Agility videos from last weekend
JWW (jumpers with weaves) - Excellent A level - no Q (qualifying) as he missed a jump. But it was a fun and complex run...still a good run, just one "oops". The next day we DID put it all together and Q'd, and it was our title and moved us up to Masters in JWW.  No video Sunday though - none of us was free to video each other, tight schedule. Here is our Master Standard run - it was a Q and 2nd place. I love the video on this one, as they have an observation deck on this end of the arena, so it makes for a bird's eye view! We had a good time, and had some of our trialing friends there to visit with too - fun stuff!  |
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| Great job Team Chewie. It's always fun to watch videos of Chewie. |
| That was fun to watch, how long have you been doing agility with Chewie and how often? We have just done the 7th of one hour lessons with Monty, he lacks a bit of enthusiasm with doing jumps, sometimes he just walks through them, He is really excited about going but then is a little slow in speed when we are there, do dogs go through phases? |
 Congrats! Love watching you and Chewie doing agility! Cindy |
MontyQs wrote: That was fun to watch, how long have you been doing agility with Chewie and how often? We have just done the 7th of one hour lessons with Monty, he lacks a bit of enthusiasm with doing jumps, sometimes he just walks through them, He is really excited about going but then is a little slow in speed when we are there, do dogs go through phases? We started training after he finished his show Ch, so he was 3 yrs old. We trained for a year, then started competing a year later in 2010. He wasn't your typical "beginner" in agility, as we already had teamwork established - he was also titled in obedience, rally, herding, was a therapy dog, a weight pull Ch, and doing dog sledding. Yes dogs go through phases, especially in agility. Whatever you happen to be working on and heavily rewarding, then becomes their favorite thing! Chewie never was really slow, but he did have issues in the beginning with the tire. He was heavily basset hound influenced, so he was sure it was better to go UNDER it than jump through it! Our classes were geared so that you became proficient in everything, then started competing. That was nice, as he went from Novice to Open to Excellent levels, we already knew it, were (and still are) in the perfecting it all stages. Agility as a sport is always evolving, so classes are never truly over, we are always learning and working on new and better skills. Chewie was good long before I was (He's my 1st dog competing in agility), so my learning curve has been much slower than his.  Oh, and how often - we have classes once a week. I have most all the equipment in my yard (except tunnels, and they are rarely a training issue), and when we were learning, I practiced probably 3-4 times a week between classes, working on whatever the lesson was from that week. Being in MN, that is seasonal only though - all winter we are just indoors at weekly classes. Before this trial, we hadn't done any classes (therefore no agility) for 3 months (holiday break)...so we were pretty rusty the 1st day. These videos were from the 2nd day, more in the groove! |
| Awesome! |
got sheep wrote: Chewie never was really slow, but he did have issues in the beginning with the tire. He was heavily basset hound influenced, so he was sure it was better to go UNDER it than jump through it! You can't blame the bassets - his brother started out limboing under 16" jumps. That took some talent!!  I'm competing at the master level with two of the boys sisters, so you can overcome weird genetics <g>Speaking of jumping, as Dawn says, you get what you reward. And since most OES are not inherently good jumpers - make sure whatever class you're in focuses on teaching good jumping skills. You start with one jump, dog sitting right in front of it, and then encourage them to jump "round" (with a rounded back) by rewarding low to the ground on the other side. Start at 12" and work up (over time, not in one session) to 24". Then you transition to jump grids and things like that. Too many OES have lots of enthusiasm, but are short on skills (and the faster they go, the flatter they jump) and they pay for it with downed bars and not advancing in the class levels. True, they have to learn to jump at speed, too. But rush that and you get the kind of dog your average bar setter hates. I used to habitually apologize to all of the bar setters before I ran Chewie et al's mother, so I speak from experience   The additional plus side of teaching jumping is you have lots of opportunity to reward for jumping, which makes the jumps a lot more appealing Kristine |
| Yes - as Kristine mentioned - we did lots of foundation work on jumping properly. Nice rounded jumps. Then jump grids...I LOVE jump grids! (set 4 jumps in a row, spaced for your dog so they only land and takeoff again in the space between the jumps, no extra strides) I think they are the #1 reason he got to be a really good jumper - and we got speed as well. Even Todd could tell it was helping, watching us out in the yard. I had them set up in different spots and directions, and once he knew the drill, he got really good. Amazingly simple drill to teach muscle memory. You get multiple perfectly rounded jumps, one after another. Then praise and play, repeat.... I later used variations on the grid to teach acceleration and decels to pull him away , as well as driving to an end point through the grid. ( "go" command). |
| Thanks Dawn and Kristine for the info, I have not been practicing outside of the class which I could do, to get a proper jump, it is very snowy at the moment to set something up. There is a low snow fence on one of our walks which I get Monty to jump over and Buster shows more interest, he is leaping back and forth and we don't really want him to incase it causes hip problems....he is fine now. Also have not been rewarding with treats just hugs, but I think I will use treats more, just don't want him to turn into a gluten for treats like buster, pestering everyone he meets. |
| I don't use treats often either. It does help for the jumps though, quite a bit. You lure the head, so you get the rounded jump. Start off sitting him close to the jump - then go to the other side and hold the treat low to the ground, and close to the jump. You want them to jump over and land tight to it. The jump should look like they jumped in the shape of an upside down U. If you google it and jump grids, you will lots of visuals. |
| Great, they don't mention this in the agility class. |
