogs at the moment I having only ever trained him in private lessons I worry that when I get him to a competition I will loose him as he will find the atmosphere more exciting than working. It turned out that when doing jumps he wasn't bothered at all about the other dogs, however when doing contacts he couldn't concentrate at all and just kept watching what else was going on. I think in a competition our problem will come if I go wrong in a course or loose him because then he will loose his focus and notice the other dogs/people and i can see him doing a runner. At least we now have a better idea of how to go forward with his training.
Well I shall leave it at that for now and update after every lesson I have now I have more time!!
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