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What does everyone have going on this week??
Training plans for the week of January 29-February 4
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the only thing on our agenda is our 1/2 hour agility private lesson on Wednesday. Other than that, we're slacking off.
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I need to mail something in this week so we have something to do next month.
This week I really need to pick up where I left off with go-outs outside. I went outside today to train them, but egad. We were having a little blizzard. I used that as an excuse to go for a walk instead and then sit in our backyard (there's a sheltered area out of the wind) and watched Jacks chew on sticks in the snow.
At class (Monday and Wednesday), I want to get extra practice on figure 8s - especially working on footwork. I think I'm walking all over the place to avoid bumping. I also want to get to class early enough on Wednesday to work on signals and go-outs.
This is random, but I had a chuckle when I pulled down my filing box to find some necessary paperwork and I came across some old vet bills...
Jacks was 40 lbs at 17 weeks? I was thinking about some of the threads here on GRF about puppy weights. Heehee. At least he only gained 38-40 lbs since then.
This week I really need to pick up where I left off with go-outs outside. I went outside today to train them, but egad. We were having a little blizzard. I used that as an excuse to go for a walk instead and then sit in our backyard (there's a sheltered area out of the wind) and watched Jacks chew on sticks in the snow.
At class (Monday and Wednesday), I want to get extra practice on figure 8s - especially working on footwork. I think I'm walking all over the place to avoid bumping. I also want to get to class early enough on Wednesday to work on signals and go-outs.
This is random, but I had a chuckle when I pulled down my filing box to find some necessary paperwork and I came across some old vet bills...
Jacks was 40 lbs at 17 weeks? I was thinking about some of the threads here on GRF about puppy weights. Heehee. At least he only gained 38-40 lbs since then.
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can I join this group? Pup comes home Wednesday. I know general training, housebreaking etc should be posted in puppy forum, but since my hopes for this boy is obedience trialing and as soon as the little bugger gets home I will start training him basic commands and puppy k soon, I'm hoping this is the place to be for those kind of plans. Getting a little nervous, our routine here has been so settled with adult dogs for a long time, hope this little fella doesn't throw us all in a tailspin.
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Oh you totally belong in this group, also the hunt and field one, as I know you will begin laying the foundation immediately for his obedience career!
You will probably go through a short period of "my God, what did I do??" when he first gets home. I did with each of mine! Then after a little while I enjoyed them so much I got over that feeling.
You will probably go through a short period of "my God, what did I do??" when he first gets home. I did with each of mine! Then after a little while I enjoyed them so much I got over that feeling.
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I think I still am two and a half years later LOL
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I'm training... I fixed up an Excel spreadsheet of all the different trials by several organizations (AKC, ASCA, UKC) in my area for the year so I'd stay motivated (have to keep training so we're ready in time for X show! LOL). Sometimes it's hard to be motivated when I have several months 'til the first obedience trial. Working inside on articles this week, reviewing the utility stand and signals, can't do too much else on crutches at the moment.
We had a match (our very first) yesterday. I learned a ton and was pretty impressed with my little goof. Found some stuff to work on though! Our stand for exam is no good...lots of work there!
I have been on a quest to get my dog to play with ME! He loves toys, so when we interact his first instinct is to run off and bring a toy to mom. So, we've been playing with jump touches, thru the legs, pinch and run away, etc. He is a very serious dog and right now thinks this is a bunch of nonsense. He also gets over threshold and tooooooo mouthy when I initiate more physical play. So, we are trying to work up to it. I am also "conditioning" petting/scratching. He does not see this as a reward, so I am doing a fun message (he does like his bum scratched!), click/treat just when he starts to loosen up and then we run off to go do another exercise. Hopefully I am on the right track??
We've got agility Wed night and a building rental on Thursday. Our mission is clear handling on my part to avoid frustration on his part. He hates when I mess up and argues with me, which in turn makes me all flustered. We've been trying to do "zen agility" lol.
Oh, and we have a rally trial in a few weeks. Gotta start stringing together all those exercises!
I have been on a quest to get my dog to play with ME! He loves toys, so when we interact his first instinct is to run off and bring a toy to mom. So, we've been playing with jump touches, thru the legs, pinch and run away, etc. He is a very serious dog and right now thinks this is a bunch of nonsense. He also gets over threshold and tooooooo mouthy when I initiate more physical play. So, we are trying to work up to it. I am also "conditioning" petting/scratching. He does not see this as a reward, so I am doing a fun message (he does like his bum scratched!), click/treat just when he starts to loosen up and then we run off to go do another exercise. Hopefully I am on the right track??
We've got agility Wed night and a building rental on Thursday. Our mission is clear handling on my part to avoid frustration on his part. He hates when I mess up and argues with me, which in turn makes me all flustered. We've been trying to do "zen agility" lol.
Oh, and we have a rally trial in a few weeks. Gotta start stringing together all those exercises!
