Barking/jumping Up/nipping During Agility Runs

[Chequeredblackdog]

Would you recommend doing the shape up Agility or waiting for H360 to come back online?

Also how much is H360? the Shape Up Agility seems very reasonable.

[The Spotted Devil]

It might depend on your ability to problem solve as a trainer? For example, SG has Puppy Peaks which I really enjoy but she doesn't show you how she fixes some things. Not a problem for me but it's not a course I'd recommend for everyone. Not sure how much H360 is but Tassie will know :)

[J...]

Shape Up's online courses are really good I audited foundation and foundation proofing and got a lot out of them.

Regarding verbals, I've been keeping mine more simple as I can't get my head around so many. Justine herself said that if you can't get them 80% plus right then they aren't going to be sufficiently reliable. I still have to put some thought into right and left (it's not automatic for me ) so I'm going to struggle unless I'm out there on a daily basis - and while I love agility my dogs and I have a life :laugh:

Dave Munnings was fine with the verbals I have in place so that gave me more confidence in what I'm doing. I probably need a left/right turn cue but coping pretty well without it right now. :D

Going back to the jumping up and barking - my 6 yo Zee will do this when she's way over the top and not thinking. I've done a huge amount of trial and error with her, the biggest winner is warm her up physically then spend 10 to 15 mins outside the ring working her down with food rewards and making sure her brain is in gear. I keep her very calm and quiet and we hang around the ring entrance for a few dogs while working tricks for food. It's been working brilliantly and she's doing some lovely work in the ring as a result, instead of screaming barking and launching at me or running across the ring to find contacts and tunnels. I let a friend say hello before she went in the ring last weekend and then spent 15 mins trying to calm her down, the low level screaming as I left her on the startling was a sure indicator that she was still way over the top and that run wasn't going to go well - but one bad run out of 4 is a really good result for Zee :D

Answering your question: the Shape Up courses are all being rehashed with Justine and Jessica having new puppies, so it's hard to comment. Their foundation course I did presumed a level of foundation skills already. H360 is unbelievably comprehensive - there is so much detail. However, I find it all a little overwhelming, and I'm really not using the course much at all. Even when I was having issues with my threadles, I signed up to do a Q-Me course which was much more focussed and had specific feedback, as opposed to wading through so much info on H360.

[Agility Dogs]

Answering your question: the Shape Up courses are all being rehashed with Justine and Jessica having new puppies, so it's hard to comment. Their foundation course I did presumed a level of foundation skills already. H360 is unbelievably comprehensive - there is so much detail. However, I find it all a little overwhelming, and I'm really not using the course much at all. Even when I was having issues with my threadles, I signed up to do a Q-Me course which was much more focussed and had specific feedback, as opposed to wading through so much info on H360.

Dave Munnings keeps it pretty simple - much easier for a normal (or lazy like me) dog trainer to work with. ;)

[sheena]

To get back on topic :laugh: I am pleased to report that I din't lose any limbs or noses last night at training. He started to bark in our first run & I stopped him, waited for him to calm down than ran on. He was fine for the rest of the night :)

[Tassie]

It might depend on your ability to problem solve as a trainer? For example, SG has Puppy Peaks which I really enjoy but she doesn't show you how she fixes some things. Not a problem for me but it's not a course I'd recommend for everyone. Not sure how much H360 is but Tassie will know :)

LOL. From memory -- and it is 12 months ago -- it was somewhere about USCan$1000 .. which sounds a lot, but when you think about it on a per month/per week basis, it comes down to about what you'd pay for one private 1 hour lesson a week . .. and you've got 24/7 access to the extensive materials, and you can ask questions and get help. As TSD knows, I'm loving H360 (even though I'm virtually having to do it on my own .. no H360 trainers near me. It is incredibly thorough, and can be quite overwhelming at first, but it does all start to fall into place. I'm finding that like 2x2, I have to go back and work through things again, until it gets in my head. But it's designed for that.

Haven't seen the Shape Up, but I would imagine they'd be good too .. and substantially using H360.

