caffy

The trial this weekend will be interesting since its been a week of virtual training - I have virtually done none!

Has anybody had a week like this and found that it has been of benefit?

Ah yeah...

An overcast, drizzly day but nothing could dampen Zig's enthusiasm. He ran fantastically, whilst I concentrated on fixing my shoulder turns and rear crosses as well as mixing up his rewards - picked up 2 passes in Masters Agility and came 1st (Q) in Open Agility You could have knocked me over with a feather at presentations :laugh: as I never expect to beat the amazingly fast dogs at this level but evidently many of them bombed out. It was a tough distance challenge (for us) so I am thrilled to bits. The remainder of his runs were terrific - tipped the broad jump with a toe nail to miss out on a nice JDM qually and I got lost on his best run of the day to stuff him up on the easiest part of the course - after a long 5 jump lead out, difficult tunnel suck and tight turns which he nailed like an old hand Em ran in Open Agility and Jumping (minus the distance challenge) and did beautifully - lovely lead outs, weaves and contacts - just practice for both of us and I can't complain at all although it is hard handling a very green dog again. That's just about it for us in agility until our road trip to the Nationals

Well done TSD and Ziggy and Em...see you at the Nats :D

Well done RS and bx2 That's quite a weekend of results!

Mrs RB - the long beach walk sounds divine! I could do with one of those (every day for 2 weeks :laugh:) after another sparrow's fart awakening this morning!!!

Em followed up yesterday's jumping win with a ripper 4th place in retrieving today. She was 6 points behind the eventual winner and lost 5 points for putting the bird down before quickly picking it up and delivering to hand. Twice

LOL TSD...we had a bit of that with a metal article in UD today. But pleased to say Snazz did a nice CDX round of 198 today to make up for it :laugh:

Ptolomy is being quiet, but Scoota did a ripper UD round as did Beans in CDX.

1. I think a lot of handlers get bogged down in rules. Working with what you intuitively think the dog will respond to is often the right way to go. I do, however, find it useful to figure out why a dog reponds intuitively to something - it helps me reproduce it agian in the future.

2. The system of handling that works intuitively with the dog, without artificial rules (I.e. rules we impose that have to be learnt by the dog) seem to be understood very easily by all dogs, even those that have been taught these other "rules".

Just food for thought.

Cheers,

Very good points.

Understanding natural cues for the dogs makes it easier in the long run for both handler and dog.

Wahoo! Awesome wuffles - what a lovely score to boot

We had a nice return to trialling today....Ziggy has been a little neglected with Em's retrieving trialling lately! We had our first foray into Masters Agility and came away with 2 nice quallies. It was a rather warm day and Zig has been rather distracted by Em being in season so I was really pleased with him - both 1st place 600 height and 4th/13th place overall. His best run was the last one - but silly handler stuffed him up on the LAST jump! The groans of despair outside the ring were audible :laugh: Great dog and all that!

Great results!

Will interstaters have a time allocated to access the arena and gear prior to the event???

Is the table surface the same with the new timer system?

Hi guys,

The automatic table timer is a 90x90cm pressure pad put on top of the table with a hession type of cover. so the dogs jump up onto the hession surface, maroon in colour - see the photos below. It is an excellent surface giving good traction to help them stop. It is hooked up to an audible timer that beeps once for each second of the count then multiple rapid beeps at the 5 second mark. The beek is very similar to the noise the automatic timing gates make, except that the noise comes from under the table itself, rather than from the steward area.

The count starts as soon as the dog hits the table. If the dog leaves before the 5 seconds is up, it immediately resets, so that when the dog jumps up again, the count starts again.

At the trial last Saturday, there was one dog that was uncomfortable with the sound, but still stayed on the table, and a couple of dogs who looked a bit puzzled about where the sound came from, but it did not change their table performance.

The beauty of the table timer is, of course, now the table count is reliably the same for every dog. Placings and quallies can be determined by as little as .01 of a second and I know as a judge that I cannot get my count on the table to be that accurate every time!

If you want to see it in action, borrow a copy of some of the recent FCI world championship DVD's. This is where we first saw it. I guess, if you want to get your dog used to the sound you could place the control box from a set of time gates under a table while your dog sits on the table, and get someone to walk back and forth through the gates! I suspect you would not get exact one second apart beeps, but it would get a dog used to that type of noise.

It will probably only be used in the indoor arena, although if it is not in use there, it may be used in one of the outdoor rings. I would like to use it in my ring. It does get monotonous counting from 5 to 1 so many times in a day.

Cheers,

Excellent!

Thankyou.

Hi Guys,

We had a training day out at the Equestrian Centre today, with the surface prepared as it will be for the Nationals.

Surface was great and, even for just a training day, it is still exciting to run in the arena.

Just 78 days to go!!!

Cheers,

Is the table surface the same with the new timer system?

Unfortunately a lot of it is blurry...not a bad thing as its not that flattering of me I hate looking at myself on video. If I can just edit me out and show Brookie I'd be happy I think the auto focus was having trouble with the advertising around the UDX ring.

Funny the exercise he failed is crystal clear and you can hear Mum's expletive!!!

Yes the scent patterns are starting to get interesting....for a long while we only had the standard box pattern and now we are getting lines up the ring, a Y pattern and last nights the judge called it an umbrella! I'm dreading the X... must train for that

Sorry that Brookie missed out last night, but as least he was happy chappy.

