ive done pretty much no training with the dogs since the fateful thursday night in which everything fell apart. hopefully a lot of it will be that rah was just excessively tired and berlin, well ... she's a bitch in heat !
we have two matches this weekend - im working hk9 this weekend and they all have entries, and sunday is dtccc's match show and i have 3 entries for rah and 2 for berlin.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
a little privacy...
so today we had a private lesson to work on a few issues.
started with roo and our off leash heeling issues. the biggest thing is keeping her attitude up and working her off leash all the time, and keeping her sassy - when she's on, she's in my face and working it. when she tunes out, she just wanders. i need to not leave her hanging - if she's not working, she's in a rest or in a crate (crate now, since with being in heat and wearing sexy pants she cant hold stays at all). anyway we played games and worked them straight into set up and then a short spurt of heeling. i have a new focus point for her to look at, so im not accidentally pushing her all over - it worked great. she was actually pushing up into heel position to make eye contact - and the nice thing about where im looking is that it keeps me straight!
also need to work on about turns with her - she sees my cue and responds the wrong way, so im going to have to speed her up around it with the right hand.
we discussed my plans for the future with her - terry doesnt think i should show her at nationals, which is fine by me. if she's not ready, she's not ready. intead, she says match her everywhere, but she should be ready to come out in jan and clean up. if she has issues, just be prepared to pull her. im fine with that - i do NOT want to rush her, im ok with holding her out. at matches and in training, she says do NOT do full patterns - do short spurts and break her out. she shouldnt be heeling the pattern until 2 matches before the show, and the match before just play a lot of games. she needs to get more excited for all this.
worked rah's ring entrances - he's a scanner. great attention into the ring, taking the leash off - then he drops his head when we move for a few seconds and scans all over. worked that into a set up. he also drops sometimes with the ready because hes looking to see if there's something to retrieve out there.
worked retrieves - once we trade the db for the toy, i need to have him on a slip lead to make sure the game is with me, and not running loose. but she was happy with the intent to get to me - fronts werent perfectly straight, so we need some loose guides out there. and his pickups were fast but he took wide turns out there - but again we havent worked them in awhile and he has just got retrieves back in the past few days. she says the ball should be there for at least another month.
we had a little time left, so she wanted to work his signals - she says he's at a level where he can handle a lot more distraction than the other dogs in his utility class, so we worked on signals with heavy distraction - played some games when he LOCKED onto that stand despite terry waving her arms, walking tightly around him, etc. then we went to put the drop in, but he was so locked into me and waiting for a cue, that he started interpreting everything i did as a signal - me breathing because a signal!!!! so we had to work through that!
we finally got him through it (no eye contact!!!) and talked about showing/matching him. ill enter OA at nationals for one day, but then B for the rest of the trial so that i can move up and back and forth between utility if i want.
she also thinks it will be better for berlin not to be stressed with me having multiple entries at nationals - she needs more time for me to devote to her. especially since ill be doing ob and rally with rah and maybe ob for mercury!!!!
started with roo and our off leash heeling issues. the biggest thing is keeping her attitude up and working her off leash all the time, and keeping her sassy - when she's on, she's in my face and working it. when she tunes out, she just wanders. i need to not leave her hanging - if she's not working, she's in a rest or in a crate (crate now, since with being in heat and wearing sexy pants she cant hold stays at all). anyway we played games and worked them straight into set up and then a short spurt of heeling. i have a new focus point for her to look at, so im not accidentally pushing her all over - it worked great. she was actually pushing up into heel position to make eye contact - and the nice thing about where im looking is that it keeps me straight!
also need to work on about turns with her - she sees my cue and responds the wrong way, so im going to have to speed her up around it with the right hand.
we discussed my plans for the future with her - terry doesnt think i should show her at nationals, which is fine by me. if she's not ready, she's not ready. intead, she says match her everywhere, but she should be ready to come out in jan and clean up. if she has issues, just be prepared to pull her. im fine with that - i do NOT want to rush her, im ok with holding her out. at matches and in training, she says do NOT do full patterns - do short spurts and break her out. she shouldnt be heeling the pattern until 2 matches before the show, and the match before just play a lot of games. she needs to get more excited for all this.