Like the idea of rehearsing the verbals in the car, TSD. :D

ETA .. that sounds like good progress, sheena. The more clear you are, I think the less frantic he'll be, That's what I'm finding with my Slightly Less Misguided Missile.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Tassie

[Willem]

To get back on topic :laugh: I am pleased to report that I din't lose any limbs or noses last night at training. He started to bark in our first run & I stopped him, waited for him to calm down than ran on. He was fine for the rest of the night :)

...wait till the next full moon :D ...My link

[Vickie]

I'm pretty late on this one, but have taught many dogs who started by jumping & biting. None were hard to fix :)

The 5 biggest reasons for it I see are:

1. Handler watching dog too much & not setting good lines.

2. Dog lacks understanding of parallel position (related to above since handler is often not actually running parallel)

3. Handler not reading dogs commitment to obstacles

4. Too much standing still or decel & sending so dog is confused about whether decel means collect or drive forward

5. Handler "buys in" to dog jumping up by reinforcing it

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

Edited December 14, 2015 by Vickie

[Agility Dogs]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

[DeltaCharlie]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

I would just call that either bad handling or poor foundations and subsequent poor understanding by the dog. Running around a jump has nothing to do with herding instinct. I have never seen a dog attempt to cast out around an inanimate object to bring it back to the handler. Equipment doesn't act like stock and no dog would be confused between the 2.

Instincts get blamed for so many errors and as a result, the real reason is never addressed. The furthest I would ever venture to say that instincts play a part in is working dogs find curves easier to read and gundogs find straight lines easier to read. Even that is stretching things a bit.

[Vickie]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

Agree totally AD.

IMO it's all pressure related.

Some of the widest casting sheepdogs I've seem tend to be wide naturally in agility & some of the tightest dogs I've seen on sheep tend to be tight in agility. I've observed this in 5 of my own as well as many others.

Doesn't mean it can't & shouldn't be addressed in training, but I find correlations between the 2 things it's the only aspect of instinct I see transfer from one activity to the other.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Vickie

[Kavik]

Yes I was going to say I think it is pressure related - some dogs are more sensitive to pressure and naturally a bit wider.

[Agility Dogs]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

I would just call that either bad handling or poor foundations and subsequent poor understanding by the dog. Running around a jump has nothing to do with herding instinct. I have never seen a dog attempt to cast out around an inanimate object to bring it back to the handler. Equipment doesn't act like stock and no dog would be confused between the 2.

Instincts get blamed for so many errors and as a result, the real reason is never addressed. The furthest I would ever venture to say that instincts play a part in is working dogs find curves easier to read and gundogs find straight lines easier to read. Even that is stretching things a bit.

I'm not suggesting that dogs confuse stock and equipment - I'm just saying that dogs that work wide on stock DO tend to run wide at agility. They naturally want to work away from their handler.

My young boy is from a driving line - he is very direct and doesn't cast out away from me. Maria Thiry's Kwyk runs out (not away) from her all the time - very different breeding.

[Agility Dogs]

it's the only aspect of instinct I see transfer from one activity to the other.

Yes. :)

[DeltaCharlie]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

I would just call that either bad handling or poor foundations and subsequent poor understanding by the dog. Running around a jump has nothing to do with herding instinct. I have never seen a dog attempt to cast out around an inanimate object to bring it back to the handler. Equipment doesn't act like stock and no dog would be confused between the 2.

Instincts get blamed for so many errors and as a result, the real reason is never addressed. The furthest I would ever venture to say that instincts play a part in is working dogs find curves easier to read and gundogs find straight lines easier to read. Even that is stretching things a bit.

I'm not suggesting that dogs confuse stock and equipment - I'm just saying that dogs that work wide on stock DO tend to run wide at agility. They naturally want to work away from their handler.

My young boy is from a driving line - he is very direct and doesn't cast out away from me. Maria Thiry's Kwyk runs out (not away) from her all the time - very different breeding.

I don't consider that instinct though. That is just how the individual dog responds to pressure. We have a terrier who prefers to work further away and one that likes to be super close. Would you still refer to it as instinct in a non-working breed? Dogs all respond to pressure differently, and yes that can relate to their breeding purpose and lines. It isn't instinct though.

[Agility Dogs]

Leaving the course or stopping the dog is a bandaid. It will not fix the problem & can easily reduce drive

IMO it is never related to herding instinct

If anything herding instinct tends to be more about running around obstacles and flanking from the handler under arousal.

I would just call that either bad handling or poor foundations and subsequent poor understanding by the dog. Running around a jump has nothing to do with herding instinct. I have never seen a dog attempt to cast out around an inanimate object to bring it back to the handler. Equipment doesn't act like stock and no dog would be confused between the 2.

Instincts get blamed for so many errors and as a result, the real reason is never addressed. The furthest I would ever venture to say that instincts play a part in is working dogs find curves easier to read and gundogs find straight lines easier to read. Even that is stretching things a bit.

I'm not suggesting that dogs confuse stock and equipment - I'm just saying that dogs that work wide on stock DO tend to run wide at agility. They naturally want to work away from their handler.

My young boy is from a driving line - he is very direct and doesn't cast out away from me. Maria Thiry's Kwyk runs out (not away) from her all the time - very different breeding.

I don't consider that instinct though. That is just how the individual dog responds to pressure. We have a terrier who prefers to work further away and one that likes to be super close. Would you still refer to it as instinct in a non-working breed? Dogs all respond to pressure differently, and yes that can relate to their breeding purpose and lines. It isn't instinct though.

I think it is how they are wired - so yes. I think it is instinct. 'They instinctively react to pressure that way.'

[DeltaCharlie]

How they instinctively react to pressure- yes. Herding instinct- no.

I go back to my original comment though. If I push my dog around the outside of a jump I am not going to blame it on instincts. It is bad handling on my part for putting too much pressure on their line. Regardless of breed or working style, I did not handle my dog correctly to negotiate that part of the course.

[JulesP]

Casting and driving ability are different things. A dog can have a wide natural cast and still be good at driving. They have to go get the sheep before any driving happens :)

I am going to say that the jumping up at the handler is instinct though. Border collies like to make things move, So they can then make them stop :laugh: I've seen my dogs do this to lots of critters, various degrees of force until the animal runs. Then they stop them. I haven't seen them do this with sheep though probably because they don't have to and the sheep cooperate and move.

Interestingly Poppy does work fairly close on sheep and wouldn't work away from me in agility.

[DeltaCharlie]

Casting and driving ability are different things. A dog can have a wide natural cast and still be good at driving. They have to go get the sheep before any driving happens :)

I am going to say that the jumping up at the handler is instinct though. Border collies like to make things move, So they can then make them stop :laugh: I've seen my dogs do this to lots of critters, various degrees of force until the animal runs. Then they stop them. I haven't seen them do this with sheep though probably because they don't have to and the sheep cooperate and move.

Interestingly Poppy does work fairly close on sheep and wouldn't work away from me in agility.

I don't want my dogs creating movement for the hell of it. If the sheep don't need to be moved anywhere and they are together, I don't expect my dog to do anything, I certainly don't want them to make the sheep move unnecessarily. I have a bitch who has some show lines behind her and that is what she wants to do. Works beautifully, nice and calm, very useful dog. But can't handle the lack of movement. She has a reliable stop but doesn't have the patience to wait for longer periods or just watch calmly. She has to create movement. It is not a useful attribute for a border collie to have IMHO.

In agility, the dogs should never be trying to create movement in the handler. Nipping, jumping up etc is frustration because the handler is not giving the correct information or not giving it in a timely fashion. I am seeing it a lot at the moment with people trying to throw in fancy moves when they are not required or not even suitable for that situation. Dogs are asking lots of questions and getting inconsistent answers.

I have an awesome dog who is just too much dog for me. I gave him to Tailwag to start running about a year ago now. I frustrated the hell out of him as my cues were poorly timed or inconsistent. He was forever barking at me, launching himself at me, and even went in for a nip sometimes. He reached a point where he was second guessing me even when my cues were spot on. I was worried he would hurt me and that made me handle him too conservatively which made the problem worse. Tailwag just gets out there and runs, he much prefers that and they are starting to gel nicely now.

[JulesP]

Fairly sure I said that my dogs don't do it to sheep.