Have you had a circle with the scented one in the middle? Had the straight line, square, circle, triangle, T Shape and semi circle (or Umbrella if you want to call it that) even a plus sign.

I put out a question mark the other night....very appropriate I thought :D

Just realised I didn't put my teensy tiny brag in here.

Ruby debuted in Excellent Agility at the Western Classic, and not only got a Q, but came first in her 500 height class :) (ie. was the only 500 dog to qualify ) Millie just messed up her weave entry (again), but then weaved nicely once I sent her back in.

Teensy? It's huge!

Now off to training you go....

In the UK system the lower the score the better I think. They do it as deductions.

Yep, closest to zero is the winner.

I've finally come down to Earth after our Western Classic last weekend...2 days of Obedience and 3 days of Agility.

Snazz and I competed all 5 days and while no passes in Obedience, his attitude out in the ring was dynamite

On the Agility night he won ADO overall, JDO overall and JDM 500.

The next night he won SDX 500 and the following night he ran clear in Teams Jumping and 1 fault in Teams Agility.

Our weekend was 9 runs for 6 clears

Enjoy...I certainly did :D

Well done Caffy would love to see some recent Snazzy obedience video if you have some .

Well done Zug Zug for passing class 1 at obedience - babies are so much fun they are like sponges and pick things up ever so quickly.

Ah sorry, the video camera didn't leave the car.

Some great work in all the rings tonight...dont we just love the night trials! Well done RubyStar...your girls were lovely. Caffy's Snazzy was fabulous tonight just missing one thing but gee he looked good Yay to Ptolomy's Moo who was a star in UDX and the baby Strauss (not anymore ;) ) working like a dream.

My brag is that Brookie won UD and came second by a couple of points in UDX with a really nice round. second quallie on the board for Gr CH ... three to go :D

I saw some fantastic work in all the rings.

Our lucky number is 1...one point off HF in Open and then fluff one exercise..ROH. My agility dog went around the jump :laugh:

In UD the judge commented that she'd never seen a dog do the exercises so quickly Also missed one exercise in that...he forgot to finish in COP.

So happy with Snazz and his enthusiasm out there.

Agree with what CFS said, even the best dogs in Aust haven't started to approach what the overseas guys do. So much more to focus on than running contacts.

I could count at least 4 young dogs from WA that have amazing true running contacts...they are awesome!! Judges need their running shoes on that's for sure ;)

I think I can safely say the shoe has been on the other foot and I have been able to offer them the same advice, the sympathetic nod and the clip over the ear whenever they have needed it. We are a happy group of positive trainers and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Having been clipped many a time, I now wear a helmet to Sunday training

OK I have changed my mind - the girls are staying - planets were aligned tonight and training was much better .

Wait til the weekend ;)

Will we be able to set up our dogs in crates in the undercover arena???

Thanks caffy, that does make sense! Except for one part - is there any reason why you insisted he walk backwards and offer it that way once he knew it, opposed to running to it front on and then moving forward into the 2o/2o?

After you have the dog offering back feet on the object, how would you then transfer that knowledge to them running say a plank on the ground and moving into the 2o/2o?

I insisted on walking back because I was working on rear end only.

With a plank or the actual gear, I just ask for Snazz to back up...I don't worry about 2on/2off . Hopefully I have done enough front end work and self control (release cues) separately too.

Well aparently I have...in the weekend trial we had an AF in the distance challenge and his release word from the AF is "OK". I ran on an said "OUT" to send him to the next jump and I looked back to see him happily sticking his AF. Not sure if "OKOUT" is a word but it go him moving ;)

I do this each day with Fly. She is learning that keeping her back feet on the board is a good thing. She is also learning a release word and rear end awareness.

Just watched your video, Vickie. I plan on doing this with Pippa and going back and doing it with Millie. Did you entirely shape the behaviour? Or how did you do it? Looking for ideas on how to start them both on it.

RS..I used an inflatable disc to get a rear foot target. Started the dog close to it and waited for a rear foot movement...anything at all and clicked...we went quickly from there to moving backwards and hitting the inflatable disc with a rear foot. That progressed to increasing the distance from the their rear feet to the disc and I clicked only for the rear feet moving back and hitting the disc. Snazz tends to want to run back and put his front feet on and step into a 2 on/2off but I only rewarded the stepping back and hitting with rear feet if that makes sense.

Biggest congratulations to Bedazzled and Brookie on their UDX title tonight

Hope there is no headache tomorrow

Have you looked at Dawn Jecs and Choose To Heel??

Thankyou for the brag Ptolomy. It was very sweet, Snazz's first run after being laid off with injury since July....it was ADM and we both had a grin from ear to ear

I think Ptolomy is a happy camper tonight...a win in CCD with Strauss and Open with Cider...Brookie cleaned up in UD as well...awesome handlers and dogs

Be very careful here KTB. In something you can clearly measure like weaves, start lines or contacts, this can work so long as your criteria is clearly defined.

With general handling this becomes much harder to get right. If my dogs miss a jump or take the wrong one, they are never wrong as far as I'm concerned. 99 times out of 100 it is a bad cue I gave or poor timing. To make them think they did the wrong thing when responding to a cue at speed is to make them hesitant and erode the trust they have in me & my handling.

Ditto Vickie.

I take the blame for an incorrect obstacle. An interesting exercise is to go back and re do your sequence but cue the incorrect obstacle to compare how you just handled it when your dog took it "incorrectly". Then try again how you originally planned to run it...and just see how different your cues were or weren't ;)