Open Agility Practice

Busy weekend but  I have to rewind to Thursday!   I took the girls to Kruisin Kanine's Open Agility practice for the first time this year and I felt like it was a really productive time!

With Perri, I did not do much.  Less is more!   In our own yard at home I have had our 12 weaves set up, slightly open channel except for the two poles at each end.   Both so that she enters two straight poles and that on the exit she has to collect and pay attention to those last two poles.   At the agility practice, it was our first time away from home since the confidence-building channel weave games at home.   Took Perri to the outdoor ring...she rocked the weave poles.   No popping out and some nice footwork!   We did a little bit of work in the indoor dirt ring but Perri became deflated after I put her in one of the wire crates lining the ring.  She still did her weave poles and stayed in them.  This is a huge improvement from any time that we were at this location last year.  And next time we visit, I will use Perri's soft crate!

Molly was a lot more work!   Since we are returning to a stopped A-frame, I wanted to practice that at a new location.  There were two A-frames in two different rings and that is awesome!  Molly did really well and we had unlimited time to work on this skill, as well as taking breaks and mixing in other work as well.  Molly and I have been working on her stopped A-frame over the last month.  Our trainer has had us backchaining the behavior, so I had to train a strong back-up and rear foot target behavior on Molly.  We have been generalizing this on different objects, as well as the A-frame.  We recently started putting it all together, with Molly needing to find the end behavior (the "two on/two off" position that she has been backing into) as she is running up and over the A-frame.

Molly is really soaking up this training and I feel like she is becoming very solid!  You can see that Molly's rear feet are on the very low end of the A-frame.  Our trainer feels that many dogs blow contacts because the traditional 2o/2o position puts a lot of pressure on their front end, since their rear is so high in the air.  I agree!  

Making Molly hold her position for photos is perhaps a little "mean" of me, but it is good for her.  She must stay until released, and "torturing" her with useless photos (in her opinion!  she has always hated photos.) is just additional proofing.  Plus, she's cute!

Another thing that we worked on is: using the ball to generalize weave pole value.  Last year I did not use The Ball! here because I wanted to run a course and reward Molly for doing the weaves with another toy (lower value, less lunatic behavior.)  As the year progressed, we took the weave pole foundations class on FDSA and our instructor there encouraged me to use the ball and get that high arousal!  I get bitten more, but it will be good in the end.  And sure enough, I got some rockin' weave pole work out of Molly.  At one point she was headed at a 90 degree angle towards the weave poles, and headed dead for the second pole.  I was at least 10 feet behind her.  She veered away, found her entry...and completed all of the poles.  It's in there!  She knows this!  I just need her to see those poles wherever we go (trials!) and feel the excitement she feels when she knows the ball is coming.  We are going to get there!

The last thing that we worked on was engagement in the outdoor ring.  And it was not easy.  Last September was the last time we trialed outdoors and it was a complete disaster.  Complete stress, jumping out of the ring, screaming meltdowns (which I felt were the result of her being confused and thinking she was lure coursing).  As soon as we walked outside we did our normal acclimation work.  I asked her for a sit stay.  I unclipped the leash.  Molly was off like a shot sniffing the edges of the ring and found some deer poop to roll in.  Yikes.   We backed it up and I really gave Molly extra acclimation time, I let her sniff and if she engaged with me that was her choice.  We worked on focus as I went to remove the leash...that took a while.  She knew when I took that leash off she was free to do as she chose! (deer poop.)  We had a lot of trial and error out in the field that day, and we have much work ahead of us.  We were at the training center for two hours, we cycled through these three exercises - as well as breaks for me to work Perri or just talk to the other people who were there.  By the end of our time, in the outdoor ring, Molly was able to do two jumps and a tunnel and recall to me (for a major jackpot!) and we ended it there!  

I love this club and their three-ring open agility practice!  I look forwards to returning there.

Back to Basics

One thing that really frustrates me about myself is that I let my criteria slide.  Often.  For almost every behavior that I would like my dogs to do.  This has to change.  While I certainly do not mean for it to be so, it has to be completely confusing for my dogs.  It is bad enough that I let my criteria slide at a trial, but I do it in training as well.  Especially agility.  Especially Molly's contact behaviors.

