Ok so 3 new videos since I promised a video a while back and then never got it up here. If you decide to just watch one, watch the last one.
Friday's video is teaching Venus to jump with me close to the jump. She didn't like the idea and would hesitate to jump at first. She'll get better though so we are working on it.
Sunday's video we are working various things. First lead outs, I wanted to go to one side and have her still take the obstacles in front of her. Some of Friday's new stuff added in a small sequence. Last part is me getting ahead of Venus. This really increases her speed and she thinks it's great. I just have to trust her to do what is behind me and not cheat by going around. So you love the shed "obstacle"? I figured she loves to chase her brother around it so why not use it.
Today's (Monday) video we went over to Beth's to work on her equipment. This is the first good video I've gotten of Venus on the contacts. I am very happy with the teeter and dog walk, although you will see a running contact in the video it isn't what I wanted her to do. She is supposed to do 2o2o because I don't trust her not to bail off. I put it in the video anyway because it's pretty. She does the a-frame two different ways. When she jumps over the top her striding is just right to stride down once more into the yellow and then off. If she doesn't jump it her striding is just above the yellow and I have to make sure she comes on down instead of off. Plans are to build my a-frame this weekend and then I can encourage the one I like more. (The last A-frame clip is my favorite.)
Brandy
Monday, November 26, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Workshop
I learned a lot watching the masters workshop in the morning. I saw some different ways of looking at courses and some things I should try and teach Venus.
When it got time to do the novice workshop I had to run Clover. Now, I really do love Clover and she is a very special dog to me. She helped me with most of what I know about agility. But I generally do not enjoy running Clover as much as I do Venus. Clover is slower and I have to convince her to come on along the contact obstacles. She doesn't fear them and they are usually her favorite things to do so she enjoys taking her time on them. She also tends to leave me and what I'm doing to go do whatever she feels like. Clover has run out of the ring at the end of a course before and likes to pick and choose random obstacles.
Rhonda's feelings on her were that she likes staring at herself in a mirror. In a lot of ways that does describe Clover. It is what makes her such a great conformation dog. Clover's conformation career has been amazing; Akc Ch at 7 months old in 4 weekends with a 5pt major win, Can Ch in 4 days undefeated with 3 BOB wins, multiple BOB and group placements, and two Samoyed national specialty AOMs.
So basically Clover was kinda blowing me off on the first run. It wasn't unexpected between her personality, silliness lately, and the fact she hasn't really been worked since the national in Sept. The longer we were there the better she was doing, until she heard gun shots in the distance. Clover has always had noise issues and we have worked through a lot of them. I don't let her go hide just because of a scarey noise and she learns to work through it. I remember a long time ago deciding to reward her with going in a tunnel to get her mind off of the noises at Beth's house. Clover went in, and didn't come out. She was good yesterday though and worked through it until I was done. She was a little unfocused but continued to work. On our next turn she was even for stressed and I had a feeling that she would make a run for the car. Sure enough after we ran once and headed towards the start to go again she took off for the car. Beth was prepared and grabbed her and brought her back. Clo wasn't happy but did work for me the rest of the time.
I think I could have gotten more from working with Venus but it really did help me realize what a good agility dog Venus is turning out to be. I'll have a video of the newest thing Venus is learning in a little while.
Brandy
When it got time to do the novice workshop I had to run Clover. Now, I really do love Clover and she is a very special dog to me. She helped me with most of what I know about agility. But I generally do not enjoy running Clover as much as I do Venus. Clover is slower and I have to convince her to come on along the contact obstacles. She doesn't fear them and they are usually her favorite things to do so she enjoys taking her time on them. She also tends to leave me and what I'm doing to go do whatever she feels like. Clover has run out of the ring at the end of a course before and likes to pick and choose random obstacles.
Rhonda's feelings on her were that she likes staring at herself in a mirror. In a lot of ways that does describe Clover. It is what makes her such a great conformation dog. Clover's conformation career has been amazing; Akc Ch at 7 months old in 4 weekends with a 5pt major win, Can Ch in 4 days undefeated with 3 BOB wins, multiple BOB and group placements, and two Samoyed national specialty AOMs.
So basically Clover was kinda blowing me off on the first run. It wasn't unexpected between her personality, silliness lately, and the fact she hasn't really been worked since the national in Sept. The longer we were there the better she was doing, until she heard gun shots in the distance. Clover has always had noise issues and we have worked through a lot of them. I don't let her go hide just because of a scarey noise and she learns to work through it. I remember a long time ago deciding to reward her with going in a tunnel to get her mind off of the noises at Beth's house. Clover went in, and didn't come out. She was good yesterday though and worked through it until I was done. She was a little unfocused but continued to work. On our next turn she was even for stressed and I had a feeling that she would make a run for the car. Sure enough after we ran once and headed towards the start to go again she took off for the car. Beth was prepared and grabbed her and brought her back. Clo wasn't happy but did work for me the rest of the time.
I think I could have gotten more from working with Venus but it really did help me realize what a good agility dog Venus is turning out to be. I'll have a video of the newest thing Venus is learning in a little while.
Brandy
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Monday's Lesson
We had a lesson with Rhonda last night. I usually split a one hour lesson with two other people but neither of them could come last night so I did a 30 minute lesson by myself. It was wonderful, we got to run 6 different courses and I couldn't have asked Venus to do it any better.
Venus hit every single weave pole entry last night! Her speed started off nicely one the weaves. She got tired after we'd worked a while and they slowed some but were still nice. Rhonda had me running fast when there was a line of jumps and Venus did fine taking all the jumps even though I was ahead of her and not staring at her.
Right now she is a 20 month old in season Samoyed and seems to really have her mind in doing agility. She is already faster and more consistant than Clover ever was.
Friday I have the 3 hour workshop with Rhonda. I'll be taking Clover in stead of Venus because there will be an intact male there. I have to pull some jumps out tomorrow and make sure Clover remembers what I expect from her.
Brandy
Venus hit every single weave pole entry last night! Her speed started off nicely one the weaves. She got tired after we'd worked a while and they slowed some but were still nice. Rhonda had me running fast when there was a line of jumps and Venus did fine taking all the jumps even though I was ahead of her and not staring at her.
Right now she is a 20 month old in season Samoyed and seems to really have her mind in doing agility. She is already faster and more consistant than Clover ever was.
Friday I have the 3 hour workshop with Rhonda. I'll be taking Clover in stead of Venus because there will be an intact male there. I have to pull some jumps out tomorrow and make sure Clover remembers what I expect from her.
Brandy
Monday, November 12, 2007
Venus is in season :(
Of course as my luck would have it Venus came in season today. This really messes up a bunch of things I had planned for us.
Our lesson tonight was canceled so I asked Beth (our regular instructor) if we could come work the broad jump to get ready for the trial this weekend anyways. We got to go do that so she has seen a real broad jump now, yay! She did very well with it and didn't seem to have a problem. She did very nice on all the other obstacles this evening also. She held her dog walk contacts and hit them on the eay up, very nice a-frame, weaves went well with just a little entry problem, and the teeter was nice.
It was very nice to prepare us for this weekend, and then to find out for sure Venus is in season. I am so bummed that we have to pull from the trial this weekend as we were really looking forward to it. I didn't even enter Clover in conformation so I could focus on agility with Venus plus Clo was blowing coat.
Our lesson with Rhonda has been moved to Monday and Venus should be able to do that one. Next Friday we have the workshop and I don't think Venus can do that so I will take Clover instead. The problem with taking Clover is that I'm not really running her anymore. I can't work specific issues between Venus and I if I have Clover there but it's better than not doing it at all. I will plan on taking notes on the courses we run so that way I can work them at home with Venus.
It looks like our next AKC trial won't be until late January and I'm not sure if I can get the time off work or if I want to go to the mountains in January. I don't do well with snow.
Just because I have no good agility videos to share I'll post this one. It shows how much hair has come off of Clover.
Brandy
Our lesson tonight was canceled so I asked Beth (our regular instructor) if we could come work the broad jump to get ready for the trial this weekend anyways. We got to go do that so she has seen a real broad jump now, yay! She did very well with it and didn't seem to have a problem. She did very nice on all the other obstacles this evening also. She held her dog walk contacts and hit them on the eay up, very nice a-frame, weaves went well with just a little entry problem, and the teeter was nice.
It was very nice to prepare us for this weekend, and then to find out for sure Venus is in season. I am so bummed that we have to pull from the trial this weekend as we were really looking forward to it. I didn't even enter Clover in conformation so I could focus on agility with Venus plus Clo was blowing coat.
Our lesson with Rhonda has been moved to Monday and Venus should be able to do that one. Next Friday we have the workshop and I don't think Venus can do that so I will take Clover instead. The problem with taking Clover is that I'm not really running her anymore. I can't work specific issues between Venus and I if I have Clover there but it's better than not doing it at all. I will plan on taking notes on the courses we run so that way I can work them at home with Venus.
