Productivity?

Only 4 people showed up for flyball practice this morning... it made running lineups for next weekend extremely difficult to say the least since someone had to load. *sigh*.

It wasn't a waste though,  Had a teammate run Demo while I boxloaded.  He didn't care one bit, and it was really cool to see his turn up close and personal at speed!  I kind of want to see if my other dogs will let me load and watch their turns.  Hehe.  Took my video camera... even took the battery charger........forgot the memory card. >_<  oy story of my life!

Didn't really do anything that was on my agenda... but there's always next time... unless people just stop coming. :(

Anyway.

Got home and took a wonderful nap snuggled with the pups.  Later worked on weaving with Demo, Trophy and Pan.

Still trying to teach 2x2 weaves to Dem and Pan.  I don't know if I'm trying to move to quickly again or if I just don't understand the system enough... but i don't think it's working.  I start tipping the weaves and they do great, and then it all falls apart.  Going to try to do my instructor's "old school weave-purist" ways and just lure them through.

I'm torn on this is so many ways.

1. I really believe that the dogs understand it better shaping it piece by piece
2. I haven't been training on a schedule... but i feel like we should have a little more progress made that we have in 2x2.
3. Trophy, who is my most clicker-savvy dog, was taught by luring .. and he is currently weaving extremely well.  But... it's taken over a year.

BAH. I don't know what to do. :(

Speaking of Trophy's weaves,  at home he will let me front and rear cross on him while he is weaving.  SO MUCH INDEPENDENCE!  He even correctly weaved back to me when i sent him through the weaves but didn't follow at all - just once, but he is really starting to understand entries!  His biggest "fail" in weaving right now is skipping the first pole and entering at the second, but at least it's on the correct side (and it's rare).  He wouldn't let me cross in class yet, but we are trying to warm up every class with the weaves.

And lastly, today I started shaping Trophy to go to the backside of a jump and jump back towards me.  My agility instructor said only one student has successfully taught it to her dog, so CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.  Started with part of my weaves set with only one pole in and taught him to wrap around that in the correct direction (that was the hardest part, he wanted to do it like he would be taking the jump and wrapping the pole to come back to me).  Once we figured that out I added a second pole so he had, essentially, two jump uprights and he could still go to the back of the "jump" and then come back.  Finally I added a low 12inch jump... and he did it twice before going "weeee we are jumping!" and I called it quits.

I'm going to call this behavior "Reversing a Jump" and the cue is "reverse".  So, yeah.  More to work on.

I'm trying (really, really hard, actually)  to try to give my dogs a more consistent working at home schedule.  It's really hard since I'm in such a funk right now and I can't fall asleep until like 2am, and I can't wake up before 9:30 and I don't get home till 8 or later (when my next round of classes start I will be teaching until 9pm M,T,W and then I have agility until 10pm on Thurs).

The weave poles are currently sitting in the living room as a reminder.

Sunny Sunday Practice

With work being crazy swamped with requests for training consults I didn't think I was every going to get home today.  3 hours of work then 2 new client assessments and my first in home session with a new client.  It was awesome, but I left home at 7am and didn't get home until 4:30pm.

Despite daylight savings meaning I had an hour less sleep last night, It did mean that I had plenty of daylight to get some training and videos done.  Which is good cause I needed to film some demonstrations for my CTDI (Certified Trick Dog Instructor) certification.  When I got that done (which took forever and 4 different dogs to complete) I pulled out the weaves and the practice board for some weave practice with Trophy and box turn learning with Demo.

I've been putting off really delving into weave training because (other than my lack of time) it's recommended that you use toys to train 2x2 weaves and Trophy is just not toy motivated.  However, yesterday at flyball practice I had an epiphany.  I already taught Trophy to retrieve a ball for a cookie... why wouldn't that work for teaching the weaves?  So I throw the ball to get him moving away from me quickly, and he brings it back for his ultimate reward: FOOD.

My other big concern is over working him.  Trophy loses focus VERY quickly. especially when working outside and when toys are involved... so I did 5 minutes and quit on a good note.  It was very hard for me not to keep working on it, but I just have to remind myself that, in the long run, more SHORT sessions will be better. :)



Then I moved on to Demo's box turn.  He catches on so darn fast!!  Several things I noticed to yell at myself for: 1. pick a word and go with it!  I'm telling him hup, box, and ball.  I catch myself doing this with my trained dogs too.  Some times it's ready box, sometimes ready go, and mostly (i think?) Ready ball.  Bad dog trainer, bad.  2. Make sure to keep an eye on how much the board is sliding down.

Last is something that I couldn't see at the time because my back was turned, but I need to bring home the jump board as as soon as I took the front box prob makeshift thing away he cheated his way off the board without doing a nice tight turn.

Over all, very very happy with his performance.