Slamming & Running



Stout continues to learn some agility foundation skills after my classes on Monday nights. We're still taking things slow so I can try to keep them fun for him. And I'm tired after teaching for almost 4 hours!

We did a little teeter slamming:

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I believe Stout has mastered this skill  :)  I should have been tossing treats to get him to release from the teeter, but I hate to throw all those treats all over the floor... Next week I will pull out the matt to cover the floor.

Although the way things are looking, I think he's finished with the slamming for awhile. It is time to raise the criteria! I'll lower the teeter way down and let him run back & forth across it. I'd like to see him jumping on from the side with all 4 feet to ride it down & slam, but I'll need to figure out how to do that with only myself to hold it  :)

We also did some plank work:

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This is the beginning stages of Silvia Trkman's running contact work. Although I'm not currently enrolled in her class, I've watched enough of other people's videos & talked to friends who've taken it that I know the first couple steps to teaching it  :)

It may not look like much right now. Most of the time he's not even running on the plank. But I am so pleased regardless! What I like:

• He's fetching! I am throwing a ball & he's excited to chase it & is even bringing it back!
• He's running! Sure, he's not going "lure coursing speed," but he's not trotting!
• He wants to play with me! He's not wandering around sniffing and he's bringing the ball back to play.

So why are some parts in slow motion? I'm looking for "hind feet separation." It's not as important now, but eventually that's how you can tell if they are striding down the contact vs. jumping off. A dog that launches is going to have feet together where a dog running will have their rear feet separated. And thankfully Stout was going fast enough that I had to slow it down to look for sure  :)  This also helps familiarize myself with Stout's running style & stride length.

I probably won't do this again for a few weeks. I just wanted to see where he was at. I'm not ready for the committment of lowering the dogwalk and performing the multitude of repetitions needed. And Stout's not ready for that either!