Puppy Agility?

It's time for another Dog Agility Bloggers Event Day! Today's topic: Starting Your Puppy!

Let me preface this blog post by saying that I’ve really only started one dog in agility as a puppy. And the outcome is still… well... he’s a work in progress  :)

But I don’t think that it is due to any of the things that I am about to tell you. I think I failed to bridge the gap between training & trialing. And a lot of other things… But that’s for another post!

Stout at his first agility trial  :)

 Anyway, I hesitate to include the word “puppy” with “agility.” For us experienced folks, we understand the “puppy” part of agility (foundation, foundation, foundation!). But for novices, if you put “puppy” with “agility,” you may end up with dogs doing full height equipment by the time they are 6 months old!

Equipment is the last part of agility that should be taught! There are so many things that need be done first! And actually, if the foundation part is taught well, the equipment part is fast & easy…

But even before you teach the foundations for agility, you need to teach a foundation for learning & your relationship. You need to get to know your puppy, love your puppy, and respect your puppy. Respect them for who they are, not who they aren’t, or who you wish them to become.

So how do you do that? Time & training.

Talk to your puppy. Cuddle your puppy. Play with your puppy. Treat your puppy. Walk your puppy. Develop that relationship! Become the center of their universe!

Once you start to train your puppy, you’ll develop that relationship even more. Now, I’m not talking formal obedience or even agility handling. I’m talking the simplest behaviors.

Crate training. Potty training. Leash training. Basic household manners.

And don’t forget about socializing your puppy! Take that puppy everywhere with you! Support them if they are worried or unsure. This is all building that relationship.

Puppy class graduation

From here you can start actually teaching simple behaviors. Stupid behaviors. Useless tricks  :)  I still don’t call this training necessarily, you’re simply continuing to learn who your puppy is. And you’re teaching them how to learn. This is where they learn a work ethic. And learn about failure. And stress. And expectation. And most of all: They learn that training is FUN!

And what do you learn from this? Because you should be learning just as much as your puppy when you are doing this  :)  You learn how this puppy thinks. You realize what their motivations are. What rewards work best. How much failure they can take. How to tell when they are frustrated. What the best method for learning is (shaping, luring, etc.).

Don’t skip these steps! Not only because they are fun, but they will give you something to fall back on later.

Example: 9 months later, your dog cannot hold a 2 on / 2 off on the dogwalk. They “know” the position. They “know” the cue. But do they really?

Go back & think about how you trained it. Did you shape or lure it? Did you work duration? Did you work speed? Distance? Release? Is it on verbal command or body cue?

Now think about how you trained even before that. What way did your puppy learn tricks best? What really motivated them? Did they understand verbal commands back then? Did they understand duration? Distance? A release?

It all goes back the very beginning  :)

For more thoughts & ideas on this topic, check out the other blogs participating today by clicking here.

If you’re looking for online classes for puppies, here are a couple that I highly recommend:

• Silvia Trkman (Stout took this class)
• Denise Fenzi Academy (Stout has taken classes here, but not the puppy one)

Another Stout Video

Stout has been working on pivoting into Heel position!




He is finally getting it! :)

Blind Crosses Vs. Rear Crosses

In Stout's online class with Silvia Trkman, our latest assignment was to run a course with rear crosses & then blind crosses. I ran it with both dogs to compare.

If anyone knows me in real life, you know that I was always very against blind crosses  :)  My tagline was "never let your dog see your ass!"

Well, I hate to admit that I have jumped on the blind cross bandwagon...

I still need to work on them quite a bit. Porter is not letting go of my "no blind crosses" mantra very easily. Stout is very open-minded  :)

 

 



Training Stout's Contacts

Like I mentioned yesterday, Stout missed almost every contact at the NADAC trial. I wasn't surprised  :)

I hate to admit it, but I have failed to teach Stout any contact behavior. Yes, I teach agility to other people and yet I have neglected to teach my own dog to hit the contact zone on the frame or dogwalk.

It's not due to laziness, at least not totally  :)  It's mostly due to my indecisiveness.

I know I want running contacts. Watching the finalists at the AKC Nationals convinced me of that.

Porter has pseudo-running contacts - not due to training, but because I failed to train anything else & he naturally hits the yellow.

I tried that a little with Stout. Not gonna happen. Actually, that's pretty much what I've been relying on. He's just too leggy & driven - his natural stride doesn't carry him into the yellow & his speed & desire says jumping it is much faster anyway  :)

I've toyed around with Silvia Trkman's method. I have friends that have used her method & it works great! I hve watched the dvd and even submitted a couple videos of Stout running the plank to our Foundations class with her.

But without a dogwalk of our own, it looks much more difficult. And I'm not crazy about the number of repetitions needed to train it.

