We finally had a chance to go to agility practice tonight! After a huge hiatus, I was worried that Duncan would be completely oblivious, but it wasn't so bad. We had a 15 obstacle jumpers course with 6 weave poles, one tunnel, and TWO concentric spiral things. Craziness. Mostly it was handler error - as usual. Duncan got a little barky and I switched out his blue ball for some treats to help focus him.

For the first time ever, Duncan ran off course!! There was a whining dog, which is a particular weakness for The Sheriff. The Sheriff did not like it when I picked him up and replaced him to start, but we did fine after that. He even did well on his weaves given we haven't practiced in a looooong time.

Overall, I am satisfied. I got a good cardio workout and Duncan got out some of his hyperness. We'll see how next week goes!

Tonight's agility class went really, really well.

The first run was tire, jump, rear cross, jump, double jump, dogwalk, tunnel. We did a few variations, mostly with which side of the tunnel to enter and sometimes came all of the way back. The instructor droned about menial things for about 10 minutes while the half of the class with her got increasingly frustrated at her blabbing. I get it, she is experienced. However, I am hands-on with this and really just wanted to try it and then get comments. During our run, which was really good up to this point, she interrupted us to chastise me for not feeding on the ground. I was frustrated and got a bit defensive and even offended when she grumbled about wasting money on trials. Ugh. Oh well, I was having fun with my dog! And Duncan was AWESOME.

Move on to the other half of the club with the other instructor, who I adore. A-frame, teeter? No problem! A-frame, wrap tunnel? Fine! Table, triple jump, tunnel, A-frame? Wonderful! Table, triple jump, tunnel, teeter? Great! When we did A-frame starts I had to hold onto my Dunc after I took off his lead, or he would zoom to them! Smart little guy heard her call the order and took off after it. Sigh. I can't exactly be mad though. I just learned to have a firmer hold of my slippery pup.

We did good, but I didn't even attempt the weaves. We beat the tire, the double jump, and the triple jump. What more could I ask for?

Small brag, our "Go" and "Out" are really good. Thank you, Flyball!

My agility Duncan did great! Well, you know, two months of practice great. He was a little wild, barky, and spastic. I tripped, forgot the jumpers course, and made thousands of other mistakes.

I don't have any video of the Standard runs. We did two jaunts through the course. The obstacles were a little dirty and Duncan was very interested in something dumped in the overgrown grass. We did good contacts! Tunnels were a bust until I just took the time to really reinforce one.

The Jumpers course was awesome. There was only one tunnel and one set of weaves. I thought it best to just skip the weaves entirely. So we replaced it with a jump. The second run-through was more fun than the second. I got away with some difficult crosses in some places and not others. Oh, Duncan... must we be velcro-ed?



Overall, we had fun - which is what is important. People told me varying things. The most overwhelming response was that Duncan loves agility and that he is going to be awesome. I agree. The other comment was that I am too hard on myself. Probably true.

Enjoy! Oh, and no agility class this week.

This was a hard, boundary pushing class. There was a 19 obstacle course laid out with every obstacle they have. We got a chance to walk it for a few minutes and then did a cold run-through. We broke into groups and worked on pieces (with alterations from the original course), then did the course again.




Weaves, the stupid double jump, and the friggin tire. That's all I have to say. Duncan was in a very vocal mood, which didn't really help matters. Other than those three obstacles, though, we did pretty awesome. Once Duncan got off the dogwalk a little early (I think he had one paw in the yellow), but that is because I stopped and said "Am I going the right way?" or something to that effect.

2o2o is going very badly, so I've tried to teach creeping down the obstacle. He is doing well for the dogwalk and I think starting to get it a little on the A-frame.

The weaves need more practice and I need to make sure they are widely set during class. Our channel weaves at home are set pretty close, but Duncan doesn't generalize to the weave-o-matics. I would much rather have a set of those, though! When he does get them, he bounces through nicely. I also coyly moved to his right side, as that is the side where he has the most success with the weaves. We are working at getting all angles at home.

The double jump... that would require two jumps at home. I have one built, the PVC for another, and need to get jump cups for both. So that's bust for the moment.

I actually worked on the tire at Flyball this week. There just happens to be one, so after class I did some work with it and Duncan is much improved. I wouldn't like something that moved when I jumped through it either.

Duncan graduated into the next level of Agility! I was nervous about our first class. It is a bit different than Intro. You have drop-in cards and come when you can. This is nice for scheduling issues. Last night, there were five dogs present.

