Agility Training

Andy did a session with Kizzy yesterday. More weave entries and proofing her independence in the weaves. Next stage will be to place a jump after the weaves and move her pot some distance from this jump. The only concern is that she is going to be a weave-a-holic sheltie! Oh well, never mind.

Overall the garden has dried up really well considering it was under almost a foot of water a few days ago. I'm not sure whether it'll be able to take many lessons this week it really depends on the weather over the next few days.

Certainly at the very top end (which isn't the best running ground, unfortunately) you can do little sequences and weaves.

I have had a bit of a lazy weekend playing with my new PC and pottering about doing some housework etc. While I was checking out everyone else's blogs I had a good look at Bernadette's latest training clip. She's getting highly proficient with this film making malarkey - Dennis you'd better get home quick before you're made redundant (plus of course I want my new camera!) Anyway, I digress (as usual). I decided to try some of the two jump sequences with Niamh this afternoon and we got on quite well considering I was on my own with no prompts for the exercises!

We started with the pivot turns (I nearly fell over and was almost sick at the end of this); the dog crossing in front of your feet and the cross behinds. I also did a version of ignoring the two jumps and going to another obstacle which was a tricky weave entry. Then we tried the front crosses, I could manage a couple but then Niamh was too quick for me so we tripped over each other. One to work on. I decided after the front crosses that the blind crosses could be disaster so we'll leave them for tomorrow. I will have to learn to 'spot' like a dancer before I try the pivot turns again! Very useful exercises though.

Before we did the jumping exercises I did some dog walks. I hadn't done any since a couple of intensive sessions last week where I had the plank resting on a stool so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Note: As Niamh hates water I decided it wasn't a good idea to copy Johanna and do water agility as I think that would have slowed up her down plank more than ever! Ha!

I decided to go back to the big dog walk today and before doing my 'find it' exercise tried something that Karen had suggested. I put a large piece of sausage on Niamh's clear target and let her see it. Then I took her quite a distance back from the other end of the dog walk and revved her up and raced her along the dog walk letting her get the sausage. The target was placed out to encourage her to have two thirds of her body on the floor with the back third still on the contact (exactly as I was teaching her in the static exercise last week.) I placed another large pieces of sausage and took her back to the other end. This time I set her way back and gave myself a really big head start. I released her and raced her along the dog walk and just got there in time to grab the sausage before she could. Then we set the exercise up again and she thundered past me to make sure she got there first. It was brilliant. The good thing was she still put herself into position and didn't just grab the sausage and run!

After that we did about six or seven more dog walks some with the sausage on the target and some without. I also went back to my clicker. I was so pleased with the result. She really learned from last week's intensive static training and that added with the exciting game of "grab the sausage" (technical term) seems to have helped so thank you Karen and Chris. I also have to thank Mand, Helen and Johanna for their input, loads of which I've taken on board. She isn't creeping down the dogwalk and is targeting well out with just the last third of her body on the contact. This is exactly what I want. Now we have to see if I can maintain this without getting too picky with her! I will keep you posted and try to get Andy to take some video of this and maybe, if you're lucky, some video of the two jump exercise with me falling in a heap after the pivot turns!