worked rah's ring entrances - he's a scanner. great attention into the ring, taking the leash off - then he drops his head when we move for a few seconds and scans all over. worked that into a set up. he also drops sometimes with the ready because hes looking to see if there's something to retrieve out there.
worked retrieves - once we trade the db for the toy, i need to have him on a slip lead to make sure the game is with me, and not running loose. but she was happy with the intent to get to me - fronts werent perfectly straight, so we need some loose guides out there. and his pickups were fast but he took wide turns out there - but again we havent worked them in awhile and he has just got retrieves back in the past few days. she says the ball should be there for at least another month.
we had a little time left, so she wanted to work his signals - she says he's at a level where he can handle a lot more distraction than the other dogs in his utility class, so we worked on signals with heavy distraction - played some games when he LOCKED onto that stand despite terry waving her arms, walking tightly around him, etc. then we went to put the drop in, but he was so locked into me and waiting for a cue, that he started interpreting everything i did as a signal - me breathing because a signal!!!! so we had to work through that!
we finally got him through it (no eye contact!!!) and talked about showing/matching him. ill enter OA at nationals for one day, but then B for the rest of the trial so that i can move up and back and forth between utility if i want.
she also thinks it will be better for berlin not to be stressed with me having multiple entries at nationals - she needs more time for me to devote to her. especially since ill be doing ob and rally with rah and maybe ob for mercury!!!!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
no agility class last night - debbies truck broke down so she couldnt get off staten island.
open last night - stays were perfectly fine (Even though i was eating cake :) )
we worked on pairing exercises - ROH to BJ, fig8 to DOR, etc - and mixing them all up for the B dogs. rah did some nice ROH's - i used debbies method and actually had him doing retrieves - he thought a lot more about his job and coming right back to me. not perfect, but fast sits and he was focused on me the entire time. hes doing 28 in class, and he hit the jump once when he wasnt paying attention but he literally FLEW over it the next time :)
fig8's were good, and his drops werent bad. fronts were crooked.
then we moved to heeling, and kathy tried to kill us - we heeled for 20 minutes straight im pretty sure, and one 5 minute stretch STRAIGHT - i was huffing and puffing and so was rah! he got really pushy and had his head pressed into my stomach, hitting me in the knees with his elbows, and stepping on my foot.
tonight we had open with berlin - we set up a ring to do run throughs (berlin did a novice run - heel off leash needs the most work!!!!) and just worked the other parts on our own while we were waiting (and as a distraction for the dogs doing the run through). she's in flaming heat right now, so she's a little funky. many good things though.
utility with rah - superstar tonight!!!!!!!
started with signals and played signal games to keep their attention. yeah, no more signal games with rah - he was shaking in his stand and kept breaking at any flinch i made thinking it was some sort of signal for him that he missed. one time i laughed, one time i moved the fingers on my left hand, the other time i just smiled and looked at terry... he was a little wired :) when we did full signals, he was awesome - terry was standing 5 feet away from me almost in his path waving her arms and calling him and he didn't even FLICK an eye towards her, and did a nice front.
articles next - he did two perfect articles, from the turn, the send, everything. fronts could be better, but he THOUGHT about where he was and what he was doing, so we ended it on that.
gloves next. tried to start and rah wouldn't sit - ran him outside and he peed immediately, brought him in and worked some pivots on the side while everyone else did theirs. then we did rahs gloves and he...
was perfect. amazing. i didnt do him on the flexi - i just did 3 full DR's and he was amazing. got every glove. AND he DIDNT SHAKE HIS GLOVES.
whoa. you read it right!!!!!!!!!!!
moved onto directed jumping. he was first up, since at 28 he jumps the highest. nice go outs, so terry took out a toy and started throwing it as he ran out to the stanchion - it got him twice, he ran to the toy and picked it up. once he ran so far away to avoid the toy he just aborted and came back to me. but we worked through it and he did lovely go outs and lovely directed jumping.
