Disappointing Practice

Had a tough practice last night. Wyatt had trouble with the jumps, leaving too early and hitting the jump twice in a row. We backed him up and he did better. Some folks thought he needed 2 strides before the jump. I am not sure. He just seems to misjudge jumps once in while but I am going to try giving him some more room.

He also went down right away on the out of sight sit when we all left (including the "judge".) Going to ask the judge to stay by next time in case he needs a little reminder. She also suggested working spefically on the beginning part when everyone leaves. I came back and set him up again and he did fine. I suggested to the teacher that she check out the difference in our dog dogs during the sit. She saw what I see - how Wyatt's conformation really makes sits and downs difficult though I know he CAN do it. I am also going to have the teacher treat him randomly during the sits and downs. This was the first time I stayed out of the room the whole time without doing a lot of peeking and letting him see me.

He also came up 3 times during the down. This, I believe, is related to a cold/discomfort issue. I am going to put something under him when we do the out of sight down at practice until it is warmer and until we get the sit. At home, I work on both so I will do an out of sight with him on something and do an in sight with him right in front of me so I can fix any problems. Well, I guess I have a baseline to from anyway.

I should try to remember the good parts too - great heeling with almost no lagging and a perfect broad jump and a really good retrieve on flat. The teacher, who is an AKC judge, said I should substitute our other dog (who looks similar to those that don't know them) for the sits and downs. He was rock solid last night. I could not tell if she was kidding or not; she seemed serious! But obviously I would rather get him trained to do it himself. He is so good at everything else though and doing a lot of utility. I sure hope I can get him through this!

Utility Workshop Part 2

Here are some things I picked up at Esther Zimmerman's utility workshop.

1) She watched me heeling with Wyatt and suggested I make really sure I don't turn my shoulder back. I think she was talking about when I stop. I tend to look back and treat him back. She suggested I treat Wyatt forged a little instead. This could help with the ever present challenge of lagging whippets!

2) I learned a great game for the turn and sit part of directed jumping. Throw a visible treat like cheese a short distance. As soon as they are head down for the treat (and no later) give the sit command. The dog will turn and sit nicely. I also treat when they sit.

3) Use different methods to teach the directed jumping go out. I was only using 1, which is a target on the ring gates. I am adding a second method that uses a hula hoop. Put a hula hoop near a ring gate. Put a treat an inch or so past the hula hoop near the ring gate. Start close. Give the go out command. Give the sit command at least initially so the dog sits in the hoop. Wyatt is still getting used to the hoop. He would not sit in a small hoop so I got bigger one.

4) This was really good since Wyatt can be a creeper. Teach an explicit drop back down by luring the dog down with treat towards and under the dog's chest. The front should drop, then the back legs. This makes the dog drop back without moving forward.

Hope these are helpful. Esther teaches at Master Peace Dog Training Center in Franklin, Massachusetts.

Utility Workshop

Dawn and Patriot and Wyatt and I took a utility workshop Saturday with Esther Zimmerman. She has put a UDX on a schipperke, which is the highest title ever for that breed. She uses all positive training and she was a very enthusiastic and skilled teacher. It was a beginning utility workshop so I did not learn tons of stuff but I did pick up some very helpful little things, got some great proofing, and some good feedback from her on my heeling. Dawn learned tons of stuff and it was perfect for her as she is just starting out in utility training. I'll post specific tips I learned later today or tomorrow.

Rally Stats From AKC

This table comes from Curt Curtis of the AKC via Marita Patterson. The formatting was lost in email so I am reposting it here. I beleive what this data shows is that the increase in rally entries is slowing but still growing. However, the number of rally trials is increasing at a greater rate resulting in less rally entries per trial.

Year	Number of Events	Number of entries	Average number of entries per event
2005	1,065	74,521	69.97
2006	1,708	104,700	61.3
2007	2,025	107,888	53.28

Wyatt Rocked

We did run thrus Sunday and Wyatt just rocked. I could tell there were some ring nerves on the first run because he barked at me when I had to take him around for a funny weave entry. However, every contact was rock solid and he was super fast and super focused. Man, I just turn my shoulders and he is off on the next obstacle. I almost think not trialing and taking classes for a while is making him better. I think I am right in only doing NADAC and run thrus for a while so I can redo any missed contacts. I think the uncorrected missing contacts on the first run of day set up a bad pattern for Wyatt. Next stop - try for a NATCH!

Agility Bandwagons

I wonder, after doing agility for a while, how much we are being driven by business interests. It is starting to seem a little fad driven to me with lots of folks jumping to the latest technique for contacts or whatever. Good handling and a good relationship with your dog and lots of proofing are the best thing for a you and your dog especially for those of us not concerned with being at the national level. That's not to say that techniques have not improved and that there is nothing new to learn. But I think we have to be cautious about always changing our techniques and jumping on the latest bandwagon.