First: jump work!
          We did wraps first. I had done something similar with Duncan before, so this was fine. After we got bored of that, we moved to Start Line Stays (or in our case, Waits). I'd say we have about 85% good waits. The issue is that Duncan is slow to Sit for me. I have to say it pretty sternly for him to listen. This is something we should work on at home. After that we worked on Sends. As long as I gesture nicely, Duncan is fine. He is so much more visual than auditory. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Second: individual obstacles
          I was determined to do the 2o2o for the A-frame. We've been working on an inclined plank at home, so I thought we could generalize that easily. Nope. Duncan kept turning his shoulders and spinning off the bottom of the frame to look for his treat. When I dropped the treat at the end, he seemed to be able to do it. Definitely need to get more work on this. I think next class, I'll see if we can lower the frame at first to really key that in.
          Switching to weaves, I was happy to note that Duncan was doing great. He even got his small-dog-hop going! I like the Weave-O-Matic poles they have. The channel poles at home seem harder to me. Only thing to do for this is practice!
          The dogwalk was a cakewalk. Hahaha. Sorry. Anyway, Duncan was fine with it set to the height of my elbow. He went as fast as I went. Sometimes I had to race him to the end to get the treat set up at the end. I will work on getting further out from the dogwalk.
          Duncan took a bit of his own weight with the teeter. I let him start to tip it before I slowed the descent. The only thing he is grumpy about on it is not being able to fly across. I am going to have to force myself to take the teeter slowly.
          There was a small set-up of jump, jump, jump curved tunnel. I let Duncan do the tunnel once to make sure that he could succeed on such a curved tunnel. Yay! He did it! Then we ran it with great success. Then we were told to do it backward. Duncan was held (sweetly) at the end of the curved tunnel and I was to run and call him through it. The instructor gave Duncan a little push and he was off, chasing me down the way and missing all the jump. The next time, I smacked the second jump with my hand right before Duncan was going over it. As he landed, he started barking at me and I didn't even grump about him missing the last jump (my fault!!!). Then, the instructor held him back as I ran the original direction and I got a small crowd as Duncan FLEW over the jumps to get near me. I swear he went up on the side of the tunnel as he barreled through.

Last: a course - jump, jump, jump, curved tunnel, teeter, tire, dogwalk, broad jump, A-frame, weaves
          Jump, jump, jump, tunnel - fine! We even got a good and solid lead out from the start. Teeter - decent. I didn't readily have a treat, and Duncan gave me the most pitiful look. It was like he said, "I'll do it just for you, mom, but I really think I deserve some yummy." I dug one out of my pouch and popped it into his mouth. Tire - After the teeter, I should have made him wait to better get set-up for the tire. He rear crossed ME and passed it entirely. I called him back and made a much bigger signal (remember, visual!). Problem solved. We rounded the bend for the dogwalk, which he liked. The broadjump confused him. I ended up putting him in a sit-wait (sit took a bit to calm him down enough for it) and called him over it. He sniffed it before he jumped and that was that. A-frame, fine if you consider he hit the contact. Not fine if you were expecting a 2o2o (which I wasn't). He popped out of the last weave, and we were so exhausted we didn't go back and fix it.

I can't believe that there is only one more class left in this round! I feel like we have come so far in this time. Mostly, I am really proud of Duncan. For such a little dog, he has gained so much confidence. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this next week. Let's get to the good stuff.

Class went really well. I had JUST explained to one of the instructors that I thought Duncan might need some more contact work when he surprised me. After luring him over the A-frame once, he got it! I think he realized that if he flew over it, it wasn't all that bad. The instructor wanted us to attempt 2o2o (two on, two off). I keep bouncing between wanting to do this and not liking it. I'm going to rig something to practice it at home.



Notes:

It was obvious to me and everyone there - Duncan loves to run. He can't wait to get started. When he gets past a certain threshold, he can't sit for the start and I have to work with what I've got. I varied a few running starts with the waits. I think a Sit-Wait will be our goal. When I felt he wasn't giving me good focus, I walked around the obstacle (well, was instructed to!) and came back to him. I liked this approach. Since Duncan really wants to rrruuuunnn, I think he will quickly get the point that focus and a good wait get him what he wants.

2o2o - ugh. If you watch the very last run, we had a blast and no danger of jumping off the contact zone. Should I just watch it and risk having to re-train? Or should I put in the effort now so that later I am grateful? There is one clip where you can hear Thane say "fault" as Duncan clearly goes well into the contact zone. We had to watch it together to settle that! Too funny.

After a certain point, Duncan turns in to Mr. Barkerson. I ignore the best I can. The little happy barks are completely different and so, so very cute. Mr. Barkerson, however, doesn't listen or watch. He just hops around yelling about my bad handling.

