A-frame box update

We gave it another go with the pvc box on the ground at the agility field today. The problem last time we tried this was that the box disappeared in the grass. So, I attached a little sponge at each corner thinking that would help raise it and make it more visible. Well, while the piddly little sponges make it perfectly visible on the living room carpet, they do next to nothing in the grass. So, back to the drawing board; I'll have to put a few sponges on each corner I guess. Oh and the other problem that we don't have at home on the living room carpet is I can't throw our usual treats in the grass because they disappear and it takes Lucy forever to find them. Ok, so our action plan is to (1) find a way to raise the frame a bit higher off the ground so it doesn't get swallowed up in the grass, and (2) find some large, light-coloured treats for throwing.

As the days get shorter and the end of green fee season starts to approach, I concede that Lucy's frame retraining will not be finished this year. Heck we've barely started it! So, my plan is to really get the groundwork part of it down pat over the fall and winter and next spring be ready to put it to the equipment. Trialing-wise, I'm encouraged by following the current thread on the Clean Run mailing list about Rachel Sanders' pvc box method: it's ok to keep trialing as long as you're still on the groundwork part of it. It's once you start putting the box on the frame that it's a good idea to take some time out from doing frames in trials.

Check out Emily Snider's You Tube videos for some neat footage of her border collie's progress with the pvc box method. Here's her most recent frame training video:

Dogz Advanced trial... in which Lucy has a 100% Q rate!

Ok, so she was entered in only one class. ;-P She ran the Advanced Jumpers course. Didn't put her in the other games because of the frame retraining and not wanting to overdo it with her at trials.

She ran very attentively and stayed with me the whole time, yay! But, her happiness level wasn't at full-on 100% Happy Girl. I'd give her a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 on the Happy scale.

Couple of things I noticed from the video... I rely way too much on the off arm, such as to bring her in after a turn to avoid her running past the next jump... and, holy moly I can't cue a tight turn to save my life. Actually that kind of thing (efficient turns) is the last thing on my mind both when walking a course and running it. But jeez maybe it's time to start eh!

Practice

Quick practice to work on rear crosses in anticipation of possibly wanting to use one or two at tomorrow's Jumpers run. She doesn't really "get" rear crosses because, well, I haven't worked on them much with her. Poor Lucy, always the neglected one. She spun at first but after a bit of work she was picking it up better.

Also, put her through the 12-weaves at the field with the good weaves and she was looking great: excited and happy!

Krazy Kanines fun match

Today was the Krazy Kanines (our agility club)'s first ever fun match. Lucy ran a starters and advanced standard and the starters gamble. I ran her at 16" instead of 22" because, well, just because. It was fun and the bonus is that some photographers took a bunch of photos of everyone and their photos are free to use as we please. So, here are a bunch of Lucy.

Club practice

Tonight for the first time I asked someone to run Lucy for a bit, just to see how she'd do with that. Sure enough, all it took was a bit of pre-run bonding involving a cheese string or two, and she subsequently followed her new handler around like magic. It was neat to have an observer`s perspective on her for a change. She's such a funny dog, so bouncy and happy when she's having fun.

K9 Kup!

This was Lucy's first K9 Kup of the year, having missed the June one due to an ear infection. K9 Kup consists of a series of unsanctioned agility matches held over the summer, with a team-based approach, geared towards novices with all courses at the Starters level. We have a great bunch of teammates so it's really fun :-)

I've been looking forward to running her in K9 Kup because it's a lot easier to not stress myself out too much since each run costs about $3 in contrast to $15+ at a sanctioned trial. So it's easier to really just think of it as a fun outing as opposed to a Q being at stake. So yeah of all of this to say I was hoping that Lucy would appreciate the less stress-inducing vibes from me :-)

First was Jumpers, in the wall-less ring. I led out one obstacle to help with a tricky opening, and she did only a wee bit of sniffing the ground around her while waiting to be released. Then off we went, and she was feeling great! She was with me the whole time and didn't get that stressy look I've come to know, yay! She even came to me as we exited the ring, like she did last summer before the stressiness started, rather than running out by herself (as she did in the following run, Gamblers). I was thrilled that her happy agility face came out for this run. Oh and I really must practice that lead-out thingy, not sure what it's called (not a lead-out pivot... you can see it better on Walter's video...); I was in the wrong place and super late on it with both Lucy and Walter. Hey here`s a brag: Lucy`s time was bested by only a handful of bcs. But the fact that she was running happy is far more important to me :D

Next was Gamblers. My plan kind of went to pieces and I made the mistake of not going with her flow so she started to get that stressy look and our connection kind of went out the window, but at least she didn't go running around aimlessly too much or head for the exit before we were done. She did however run out of the ring by herself at the end, something she typically does when she's had a stressful run. Man it's tough being a dog eh. Especially the dog of a handler who doesn't know what they're doing.

