Agility tonight! I always look forward to agility night. I have a lot of fun playing around in class...but I definitely haven't been doing enough training in between classes lately.
When the weather gets a bit nicer and I have some light after work I can get back into more training again. I have a "crawl" training challenge to get going on too! I am going to try and teach crawl away from me towards a target stick since I haven't done that before.
Abby has forgotten how to finish a set of 12 weaves (she always pops out at pole 10...she will go months with perfect weaves and then suddenly 12 poles elude her. I just don't get it). She also needs some more work with contacts since I've been slacking on my contact rewards. Oh and her start line is still broken. She'll stay where I put her but will stand up from a sit and I have to go fix it at least once, and I just don't trust her to stay like I used to. Bad me for letting that one slide!
Ryan needs tons more foundation work but I fell into the "sequencing is fun!" trap and probably have him running sequences that are too hard too soon. I need to do more one jump stuff with him and work on his collection over jumps. His contacts are great but he won't drive ahead of me into position. I actually worked on this a few days ago so we'll see how it goes tonight. His weaves are looking like they will be excellent (head down, really fast) but he still occasionally misses the entry or pops out. He is still definitely a puppy in a lot of ways including his ability to keep his brain in his head...after weaving 3 or 4 times in class you can tell that he just isn't thinking anymore.
I was reading about barking dogs in agility on Susan Garrett's blog today. The consensus seemed to be that barking while working = acceptable and hard to get rid of. People who had lower drive dogs were posting saying they wished their dogs barked while running! Barking at any other time in agility = not acceptable. Although I wish both Abby and Ryan were quiet while running I think I have to come to terms with the fact that they just aren't. The love agility, they run really really fast and they like to tell the world how much fun they are having. They are both quiet (for the most part) when not running and are great in their crates and I will continue to reinforce that. As of writing this, though, I am officially giving up on my inconsistent tries to get them to be quiet while running.
When the weather gets a bit nicer and I have some light after work I can get back into more training again. I have a "crawl" training challenge to get going on too! I am going to try and teach crawl away from me towards a target stick since I haven't done that before.
Abby has forgotten how to finish a set of 12 weaves (she always pops out at pole 10...she will go months with perfect weaves and then suddenly 12 poles elude her. I just don't get it). She also needs some more work with contacts since I've been slacking on my contact rewards. Oh and her start line is still broken. She'll stay where I put her but will stand up from a sit and I have to go fix it at least once, and I just don't trust her to stay like I used to. Bad me for letting that one slide!
Ryan needs tons more foundation work but I fell into the "sequencing is fun!" trap and probably have him running sequences that are too hard too soon. I need to do more one jump stuff with him and work on his collection over jumps. His contacts are great but he won't drive ahead of me into position. I actually worked on this a few days ago so we'll see how it goes tonight. His weaves are looking like they will be excellent (head down, really fast) but he still occasionally misses the entry or pops out. He is still definitely a puppy in a lot of ways including his ability to keep his brain in his head...after weaving 3 or 4 times in class you can tell that he just isn't thinking anymore.
I was reading about barking dogs in agility on Susan Garrett's blog today. The consensus seemed to be that barking while working = acceptable and hard to get rid of. People who had lower drive dogs were posting saying they wished their dogs barked while running! Barking at any other time in agility = not acceptable. Although I wish both Abby and Ryan were quiet while running I think I have to come to terms with the fact that they just aren't. The love agility, they run really really fast and they like to tell the world how much fun they are having. They are both quiet (for the most part) when not running and are great in their crates and I will continue to reinforce that. As of writing this, though, I am officially giving up on my inconsistent tries to get them to be quiet while running.
Don't let this flower on my head trick you...I'm a speedy barking agility fool!
5 comments:
I'm glad to hear you're giving up on the barking. I don't want to be the only one of our crew whose dog barks their fool head off on course. 'Cause ya know 7's going to be a barking fiend...it's fairly obvious!
Those barking comments drove me nuts! Both of mine are quiet - in expens and while running. I don't care about others barking while running. Being crated next to a barker gets old pretty quick, though!
I don't understand people equating barking with "drive." I knew folks in flyball that were bothered by their dogs behaving in crates and would actually encourage them to act crazy while crated. And when they would get them out their little brains were mush!
Over-stimulated does not equal drive.
Me no get. :-)
I know, I thought that the whole "barking = drive" thing was really weird...and if I knew how to be consistent enough to get Abby and Ryan to shut the *%$& up I most definitely would! I think that barking while running is just a mindless activity for them and doesn't really mean much of anything except that it makes the handler less able to think and makes it harder for them to listen.
Encouraging barking while crated?? Now that is definite insanity.
I am glad you are now ok with the barking. I am ok with Tyler barking as long as he is listening! He has two very different barks - an Iamlisteningbuthavingtoomuchfun bark and an out of control, non listening one.
We missed class this week and are looking forward to next week!
E
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