WOW!!!
im very proud of how he worked tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now if we can only find out where we can finish this CDX :)
open last night - stays were perfectly fine (Even though i was eating cake :) )
we worked on pairing exercises - ROH to BJ, fig8 to DOR, etc - and mixing them all up for the B dogs. rah did some nice ROH's - i used debbies method and actually had him doing retrieves - he thought a lot more about his job and coming right back to me. not perfect, but fast sits and he was focused on me the entire time. hes doing 28 in class, and he hit the jump once when he wasnt paying attention but he literally FLEW over it the next time :)
fig8's were good, and his drops werent bad. fronts were crooked.
then we moved to heeling, and kathy tried to kill us - we heeled for 20 minutes straight im pretty sure, and one 5 minute stretch STRAIGHT - i was huffing and puffing and so was rah! he got really pushy and had his head pressed into my stomach, hitting me in the knees with his elbows, and stepping on my foot.
tonight we had open with berlin - we set up a ring to do run throughs (berlin did a novice run - heel off leash needs the most work!!!!) and just worked the other parts on our own while we were waiting (and as a distraction for the dogs doing the run through). she's in flaming heat right now, so she's a little funky. many good things though.
utility with rah - superstar tonight!!!!!!!
started with signals and played signal games to keep their attention. yeah, no more signal games with rah - he was shaking in his stand and kept breaking at any flinch i made thinking it was some sort of signal for him that he missed. one time i laughed, one time i moved the fingers on my left hand, the other time i just smiled and looked at terry... he was a little wired :) when we did full signals, he was awesome - terry was standing 5 feet away from me almost in his path waving her arms and calling him and he didn't even FLICK an eye towards her, and did a nice front.
articles next - he did two perfect articles, from the turn, the send, everything. fronts could be better, but he THOUGHT about where he was and what he was doing, so we ended it on that.
gloves next. tried to start and rah wouldn't sit - ran him outside and he peed immediately, brought him in and worked some pivots on the side while everyone else did theirs. then we did rahs gloves and he...
was perfect. amazing. i didnt do him on the flexi - i just did 3 full DR's and he was amazing. got every glove. AND he DIDNT SHAKE HIS GLOVES.
whoa. you read it right!!!!!!!!!!!
moved onto directed jumping. he was first up, since at 28 he jumps the highest. nice go outs, so terry took out a toy and started throwing it as he ran out to the stanchion - it got him twice, he ran to the toy and picked it up. once he ran so far away to avoid the toy he just aborted and came back to me. but we worked through it and he did lovely go outs and lovely directed jumping.
WOW!!!
im very proud of how he worked tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now if we can only find out where we can finish this CDX :)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
total bust
ill update in more detail laster. classes this week were almost an entire bust.
had major storms on wed - got to agility and the center had no power. we did agility in the dark (i kid you not!) but the rest of the evening was cancelled.
then thursday, got to class and trained berlin. but right before rah's class started at 9:15, got a call from my family that their cat was crashing so i left to go put the cat down.
so instead of 4 classes this week, i got 2.
had major storms on wed - got to agility and the center had no power. we did agility in the dark (i kid you not!) but the rest of the evening was cancelled.
then thursday, got to class and trained berlin. but right before rah's class started at 9:15, got a call from my family that their cat was crashing so i left to go put the cat down.
so instead of 4 classes this week, i got 2.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
class on thursday night... and the private.
started with berlin in open. we finally got her back to regular heeling - we do a lot of close work where we almost run into each other, its good distraction work for the dogs. however, for one of the dogs in the class berlin simply doesnt trust it heeling close to her, so that freaks her out. other than that, her attention and such was very good. i still cannot get her to break into a run when we do the fast (even rah canters!) so ill have to work on that tomorrow. fig8's werent that bad either, she was much better attention. still need to work on her motivating for that outer post and driving forward to my right.
broad jump wasnt bad, we worked on fronts with the db in their mouth (rah's issue) and she was vERY lovely. i have one dog that wants to be in front all the time and another dog that hates it :) did a few flat retrieves, but she was getting tired. worked on tuck sits, and just played around.
rah in utility - started with signals and he was completely not paying attention when the entire group was together doing signals - he gets ahead of himself or he stops paying attention. need to work on that - LOOK AT ME ONLY.