Teeter - We need a trotting start for him to really get the feel. Also, I think we estimated the tip point too close to the fulcrum, when it needs to be out a bit more. Each time was a little worse because we went slower and slower.

The chute was a huge success. We finally got that one down pat. Yay for Duncan!

Can you say velcro dog? On the list to work with on the field: go, out, left, and right.

Overall, I was extremely happy with my Duncan. We have a long way to go, but man it was great to feel like we were getting somewhere! On of the instructors came up to me at the end of class and said, "You have an agility dog now."

This week has been miserable, so we haven't gotten to do much training. My house isn't that big, so we really don't have space to do it inside. I am petitioning Florida weather to pick somewhere between the 100+ temps and the pouring rain!

The following video sums things up nicely.


As you can see, Duncan is doing great at the home weave set. I like the channel weaves quite a bit. We're at just over half a turn (about 95 degree turn from original open position). As you can ALSO see, we got rained out. I barely got everything inside before the onslaught began! The tugging is working nicely for at home training if it isn't too hot.

Moving on to class. Thane took some video sporadically. We did much more than chutes, weaves, and tunnels. Duncan balked a little at the contacts. He just wasn't focused tonight, but I don't think I was either. Not sure, but we weren't clicking as well as last week. Probably due to lack of practice. Oh well!

Duncan hasn't really had an issue with chutes until today. We finally dropped the cloth all of the way and he got confused. We backed it up and I think he'll do better when we have amazing tunnels. Speaking of tunnels, the few times on the video were some of our best for the night. I think he's confused because for tunnels and weaves, he isn't right next to me. I need to work on distance with him, but I'm afraid of doing too much, too soon (especially considering we are doing two sports with him).

See that pitiful weave? Hear my strained high pitched voice? Gah. That kind of summed up the practice. Duncan found everything he wanted on the floor and only thought about me if I was a lunatic. I think I'm going to pick up my Control Unleashed book again and work on focus exercises.

Brag that isn't on the video: Duncan did the teeter three times without even a flinch! I lured him the whole time with turkey hotdogs and the teeter was smoothly dropped to a medium high wait table by an instructor. We didn't want to over do it, so we left it on a success. I was so proud of my baby.

Sad news - no Flyball tomorrow. It got moved to tonight and we had Agility. I'm going to get some practice in anyway, though!

Tonight, Duncan was definitely 'Most Improved' in his class. Sorry, no videos. My camera batteries died on me. They are being recharged tonight. Hopefully next time, I'll get video evidence.

We started on the A-frame, a previously unattempted stunt due to Duncan's reticence on the dogwalk and other contacts. First, we did it flat. No problem! Over the next three (that's right - THREE) height bumps, Duncan was great. It wasn't full height, but very nearly there. I stopped him while he was still excited about running up and down and not at all scared. It was like he suddenly decided that contacts were good things.

When we switched to the dogwalk, my Dunc got a bit weirded out at the entrance. It is so much thinner than the dogwalk, so he needs to have accuracy. I ended up picking him up and running him off the end a few times, backing him up until he was comfortable running down the end. This seemed to clear that up with him and he could run the whole thing without a problem. The height was maybe a foot and a half high. Still low, but Duncan is definitely getting used to it.

We did the wait table once. Duncan hopped right up and someone else wanted to use it, so we moved on.

Next we did a few jumps, loosening up. Duncan had a barking fit to which I responded by just looking at him and not doing anything to praise him. When he was done, I took him over to the chute and we did that a few times. Duncan was getting pretty good and could have the chute almost to the ground (someone was holding it up and dropping it after each successful go).

We did some tunnel work after this. We were asked to do the tire jump. Duncan would not sit for me, so I asked him to jump through using a 'come' and he did. After this point, Duncan would not sit for me again that night, even if he was attentive and doing well. We were able to do some tunnel/tire jump combos very successfully.

There was a little course of four jumps, the tunnel, then a jump and the chute that we were to try. Duncan refused the tunnel time and time again. First, the instructor asked me to start treating on the ground, since Duncan is SO hand-focused. Duncan still wouldn't enter the tunnel, but if she held him, he would fly through it. Then, my husband Thane came to the rescue. We called Duncan back and forth between us, treating for when he would duck into the tunnel. A few minutes of that seemed to solve our problems.

Duncan ended on the high note of the chute, barking madly the whole way. Believe it or not, that took an hour!

We did not do weaves or the teeter tonight. I want to build some weaves to work with at home. The teeter can wait until Duncan is fully confident with contacts.

Overall, we were very pleased with the work we did tonight and so was everyone else!