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Mixed bag today.... >,<
Focus exercises before heeling - I hates these, just fyi. Going into the ring and getting my dog's attention is a lot easier than holding his attention while somebody is bobbing and weaving around us and quacking like a duck near his ears.
Heeling was fine. I felt pretty confident and happy about how my dog was moving and focusing... and then the instructor introduced a side step (2 sides steps) right on every left turn. Jacks' front half remained in heel, but he wasn't tucking his butt in. So we flunked those. I won't make any excuses, but this probably would have been easier if it were one of us at a time doing these across the middle of the room. How do you side step (2 times) when there is agility equipment half a step to your right and you have to come to a half halt waiting for the people in front of you to complete their sidesteps and move on? :bowl:
Marks - We actually have been doing these for a very long time... got pulled over to the side to be shown how to do them. I let it go because we actually can use some brushing up I guess. The only problem was I felt weird about asking if she could help me do multiple marks with him. He does them fine for the most part, except if I do multiple targets with treats and he knows I'm loading a second target while his back is turned, and moves too FAST + gets a reward for breaking away towards that loaded target without being sent. Ack. You can see the holes in my education where these are concerned.
Figure 8's - He did good, except it was kinda weird. I didn't want to be rude so I went with it, but I did the 8's with one person who is mondo advanced and somebody who is a newbie from agility. The advanced person assumed I was very new at figure 8's and took a teaching role with both me and the other girl. She kept having me go around and around because she wanted to see my circles (we did good). And the other girl did 8's for a good 5 minutes I swear. It took a very long time. So that by the time we did stands, they were essentially plopping the jumps down around us because everyone else in class had moved on.
Stands - cwappy. They were banging jumps into place and dropping broad jump boards down, so Jacks was creeping and crawling all over. I didn't push it. I'll clean up the stands this week.
Fronts - Oh gawd. The instructor had two of us go out at the same time. The instructor told the other person to call their dog. I wasn't looking, thought she meant me. I called my dog and he did the straightest front ever. The instructor didn't hear my call, thought he broke the wait. She told me to go back and had me work on wait-proofing. We got extra front practice, so I let it go. Second front, he actually broke that time. Third front, she told me to call my dog. I waited ten seconds before calling him. Instructor wasn't paying attention and thought I'd called my dog when she told me to and had to do a "second" call. So she came down to talk to me about what to do about dogs who don't come on the first call, never mind that I will never have a problem about that with this dog. I stopped her short and explained to her that I had been training my dog, etc. I hate butting heads with people, so I was left feeling cwappy about fronts over this. Even though he did them very good. Straight fronts each time. Yay!
Dumbbells - Thank you again to everyone who gave me tips on what to do to stop the pouncing. For right now I am scooting over to the side of the room where there is junk on the side (if I throw short) and there is agility junk straight ahead (if I throw long). He did clean pick ups each time.
Jumps - He did these great.
Afterwards there was time, so I did a little extra on my own...
Signals - he did perfect.
Drop -
I did the three drops in a row on the way to me. He did this perfect.
When I did a more full length drop call, he did two dumb things -
1. he sat instead of going down
2. he took two extra steps before going down and I'm convinced he only did so because I kept my arm up.
Stays - he didn't break his stays. But I'm still helping him a lot. It's ridiculous that I can put him in a stay while I'm doing 10 minutes of figure 8s with other people and stands, with my back turned to him, etc... but when I'm facing him I have to remind him from time to time to stay. >.<
I came home and decided to do a couple go-outs just because we didn't do them at class and we worked on everything else. I need to go back to working on these every single day. He was going out and DROPPING into a down when I told him sit. I got a couple perfect sits and quit on a good note, but geez.!
^^^^
Thanks for letting me vent.
I love obedience training and I actually do like this instructor.
Focus exercises before heeling - I hates these, just fyi. Going into the ring and getting my dog's attention is a lot easier than holding his attention while somebody is bobbing and weaving around us and quacking like a duck near his ears.
Heeling was fine. I felt pretty confident and happy about how my dog was moving and focusing... and then the instructor introduced a side step (2 sides steps) right on every left turn. Jacks' front half remained in heel, but he wasn't tucking his butt in. So we flunked those. I won't make any excuses, but this probably would have been easier if it were one of us at a time doing these across the middle of the room. How do you side step (2 times) when there is agility equipment half a step to your right and you have to come to a half halt waiting for the people in front of you to complete their sidesteps and move on? :bowl:
Marks - We actually have been doing these for a very long time... got pulled over to the side to be shown how to do them. I let it go because we actually can use some brushing up I guess. The only problem was I felt weird about asking if she could help me do multiple marks with him. He does them fine for the most part, except if I do multiple targets with treats and he knows I'm loading a second target while his back is turned, and moves too FAST + gets a reward for breaking away towards that loaded target without being sent. Ack. You can see the holes in my education where these are concerned.
