Tuesday's class

Serpentines and lateral sends were the theme of yesterday's class. I jumped 8" but there weren't any doubles or triples in the set up for us to try out. We warmed up with some serpentine recalls to heel over one jump. Mom was glad we had been practicing those at home so we had no trouble. Then we did a weave exercise with lateral motion. Jenn had the handlers start close to their dogs at the entries and then move laterally away as the dog continued weaving. She moved the lateral distance farther and farther away but my weaves are super independent ( sorry but I have to brag a little!) and it was no problem for me!

Then we moved on to the actual sequences with serpentines. We discussed single-sided handling and side-change handling. A general rule is if after the serpentine you are heading to any obstacle that is on the same side as the serp entry, then single sided makes sense. If you need to go to an obstacle on the other side of the serp, then side change may work better - so a FMFC. Think about the tightest line possible to help your dog get through the serp. So recalling him at his jump height from the bar and good lateral motion can create tighter lines. The good lateral motion involves having a good send to the first jump in the serp. Handlers need to remember to keep their shoulders straight while moving laterally until the dog commits to the jump. Finally, the single-sided serp handling is a trained skill for the dog and it is appropriate to say the dog's name before he commits to the second jump (I think I have that part right?).

Besides traditional serpentines, we practiced doing the first two jumps and then having the dog come through between the 2nd and the 3rd. It's hard to explain but we made a video and here's what we tried to do:

1. Lead out, single-sided to pull through between the 2nd and 3rd jump of the serp

2. No lead out, regular 3 jumps single-sided serp

3. No lead out, pull through

4. Lead out, double front cross bringing dog between the 2nd and 3rd jump - this is a safer option and is what we would do in a trial

5. No lead out, double front cross

6. Serp from the other direction (sorry you couldn't see the weaves at the end)

I don't understand why the video is the correct size in the preview but when I publish the post, the video is too big. Silly. Sorry but to see the video properly, you have to double click on the center of it and watch it at YouTube.

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Monday Class

After having last Monday off, we went back to agility class today! The theme for the day was lateral sends. The point is to cue your dog to a turn by moving laterally while supporting forward motion to the jump with an inside arm, shoulders forward and a verbal jump command. You can practice this with one jump - set the dog up on a stay about 8 feet from the jump. The handler starts very close to the jump, gives the ok, and as the dog comes towards the jump, takes one step to the side still cueing the dog to jump. Then as you get better at the skill, the handler moves farther to the side and adds motion etc. There are three main ways to cue a turn for the dog - deceleration (like we did with forward sends), lateral motion (as in lateral sends) and no motion. Jenn pointed out that we use lateral motion with a 180 all the time - with a front cross or without. But she said you need to be careful to train your dog to do the 180 with lateral motion because if the handler just uses deceleration and than turns around and runs in the opposite direction without the lateral motion, the dog may learn to do 180s that way and then if the handler needs to pull the dog through the two jumps, the dog will not read it that way and will automatically do the 180. Make sense? I am terrible at writing this stuff down!

We also worked a little bit on independent obstacles and lateral motion away from the weaves, a-frame and dogwalk. Every one did quite well except for the dogwalk. We all wanted to jump the contact and mom already knew I would do exactly that! But I did a fast DW and that is important right now!

The photographer from our last trial recently put all his photos up on his website - there are some pretty funny ones of me on the table. Here is the link in case you want to check them out -

http://www.mlifer.com/mlp/album/index.html - we couldn't link directly to my photos. So find

"dog names starting with R" on the left side of the page and then scroll down until you find Ricky and Christina Saetti (mom's name) and click on that and you should be able to see me!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Tricky T-Day

It's Thursday so here is our Tricky T-Day video! This is my newest trick - dig! We used a post-it on the floor for me to target to start out. It didn't take long for me to dig since it's a well-known motion any way. Next mom wants to get me to dig with both paws, but we're not sure how to go about doing that.

On Tuesday we went to our second handling class. It went well and we worked on lateral sends. Mom also asked the instructor what to do about discriminations and the fact that I don't really know (or listen to) the obstacle names. She said the only obstacle I really need to know the name of is tunnel. Mom needs to use her body language to help me to go to the correct obstacle. Then if there are contact obstacle/tunnel discriminations and mom says "tunnel" I had better go for the tunnel!!!! So we are practicing this week - starting out with me standing right in front of the tunnel and then backing up a little and then from different angles. I am doing very well if tunnel is the only thing around. Once another obstacle is near-by then I want to do that one. Guess it will take some time.

Last night was our last novice competition class. We went early and got to practice the chute. I am happy to say I went flying through it. Then when we had the chute in sequences during the class, I also went through with no problem. Now if I can just do that in a trial!

Speaking of trials - we are running on Friday and Saturday this weekend - AKC in the good old horse barn! Two runs per day - JWW and STD. This is my third trial and the first time we are trying to run two days. Friday is supposed to be very hot and humid so mom is worried about how we will hold up. (Although she sees me chase plenty of squirrels in super hot weather so I should be able to do some agility too)!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky