Constant Contact

Today's agility spend spend the first part on our contact behavior. We took them over the dogwalk, rewarded a nose touch to the target plate with 2 on 2 off and then a right turn to the A frame and rewarded a down on the ground on a tiny mat after the contact.

Porter is doing very well with these behaviors. I still would like to tighten up his down. He was very straight today, but some classes he pivots so he can turn towards me if I am slightly behind. This will not work as well if we are then heading to an obstacle straight ahead or off to the other side. I have been practicing changing my speed, sometimes being ahead of him slightly and sometimes behind him. My next step is to work on being farther out from the obstacles.

Next we played the bang game with the teeter. The front of the teeter is propped up so the end is only short distance off the ground. You shape the dog to climb on and it drops to the ground as you reward the dog in the right contact position (2 on 2 off on our case). At first the end is only an inch off the ground and you slowly build up on that. We approach the teeter perpendicularly with the dog so our body encourages the dog to hop up and not swing off.

After a quick refresher with the end 6 or so inches off the ground we progressed to the next level where the teeter was mostly parallel to the ground. The front was propped up on the table, so we hopped the dog up, he walked to just past the pivot point, the teeter dropped about 2 feet and we heavily rewarded him right there. Then we let the dog proceed to the end and do his contact behavior and earn more rewards.

I was happy Porter was not fazed in the slightest.

Thankfully we had practiced out weaves this week since we worked more on them today. Porter did as well as he does at home. Mostly amazing at the level is is at, but a few missed entries at the hardest angles.

Last we did a very short sequence. Jump, to a curved tunnel, to a wing jump, then a double. Since I didn't decelerate soon enough Porter even took the panel jump. Good pup for staying on his line and taking the obstacles on that line :) The line continued to his crate so he almost finished his run by dashing inside :) Crate games is really paying off.

Sad part of today is his "friend" Harley, the Viszla, was visiting class today. Harley neutered several weeks ago and I was hoping Porter would stop being a punk with him. No such luck. Porter didn't care if he was near, but once when Harley started coming over to say hi, Porter stared and did a quick, low growl. Ugh. Maybe the hormones have not completely left Harley's system? I can only hope.