pitoujasmine's photostream on Flickr.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Contact training
For the past 3 years, I've been trying to find ways to avoid having Jasmine stand on the top of the A-Frame, watching the scenery, She was also afraid of the teeter, and would stop at about 1 metre from the end of the dogwalk.
With Seebe's help, Jasmine vanquished her fear of heights, does a mean teeter, and no longer stops at inappropriate spots on the dogwalk..... during practices that is. It's a whole new ballgame at fun matches and trials. After consulting our esteemed teacher, and probably trying her patience to boot, it finally clicked! Add distractions!!! My brain already knew this, but my common sense didn't I guess.
Distractions you say? I added distractions in the past, but not "good" ones or the right way as it didn't solve the problem. At the arena, I've been adding rolling balls and flying toys as Jasmine would delicately peck the ground with her nose during contacts. Still, once in a while she would go back to her old habits.
Then, last week, epiphany!!! As we were walking to one of the contact equipment, Jasmine was jumping, and trying to reach the bowl of cookies in my hand...... HELLO???? DISTRACTIONS????
First A-Frame, I put the opened bowl of treats about 1 metre away from Jasmine's nose as she pecks the ground. Right away, she breaks her position and heads for the food.
Jasmine 0 - Lyne 1
Second A-Frame, I do the same thing. I can actually "see" the nuts and bolts working in her head as she heads for the contact zone. She pecks the ground..... and that's IT!!! EUREKA!!!
I quickly give her the bowl, let her stuff her face for 0.5 seconds, and we start again. Every time, the bowl gets closer and closer.... and Jasmine pecks the ground, and waits for her reward... WOOHOO!!!
We repeated more or less the same exercice with all the contact equipement that day. The result? Yesterday's beautiful contacts and Jasmine's dash for the contact zone. Ok, I may be exagerating her "dashing", but it's sure better than before.
Conclusion? Jasmine 1 - Lyne 1.
We're both winners!
With Seebe's help, Jasmine vanquished her fear of heights, does a mean teeter, and no longer stops at inappropriate spots on the dogwalk..... during practices that is. It's a whole new ballgame at fun matches and trials. After consulting our esteemed teacher, and probably trying her patience to boot, it finally clicked! Add distractions!!! My brain already knew this, but my common sense didn't I guess.
Distractions you say? I added distractions in the past, but not "good" ones or the right way as it didn't solve the problem. At the arena, I've been adding rolling balls and flying toys as Jasmine would delicately peck the ground with her nose during contacts. Still, once in a while she would go back to her old habits.
Then, last week, epiphany!!! As we were walking to one of the contact equipment, Jasmine was jumping, and trying to reach the bowl of cookies in my hand...... HELLO???? DISTRACTIONS????
First A-Frame, I put the opened bowl of treats about 1 metre away from Jasmine's nose as she pecks the ground. Right away, she breaks her position and heads for the food.
Jasmine 0 - Lyne 1
Second A-Frame, I do the same thing. I can actually "see" the nuts and bolts working in her head as she heads for the contact zone. She pecks the ground..... and that's IT!!! EUREKA!!!
I quickly give her the bowl, let her stuff her face for 0.5 seconds, and we start again. Every time, the bowl gets closer and closer.... and Jasmine pecks the ground, and waits for her reward... WOOHOO!!!
We repeated more or less the same exercice with all the contact equipement that day. The result? Yesterday's beautiful contacts and Jasmine's dash for the contact zone. Ok, I may be exagerating her "dashing", but it's sure better than before.
Conclusion? Jasmine 1 - Lyne 1.
We're both winners!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Finally! The Summer agility season is here!!!
Guides canins offered a "starters" evening, and I was brave enough to register. Although the venue is a beautiful one, Jasmine and I don't usually do well here, so reason enough for me to push myself and compete. I registered Jasmine in starters standard, starters snooker, and stargers gamblers.
It's certainly a "no frills" event. The trial itself will last well into the weekend, but most competitors have not arrived yet. I'm sure that by the time Friday will come along, the place will be a circus!
All three fields are ready and available to walk. The judge's briefing is done at the very beginning, then competitors are welcome to walk the courses at long and as many times as they want. The only downside is the very brief 5 minute break between events, which includes the official "walk".
Our first event, SG, isn't that bad. We've spent a lot of time practicing teeters, a-frames, and the dog walk, but that's become a problem. Jasmine absolutely loves them now and instead of going to the tunnel as planned after the jump, she heads for the A-Frame and (GASP!) blind-closses me at the same time. I was surprised, but made sure she nose touched the ground. We did the mini (YAY!) and the 12 weaves. Unfortunately, I haven't done any distance work with her and we didn't do the main gamble. Oh well....
The second event was the ST. Believe it or not, we ran out of time. I know that we wasted precious seconds at the weaves, but was that enough? My little precious did her down on the table "yes!", but she took the wrong end of the tunnel, so it would have been an NQ anyways. Hey! I wasted time with that as well! We also wasted time just before the table too!!! Well, that explains everything!
Last but not least, the SS. Personally, I call it the medieval torture device, but was pretty confident with my plan. The down side is Jasmine didn't wrap around the jump (the last red jump!) as planned and took it twice. There goes my plan! : )
Things to work on in the next few weeks:
A first for me, I ran out of air in Gamblers... Nerves? Jasmine's speed? Yes, Jasmine was quite fast in the Gamblers....
Jasmine's last word? Prancing on our way back to the car.... She was quite proud of herself and happy to be back doing agility.
It's certainly a "no frills" event. The trial itself will last well into the weekend, but most competitors have not arrived yet. I'm sure that by the time Friday will come along, the place will be a circus!
All three fields are ready and available to walk. The judge's briefing is done at the very beginning, then competitors are welcome to walk the courses at long and as many times as they want. The only downside is the very brief 5 minute break between events, which includes the official "walk".
Our first event, SG, isn't that bad. We've spent a lot of time practicing teeters, a-frames, and the dog walk, but that's become a problem. Jasmine absolutely loves them now and instead of going to the tunnel as planned after the jump, she heads for the A-Frame and (GASP!) blind-closses me at the same time. I was surprised, but made sure she nose touched the ground. We did the mini (YAY!) and the 12 weaves. Unfortunately, I haven't done any distance work with her and we didn't do the main gamble. Oh well....
The second event was the ST. Believe it or not, we ran out of time. I know that we wasted precious seconds at the weaves, but was that enough? My little precious did her down on the table "yes!", but she took the wrong end of the tunnel, so it would have been an NQ anyways. Hey! I wasted time with that as well! We also wasted time just before the table too!!! Well, that explains everything!
Last but not least, the SS. Personally, I call it the medieval torture device, but was pretty confident with my plan. The down side is Jasmine didn't wrap around the jump (the last red jump!) as planned and took it twice. There goes my plan! : )
Things to work on in the next few weeks:
- Wrap around jumps.
- Tunnel entries.
- Distance.
- Short sequences with weaves. Jasmine walked right by the 6 weaves in the ST.
- Keep up the work on the contact obstacles.
- Shadow handling.
A first for me, I ran out of air in Gamblers... Nerves? Jasmine's speed? Yes, Jasmine was quite fast in the Gamblers....
Jasmine's last word? Prancing on our way back to the car.... She was quite proud of herself and happy to be back doing agility.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)