Last was Standard. Another really good run with none of her stress symptoms (other than mild startline stuff), yay! At one point a third of the way through the course had us heading towards the exit gate, and I think I saw her briefly consider exiting as an option, but she chose instead to take the tunnel and keep playing with me, yay!

Sorry for all the yay!s but I am very happy that Lucy was happy in the ring today, back to her old self.

Note, her happy runs (Jumpers and Standard) were the ones that she ran clean in and her not-so-happy run was the one where she deviated from my plan even though it really wouldn't have mattered (Gamblers). I really must learn to go with the flow with her because when she knows she made a mistake is, it seems, when she starts to get stressy.

Frame-wise: I know we probably shouldn't be doing the frame while it's being retrained, so we didn't do it in Gamblers but I let her do it in the Standard. Bad me.

Videos of our runs:

A-frame box update

We've done several sessions in the living room over the last few weeks. The first part went fairly well with C&Ting for going fully in the box, then throwing the treat outside the box. Found it a bit cramped when moving to the part where I stand several feet away from the box in various positions, so we brought it outside. Outside it didn't go so well; after being released from her sitstay she would come to me instead of going to the box. I wonder if part of the problem is that my box doesn't have the riser corners so it kind of disappears in the grass. To fix that I have bought some sponges to put at the corners so it sits a bit higher up. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

Running a-frame, take two!

If I haven't been blogging about Lucy's running frame lately, it's because we haven't been working on it (last running frame practice was mid-May). About the same time as I started with the pool noodle hoop frame back in May, there was a discussion about running contacts on one of the agility lists I'm subscribed to. The age-old debate about the physical effects of running contacts vs 2o2o contacts (on the frame specifically) came to the fore. Someone suggested that perhaps the act of 2o2o was more physically stressful than the act of a running contact, BUT if in the process of obtaining a reliable running contact the dog has to do hundreds if not thousands of repetitions to get the muscle memory thing happening, then in the end which one has more of a potential impact on the dog's wellbeing?

That question got me rethinking Lucy's frame re-training plan, hence our timeout. The hoop thing seems to me to be very much a muscle memory thing, where the dog gets used to lowering their head as they run under the hoop. Not much learning/understanding going on as it relates to the performance of the actual obstacle. I still like the idea of a running frame, but perhaps a different approach should be considered.

Enter the May 2008 edition of Clean Run in my mailbox, featuring a detailed article by Rachel Sanders about her running frame training method. (Click here for an overview of her method.) The more I thought about it, the more I could see the merits of her box method compared to the hoop method. To me the big benefit is it seems to be a concept that the dog can really understand, since unlike the hoop method they're not *forced* by the prop to perform the criteria; rather, either they hit all fours inside the box and get a reward, or they don't hit all fours inside the box and consequently don't get a reward. Also, in her article Rachel recommends doing only four to eight frames per training session and only three to four sessions per week, raising the importance of quality over quantity.

So I finally dragged my butt out to the store this week and bought the pvc to make our a-frame box. Couldn't find the 3-way corners her article mentions , but hopefully that won't make too much difference. Here it is being tested on the frame before gluing it together:

It's great that the article comes with step by step instructions, and I especially love that we can do the first few steps in our living room, especially given all the rainy weather we've been having lately. Looking forward to getting started with it; the glue is drying as I type. :-)

Dogz fun match

Lucy ran the starters standard and starters gamblers course once each.

Standard: I'm trying a different way of starting the course. Instead of having any kind of start line sit, which is where her stressing out begins, we sort of walk around for a few seconds and then just go. Did an easygoing run with lots of praise and treats. She had a couple of sniffy moments but overall seemed fairly content.

Gamblers: Decent run actually, but she's still not back at her excited-and-having-lots-of-fun level of engagement.

In summary, a step in the right direction...

Camping at Sandbanks Provincial Park

Photos of Lucy on her first camping adventure are over on Walter's blog.