So this morning we did two sessions of weave training and I remembered to video. I had moved the 2x2's outside and so even though she had been weaving four poles inside, I did move them apart again for the first training session in a new location.
Once they are close together again, I'll continue to proof with varying location of dog and handler.
This weekend I finally got my Soleil back. Where did she go? Physically - nowhere. Mentally - Hormoneville, USA.
We've done very little training the last two weeks. Short two-minute sessions was all I got out of her. This is my first experience with a bitch in season and I certainly have a lot of respect for those who keep their girls intact. Not me - Soleil will be spayed sometime this year.
This weekend we progressed through the single set of 2x2's proofing entries with varying locations of handler and dog. Then added a second set on Saturday and started closing up the gap. This morning I closed the gap completely between the two sets of poles and she is now weaving 4 poles. I moved the set from the sunroom (where I could throw food on the floor) to outside and will begin to use a toy for the proofing stage.
We've progressed to Part 5 in DJS (jumping for breakfast was about the only training we did do while she was in season). She is very confident jumping 16" now and I no longer begin each training session at a lower height. She understands my motion and location cues for extension and collection/turning. She also understands the verbal "jump". This week I will introduce spreads (at 12" and work up) and the tire. I plan to do all her training at 16". There is a good chance she may end up measuring into the 12" class in AKC but I plan to jump her at 16" until she's older. I've carefully observed her jumping form at 12" and she is flat. She engages her rear more and has a much rounder form when jumping 16" vs. 12".
She is doing the full height teeter with speed and confidence. I've incorporated a jump before the teeter now. Mostly sending to the jump in order to get ahead of her to the teeter. Also doing a FC on the flat landing side of jump and then sending her ahead to perform the teeter. Still proofing her stop when I'm behind her - she's not a very patient girl.
The table has become a fun place to play and she's readily offering to jump up for a game of tug. It is time to add the down position. Someone asked me last weekend (at the trial), why I started training the table so early (since she was 9 weeks old) and why I spent so much time on it. I explained that I didn't really train the table, I just spent a lot of time playing tug games on the obstacle with all my puppies. Only after a year of table games do I begin to ask for a specific position and a stay. But by that time, my puppy is happily driving with speed to get to the table. I also like to end a training session on the table since right now I am only using food as a reward for jump work, plank work, and the teeter and I like ending each training session with a wild game of tug on the table.
I've started training a 20/20 on a travel plank. Again, haven't done much with this for the last several weeks. The 20/20 will be for the dogwalk.
I won't do any jump sequences with her until she's completed her jump training. I am confident she'll progress quickly once we begin to sequence as she knows all of the turns on the flat and responds quickly to my turning cues when we do flatwork.
This weekend Summit and I have a USDAA trial outdoors and Soliel will get to go. Now that Summit is all qualified for USDAA Nationals and has a bye for the Regional GP Finals in Texas, we'll be hoping to get another bye for the Rocky Mtn. Regional in July.
Well it was a successful trip to Utah. Summit earned that last Steeplechase leg to finish qualifying for nationals and he won Grand Prix - earning him a bye to round 2 at the South Central Regional in May - woohoo!!!!
The trial was held outdoors on grass. We got lucky and the weather was almost perfect! Friday Summit had nice runs but for one bar in all 4 classes. The grass was thick and the ground very uneven; there were hills and dips and if there was a low-spot before the jump, the dogs were jumping higher. By Saturday he had figured it out and only dropped one bar. Sunday he had no bars.
I really missed Soleil! She has one more week to go and then she can start going to trials with me again. We have next week off and then three USDAA trials in a row. FRAC in Brighton, ACAT in Pueblo, and then the South Central Regional in Ft. Worth, TX.
Meanwhile I'll continue to work jump grids twice a week with Mr. Summit as well as jump sequences with variable jump heights (20", 22", and 24") and variable spacing.
Here is Summit's Grand Prix video. The weaves were really off set from the teeter so you had to push your dog out to get the entry (some dogs missed the entry). I also took a step past the weaves in order to set a nicer approach over the jump as well as the approach to the following jump. Some dogs got the tunnel after the a-frame. I made sure I was moving laterally towards the jump after cueing the aframe. I could have cued a much tighter turn over the jump but with the uneven ground, decided to be more conservative and give him plenty of room.