moved to articles and he did a lovely job. need to remember to reward him for his efforts- his fronts may not be perfect, but he's thinking and putting effort into them, so he should be rewarded accordingly. but he had three perfect articles!
gloves were tough - i need to stop staring him down with the pivots and just look where the glove is going to be, because it puts him in perfect position. he shied away from heavy pressure at glove 3 (three dogs mulling around) and chose to mark spots on the floor????
go outs and directed jumping were PERFECT. he has no target sticks out there, just guide sticks along the way keeping him straight. the only mistakes he makes is sometimes when he gets 5 or so feet away from the gate, he pulls up short. need to keep letting him get all the way out there. the new people in class were confused because he does go outs to nothing at all, and all his rewards come from me. thats just how it had to be with him... i jumped him at full height too, and its kinda amazing to see!!!!
moving stand is better.
im bored and tired and not tired all the same. maybe someday ill get to that private lesson...
started with berlin in open. we finally got her back to regular heeling - we do a lot of close work where we almost run into each other, its good distraction work for the dogs. however, for one of the dogs in the class berlin simply doesnt trust it heeling close to her, so that freaks her out. other than that, her attention and such was very good. i still cannot get her to break into a run when we do the fast (even rah canters!) so ill have to work on that tomorrow. fig8's werent that bad either, she was much better attention. still need to work on her motivating for that outer post and driving forward to my right.
broad jump wasnt bad, we worked on fronts with the db in their mouth (rah's issue) and she was vERY lovely. i have one dog that wants to be in front all the time and another dog that hates it :) did a few flat retrieves, but she was getting tired. worked on tuck sits, and just played around.
rah in utility - started with signals and he was completely not paying attention when the entire group was together doing signals - he gets ahead of himself or he stops paying attention. need to work on that - LOOK AT ME ONLY.
moved to articles and he did a lovely job. need to remember to reward him for his efforts- his fronts may not be perfect, but he's thinking and putting effort into them, so he should be rewarded accordingly. but he had three perfect articles!
gloves were tough - i need to stop staring him down with the pivots and just look where the glove is going to be, because it puts him in perfect position. he shied away from heavy pressure at glove 3 (three dogs mulling around) and chose to mark spots on the floor????
go outs and directed jumping were PERFECT. he has no target sticks out there, just guide sticks along the way keeping him straight. the only mistakes he makes is sometimes when he gets 5 or so feet away from the gate, he pulls up short. need to keep letting him get all the way out there. the new people in class were confused because he does go outs to nothing at all, and all his rewards come from me. thats just how it had to be with him... i jumped him at full height too, and its kinda amazing to see!!!!
moving stand is better.
im bored and tired and not tired all the same. maybe someday ill get to that private lesson...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
binghamton redux...
the dogs and i traveled up to NY to the susquenango kennel club shows last weekend, since they had all the wildcard classes and such offered- dont get the chance to do those so i had to jump at it!
berlin showed in prenovice - most important thing for her was making sure we were up and happy in the ring and that she didnt check out. i should have read the rules of the class before we went in (i thought it was like the wild card classes) - i spoke to her during the run and we lost 6 points for that. she also couldnt do the stays (on leash, me 6 feet away) and thought they were fronts, so she fronted and didnt get any points for them - prior to these mistakes we were working a 192...
she had VERY nice set ups and good oomph for the ring. yes, i let her jump all over me, no problem there and i encourage it. i didnt drop her, though it looks like it - i remembered you cant carry your dogs in the AKC ring so she had to get down fast!!
she wasnt paying wonderful attention for the start of the heeling pattern, so i get no sit at first, and she wanders on the left turn into a small lag, but she kicks in very nicely right there and does pretty well even though we were run into the ring gates. fig 8 needs the most work (and this is the first time shes done one in a month) - her inner post isnt bad, but she wanders a LOT on the outer post - this is where i spoke to her. came back for nice sits though.
