Training x2

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Leanne

Agility = good! Dyl’s seesaw is looking great after our confidence building sessions. I’ve lost the stop on the end but I don’t really care, Dylan isn’t brave enough to fly it and it’s faster. If we need it back later we can work on it, I’m sure. I also worked on 180 pull-thrus, because I hate training them.

I’ve also realised I have a tendency to choose exercises where the dog is on my right. I’m right handed so that’s not really a surprise, but I should try and plan exercises and courses for the left as it’s becoming a weakness.

Flyball = good! The girls were both a bit bonkers; Mollie did a few re-runs that she shouldn’t and Kim has apparently decided she should always run lead, as every time I turned around she’d lined herself up at 25ft, very pointedly ignoring the dogs behind her. Dyl actually looked good over 14″, he did run lead and his striding was excellent. We put a regulator in approaching the box to make him extend into his turn which worked really well, I’ve got to get back to doing that more regularly.

Busy Busy

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Leanne

Seesaw work this week. Some improvement but I have a list of things still left to work on.

I’ve also been working on introducing tighter turns, ala Silvia Trkman. We’ve done lots of work at home (and on walks, etc etc) but Dyl actually had a lot of the basic skills already, it was just refining what was there, adding a command and changing my reward position. The difficult bit with Dyl has always been the jumping, I think because he has a tendency to jump from his front end and because he is over-cautious about poles. That means he generally doesn’t turn in the air, he turns before or after the jump (yes, also down to my training I’m sure!). We’re currently working on 25cm height and it looks good, but the challenge will really be when we get to 45cm+ I think, that seems to be when he begins to struggle.

I have also, hesitantly, decided to use just one command for turning tight both ways (kip). This is based on my weaknesses and not Dylan’s! I already have a tendency to confuse myself with lefts and rights (not my strongest point), particularly when I’m thinking on my feet, and I don’t want Dylan to get confused by what the command means because I’m inept. So I’m going to rely on body language for direction and the command for the action of turning tight to the wing. Silvia does mention this very briefly in her DVD and says it’s ok to do that, so we’ll see how it works.

First Training of 2011

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Leanne

I did not stick to my well-thought out resolutions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. I had some lovely courses to work on that were well adaptable for all the different levels of the dogs, and would give Dylan some jump workouts and some Aframe practise, which were my main concerns after Tailwaggers. Sadly though, lots of people had to miss training this week so I ended up setting a different course, it was too much hassle to set up the Aframe with only two of us to put it away. I must be stricter with myself next week!

Dylan’s jumping really does look fairly atrocious right now. He’s reverted to taking off way too early, although after a bit of work this noticably improved towards the end of our session. I don’t think this is necessarily a huge regression, it’s just one of the many indicators of us having not doing any training for a while. Think I’m going to have to start getting the cavaletti out with him at home again, and doing a little more homework. It’s sad for me as I’m a generally lazy person, and thankfully Kim has always been a generally lazy dog, who actually benefits from a break or minimal training. Dylan is just the opposite, the more we do the better he is, and when I get lazy, it’s one of those oh-dear type things. I do have a good excuse this time, to be fair, considering the snow and the ice and the Christmas and so forth.

We also did some focussed seesaw work, which went well with both dogs. Kim has never been very confident on the seesaw, but her confidence grows and diminishes depending on what mood she’s in (which kind of makes sense, I suppose). She did some very nice ones for me this week anyway, so hopefully we can keep that up. Speaking of Kim (and seesaws), I think I’ve made the decision to move her to BAA Veterans. It’s been a tough decision, for all kind of reasons, but if I’m honest with myself it’s because moving her to Veterans is a very final, irreversible decision. Once BAA dogs move to Veterans, they’re in Veterans for the rest of their lives, they can’t go back to normal classes. It means I am finally accepting her age, and of course with age is But I think Kim will love it, I’m going to drop her to running over Micro height and they don’t use weaves or seesaws in Veteran classes, which Kim will definitely appreciate. And of course she’ll carry on doing occasional normal classes at KC.

Jumping

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Leanne

Dylan was really rocking his jumping this week, I was a very happy bunny! Lovely and smooth, confident, and extended. I don’t think his take off points are right so we do have to do more work on that.

Only one minor issue when he nearly backflipped over a jump, and I have genuinely no idea how he managed it. I can only assume (?) that he either tried to throw in an extra stride and then severely misjudged it, or tried to avoid me and propped with his front legs and lost it with his rear. We both recovered and carried on and no harm done, he bounced back quickly enough. I actually think the main thing was because of his aversion to knocking poles, he’d rather jump six foot too high to recover than knock the pole and land safely.

Fab weave entries, absolutely no popping regardless of whatever I was doing. Lovely! We’ve also done plenty of work on seesaw confidence, which seems to be paying off now. I keep trying to mix up doing early releases, quick releases and holding his contacts, which seems to be working. I really do love how happy Dyl is with his contact position, he really smiles at me when he’s stood waiting for his release … at which point I usually have to wait until he’s looking for the next obstacle, which is what he should be doing, but he does make me smile as well!

I’m feeling much more confident about sending Dylan and letting him roll. That’s definitely a result of the training day we were on a couple of weeks ago, it really showed me that Dylan does know what he’s doing and I can just leave him to get on with it!

Training Days

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Leanne

Tough day for fatman Dylan today! Flyball training in the morning and then an agility training afternoon over in York. Ideally I would have skipped flyball, but we have Drax coming up and I really want him fit and ready. We’re making an effort to do more two lane training at the moment, and it’s making Dylan work really hard. He has a habit of lazing around in training when on a single lane, so running him against the faster dogs pulls him on and makes him put some effort in. He was stretching like mad against Jet; he was going 110% and she was cruising at 80%, and she still beat him by a nose. Poor lad, no wonder he has an inferiority complex, he’s constantly getting his ass kicked by girls.

So he had a hard flyball session, and then I whisked him off to agility! I’d booked onto a training day with Dawn and Katie Long, since loads of people have recommended Dawn to me recently and when the opportunity came up I was about ready to snap Julie’s hand off! I had a great time and it was well worth it, so I can safely say I’ll be furthering the recommendations.

We did a lot of work on contacts, which was great for me and Dylan. Particularly for me! I’ve always been fairly confident in Dylan’s understanding of the 2o2o position, but I’ve never dared to truly test it. Well, I got put on the spot, and Dylan was brilliant, so I’m very very pleased. He drove to the end regardless of where I was, and only looked around for me once he’d stopped. His Aframe was especially good; I raced him to the start of the Aframe, and then stopped completely before the up-ramp and let Dylan complete by himself. He nailed it every time, and only peered around once to check where I was (and he left a toe on the bottom … cheating slightly!) Spent plenty of time getting him to really drive over the dogwalk, and some new techniques for getting him more confident on the seesaw, so very positive.

We also spent some time working on weave entries and truly independent weaves, which again was great for me and Dylan, because he was awesome! More about my handling than anything, and Dylan was pretty exhausted by this part of the session, but he’s always willing to try.

I didn’t learn anything which is going to fundamentally change the way I handle or train. But I’m viewing that a positive thing. Means we’re doing something right!