NADAC Practice

We had NADAC practice Sunday. I took both dogs since our baby sitter had to cancel. I learned more about running my wife's dog Patriot. Wyatt ran great and was very on. We had not run in quite a while. I really see how valuable taking some off is. One thing we may want to work on is Wyatt's up contact. He tends to slam into the up contact. Lynn Smitley suggested using hoops on the up (and the down) to get some muscle memory on both sides and to reinforce the 2o2o on the down. I had previously thoughts hoops and 2o2o were not compatible but why not use the down hoop to help with muscle memory and trial contacts?

I learned not to crowd Patriot too much. It slows him down especially on weaves. Also, we need to be moving when he comes out of tunnels. Sometimes, we will wait for him and crouch a bit to race to the next obstacle. Also, I need to make sure to cue him first and encourage later. I was missing cues with too much cheerleading (at the wrong time.)

Too Much?

I see Wyatt making some mistakes recently such as not going down with my hand signal. I am wondering if we are doing too much or I am putting too much (unconsious) pressure on him.

Rally - Not The Best

We did rally for just one day Sunday in a new building in NY State. We did not have our best day but we did get a double Q and our 8th RAE leg. In Excellent, we did pretty well. Wyatt seemed stuck a few times. One was with a right pivot where he did not move with me so we lost 10 there. Maybe I forgot to cue him enough. We lost 3 on out of positions so we got an 87. He also got stuck on the last station, a halt, stand, down. Weird. I did not feel connected with him and relaxed at the start. Somedays, you know you are in synch and others days you get through it and do your best. The new way of doing honor was fine and he did a nice sit. Perhaps I was nervous showing to my teacher, who was the judge and Wyatt was nervous in the new building. Advanced felt worse, with a lot of lagging. We started off with a crooked sit with a stationary call front. It can be hard to feel good afterwards if you have trouble with the first station. I also had trouble getting him to stand later in the course. Beautiful side step though. On the final offset figure 8, Wyatt went for the food. I should have maintained eye contact in the figure 8 I think. I just left and he following after a bit. Saying "leave it" did not work! Mentally, I still carry obedience standards in rally so sometimes I think we did a lot worse that it felt. I am thinking of this as just not our best day and that somedays are like that. I am still hoping to get a 99 or 100. Our highest score so far has been a 97 and we have been routinely scoring in the mid to upper 90 (except yesterday). We got a 79 in advanced by the way, our lowest score in quite a while.

Agility Run Thrus

We did agility run thrus Saturday. This is at a facility that neither of dogs seems to like that much. Wyatt was a little nervous on the first run. I went back on the first contact. He did 2o2o but pulled off before my release. I also has some weave trouble where they had training weaves next to regular weaves. I tried to work at a distance but I think he got confused. When I moved in closer, he was fine. The next 2 runs were flawless and fast. Makes me want to trial again but I think I am going to do run thrus and NADAC trials only until I get the perfect contacts at trials too.

Utility Match Video

Match Results Utility A

We entered Utility A and Open A at a match in Chicopee, MA Sunday. Utility A was first to happen and also our first utility match.

This was a great learning experience for me and I think I finally get all the different parts and rules for utility. Wyatt did great in spite of me. I made some errors such as forgetting to only use a hard signal for signals for the first forward! She let me redo that one. He actually did great on signals. I had to give a double command for the down or the up (can't remember) and I stayed about 10 feet from him but he did everything. I also gave him a side command and not a front command at the end getting mixed up with the moving stand. We have not been practicing signals much and when we do it is only the little pieces and not the whole thing. Lost 8 points for heeling.

For scent article #1, he went right out and got the wrong, adjacent article. I think my turn around for sending directly was a bit spastic. I sent him out again and he got it. He got the second article with only 1/2 off and was whining to get started.

We lost only 1 1/2 on the directed retrieve. It was the #2 glove and not the dreaded left pivot glove.

For moving stand, I only gave a hand signal. I forgot you could do both so he needed a double (triple really) command to stop.

For directed jumping. I just did the jumping part and Wyatt needed a couple tries on each running around each jump the first time. I need to practice this at larger distance is all and was doing that before the snow fell.

All in all, very good for our first outing I thought. I will post a video later.

Open Run Thru

We had open run throughs last run. I was very pleased with Wyatt. I did novice sits and stays and he was perfect. That was a relief. I am planning on talking with our instructor about a plan for open sits and stays. Right now, he is doing very well at home with the 3 minute out of sight sit so I need a plan on how to slowly replicate that in class including a consistent strategy for when he makes a mistake. We did have a problem with drop on recall but I think I figured out why. I was looking at the judge for her hand signals and I was also saying "Wyatt, down" instead of "Down". I found I could see the judge fine with my periperal vision. We lost 5 1/2 on heeling, which I consider very good. We lost 0 on retrieve and a 1/2 each on the jumps. So that was awesome. So, if we did not have a drop issue, we would have gotten a score in the 190s. Looking forward to the match Sunday. Not sure what I am going to have him do for the sits and stays though. Should I try it or skip it or ask the judge if I can stay in sight?

