Its been a busy weekend. Nothing really great but busy. The weather has been wonderful. Warm 60's and sunny. Whoohoo! On Saturday our club had run throughs at the field. We had some real positives and some small negatives. Miley keeps self-releasing herself on the contacts. Then when I fixed it, she creeped down the side of the a-frame. Then I started worrying that it was to hard for her to stop. But she also self-released on the dogwalk. I began contemplating retraining the a-frame. But after thinking about it, Ive been inconsistent in my releases. In training, I make her hold them a few seconds before releasing. In trialing , I release quickly. Not really fair to my dog. You know the old saying, "train like you trial and trial like you train". Also, Meagan told me that when she watched my videos, Miley is releasing on my motion not my verbal "ok". So time to work on that. I will begin doing the "Bridging the gap" flat work stuff to fix the self releasing. The good stuff from the run throughs was she had great weaves. I put her mat down instead of the table and she had no problems going to the mat. (whoohoo) And she was very excited to be there and started the circling stuff when I stopped to fix the contacts but she was still able to run and get on the mat. Also there was a sequence that was several jumps that were in front of a chute and tunnel and she didnt go off course. The most telling thing that happened was we didnt run either run completely correct during the run thurs. But after we were done, I went out and ran it again. She was perfect. Hmmm, I must be handling differently when I feel people are watching , then when they aren't. Or what ever is stressing me. I didnt feel stressed there but it must be something.
Sunday we took the dogs hiking which was nice. Then I took a class in Charlotte and had a private lesson afterwards. Here was the course from the class. Its to the best of my memory and may not have correct distances.
The first time we ran 1-10 we were perfect. That doesn't happen often for us. Meagan made us run it again and I messed up. She didnt read the rear cross to the teeter. Also I swapped out the table for my mat. She got right on the mat. Then next time we were to run 8-20. Lots of dogs were coming out of the tunnel and going up the dogwalk. Not Miley, she got right in the weaves and was perfect. I decided to stop and reward. I tried to give miley the treat. She spit it out and kept going. So then I wasnt ready and she started circling. Ugh! I was just trying to reward my dog and everything back fired. LoL. So anyway , Miley was a little over the top last night. I think she finally settled down by the time we got to the private lesson. In the lesson we worked on the two excellent JWW coursers that I ran so badly a few weekends ago. What Im not doing is working the ground in between the obstacles. I dont know if that makes any sense and it will be hard to describe.
You see where that green line goes between 5 and 6? Thats where I wasnt going in and working. I was just staying out and expecting my dog to figure it out.
Also Meagan said I could start putting the mat on a flat to the ground table and starting working that. I really hope this works when its time to add it to a trial. Im worried it wont. But no need to worry about it right now.
I had today off and took the dogs for an extra long hike. I was beat when we were done. I dont think it phased the dogs.
When stuff doesn’t go right
2 days ago
8 comments:
Wow, you did have a busy weekend. I'm glad you're finally having some good weather!
Sounds like your mat work is really paying off.
You did lots of agility this weekend and sounds like it mostly went very well! I'm happy for you that Miley is doing so well with the mat. We'll keep our fingers/paws crossed that all goes well when you put the mat on the low table.
Love the last photo!!!
MOMMY dont be stressed i will help you with your trial stuff!! i love you!! ;)
What a great weekend! LOVE the last picture of the dogs in the long needle pines!
Sounds like the mat work is going really well. It's so hard to be consistent aobut training and trialing. No matter what I know my nerves get the best of me when I trial, and I just can't replicate that in training. It sounds like you and Miley are doing great though.
Love the last picture.
Looks like you did a lot of work this weekend! Miley and Guiness take such good pictures together!
Sounds like you had a great class. I have found that being consistent with the release is so HARD - one that I really had to be concious of and work on. One thing I found that helped was in training, sometimes I quick release from the contacts (like I would for a steeplechase or GP run in competition) and then follow a quick release with a delayed release and then another quick release (mix it up) so that my dog doesn't anticipate a quick release only in a trial setting.
You have really been working hard! I love that last picture of the dogs!
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