This week's trick is a game we have been playing for a while now (probably 3 months or more) and we kept waiting for it to be perfected but it just isn't happening! But through the magic of editing, we made a video showing only the good stuff! :) The object is word discrimination and distance (with a little body language thrown in). Sometimes I think I know better than mom and do my own thing instead of listening to her (but not in the video - LOL!).
We are pretty snowed in here - it's very tough to walk in the neighborhood but we do try. We also try to play in the yard, but that's difficult too. It's not as bad here as lots of other places but it's bad enough! I am just keeping my paws crossed that we can go to practice at the club tomorrow morning - our first agility (other than a jump in the bedroom and a tunnel in another bedroom) since Feb.1st!!
Sara blogged about her class with Oreo the other night and told us about the distance work they did and also about the puzzler that they worked on. She was nice enough to include the course maps, so today we printed them off and tried to set them up in our backyard. Each had to be modified a little to fit, but we think we got the general idea. (Sara, Oreo and Misty also practiced the puzzler in their backyard and video-ed it. ) It was tons of fun! The distance part went well - we only tried it twice but did it both times. Maybe having the weave poles as our not-so-imaginary red line was an unfair advantage? Then the puzzler (#1-11) went really well the first time. Mom lost it on the other times we tried it. At one point she experimented with unconventional handling and it really speeded me up, but she forgot the course! Any way, here's the video:
Thanks for sharing those exercises, Sara! We really enjoyed working on them today!
Well once again we were inspired by a video that Johann made a few days ago of some of his backyard agility practice. He did a really cool sequence of jumps, tunnel and then weaves at a distance. So mom set up something similar in our backyard but used the tire because she was too lazy to get the tunnel out! We practiced it a couple times yesterday and then got it on video today. We are not super fast or anything, but this was the first time we had tried to do distance work like this. Mom said she was real proud of me!
When we switched and went the other way - weaves and then the jumps - I had never done it before and so that was my first try. Mom knows she could've told me to jump earlier and given better cues, but she was afraid she'd pull me out of the weaves. Next time we try this sequence, she's going to run faster and see if she can get me to go faster too!
My name is Ricky (Covewind Little Ricky, AX,AXJ,CGC) and I am a six year old tri-color Shetland Sheepdog. I do agility and I like to learn tricks too! This blog is about all that and some other stuff as well!