It looks like our next AKC trial won't be until late January and I'm not sure if I can get the time off work or if I want to go to the mountains in January. I don't do well with snow.
Just because I have no good agility videos to share I'll post this one. It shows how much hair has come off of Clover.
Brandy
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Lesson on Monday
I have been wondering hwen I would have time to train Venus away from home again before next weekends trial. I had forgotten we have a lesson on Monday so I will hopefully work some stuff out there. Venus and I take a monthly private lesson with Rhonda Carter and we are going to a 3 hour workshop of hers the following week.
So here's my list of things to work on:
1) Venus not cutting me off, if she isn't sure where to go next she zips in front of me and jumps up. She almost tripped me at the trial several times.
2) Me giving commands earlier than what I have been
3) Me actually using commands that I know she knows, I tend to forget and give her less commands that have broader meanings
4) Weave entries when she's excited
I am going to move my weave poles along with a jump and tunnel into the front yard. We've never trained out there so I think it's a good place for her to work on focusing and she should be excited enough to go fast. I'll set that up tonight or tomorrow at lunch and get a video.
Brandy
So here's my list of things to work on:
1) Venus not cutting me off, if she isn't sure where to go next she zips in front of me and jumps up. She almost tripped me at the trial several times.
2) Me giving commands earlier than what I have been
3) Me actually using commands that I know she knows, I tend to forget and give her less commands that have broader meanings
4) Weave entries when she's excited
I am going to move my weave poles along with a jump and tunnel into the front yard. We've never trained out there so I think it's a good place for her to work on focusing and she should be excited enough to go fast. I'll set that up tonight or tomorrow at lunch and get a video.
Brandy
Monday, November 5, 2007
Leaps & Bounds NADAC Trial
The trial didn't go as well as I had hoped but I did see some things we need to work on. We got there about 7:30am and it was chilly outside. By the time I got Venus out of the van she was hyped and leaping all over the place. I worked her some on the warm up jump and weaves and she was great. Venus and Clover were both in the Novice Proficient 20+ class.
Novice Jumpers:
We started off with about two good jumps. Venus then spotted the ring crew and this is one downfall of having a very friendly dog. She bolted over to go visit but quickly found that the person was no fun and wouldn't pet her. She came flying back to me and tried to jump on me. There was one more jump to get her over and then a nice serpentine of two jumps and the tunnel. Venus loves serpentines so I thought it would go well. She took the first jump of the serpenting, spotted the tunnel and then shot through it. I got her back around and over the jump to the tunnel. She did the next jump and then cut too close to me and missed the next jump. I got her back over it and then the rest of the course was nice.
Novice Regular:
When I brought her to the start line she was focused on a shirt someone had hung on the fence. She did listen to me even though she stared at the shirt over the first jump and heading to the dogwalk. Since she was moving a little slow she did hit the up contact but I would have liked to see her full speed to see if she remembered to hit it or not. She held her bottom contact ok. She came a little further off than I would have liked but she was holding the position and I'll give her the benefit since she's never seen a dog walk without slats before.
She did the distance on the jumps very nice. NADAC requires some distance on their regular courses. She saw another jump straight ahead and was heading towards it but I did get her to turn to where the next jump was instead. Unfortunately the turn was tight and she knocked the bar on that jump. She did nicely and didn't go into the offcourse tunnel, many dogs went into that tunnel. She did a little turn in front of me and almost tripped me but we'll work on that. She did good until the weaves, I am pretty sure that I didn't give the command early enough and she didn't see the weaves. The rest of the run was nice and I loved her a-frame.
Despite the knocked bar she ended up with 1st place!
Novice Weavers:
I didn't get a video of this course but it had good points and bad points. I was able to call her off of all the traps that were out there. She came very close to going in a wrong tunnel at one point but she turned and came back. The weaves were disappointing. She didn't get the entry on her weaves any time we ran that course. There were 3 sets of weaves and two she just kinda ignored and ran past and the third she got the entry but went past the 2nd pole and came back after the 3rd pole. She went over time on that course. Venus earned another 1st place on that run though.
Novice Tunnelers:
Clover ran first of the two on this course. She was such a bad dog! I can't even explain what all she did. She did the first 2 or 3 tunnelers and then was just kinda messing around the rest of the course. She had a good time though and that's what is important. I don't have a video of that run, too bad because it would have gone along great with agility laughs. Since Venus and Clover's runs were so close I told my mom to not worry about videoing and to just hide with Venus. I knew if Venus saw me running Clover she would scream and maybe make things worse.
