Monday 9 January 2012

Training...

We had a great time!

Mookie and I ran courses.We worked on me learning to get my feet facing the way I am going NEXT whilst my shoulders and arms/hands are still supporting the current piece of equipment.
It really tidied her turns up,but its gonna take me quite a while to get it into my head.It took me long enough to get my arms right!!lol
It was Mookie's first time on the new rubber covered contact equipment and her dog walks were FAST.

Shady did some puppy bump jumps as he is shockingly bad at judging distances when jumping,and I am going to do alot of jump grids with him before doing courses with him.
Although I could easily just start doing courses,and he would do ok,I really want him to learn and understand how to do judge and get his jumping right.

We did lots of waits,and he didn't break any.It is SO much better since I made it black and white for him....when I leave you in a wait,you are not allowed to move.
Not allowed to move any part of you,not even your paws!
Shady got that straight away,though I do need to be careful that I am not rewarding by releasing him whilst he's 'vulturing'.

Lastly we worked on his contacts.We started like he had never done a contact before.Half shaping and half luring him into the end position (2o2o),once he's happily getting into position we can go about building huge amounts of value for it,then and only then will we consider putting him over the full piece of equipment.
Its so nice to see him 'trying' things for himself,having previously been lured for everything. :)

He was ecstatic to be doing agility again.I forgot just how 100% focused on me he is.When I bring him into a field of equipment he just spends the whole time with me,jabbing his toy into me and waiting to see what I want him to do.
Mookie when taken into the field likes to grab her toy and run round in circles,honestly she probably finds that as reinforcing as doing agility,her foundation wasn't the best.
Not that she's not very happy to play agility,co she is,and a whole lot more than many dogs I see,its just she LOVES to just run too :)
Floozie when she gets in the field is like a combination of the 2.She'll stick with me,looking at me,but if I ignored her long enough she'd go off and amuse herself.Shady wouldn't he'd just jab me harder with his toy,or just generally try to provoke me into action! :)
Floozie has had no metacam today,fingers crossed no limp.I took her for a little lead walk earlier to take the edge of her,so I'll just have to see how she is tommorow,I miss not taking her everywhere with me,the little monkey!

2 comments:

  1. I am so impressed by all the work you put into agility training!

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  2. Thanks!We have a lot of fun trying to get it right :)

    ReplyDelete