• December 18, 2011

18 – Jump Grid or Handling Exercise?

It looks like we’re getting a green Christmas this year. Last year we had -23°C and a lot of snow this time of year. Right now it’s just around 0°C. We’ve had some snow, but most of it is gone now. I don’t mind green fields for Christmas at all, we’ve spent many hours herding in our big field last week and it’s just wonderful to still be able to do that. Agility training is done indoors now, my field is too muddy and icy. We’ve spent quite a lot of time in the riding facility the past week, training contacts, weaves, jump grids and handling.

Epic took some bars down at the handling seminar last week, so I’m going to work on some jumping with him. He jumps well, but seems to struggle a bit with his striding at times. I set up an exercise last night that was really challenging for him. As the dog gets better at jumping, the exercises look more and more like “real” agility. This exercise looks really easy – it’s just a straight line and a pinwheel, but you could really see the dogs struggle. It makes me realize that what we think is easy really isn’t for the dogs. What we require of them in a simple class 1 course can be really challenging when it comes to jumping. When Squid did her first trial in class 1, the distance between jump 2 and 3 was 3,5 meters and a lot of dogs crashed into the bar at jump 3.

This exercise was easier for Squid that has more experience, but she had to work hard. Epic struggled a bit with the straight line and dropped some bars in the beginning – but never made the same mistake twice. I started with just running the straight line in both directions and then worked on the pinwheel, where I want one steady stride between each jump and a tight line. The jumps were 55, 60 and 65 centimeters high. All the jumps in the pinwheel were 55 cm high.

I ended with some handling where the dog did both the straight one stride line and the pinwheel. 1-10 (light circles) were run with rear cross at 8 and I also tried starting the dog on my right, rear crossing 4. With number 1-11 (dark squares), I worked on leaving the dog as soon as they took off on 6 – having them chase me down the line to the finish. Great training! Can’t wait to get back to a similar exercise next week and see if the dogs have improved, I’m sure they have.

• December 18, 2011
• 1 Comment
• Advent Calendar 2011, Agility

• December 15, 2011

15 – Training Sequences

Tonight, I had a handling class in our riding facility. I ran my dogs after class and Squid got to go agility for the first time since her little accident nearly three weeks ago. She was just crazy fast and I had to spend some time working on her turns… I wouldn’t have thought that a few years ago. Epic felt really slow in comparison, but I don’t doubt that he’ll be even faster in the end. There is no need to rush that, I’m happy as long as he does everything with full focus and enthusiasm. Here are the sequences we ran, you might want to try them.

• December 15, 2011
• 1 Comment
• Advent Calendar 2011, Agility

• December 10, 2011

10 – More Fun and Clear Agility Training

I’m sorry that I didn’t write anything yesterday. I spent the day driving home in rain and wind after a great herding session in the morning. Came home to snow and ice. I hope it’ll go away soon. I have posted an entry from yesterday now, it’s just a little video of Epic and his third talent (apart from agility and herding). Today, I thought I would share with you some important points that makes agility training much more fun and clear for the dog.

• Quick transitions. Make sure that it takes a minimum of time to get the dog set up to run a sequence. It’s worth training getting the dog off his toy and into position fast. Some people prefer to set the dog up with their hands when the dog is still on the toy. I like to se the dog swing into position at my side as soon as the toy is out of his mouth. Anyway, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds between the dog letting go of his toy and you leading out. If you take long, or if you have to nag the dog to get him into position, you will loose a lot of the great drive built up while tugging. This transition is excellent to train while warming up or on days like these when there is snow all over my agility field.
• Use “screw up cookies”. When ever there is a mistake on course and you want to start over, make sure that you keep your dog under control and set him up for success in the next repetition. You definitely don’t want your dog to rehearse flanking, blind crossing, taking tunnels on his own or other unwanted behaviors while you’re walking back, but this often happens if you’re not paying attention. The best way to avoid this is to let the dog hang off his toy while walking back to the start. You’ll have your dog under control while building value for interacting with you. If the mistake was made by the dog, make sure that you ask him for some behavior that he will be successful with before giving him the toy. It might be a hand touch, a sit or a down. If you made a mistake and the dog responding correctly (like missing a jump because of an early front cross) you should of course reward him right away.
• Reward when the dog gets it right! Unfortunately, a lot of dogs only get rewarded when things go wrong. If your dog makes a mistake, make sure to reward when he gets it right! Never ever just continue running the sequence. How will he know what you wanted him to do if you don’t give him that information when he gets it right. If you keep running, you risk something else going wrong on and the dog not getting rewarded at all. I often make sure to reward the dog with his toy in trials if there is something I need to do over again, I keep a small toy in my pocket for instances like that. Of course, don’t just reward the dog when he gets it right the second time. Note what your dog was failing on and be ready to reward him when he get’s that same thing right in your next training session.

I hope you don’t have snow like us, unless you like it – but I don’t get people who do. Have a great weekend!

Cecilia and Ninja playing

• December 10, 2011
• 1 Comment
• Advent Calendar 2011, Agility

• December 4, 2011

4 – And the winner is…

The winner of the e-book Picking Your Performance Puppy is AnnaKarin Nordangård! I used an online random number generator to pick a winner. AnnaKarin is getting a new puppy in a few weeks, so I hope she’ll have some use for the book. This is the video that AnnaKarin picked as her favorite is this one:

I can’t believe it’s almost four years ago. Pi was just a puppy and we lived in another house in another country.

Talking about different countries, there is a lot of discussion in both Norway (Where Thomas is from, and where we used to live) and Sweden (where I’m from and where we live now) about how to best organize the sport of agility. I think that both countries need agility organizations that are associated with the Kennel Club, but still does it’s own thing and has a strong democracy where the agility handlers make the calls. There are a lot of decisions made about agility that I’m sure that most agility handlers don’t agree on. One of those decisions is that you from this year has to be a Norwegian citizen to compete in the Norwegian Championships (which, incidentally was won by a Finn living in Norway two years ago…). I’m glad that I’m not still living there. Another is that the Norwegian Championships are held at Norway’s biggest dog show – indoors on a carpet so bad that a lot of people chose not to come.

Things are not quite as bad in Sweden, but there is still a great need for more democracy here. Agility is run by the Swedish Working Dog Association (SBK), an organization that has a long and proud history of educating Swedes about dogs, breeding working dogs and organizing working trials and obedience trials. The Swedish Working Dog Association (SBK) is a part of the Swedish Kennel Club (SKK). I have been a member of SBK for over 15 years and have always been proud of the incredible tradition we have in this country. Every town has it’s own club with big green fields and nice house. But SBK and agility is not a good match. An organization that also deals with breeding certain breeds, organizing working trials, evaluating mentality in dogs and educating dogs for the military is just too big to rule over agility. We need more democracy and we need people concerned with agility making the decisions. I hope both Norway and Sweden will come to this solution soon.

If you read Scandinavian or if you’re good with translating texts online, here are some blog posts that talk about both problems and solutions:

• December 4, 2011
• 2 Comments
• Advent Calendar 2011, Agility