SFE perfect, i was worried since it was a male judge but while she wasnt happy and gave him major ears, she wasnt bad. recall was funny - you can see her ears moving paying attention to him while she's staring at me, she wasnt comfortable with him behind her. she does the front (and fixes it on her own) - but the finish was too concerned with him to give me a nice one the way i WANT them.
without further adieu, the video...
rah showed in rally - got his first COUNTING advanced leg with a perfect score of 100 and we lost to a BC who went 10 seconds faster than us! of course, this would have been his title had i not been silly and entered him in the wrong classes for the other two shows.
on the first station, he is trembling and staring at the jump, and made a motion to just take it - all he wants is the jump. in the end he's staring at the max200 tables and people who are playing with db's!!!
and then rah showed in wildcard open. i wildcarded his ROF, which is why you see me training the entire thing. he did pretty well - i was much calmer for him as well since it wasnt a title leg on the line!!!! still many things to work on, but we got to see in real show situations now, how his retrieve is - definite progress. he took second with a 187 or 188 - he hit the broad jump with a back foot but the judge didnt notice, but still lost 4 points for that exercise. the judge came up afterwards and told me that lost the class for us, oh well!!! i need to fix his heeling too - he's heeling by feel instead of actually watching me for many things, which is why i have no sits for the first halt. his transitions were pretty good, as were his set ups. i have to refocus on tuck sits as well right now.
overall very happy - the judge came over and complimented me on my nice working dogs! i was surprised too, since rah typically doesnt do well with male judges but he was fine!!!!!!! go figure...had it been a real open class, rah would have his CDX now! i was most pleased with this show, worth the drive!!!
berlin showed in prenovice - most important thing for her was making sure we were up and happy in the ring and that she didnt check out. i should have read the rules of the class before we went in (i thought it was like the wild card classes) - i spoke to her during the run and we lost 6 points for that. she also couldnt do the stays (on leash, me 6 feet away) and thought they were fronts, so she fronted and didnt get any points for them - prior to these mistakes we were working a 192...
she had VERY nice set ups and good oomph for the ring. yes, i let her jump all over me, no problem there and i encourage it. i didnt drop her, though it looks like it - i remembered you cant carry your dogs in the AKC ring so she had to get down fast!!
she wasnt paying wonderful attention for the start of the heeling pattern, so i get no sit at first, and she wanders on the left turn into a small lag, but she kicks in very nicely right there and does pretty well even though we were run into the ring gates. fig 8 needs the most work (and this is the first time shes done one in a month) - her inner post isnt bad, but she wanders a LOT on the outer post - this is where i spoke to her. came back for nice sits though.
SFE perfect, i was worried since it was a male judge but while she wasnt happy and gave him major ears, she wasnt bad. recall was funny - you can see her ears moving paying attention to him while she's staring at me, she wasnt comfortable with him behind her. she does the front (and fixes it on her own) - but the finish was too concerned with him to give me a nice one the way i WANT them.
without further adieu, the video...
rah showed in rally - got his first COUNTING advanced leg with a perfect score of 100 and we lost to a BC who went 10 seconds faster than us! of course, this would have been his title had i not been silly and entered him in the wrong classes for the other two shows.
on the first station, he is trembling and staring at the jump, and made a motion to just take it - all he wants is the jump. in the end he's staring at the max200 tables and people who are playing with db's!!!
and then rah showed in wildcard open. i wildcarded his ROF, which is why you see me training the entire thing. he did pretty well - i was much calmer for him as well since it wasnt a title leg on the line!!!! still many things to work on, but we got to see in real show situations now, how his retrieve is - definite progress. he took second with a 187 or 188 - he hit the broad jump with a back foot but the judge didnt notice, but still lost 4 points for that exercise. the judge came up afterwards and told me that lost the class for us, oh well!!! i need to fix his heeling too - he's heeling by feel instead of actually watching me for many things, which is why i have no sits for the first halt. his transitions were pretty good, as were his set ups. i have to refocus on tuck sits as well right now.
overall very happy - the judge came over and complimented me on my nice working dogs! i was surprised too, since rah typically doesnt do well with male judges but he was fine!!!!!!! go figure...had it been a real open class, rah would have his CDX now! i was most pleased with this show, worth the drive!!!
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