Early this year I attended a seminar with Dawn Weaver. Her dogs all have running (& stopped) contacts. I looked into her online class & was intrigued. I could find very little information, seems she secret to her method is well kept.

So I consulted with a fellow blogger who has done both methods & she recommended Dawn's  :)  So I signed up. I have been happy with our progress so far!

Unfortunately, I can't share any info with you  :)  Come to find out, the reason you don't find much info is because she asks you not to release it. I can't blame her, after all, that is how she makes her money. But it does suck not to be able to share our videos. So you'll have to wait & see the results when I'm done  :)

So here is our latest video our online Foundations class with Silvia:

We finally have an in-line serpentine!

Wordless Wednesday: What We're Working On

Apologies...

I must apologize for the lack of blogging this week. I have been working out in our factory, building the prototype machine, and it is wearing me out!

We have an agility trial this weekend. Stout is running in one class on Saturday (Porter is running his usual).

So in anticipation of Stout's 2nd ever trial, here is his most recent training video  :)

Lots of playing to try to build more speed. Well, he has plenty of speed - I'm trying to get him to use it more often  :)

Another Online Class

Yes, I have signed up for another online class  :)

Stout is enrolled in Silvia Trkman's Foundations class again. Yes, this is the same class we took over the winter  :)

I think I may be a Trkman junkie... :)

But seriously, I love this stuff. We didn't even come close to conquering it all the first time around. Stout learned the teeter and some basic sequencing. A lot of the finer points were missed on us  :)

So this time we are looking to refine our skills and learn the things we skipped over the first time. I want to increase his speed & drive. I want to hit those hard weave entries. I want to work more on his jumping skills.

I mean, who wouldn't want to run like this?

The little Pyr Shep was the fastest dog out all heights!

 

I think Stout will be there in no time  :)

Stout Weaves 6 Poles!

And no, this ain't no April Fool's Day joke!  :)

(I am so frustrated with my video editing software... It always crops differently when I upload it to youtube & I lose my text...)

 

 

Yay Stouters! And not a moment too soon, as he has his first agility trial this weekend!

We've still got a lot of work to do, I'm not happy with his footwork at all. Or his attention to what I'm doing. So I'll probably open them up a little and get him blasting through there so we can figure it out.

But this will get us through the weekend  :)



He's Weaving!

Just a brief interruption in the AKC Nationals blogging...

Stout weaves!

4 poles in a line!

Like a champ!

This was session #21 in our 2x2 journey. Yes, I filmed them all...  :)

Stout's Highlights from Day 1 of the Seminar

Can I mention again how awesome Stout did at the Lisa Bonker seminar last weekend?  :)

Sure, he had some insane puppy moments... But this is only the 2nd time he's done agility in public! And he was definitely the youngest, least experienced dog there.

I just can't get over his continued speed & enthusiasm! Porter always gives it about 85% the first time in instances like this, then it drops off drastically with each repetition. But Stout started at 100% and it only began to wane when he honestly got tired (vs. being bored, distracted, etc.).

Unfortunately I didn't tape at all the first half of the first day. These were from his final 2 turns at the end of the day - which is pretty impressive that he was still so enthusiastic, and not too exhuberant. It was an 8 hour seminar day.

Were there moments of puppy-brain? Yes. But honestly, it took until these last 2 runs for them to show up! Little guy was mentally tired...

And at 1:32 on the video, that is Lisa's way of keeping Stout from humping her leg  :)  Her stomp / kick / dance worked pretty well!

These were his first rear-crosses into tunnels! Until then, we had only done them during flat-work.

Still needs some work, but he's figuring it out.

Full Height Teeter!

Stout did his first full height teeter last night! And he rocked it!  :)

I don't have any video of it uploaded yet, but I do have video from last weekend when he did an almost full height teeter...  It was only 2 or 3 inches shorter, so just pretend that this video is full height  :)






The above video was also our last one submitted to Silvia Trkman for our Agility Foundations class  :(     (Thank you to Beth & Megan for filming!)

I am soooo going to miss our online class. I even took my video camera to practice last night, before realizing that I didn't really need to tape anything anymore... But I recorded anyway.

So now I have to decide whether to take the class again (most people do) or continue to work on our own. I really like having the oversight of someone else. And it gives me the push to actually practice & train  :)  Which may be the biggest benefit for me! I can be fairly lazy...

But in the mean time, Stout will be attending another agility seminar. And I need to start actually teaching him the dogwalk & a-frame. And seriously start training weaves. And running novice type courses. And work on his jumping. And... I think I'll stay busy until the class starts again in May.

And... I did enter him in his first agility trial. Let's hope it goes as well as his first rally trial did!

And Another Video...

I didn't want Stout to feel left out, so here's a video of him!

I'm so proud of his teeter - we're halfway there!

His jumping on the other hand...

Stout's Seminar Debut!

