Now that I don't have to worry about adding any more height to Zumi's aframe (thanks USDAA!), I need to really start focusing on teaching her turns off the aframe. Well not so much turning tightly as you don't really need tight turns off the aframe, but being able to handle my different positions and not powering straight forward. With Vito this was never an issue but clearly Zumi needs to be actually trained on this. Training, how rare!
I've done a few reps with this at home this last week and thankfully had the great idea to use her pole from the running dogwalk turn training and plop it at the end of the aframe. I wouldn't have initially thought it would be as helpful since she doesn't really need to go as low on the aframe as I want on the dogwalk, but clearly it caused her little lightbulb to turn on! We've had some great success!
This was our first session this week both without the pole at the start for 2 awful reps, then with the pole.
Obedience training has remained the lowest priority although I've made it a bigger focus this last month and hope to continue on that path. Mainly working on fronts and finishes at home and at the club once a week I'm working on adding pace changes to our heeling. Signals and go outs are practiced usually at that time as well. Last weekend I drove for some group ring time to a place Zumi had never been before. She impressed me with her ability to focus immediately. I even got to do some work with other people for leash hand offs and setups and she did x1000 better than I was expecting! Other people are still hard for her but at least with a toy in my hand she knew what to do!
Agility training is pretty much just her weekly class and then another short session on the club that I use for running dogwalk skills and weave poles. For the most part her weaving is going nicely on what is now a closed set of 12. Her biggest challenge is collecting to stay in after making the entrance vs skipping a pole or two. In the spring I hope to do a lot more with with my position and movement as we don't have too much practice with doing crosses after the poles.
RDW training is mostly maintained but I know she will need quite a bit of review in the spring. When excited she wants to take out yet another stride to only hit 4 times and can be too high.
Handling afterwards needs quite a bit more work as well. Recently I've added backside training and this blew her mind. I don't even know how she managed to effortlessly squeeze her body through a jump facing the wall!
Gun Dog training has slowed down the the freezing cold we had recently but was resumed the last two weekends! Working on adding distance to her sends, whistle sits before her toy, and using her winged bumper.
Zumi will mostly take her toy after the wing now, but she much prefers her toy thrown for it vs being able to tug on it! Still, it's progress! This was the first session I did wing vs dokken on a push/pull exercise for marking.
And here are our attempts at a whistle sit to interrupt her toy fetch. We have a good stop now, but her sit seems to have disappeared. I don't know if it's progress or not from our last session having very good sits but having a lot of anticipation on being told to sit out there! Apparently her impulse control at waiting was also much worse this session!
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The first snowflakes of the season :( Bye bye agility equipment. This summer was really the first time I've had my own equipment to practice on. It was so great to be able to teach Zumi's foundations at home.
And having access to a full dogwalk to teach her running contacts was a godsend. I made so many mistakes with Vito's and while I had a rough few weeks in Zumi's training and ended up going all the way back to step 1, she came back strong. I have no doubt that Zumi has a very solid understanding of how to adjust her stride to hit the end of the dogwalk on straight lines. Soft turns are deteriorating some and with Silvia's advice I've gone back to doing really hard 180 turns vs soft 90 degree turns. I can already see the lightbulb going off. Hopefully we can successfully hit the pause button until April.
I officially started Zumi's running dogwalk in May, so 6.5 months of training. This video makes me smile so much!
And the great part is that the aframe really did come for free :) Love Silvia Trkman's method and how it has evolved over the years!
It's almost been a month since Zumi has been at full height on her dogwalk. Progress continues to be made and I am thrilled with where she is at.
At home we're almost 100% on straight exits, with her ball being thrown only after she hits. I can be far behind, I can be way ahead, I can blind cross the exit. She is doing little bits of sequencing before it as well.
Crappy dogwalk pictures that make me happy.
90 degree turns aren't as consistent but for the most part she is always hitting the contact zone now. Just not always as deep of a hit as I want. The biggest challenge right now is getting her to actually listen to my verbals now that a ball is not being pre-placed. Zumi can get fixated with the straight ahead option and ignore my verbals to turn. Repeatedly.
Aframe I'm doing once a week now and it continues to look good. No more scary flying. I met my goal of getting it up to a height usable for class and basically won't be touching it anymore until spring.
Which brings me to Zumi's new agility class! She has done 2 weeks now of her first real group class. I've been nervous, she's been awesome. Even hitting 4 out of 4 dogwalks so far (straight exits)! Also realizing that we need to actually train a rear cross now. And apparently agility startlines are not as solid as obedience stays. Although she was better on class #2 with preemptive shaming :)
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Vito had a working spot at the masters day of the Tracy Sklenar seminar. He was such a good boy! Apparently the days of pulling off obstacles just because he saw me thinking about leaving him are long gone. Tracy kept commenting on his wonderful commitment and how much I trusted to leave him! Vito even let me do a reverse spin from a good 8ft away from the jump! I don't think I've ever turned my back on a send from that far away before!