Jumpers and Rally

I was asked to judge a long haired whippet specialty Saturday for conformation. That was a great experience. I will write about that later. But they were kind enough to let me enter Wyatt in agility and rally. We made it up for the jumpers agility class. We had a few off courses for the advanced run. I was out of practice in terms of my timing. But we smoked the novice course in 20 seconds. Very fun to do some agility again.

After conformation, I stuck around for rally novice and rally advanced. We got a 99 for novice which was fun. I was not sure being on leash would be good but it was fine. Still looked for that elusive 100. We had a really great advanced run too, a 94 but I was very happy with Wyatt's stations, especially the halt, 90 left, halt. We have practicing that a lot as part of our directed retrieve utility training and he was great, right with me, and nice and straight. We lost 3 on a 270 left as he was forging. I need to remember to really turn in and look at his rear before he starting forging.

I did not manage him well. I did not bring tarps to cover his crate. I used some blankets I had but he was experiencing some SA when I was judging without Patriot. I should have brought Patriot or lots of tarps.

Quiet

Not too much new here.

Still practicing obedience and rally. We have an open match next weekend and a rally trial in January.

Still working on sits and stays. Wyatt is a bit squirmy sometimes when I am farther away so I mix the distances up from right in front of him to out of sight. He is doing well at home and not going down but there was no sits and downs last week at class. Maybe tonight if I can get out of our driveway. We got some freezing rain this morning.

Directed Retrieve - Improvement

One thing that is helping with a fast and responsive left turn is the following exercise I made up.

Start with dog sitting in heel position.

Do a 90 degree right pivot. Reward. Do a 90 degree right pivot. Reward. Repeat 2-3 times without pausing in between. Since out right pivot is pretty good, I mixed it with an immediate left pivot to get the same behavior on both. So far, this seems to be improving his left pivot quite a bit. I will change to 180 degree pivots at some point.

Directed Retrieve

I have been working with Wyatt a lot on the directed retrieve. In this utility exercise, there are 3 gloves and the judge tells you which one the dog is supposed to retrieve. You are supposed to move together as team from a position facing away from the gloves to a position where you face the gloves. In my experience, the retrieve is the easy part. Getting the dog to maintain heel position as you turn and face the right glove is the hard part. If Wyatt ends up out of position and/or facing the wrong glove, he may get the wrong glove. I turn clockwise for the middle glove and the left glove (facing the gloves) and turn counterclockwise for the right glove (facing the gloves). The counterclockwise turn is tough. I am making progress but Wyatt wants more cues and/or lots of shoulder turning to turn with me counterclockwise. I was used to a rally type left (inside) turn where there can be a delay and lots of signaling.

Proofing Jump on Retrieve

Since Wyatt left a little early on last week's open obedience run thru Retrieve on Flat exercise, I decided to proof this. Sure enough, he was leaving early if I moved or said anything. First, I moved and had him come back if he left. He got that quickly. Then I said words other than "Find It" and I fooled him on that too. Now, he does not leave unless I say "Find It". One side effect though, he has needed a double command a few times. I guess he does not want to make a mistake. So I think I will not proof the words anymore.

Snort, Snort

I noticed that Wyatt snorts every time as he is going out to do scent discrimination. I also noticed this outside when the dogs are interested in a scent. I can only assume they are "clearing their pallet". Interesting.

Open Run Thru - Second Try

We had obedience run throughs last night. Wyatt did great. He got a 183 1/2. We only lost 5 1/2 points heeling. We had some minor point for sits. He anticipated the retrieve on flat but stopped a few feet ahead of me when he realized he had not been released. Tibby only took off 3 points but told me later some judges might have NQed him. He nicked the jump for 1 point (I thought that was a more serious issue) and also made some contact with the last broad jump for 3 points. I think the jumping issues were unusual for him but I will practice the broad jump more at home at the full distance which we don't often do. I left very confident and comfortable with the whole open sequence which is very important. So I did the our usual warm up routine and I was up and praising him and running to the next "station" between exercises.

I did a reduced version of the sit and down standing about 10 feet in front and reducing the time on the down to 3 minutes because we have not been practicing the down. He starting moving one front leg lower about 1/2 through the sit and I gave a low key - ut - and fixed his sit and he was fine. Not sure if he would have gone down or not...

Overall, I was pleased. I am confident on the individual part of the exercises and hopeful I can work through our group issues. More on that later; I have been thinking a lot about it.