Ah yes, Stout's public agility debut at the Dawn Weaver seminar  :)

As my friend Megan could tell you, I was extremely nervous going into this seminar - I had no idea how Stout would do. Or what havoc he would cause...

But he did great! We were the very first dog to run, first thing that morning. I may have muttered "this is our first time doing agility in public" as I took off his leash. But he stayed with me, ran past all kinds of people, and even took a jump or 2!  I was astonished!

Stout chilling in his crate before his debut.

See the big bag of toys & cooler?

He rocked the first 2 courses, but was pretty tired for the final 2.

I was surprised that he worked for toys during those last 2 courses anyway. Or any of the courses, really  :)  I had brought a full bag of toys for the seminar. Then I thought maybe he'd be too distracted for his toys, so I also brought a full cooler of food  :)  I was very prepared.

It wasn't pretty, but better than I expected!

So like I said in my last blog post, I learned a lot from this seminar. I'm kind of a seminar junkie and I consider it good if I can come home with one new idea or insight. I came home with a lot from Dawn:

• All handling should take place between the obstacles. Work the "gaps" as well as the obstacles.
• Pre-Cue your turns! The earlier you give the info, the better! If it seems way too early, you're probably on time  :)
• Shape the path/line (I liked this for corgis). Sometimes the tightest turn over every jump can work against you. Look through the course and set it up for speed.
• When you do make a tight turn, have your dog brake before take-off so they can accelerate out of the turn. She compared this to race cars. The best drivers brake going into a turn & accelerate out, creating a tight line at the bottom of the track. The lesser drivers will continue to cruise into the turn, driving higher into the bank and then braking to straighten back out. This makes for a much wider turn and puts them behind the pack.
• Never reward for stopping or stalling - always reward in movement! (you'll see she busted me for this many times in the video...)
• The closer you are to your dog when handling, the tighter your turns will be. (which makes sense when I think about doing distance handling for NADAC)
• And finally: Don't rehearse what you don't want! This was in regards to speed. If your dog is particularly slow sometimes, just stop & come back when they are fresher.

There was so much more - weaves, teeter performances, 2on/2off stuff... Really a great seminar!

Dawn Weaver Seminar

Stout attended his first agility seminar last weekend! And he barely embarrassed me at all!  :)

We saw Dawn Weaver from the UK who was being hosted over at Flying Feet Agility in Floyds Knobs, IN. It’s a beautiful facility. And Dawn was great. This was definitely one of the top 2 agility seminars that I’ve been to.

I didn’t know a lot about Dawn before this seminar. The seminar was recommended to me by a friend who had read her book and knew someone who had been taking her online class. I did a little research and liked what I saw.

Dawn running her border collie in England

First of all, she has small dogs (Papillon & Poodles). She has large dogs as well (Beardie / Border Collie crosses & Border Collies), but it is pretty hard to find anyone giving seminars that takes small dogs seriously. Let alone runs small dogs  :) Anyone who tells you that they are all the same, hasn’t ran a small dog…

Most seminar presenters are usually geared toward border collies & shelties. And that’s fine, I mean, most information & techniques will cross-over to any other high-drive dogs. But not all  :)

Dawn running her papillon at the Invitational

I also liked Dawn because she is against “handling systems.” You can’t swing a jump pole around here without hitting someone trying to perfect their “backy-uppy” or “forward motion front cross.” I’m not a huge fan of systems. Or rules in general  :)  Whether it be the Linda Mecklenburg / Awesome Paws system or the Greg Derret system, I just can’t jump on board. I could go on & on… Maybe I’ll write a blog post about that some time  :)

Dawn running her Beardie / Border Collie at the Invitational

 

 

Anyway, like Dawn said: not all dogs are going to fit perfectly into those handling systems. She believes that your dog should dictate how you handle. Create a system for your dog, don’t try to make your dog fit your system. She also said that handling isn’t something you train your dog to understand. You can train yourself to handle better for your dog, but you shouldn’t have to train your dog what each move from you means (ie. recalls to heel, lateral sends, etc.). What you do should come naturally to your dog & be understood without drilling and training.

 

So consider this a preview  :)  The next blog post will highlight more things I learned - and a video of Stout's public agility debut!!

 

Stay tuned...



The Best Compliment Ever!

As you know, Stout & I have been taking an online agility foundations class with Silvia Trkman. She is kind of my agility idol  :)

Anyway, I submitted Stout's most recent video to her yesterday:

(http://youtu.be/0eLQt-OqUAA)

 

Upon viewing it, she gave me a critique that ended with the best (agility) compliment I've ever gotten:

 

"... very nice handling!"