Masters Jumpers - 4th place
Steeplechase Finals - 1 bar, 7th place
A fun Snooker course with pushes to the backside of the jumps
I love this picture of Soleil at 9 weeks old. Time sure does fly....
Summit and I (along with Jen and Summit's younger brother, Bode) will be heading to Utah this Thursday for a three day USDAA agility trial. Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and double games - can't beat that for FUN! The venue is a beautiful outdoor site with climate-controlled indoor crating. I am sad that Soleil won't be going with me. She came into season this past week. I just can't believe how fast my little girl is growing up! I've never left her at home before and will really miss her this weekend.
Meanwhile, it explains her less than normal amount of focus lately while training. We did get in some training sessions and I've discovered short and fast is the best approach. We started something new this morning - 20/20 training on the travel plank and she caught on very quickly.
So hopefully Summit will get his last Steeplechase Q for USDAA Nationals this weekend and we'll be all set to go to Kentucky in October.
Linda M. provided some excellent feedback on my videos of Summit's jumpers runs and suggested a training plan. I will revisit the Advanced jump training in DJS and incorporate different jump heights such as 18", 20", 22", and 24". Basically he is 1. jumping way too flat at 20". 2. He lacks the ability (or he is not bothering) to look ahead and adjust his striding between jumps. He jumps with such a flat trajectory and extension that he tends to land too close to the take off side of the following jump. He needs to learn to balance his strides to accomodate different distances between jumps. So jump training begins tomorrow (this morning we had wet snow).
Here is the video of my running Crook (Soleil's half brother)in Jumpers. Unfortunately, Don missed videoing a couple of the jumps at the end but it was basically a straight line and I had to really run hard. I certainly could have tightened up some of his turns but this is only the second time I've run him and I don't have a definite feel for his committment point yet. I love this dog! He is so much fun to run!
Soleil did her first RTH over one jump this morning. We also worked on the 2x2's which I am really enjoying since I can use a toy and she is much happier chasing and tugging than eating Bison lung. I really love watching her think through how to earn reinforcement. I've also noticed she is far more accepting of failure when a toy is involved vs. food.
We were almost done with this training session before I remembered to video. Dang! Will video tomorrow.
So after having such a great weekend in USDAA, we were back to dropping bars again this past weekend. Three days of AKC and one Q out of six runs. Four NQs because of bars and one refusal (I slipped in the loose dirt and almost fell and pushed Summit off his wp entry). We won Standard on Friday and would have won again on Sunday but for one bar.
Very frustrating but we'll continue to train and condition and practice jump grids and work on my handling and timing and and and .....
.... continue to be one bar short of the QQ's we need for Nationals.
Summit jumps very flat at 20". His jumping is much rounder at 22". Could this be the cause of the bars in AKC? On the other hand, he has had two months off for rehab and perhaps he is not in top condition yet? Does he respect the bars at 22" more than 20"?
I posted on the APHS Forum about considering moving him up to 24" because of his dropping bars at 20". The suggestion was that it was the obstacle spacing in AKC vs. USDAA that was more than likely the cause. So I've incorporated some variance in spacing between jumps in our training. I have also started training him at 24" (nothing new, I used to jump him that height last year in training). I think training at a higher jump height will make him think about jumping (using his rear) as welll as improve his conditioning. He looks really good at 24" and I can tell he is really making the effort to jump rather than just pulling himself over the bars.
Today he had his chiropractic appointment and he was in great shape. Only needing a minor adjustment.
Meanwhile....
Soleil is beginning DJS at 16". She is not totally confident at 16" yet so we are still at the offering stage. She also started 2x2's class. It is great to have her in a class again. We worked on sit stays inbetween our turn on the poles. She continues to challenge me with her lack of food drive. She is bored now with the bison lung so off to find something new and better.
This weekend at the trial I had her measured by two VMO's (non official measurement). She measured OVER 14"! She may drop down some when her shoulders lay back but it may not be enough to get her under 14". Luckily she is athletic and has some long legs that will make jumping 16" very doable.
I ran Crook (her half brother) in Jumpers on Sunday. We had a bar but he was only one second slower than the winning 20" time. Don did video us and I will post the video of Crook and I as soon as I get it.
