I seem to be facing some agility difficulties with Joy...

[haleigh]

Joy's been doing marvelous at her lessons, if I may say. Her reactivity is *mostly* in check, with the exception of last class. The two people who hang around and watch our class, decided to run the courses. One of the dogs, Joy decided to hate right off the bat, and was sounding more blood thirsty then usual when she tried going after her. The other dog wasn't AS bad, but was still triggering Joy's reactive-ness.

 

I think Joy's shaping up to be an awesome agility dog (better then I expected) but I, on the other hand...am a completely different story. I forget the courses all the time, because I'm so focused on Joy while the trainer's giving the course, so I don't absorb it. I feel like a blubbering idiot standing in the middle of the ring scratching my head. The trainer told me that when I become more of a team with Joy and not so worried on what she's doing 24/7 that I can focus on the course more. She also said I've made tremendous progress as a handler and trainer since I started with training with her.

 

One thing I need to learn is how to think quickly. I could make courses a whole lot easier on my self if I stopped doing so many dang crosses and remembered Joy has fairly strong directionals. Even though the trainer and the two advanced people told me I executed it perfectly, one case was where I had to send Joy from the dog walk to the chute. The chute was about 5 feet to the left of the dog walk. When she was going off the walk, I made an awkward front cross (which trips me 99.9% with a fast dog like Joy) to send her in, which I could have easily told her to "switch" then chute. Then I could have jogged up to meet her at the end.

 

Now here's Joy's issue:

 

for some reason she's having issues on her weaves. WAM doesn't get her fast and accurate like the channels do. I am the unfortunate beholder of some slanted poles, so she only gets accurate when I work her weaves at home. Not so fast. At training, they only have straight poles. She'll go through with out ducking out if I don't watch her weave, but she's not fast at ALL! How can I work that at training to get her speed up?

 

Also, I've been teaching Joy bottoms on the stairs at home. She's done running contacts on everything since she was little, and I am now regretting that on the dog walk and teeter. A frame she always has great accuracy, but I want to slow her down a bit on that. She's grasping bottoms easily, but how should I slow her down on the A frame? I've seen 2o/2o on the A frame, and people having the dogs slow down on top. But I'm not sure what I should do?

[vanillalove]

I can't really give you much advice on the Joy side of things, but as for your handling, you just need to take your trainers advice and stop worrying about Joy 100% and try to remember the course.

 

I used to show my firecracker of a horse (probably half jet rocket) and I know that whenever I was memorizing a jumping course, I would always start worrying about the different turns I would have to make and whether or not she would slow-the-heck-down, etc, etc. I would get overwhelmed with the dynamics of the course, that I would totally forget the simple design. Eventually, I just learned that "Let's just do it" approach. I would just try to memorize the course as is and try to look past all the obstacles I assumed I was going to have. In the end, I remembered all my courses and my demon and I became a better team and the problems really decreased.

 

I'm not sure if this is your problem exactly, but if you just look at the course point blank, and take it for what it is, and try to forget how your going to run it/how Joy is going to take it, you'll remember it better and it might even help your handling problems!

[haleigh]

Thanks. We have a lesson in a couple hours, so I'll try and memorize it head on. Usually my friend (who I take classes with) has me go first on all the runs, but tonight I'll go last so I can have an extra few minutes to figure out the course.

[MaggieDog]

I find that watching other teams run the course has helped me memorize it better, as does walking it of course. Are you just given a course verbally or do you have time to walk it? You might also want to try visualizing it in your head as you would see it while running - that's another trick I've found useful for standard courses (jumpers and tunnellers are so similar you have to memorize colors too, and that's harder).

 

Is there a particular reason you want to slow Joy down on just the aframe? If she's learning 2o2o it sounds like that's what you need to use - enforce it each time she does the aframe: if she doesn't do a 2o2o she doesn't get to continue the course.

[mum24dog]

If she's learning 2o2o it sounds like that's what you need to use - enforce it each time she does the aframe: if she doesn't do a 2o2o she doesn't get to continue the course.

 

I may have got the wrong impression from the OP but it seems to me that she shouldn't be doing courses incorporating contacts until they are more solid than they seem to be - ditto weaves. Introducing then into courses too soon sets the dog up to fail.

 

Instructors do come under pressure from some students to move on past the boring foundations quickly but it should be resisted. Good foundations are essential, as well as self control for handler and dog.

 

Very few people have the skill or patience to train proper and reliable running contacts. 2o2o is far easier for dog and handler to understand and gives a measure of control on the course that a running contact doesn't.

And there's nothing to prevent a 2o2o contact to develop into one where the release comes at a point to turn it into a running one.

 

I believe in flexibility and fixability if training starts to fall apart. Easier to fix a 2o2o that is going wrong than a running contact.

 

Pam

[Pat W.]

The only way to make sure your contacts are 100% are to work them, there's no other way to do it. The running contact is the hardest to train properly and it takes alot of work to maintain. I would strongly suggest going with the 2o2o or a ORT for all contacts. If she is fast and accurate on the Frame with a running why do you want to slow her down? The point a running contact is to maintain that speed around the course. You have to decide what your criteria is going to be for all the contacts, I personally feel that using different criteria for different contacts is going to bite you in the butt one day. To do this unfortunately you're going to have to start back at ground zero, and work work work on it. As for weaves is Joy toy or treat driven? If so take those weaves and set them at the level she is currently working at place that toy/treat at the other end make sure she knows it there, then have her drive toward the treat/toy. This is the method Im using with my traininer and with channel weaves w/wires, I rev Whim up with his toy and then the trainer takes it down to the other end of the weaves and shows Whim he has it. I then release Whim and then encourage him to drive toward that toy, slowly the channel gets narrower and narrower until they are incorporated into one. To this point the channel is about 4-6 inches wide and Whim drives through quite nicely.

Now to remembering a course, first crate Joy or put her in your car if you dont already, then walk the course once to see it dont worry about crosses or cueing or anything, then walk it again and add those things take your time and stop and think do I really need a FC or RC here or can I use a directional? When I walk a course I'll walk it 3 or 4 times this way, 1st time look at numbers and see the course, 2nd time where do I need direction changes and what am I going to use, 3rd time I look at the course and disreguard the numbers I LOOK at the obsticles, say a sequnce of 6 obsticlesis this : red wing, wingless, tunnel, blue wing, Dogwalk, tire, that is how I remember it.

[soloagility]

I actually found it very demotivating to attempt to run full courses early in my agility training. I started out with an instructor who had us running courses way too early, and it turned me off agility for a while. I started training on my own after that, and broke down the handling moves for myself. I would work on small sequences to perfect my handling of front crosses, rear crosses, and so on.

 

We always break down criteria for our dogs, and I think that we need to break down criteria for ourselves as well. Work on small sequences to teach yourself confidence in handling. Run it a few times without your dog as well.

 

Many great agility competitors run small sequences when training. There is really no need to always be running full courses, especially if it's frustrating you.

 

In your class, you could tell the instructor that you only want to work smaller sequences until you feel more comfortable, and chose a smaller part of the course to run. That way, it will be fun for both you and Joy.

[Pat W.]

I agree running a full sequence before either your or your pup are ready can be very frustrating for both of you. The only time I ran full sequences is masters level training, and even then if we were having particular trouble with a portion we break it down.