 

Yes, Silvia Trkman complimented my handling!  I was giddy!  :)  So please excuse this bragging  :)

 

This is the Silvia Trkman I'm talking about:

 

 



(http://youtu.be/hRioLhBmuGc)

 

 

I feel like I should add this to my agility resume or something  :)

 



Wordless Wednesday: What We Worked With

http://youtu.be/PTysatrcJMM

http://youtu.be/_BEI5ijT0Cs



Stout - Trkman Class Update

We did our first real sequence in our online class with Silvia Trkman!

Well, I guess we did one for the last lesson, but it was shorter & easier. And strangely enough, it did not go as well as this one!

http://youtu.be/lSTM3md7d-M

This is the fastest he's moved yet. I think his understanding is growing, thus creating more speed. And the brand new toy didn't hurt either  :)

And instead of calling him funny or cute, Silvia called him "a fun dog." I think that's an improvement!

She said:

"He is definitely loving this game more&more!!! What a fun dog! I love how he goes and offers a wrap every time you take the toy!    ...  Great job with the teeter too, very cool pushes! That’s high enough for him yes – few more sessions like this and you can try jumping on it as well."

I'm not going to lie, I am very nervous about starting him on the teeter. I've seen so many dogs develop teeter fears from something simple, but weird, happening to them. Hopefully he continues to view it as a game. This was the first time I used a toy instead of food when banging the teeter. He really hit it harder & with much more enthusiasm.

I've also been scared to raise the jump bars. He is a year old now, but it just seems so early yet. I did try a little at 4" but he completely ignored them. There was nothing to reward because he was walking through them  :)  

Update on Stout's Agility Foundations Class

After all the Porter videos earlier this week, I thought I'd give you a couple Stout videos  :)

We received Lesson 2 in our online class with Silvia Trkman. We have only begun to scratch the surface. We still haven't perfected Lesson 1!

But I went ahead with the contact portion of the new lesson. I think I will try for Running Contacts with Stout. Porter has running contacts, but I didn't train them. Mostly it was a lack of training anything else that led to his contact performance  :)

But I figure I can't get that lucky twice, right? So as long as the beginning stages are part of this class, I may as well take advantage of them!

So I got out some carpet (which according to Silvia was too short) and got started.

http://youtu.be/SLh22-DhmZ0

 

Before I critique the video, I just want to state that it is so nice to have a dog who will almost fetch. Or at least wants to chase a ball... So far I have been able to do the bulk of Stout's agility training with toys.

 

Anyway,  Silvia started her critique with "He sure is having fun!"  All of my videos so far have been met with "He's so cute!" or "He's so funny!"  I feel that this is going to be a common theme in what everyone says concerning Stout & agility...  :)

 

She said I should have jackpotted the try at 0:50. Um, you mean I have to try to watch those stubby little legs and click while I also throw a ball? This may be harder than I thought...

 

 

So then I submitted a video of us still working on wrapping the jump stanchions. I was pretty proud of this. He was finally running after the turn! He didn't flop on his back & bark! He didn't hump my leg when he got frustrated!

 

But I still have a looooong way to go:

 

 

http://youtu.be/2UTtyS8-qt0

 

 

Silvia is happy now with his driving out of the wrap. But I need to get him to drive to the wrap as well. Most people help create this by restraining their dog. Did you see the video of me trying to restrain Stout? It didn't go so well.

 

She suggested running more with him into the wrap. Which I had done but didn't submit because I thought I was supposed to show him being "sent" to the wrap from some distance. The ever-clever Silvia explained it perfectly to me: "with more speed, getting distance will get easier too! – Things get closer faster when they run full speed :)"

 

So far I LOVE this class! Seriously, I have learned so much and we are only on the 2nd lesson!



Stout Videos!

I thought we'd take a little break from vacation photos & post a couple Stout videos!

First, here he is playing with his newest girlfriend Dezi, a Portuguese Podengo Pequeno puppy.



(http://youtu.be/VxifEobvvPc)

Dezi held her own pretty well. Occasionally she would run under the bed to get away. That did not deter Stout, but it did slow him down considerably... Stout had quite a few "time-outs" too so to give her a break.

And I continue to work on Stout's agility foundation skills:

(http://youtu.be/ioLibxyKDkg)

I had the jump chute set up for the class I teach, but thought it might be fun for Stout if I put all the bars on the ground (kind of like stride-work for him). I was really pleased that he chose to run down the chute instead of coming out to jump at the toy (or hump my leg).

We also worked briefly on our pre-homework for our Agility Foundations online class with Silvia Trkman. Class doesn't officially start until October 15th, but she gave us a few assignments already to prepare us for class.

I was working on the "burst of speed from a restraint" (my lame phrase, not hers). As you can see, it didn't go too well. He's not supposed to back out of my restraint  :)  But I'm not real comfortable with having a collar grab meaning that it's time for him to pull against it. So I thought a chest-type restraint would work better. Maybe not a good idea either, especially for a short dog...

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:

(View Larger Here)

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:

(View Larger)

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!