Friday Jumpers with weaves - nice run but two bars. Ok so the story about the long start is 1. Summit does not like to face away from the course. He thinks I am placing him in the wrong direction. 2. the jump steward couldn't figure out how to replace the bars on the triple so there was this long delay while waiting for the triple to be reset and argue with my dog about which direction he needed to face.
Friday Standard - 1st place
The judges table count was really fast and I ran out of time to get into position. I should have not released him until I was ready. We had a wide turn to the weaves.
What a great USDAA weekend! Summit placed 2nd in Grand Prix and WON Steeplechase! Now he only needs one more Steeplechase leg to finish qualifying for nationals. But at least he is now qualified to enter both the South Central Regional in May and the Rocky Mtn. Regional in July.
The best news is he only dropped a bar in a single class the entire weekend. It was in the Gamble which was the first class Saturday morning.
He also qualified in Jumpers (2nd place), Standard (2nd place), Pairs Relay (1st place) and got a Snooker Q. In Steeplechase finals I pushed him too hard and he missed the wp entry. I should have kept going on (I usually do) but for some reason (must have been thinking about the time plus faults rule of Round 1), I asked him to repeat the weaves and of course he missed it again, and then a third time. I KNOW this about him.. he does not like to be wrong and stresses up and loses the ability to focus. I thanked the judge and we left the ring since he was way past thinking at that point. I played a game of tug with him after we left the ring so all was good in his world.
I also got to run Crook in Steeplechase. He is Soleil's half brother. He is a puppy from a previous litter and has a different mother. He is young and wicked fast. We won 16" Steeplechase!!!!
Soleil got to play ringside and went shopping at the vendor booths. After sampling many different kinds of homemade treats, Miss picky decided the dehydrated Bison Lung was the winner.
This weekend we have a three-day AKC trial. Our plan is to run well and earn the QQ's for AKC Nationals 2012 which is supposed to be (so far) in Reno, Nevada.
Steeplechase - 1st place 25 seconds
Grand Prix - 2nd place (I was running conservatively for the Q and held his aframe contact). Now that we are Q'd for Nationals I'll be running GP more agresssively for the BYE.
Last weekend was three days of AKC. Because of his injury, Summit is behind in qualifying for AKC Nationals. This time last year he already had the six QQ's needed. This year, we have not gotten a single one yet and we didn't get them last weekend either. But we had awesome runs and he won Standard and FAST on Friday, I sent him off course in Jumpers that afternoon. Saturday second place in Standard, won FAST again, and two bars in Jumpers. Sunday won Standard (no FAST offered on Sunday) and dropped second to last bar in Jumpers. The dropped bars in both Jumpers classes were located in the same area of the ring where the ground was churned up and very deep. After his Jumpers run on Sunday, I scribed the next class and the judge said to me, "Nice run too bad about the bar; it is really deep back there and if you had run at the top of the class, he probably wouldn't have dropped the bar."
This weekend we have a two day USDAA trial and still need two Steeplechase and one GP leg for Nationals.
Soleil is doing very well with her training and I will post some video soon. She is now doing the full height teeter. She is driving ahead of me to run to the end and shifting her weight back as the plank drops. We are beginning to do a little proofing of the end behavior. I am going to start RS's drills to proof the release (on the flat) in preparation for proofing the end behavior on the teeter.
We started DJS this week. She is offering to jump the bar at 14 inches. Last weekend she was measured by a VMO (unofficial measurement) and she is 13 3/4" tall. I think she will definitely stay under 14".
We are playing on the table again. The verbal "table" has become a cue to have a rough game of tug. I enjoy pushing her back and revving her up and then saying, "Taaaaaaaaaaable" as I race her to the obstacle and play tug. Not asking for a position yet.
She is still running a low dogwalk and is close to 100 percent. However, I have decided to put a stop on the end. I will still have her run it for another month at the low height to maintain confidence and speed (I did this with Summit). Once I have the 20/20 on cue and proofed on the travel plank, I will raise the dw and backchain.
Here are the videos from last weekend...
EX. B FAST - 1st place with 80 points, 30 seconds
Standard - 1st place, 35 seconds
Jumpers with weaves - wrong end of tunnel. It was a stronger push than I anticipated and Summit didn't read it.
Saturday Jumpers with weaves - two bars (I actually caused the last one by moving too suddenly into him as he was over the bar). Would have been 1st place. I love his independent weaves!