MontyQs wrote: Great, they don't mention this in the agility class. It's a rare class that does. Took me years to find an agility instructor who specifically emphasizes training jumping skills, mainly because she'd had a bar knocker. Once I did, I put together an OES seminar with her Susan Salo and Linda Mecklenburg (in the US) both have excellent books/DVDs out there. It is hard to do much this time of year when you have snow/not much daylight. But if you have any space in your yard you could build yourself 4 simple jumps in the interim. The grid distance Dawn mentions is called a bounce (when there's no room for a stride between jumps) and really teaches them to collect. That's not where it ends. You will be stretching the distance out till he can comfortably take a stride between jumps, then two, then you'll mix it up so the distances between the jumps are not equi-distanc: one stride here, two there, a bounce, then another stride, you' add spread jumps (doubles and triples) down the road - this is called teaching them to be smart/confident jumpers - muscle memory will only take them so far: they need to learn to guage the take-off spot (in round, collected jumping, the take off - and landing - will be roughly equal to the height of the jump) As they pick up speed they won't always be jumping this collected. You'll start with one jump, add another, work through that and gradually build up to 4 (you can use more, but four is sort of the minimum in terms of usefulness for the more advanced exercises) This is over a period of weeks if not months, and even advanced dogs are taken back to the basic exercises periodically to maintain skills. Anyway, when you start, you start with one jump, and you put him in a sit about the same distance away as the jump. If it's a 20" jump, he's sitting about 20" away from the jump, etc. This forces them to really lift off their rear, which is what you want. Too many dogs, OES especially, tend to want to try to pull themselves over with their fronts. Not efficient jumping, and hard on their bodies. Just some things to think about as you plan your spring training It's really great exercise for them, too. And I wouldn't work for hugs, either. Show me the money (eh, cookies), honey. Tug toys, if you have a dog who will tug, or a ball, if you have a dog who will retrieve work great for more advanced work too. Even though your class may not have touched on this you can always bring it up ("I've heard about...would it be possible to work some of these exercises into class so I have a better idea how they work?") I think a lot of instructors just either 1) assume all dogs can jump (they can't - well, at any rate) or end up with lots of true newbies in their class who just want to learn the basic obstacles and how to get the dog to sequence as fast as possible and may not have the patience or understanding for this kind of foundation work. But it can make or break you down the road. It takes about a year to make an agility dog (that's when you're starting with a mature dog and don't have to wait for growth plates to close etc) - some times more. So you have plenty of time to work on the finer points. The challenge right now: to create a fanatical jumper. Cookies, praise, toys, ideally a combination of all, but whatever floats his boat. With Belle I started out with two buckets and a broom stick draped between them It doesn't have to be terribly sophisticated. Just some things to think about. Kristine |
got sheep wrote: I don't use treats often either. It does help for the jumps though, quite a bit. You lure the head, so you get the rounded jump. Start off sitting him close to the jump - then go to the other side and hold the treat low to the ground, and close to the jump. You want them to jump over and land tight to it. The jump should look like they jumped in the shape of an upside down U. If you google it and jump grids, you will lots of visuals. Congratulations on that performance!!!! You and Chewie are such a great team!    Dawn, as you know I love watching Chewie do whatever you are doing at the time. The agility videos are so thorough( to the recorder) and detailed. Since we are in foundation agility, your performance is my main focus. However do you remember where to go next???  I get confused with direction on very simple sequences. Thank you for posting it. I will continue to watch it again and again.The tip about the rounded jump is one not mentioned in my class either. So to lure the dog with a low treat do you bend over significantly or crouch down while teaching this maneuver? I have been keeping the treat at my fingertips and close to my body to pull Charm in to me. Is this the wrong move? Thank you and Kristine for the mention and the explanation. Kristine, I am doing better in class and gaining confidence each week. Probably would not have continued without your encouragement and butt kick Charm continues to love her agility and is overly excited when we arrive  |
| When I taught Chewie the rounded jump, he already sort of knew how to do a jump. (He had a jump command, and he knew MOST of the time to actually jump, not plow through the bar!) I sat him on one side and had him wait - then I stood at one end of the jump so the jump was in front of me, Chewie to the side. Say he was on my left - I had him sit, and said wait. Then I arced the treat in my right hand over the jump (from left to right) and held the treat near the ground on the right ...then gave the jump command and in theory, he jumped in a nice arc and landed with his face at the treat. Eventually I didn't need to arc the treat, he knew to jump like that - I could just hold it on the other side and he popped over. As Kristine mentioned - you want them to push off w/ the HIND legs, not pull themselves over w/ the front. We really had to work at this, as we did weight pull, and Chewie was really used to working off his front end. It was a total retrain of body technique. I spent a LOT of time on this skill, but it totally paid off. If you watch our videos, nearly every single jump he does looks nice and rounded, and exactly the same. If you watch many dogs - they jump "flat" - where they have no arc and seems to skim across the top in a longer, flat jump. Rounded is much better. It is really rare that he drops a bar. As far as learning the course...yeah, it's a learned skill. Some people do sudoku...I work my brain by learning agility courses! I have lost more JWW course Q's (they are more complex and loopy, and look too much the same!) d/t ME getting disoriented....poor Chewie.I walk them and try to make landmarks, sometimes I make a color combo of a series of jumps, or certain shapes the mini-sequence within a course makes....you name it, I probably have tried it! Oh, and my videographer last weekend was my friend Kim or her husband Ron - they are fellow classmates, and she and her golden Lego are in the same level classes, and Ron has a previously titled and retired BC named China, who is going through her second career in preferred - and she just turned 12 years old this week! We try and video for each other any time we can, as it is such a good learning tool to improve our handling. |
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