Venus' run was nice. She took no off course tunnels and made time whoo!! After her weavers course she realized there were times I didn't want her to go straight to the next tunnel. Because of that if she could see more than one tunnel she would check back with me on which one I wanted her in. I'll work her some more on reading cues and going on without me. Venus got her first Q and came in 3rd in her class.
Overall I was happy with the day. I was only disappointed in Clover because she is better than that she just decides to be silly sometimes. Venus was trying for me, she is young and doesn't get this whole routine yet. She had a good time though and I think she really wants to do exactly what I want her to. We'll get there as we learn more together. With the time change it is going to make it harder to train. I will probably work her during my lunch breaks.
This weekend I have a conformation show with Bacchus and Clover and then the following weekend Venus is entered in a 3 day AKC trial.
Here's the video of Venus' runs from this weekend. Yes, I know I need a better camera for this and I'm working on figuring out what kind. Suggestions are welcome if you know of a good camera for videoing agility somewhere around $200 or less?
Brandy
Novice Jumpers:
We started off with about two good jumps. Venus then spotted the ring crew and this is one downfall of having a very friendly dog. She bolted over to go visit but quickly found that the person was no fun and wouldn't pet her. She came flying back to me and tried to jump on me. There was one more jump to get her over and then a nice serpentine of two jumps and the tunnel. Venus loves serpentines so I thought it would go well. She took the first jump of the serpenting, spotted the tunnel and then shot through it. I got her back around and over the jump to the tunnel. She did the next jump and then cut too close to me and missed the next jump. I got her back over it and then the rest of the course was nice.
Novice Regular:
When I brought her to the start line she was focused on a shirt someone had hung on the fence. She did listen to me even though she stared at the shirt over the first jump and heading to the dogwalk. Since she was moving a little slow she did hit the up contact but I would have liked to see her full speed to see if she remembered to hit it or not. She held her bottom contact ok. She came a little further off than I would have liked but she was holding the position and I'll give her the benefit since she's never seen a dog walk without slats before.
She did the distance on the jumps very nice. NADAC requires some distance on their regular courses. She saw another jump straight ahead and was heading towards it but I did get her to turn to where the next jump was instead. Unfortunately the turn was tight and she knocked the bar on that jump. She did nicely and didn't go into the offcourse tunnel, many dogs went into that tunnel. She did a little turn in front of me and almost tripped me but we'll work on that. She did good until the weaves, I am pretty sure that I didn't give the command early enough and she didn't see the weaves. The rest of the run was nice and I loved her a-frame.
Despite the knocked bar she ended up with 1st place!
Novice Weavers:
I didn't get a video of this course but it had good points and bad points. I was able to call her off of all the traps that were out there. She came very close to going in a wrong tunnel at one point but she turned and came back. The weaves were disappointing. She didn't get the entry on her weaves any time we ran that course. There were 3 sets of weaves and two she just kinda ignored and ran past and the third she got the entry but went past the 2nd pole and came back after the 3rd pole. She went over time on that course. Venus earned another 1st place on that run though.
Novice Tunnelers:
Clover ran first of the two on this course. She was such a bad dog! I can't even explain what all she did. She did the first 2 or 3 tunnelers and then was just kinda messing around the rest of the course. She had a good time though and that's what is important. I don't have a video of that run, too bad because it would have gone along great with agility laughs. Since Venus and Clover's runs were so close I told my mom to not worry about videoing and to just hide with Venus. I knew if Venus saw me running Clover she would scream and maybe make things worse.
Venus' run was nice. She took no off course tunnels and made time whoo!! After her weavers course she realized there were times I didn't want her to go straight to the next tunnel. Because of that if she could see more than one tunnel she would check back with me on which one I wanted her in. I'll work her some more on reading cues and going on without me. Venus got her first Q and came in 3rd in her class.
Overall I was happy with the day. I was only disappointed in Clover because she is better than that she just decides to be silly sometimes. Venus was trying for me, she is young and doesn't get this whole routine yet. She had a good time though and I think she really wants to do exactly what I want her to. We'll get there as we learn more together. With the time change it is going to make it harder to train. I will probably work her during my lunch breaks.
This weekend I have a conformation show with Bacchus and Clover and then the following weekend Venus is entered in a 3 day AKC trial.
Here's the video of Venus' runs from this weekend. Yes, I know I need a better camera for this and I'm working on figuring out what kind. Suggestions are welcome if you know of a good camera for videoing agility somewhere around $200 or less?
Brandy
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