Saturday Standard second place - we lost all the time on the dogwalk. Almost every dog bailed the dw at the end to take the wrong end of the tunnel. I should have trusted my dog but instead i way overhandled the contact (direct eye contact, shoulders turning into him, outside arm), poor boy didn't know what I wanted. You can see he's confused.
Saturday Ex. B FAST - First place with 78 points, 29 seconds
So I am not sure if I "broke" an APHS rule ;-) Did I cue my dog to diverge or did I send to a non-turning obstacle. My plan was to run a straight path along the gamble line and use the obstacle name for the aframe and see if he would figure it out - he did!
Sunday Standard - first place, 34 seconds
That little stumble at the end.... I momentarily forgot where I was going and was moving towards the chute when I suddenly realized, "Wait, we already did the chute!"
Summit had a great weekend his first trial back after over two months off. Friday was all team events and although Summit was a Rock Star - my handling was not. The first class was team jumpers. I was a nervous wreck and hoping his rehab vet was right and that he was ready to go back to work.
I pulled him off a tunnel and then sent him over the wrong jump - EEEEEEE for the team! I felt bad but my teammates were awesome and assured me my timing would improve and that Summit looked great and fully recovered. I started to relax and not worry about my dog and started handling better. Our team ended up with third place and the Bronze medal.
We didn't get either a GP leg or Steeplechase. I pulled him off a tunnel in Steeplechase (seeing a pattern here) and so he took the a-frame. He did have a nice run in GP but dropped the triple. He did get several titling legs though-
Snooker Q, won Gamblers, 2nd place in Standard, another Snooker Q, won Pairs Relay, and nice run in jumpers but dropped the third bar. Not bad for two full months off from agility.
Soleil is now performing a full height teeter dropping onto an 8" table. She continues to be very confident and fearless. Once she's performing the teeter without the table, I will switch to rewarding with the tug toy for the end behavior and food for the release.
Her running contacts still look good except that I am not exactly happy with how much time they suck up. I work and have limited training time. I am finding that these running contacts not only take a lot of time but are somewhat boring to train (what! did I say that?)...
Here is a video of Soleil's teeter session this morning. And a few from the USDAA trial.
Summit's jumpers run. Notice my abrupt pivot out of the front cross which causes him to drop the third bar (would have been 2nd place).
Summit's standard run - 2nd place
Summit's gamblers run - 1st place (there was grease on the lens so video is cloudy).
Well it certainly has been a learning experience. Who would have thought I would have spent thousands of hours carefully observing my puppy run on the flat, on a board, on a wide plank, and now on the actual dogwalk. The wide green plank has gone away and been replaced with the dogwalk plank. Although the wide plank was 16", I lowered the dogwalk flat on the ground and spent a week backchaining until she was running the entire obstacle. Dogwalks look funny when they are flat on the ground (and longer ;-)
Her gait and speed was good but we did have a problem with an ocassional rear foot (or two) coming off the side at the end. I put two jumps parallel on each side of the end which really helped keep her on the board. She had over a 90 percent accuracy rate the entire week so I raised the dw a few chain links, good; raised it again, and this morning, raised it to four chain links (13 inches).
She jumped the first attempt and then followed with five successes. I had my video camera set to film but forgot to turn it on. I did capture the second session and she was 4/4. The last attempt I could tell she was tiring so we stopped after the fourth rep.
1. I reached a point when I was back chaining the flat dw that I could no longer stay stationary and send her ahead as I couldn't throw the toy that far and have it land 20 feet beyond the end plank. So I had to figure out how to solve this problem. I tried sending her to a dead toy....
2. She does not drive to a dead toy at top speed.
3. I can't outrun her - that little girlie faster than me ;-)
4. When we start from the other end of the dw, I need to start running and throw the toy when she is on the middle plank. This not only allows the toy to land at least 20 feet beyond the end of the dw but also creates acceleration down the end plank.
5. If I throw the toy too late (after she's on the end plank), she can jump. I need to throw the toy no later than when she is on the middle plank.
6. I am peeling away laterally after I throw the toy and she is continuing to drive ahead on the dogwalk to get the toy.
7. I do not use a NRM with her. Good attempts - reward with tugging; Excellent attempts - big tug party; jumps - say nothing. just try again. She gets the toy but no tugging.
Friday - Sunday we will be at USDAA! Summit gets to compete and I need to get a measurement on Soleil.