And the major problem with Molly's contact behaviors is that even I had never made a solid decision on what I wanted her to do.  "Hit the yellow" is not a good enough guideline.  It is not that simple.  I am firmly settling on wanting a 2 on / 2 off behavior.  All dogs, but I feel like Molly especially, need to know very clearly what is desired of them.  To me, a 2o/2o behavior is a very specific behavior, and specific is good for Molly.  This is a thing that I feel like we can accomplish with the equipment and space that I have available.  A thing that I feel like we can translate to actual contact equipment, without actually having those things in our own backyard to practice on.  (Vince is understandably reluctant to have an Aframe for our yard, even though he said he would build one!)

We are having fun practicing 2o/2o all over the house and outside the house on different sets of stairs, with me on the right or left side.  Molly is doing quite a bit of coming down the stairs, nose touching the target and then bouncing her rear legs off.  No cookie.  I am almost glad to see this, because it makes me feel like, "Ah!  Something to work through!"  I'm not sure if it makes any sense why that seems like a positive in my mind, but it does.  Almost like, "If we can work together to stop that bouncing, it will help Molly perform a better contact behavior."

(And thankfully Molly is happy to work for her kibble meals, being that she is on a diet and all!)

Another area that I do not hold my criteria that is completely embarrassing to me is Molly's release with toys.  I allow Molly to give at least three or four additional tugs or shakes until she gives a jaw shuddering and reluctant release for her toy.  It is kind of embarrassing in agility class because I know that I should have a higher standard.  That is another thing that I am becoming more firm about.  We can pair it with the 2x2 training since I reward Molly with a toy for that.  I pull her toy to my leg and say "Give."  It takes absolutely all of my strength to prevent her from self rewarding and continuing to tug.  Molly is an extremely strong dog.  As soon as she lets go I whip the toy away from her and let her get it again as a reward.  I have always done that, but from now on I absolutely cannot permit her to continue to tug if I want an instant toy release.

I wish I had been a more sensible and competent trainer back when I started agility training.  I wish that I had a better understanding of almost everything and had insisted on a better and consistent foundation for Molly.  But I did not and none of that is her fault.  I can only own up to my own faults and try to rework what I can and see where it gets us.  I miss agility trials so much with my girl, but not a second goes by that I am not grateful that we are taking this time off.  

Agility with the Girls

Tonight I had both girl dogs at the agility building.

Perri is RUSTY.  It's been three weeks since we have had class or trained anything beyond bar jumps.  She is doing a narrow channel weave okay but when we closed the channel the information did not seem to translate for her.  Oh well.  I will admit we could step up our practice at home.  

More distressing was that Perri is still refusing tunnels.   Molly had a similar issue when she was a baby agility dog.   I bought a tunnel to practice with at home and that was the end of the issue.   Not so with Perri!   She knows they are different.   The practice tunnel is not a problem.   "Real" tunnels?   Takes some persuading.   It's easy to feel like the issue will never resolve.  

In the positive: Perri had great stopped contacts and was fearless with the teeter.

As for Molly we worked on our two hot button issues: weave entry (this went well.) and ..... dreaded contacts.  

I want a two on two off contact with Molly.   She tends to whirl utterly out of control on contacts, especially at trials.  Every chance we get I work on the stopped contacts.   Our instructor told me on Monday that she proofs contacts much the same way as I proof the start line stay and Perri's obedience stays.  And as always I thought, "Well why didn't I think of that?"

We are thankfully getting to the point where Molly will hold a stopped contact in a training session focused on contacts.  Tonight I worked on establishing her Stay on the contact and walking away.   Returning quickly and rewarding for staying.   Increasing distance.    I also added a challenge of me jumping around and throwing food on the floor.  Molly is a quick study when it comes to earning food rewards and she really did well tonight.   You stay on your contact and you are guaranteed to get food.   

However, we are still struggling mightily to put that into a full speed Aframe or part of a sequence.   Once Molly gets moving her brain tends to drop out.   I will treasure the day when she actually remembers to stop at the end of a contact.  Will that day come?   It's hard to say!