Figure 8's - He did good, except it was kinda weird. I didn't want to be rude so I went with it, but I did the 8's with one person who is mondo advanced and somebody who is a newbie from agility. The advanced person assumed I was very new at figure 8's and took a teaching role with both me and the other girl. She kept having me go around and around because she wanted to see my circles (we did good). And the other girl did 8's for a good 5 minutes I swear. It took a very long time. So that by the time we did stands, they were essentially plopping the jumps down around us because everyone else in class had moved on.
Stands - cwappy. They were banging jumps into place and dropping broad jump boards down, so Jacks was creeping and crawling all over. I didn't push it. I'll clean up the stands this week.
Fronts - Oh gawd. The instructor had two of us go out at the same time. The instructor told the other person to call their dog. I wasn't looking, thought she meant me. I called my dog and he did the straightest front ever. The instructor didn't hear my call, thought he broke the wait. She told me to go back and had me work on wait-proofing. We got extra front practice, so I let it go. Second front, he actually broke that time. Third front, she told me to call my dog. I waited ten seconds before calling him. Instructor wasn't paying attention and thought I'd called my dog when she told me to and had to do a "second" call. So she came down to talk to me about what to do about dogs who don't come on the first call, never mind that I will never have a problem about that with this dog. I stopped her short and explained to her that I had been training my dog, etc. I hate butting heads with people, so I was left feeling cwappy about fronts over this. Even though he did them very good. Straight fronts each time. Yay!
Dumbbells - Thank you again to everyone who gave me tips on what to do to stop the pouncing. For right now I am scooting over to the side of the room where there is junk on the side (if I throw short) and there is agility junk straight ahead (if I throw long). He did clean pick ups each time.
Jumps - He did these great.
Afterwards there was time, so I did a little extra on my own...
Signals - he did perfect.
Drop -
I did the three drops in a row on the way to me. He did this perfect.
When I did a more full length drop call, he did two dumb things -
1. he sat instead of going down
2. he took two extra steps before going down and I'm convinced he only did so because I kept my arm up.
Stays - he didn't break his stays. But I'm still helping him a lot. It's ridiculous that I can put him in a stay while I'm doing 10 minutes of figure 8s with other people and stands, with my back turned to him, etc... but when I'm facing him I have to remind him from time to time to stay. >.<
I came home and decided to do a couple go-outs just because we didn't do them at class and we worked on everything else. I need to go back to working on these every single day. He was going out and DROPPING into a down when I told him sit. I got a couple perfect sits and quit on a good note, but geez.
!^^^^
Thanks for letting me vent.
I love obedience training and I actually do like this instructor.
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Holy Moly, you worked on A LOT!! I just worked on 2o2o contacts on the stairs, and the contact board!
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Keep in mind I haven't really worked on anything since last Weds or Thurs.
So if you've been working on something every day, that's better than me.
One of the tests for focus exercises =
The trainer putting the dog in a wait and telling the dog to watch, this while the trainer has a toy in each hand. The trainer either drops or tosses both toys and the dog is supposed to maintain watch.
Jacks maintained his watch while another trainer tossed her toys aside, but I think if I had them in my hands it would have been a much different matter.
I remember when he was a puppy and I had to drop wadded paper balls. I hated that. We flunked that test every single time. :bowl:
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I'm going to have no excuses when I get home. It's BEAUTIFUL out!!!! I went out to do errands/lunch and didn't need my coat. My computer says 48 degrees outside, but it feels balmy.
Is everyone else getting nice winter-warmup weather and hopefully traversing outside to enjoy it with their dogs... and getting training done at the same time?
Is everyone else getting nice winter-warmup weather and hopefully traversing outside to enjoy it with their dogs... and getting training done at the same time?
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Well....., since I am a very open, and honest person, I have to admit that I have only trained obedience one time(my private) in the last 3 weeks:uhoh:. I have however found myself an agility instructor, and have a lesson in just over 1 weeks time!! I am very excited to go back to training agility, maybe this time, I will actually trial!!Keep in mind I haven't really worked on anything since last Weds or Thurs.
So if you've been working on something every day, that's better than me.
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BOTH!! I am VERY excited!!! Rivet was actually started on agility, before competitive obedience, and he absolutely loves it! Filly has had some training in classes, and privates as well, but not nearly the extent Rivet has.Who are you going to be working in agility? Filly?
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*annoyed*
I received a March premium for a local trial (20-30 minutes away from home) and got all hyped up when I saw that the entry fees were only $19/first entry and $16/second entry for Rally.
So I went crazy printing it up and started filling it out....
But then I saw that it's on a Friday..... Erk. Do they think that obedience people are all retirees? Geez.
I received a March premium for a local trial (20-30 minutes away from home) and got all hyped up when I saw that the entry fees were only $19/first entry and $16/second entry for Rally.
So I went crazy printing it up and started filling it out....
But then I saw that it's on a Friday..... Erk. Do they think that obedience people are all retirees? Geez.
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We have our agility private lesson in about an hour or so. I'm real curious to see how he does. We did field training this morning, but I did take it easy on him, only ran him on a couple of doubles and a couple of blinds, so hopefully he's not too tired.
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