Agility Contacts and Weaves

Porter is really coming along in his agility training.

His contacts are not done yet, but they are looking really nice. I have noticed that we need to help him generalize. At his normal agility class he does that perfectly, and even without his targets. I am making sure I am changing up what my body is doing when he hits his contacts so he's not cueing off of me and I am building up a good lateral distance. But at his new agility location his behavior is not as precise. Not only are we on a new field but the ground is dirt instead of grass. Over the weeks he's gotten better but there is still a discrepancy.

We are also coming along with his weave poles. He's starting to be able to do a set of 4 now! Sometimes he want so skip the first set and do the second only, so we are working on that and it's getting better. we are also working on his drive since he's so slow!!! It's weird since everywhere else he's speedy, but in my training I've accidentally trained him to be slow :(

My friends have been raving about this new agility instructor so I decided to give her a try. It doesn't hurt that she's only 15 minutes away and no freeway driving!! Her location is awesome. She has a huge agility field on her property which is fully fenced. She also has an area the size of my backyard which is fenced in for the dogs to potty and run around off leash. I can back my car right up tot he edge of the field and keep Porter crated in the car which is great. He's much less barky that way.

So far, I really like J! Her style is very different different from G so I have to retrain myself a little bit. J competes in NADAC with her Border Collies and handles from a distance.  G does less distance with with her dogs, but since her dogs are slower and the venues she competes in don't need as much distance handling it works for her. She does have a BC pup now so it will be interesting to see how this dog will need to the handled.

G likes us to not use many verbal cues but mostly our body to communicate where we want the dog to go. I totally get this. Dogs are more in turn to body language anyhow. And this way, she says when you do need to use your voice the dog will pay attention since you haven't been babbling at him the whole course.

J uses a lot of verbal cues for her dogs, for the obstacles as well as which way to turn, to go out further, and so on. This has been hard for me since I'm used to being quiet. But, I have seen that giving Porter an early verbal cue to go into the tunnel has really helped him. I've been able to work him from a farther distance whereas before I'd have to go with him almost all the say to the entrance to the tunnel. I still need to work on giving him that information early enough though. I'm used to him not committing until the last minute so I typically wait to show him where to go next or he'll pull off an obstacle or drop a bar. But he's getting better at this so I need to catch myself up with him and handle him better.

J is very willing to alter things for me when what she does conflicts with what G does. That's been a big help.

Another thing I like about J is she gives you so much feedback on what to change, what you did that caused the dog to do what he did, etc. She is really paying attention and catches everything and has no problem calling you out on something. I love it!! I want all that constructive criticism. I want to be told (over and over again if needed) that I dropped my hand too soon or my feet were pointing in the wrong direction, or I was too late cueing him where to go next. I don't get offended. I need that info to grow in my handling. If Porter drops a bar, I want to know why. If he missed an obstacle I was trying to have him take I want to know what to change for next time to help him. It's always something the handler is doing.

Today several dogs took the wrong obstacle when they needed to discriminate between the two and I loved that J told the handles to just go with it, because the dog was just doing what their body told them to do. The dog was not wrong. The handler miscommunicated to the dog. So don't punish the dog; don't demotivate him. He did what you asked...just just asked the wrong thing.

Right now I am seeing both trainers but I'll probably need make a choice and go with just one. Mostly because the husband says I do (it'll get costly going to two classes at once), but also because some of the small differences might be hard to mesh.

But for this month I'm still attending both classes and learning so much!