Vito's speed increased throughout the day as he realized he got his ball on course. But Tracy even had me leave his ball at the startline like I started doing last year to help replicate trials. I am not super consistent about remembering to do that in practice and I need to start doing that every run again.
Loved, loved working Vito at the seminar. Vito has had only a handful of seminars his agility career and it was great to force myself to practice the timing and commitment. None of the "moves" we did were new to me but I can't say I usually practice pushing myself so much. And the reminders of the importance of testing commitment were great to immediately put into action versus having to wait until later and forgetting about it.
Vito had zero off courses all day, although did have a small handful of knocked bars and some "refusals" later on in the day as I tried to push him on wraps. The few dogswalks he did were atrocious though. The first course I wasn't surprised as Vito just doesn't know really tight turns and I would have used his stopped dogwalk in a trial. The second course should have been fine for Vito as it was just a 90 degree left turn. oh well.
Zumi got to play during the lunch break and then again at the end of the day. I primarily worked on the dogwalk with her. During lunch we did maybe 5 dogwalks and all were horrid, although some were in the 42in zone. I just quit. At the end of the day I tried to backchain to a ball and they still sucked. But after about 5 crappy ones from just the mid plank she suddenly decided she knew what to do and then did a few full dogwalks with speed and completely nailed every one.
Zumi got to do agility in public yesterday! Her 2nd time doing agility in front of other people, the first being at a seminar when she was 8 months old. This was also the first time she did agility at this location, and her first time on turf carpet.
I was so proud of her focus! The first run I used a tug toy to ensure she wouldn't do a victory lap. I kinda let Zumi do little victory laps at home so I wouldn't have been surprised or upset if she did one. But the 2nd run I even threw her ball and she came right back to me each time!
I discovered I haven't actually taught Zumi the tire. She did the tire in that little puppy agility class I briefly had her in when she was like 4 months old, but no jumping was involved then and she hasn't done it since.
Zumi kinda remembered the auto down on the table! Another thing I only practice with her every few months as I don't have a table at home.
And she even did the dogwalk! This will be the 3rd dogwalk she's ever been on. The one at my house, the 2nd at the club she just started doing these last 3 weeks since she has been at full height, and now #3. The first run she came off it on the upside to chase after me. I put her back on and she did hit the yellow, but it was fairly high and I don't think it would have been in on a USDAA 36" zone. In run #2 it was much lower and was easily in, although still not quite the criteria I want. Still, I thought her first time at a new location went fantastic!
My handling not the greatest. I haven't actually gotten to "run" Zumi yet on a full course setup. Even with breaking down and rewarding lots I'm just not used to doing a course with her.
Run #1: https://youtu.be/AeWul8ahT28
Run #2:
Vito also got to play for 2 runs at the match. I handled it like the UKI trials I've done FEO at. Warm up with one toy, set it down outside the ring like at a real trial, and have a hidden ball in my pocket he doesn't know about.
First run- happy toller! Rewarded him after the teeter which was actually pretty decent for a "trial" teeter. Then redid the teeter and it was magically the teeter I get in practice- fast and immediately into the 2o2o position.
Then did a stopped dogwalk with him as I hardly ever do that in a trial and it isn't very fast when I do. Because he already got a toy the stopped dogwalk was the same I get in practice :)
2nd run had a fast teeter I verbally praised but didn't reward. Then I rewarded the stopped dogwalk again. And finally I chose to do the dogwalk a 2nd time, but as a running dogwalk. Awesome! First time he has done both running and stopped in the same sequence outside of practice!
Glad Vito got to play. Never enough opportunity to reward him with toys for doing agility in public!
Oh and you guys are killing me with the zero comments to Vito's experiment! Seriously? No one has any words of encouragement or expressions of confusion?
I don't know if I clearly stated that this experiment will be limited to obedience only. Vito will still get toys in agility for 3 reasons.
1) Agility runs are short enough that there is zero reason to really fade the reward.
2) Agility is all about speed. There is no way I will ever get the same drive and speed without external rewards, in agility and in obedience. And since Vito doesn't naturally love to just run, the difference in his speed would be huge, although the process would still be easier in agility versus obedience.
3) Little to gain. Nothing to gain really from my perspective. Agility is postively trained already and most trainers do not have a huge problem getting what they have in practice to what they have in trials. The differences that do exist are more so due to arousal differences than the lack of reward, for most dogs anyway.
Wimped out today and turned on the heat. Sadness. And the clock continues to tick on outdoor training time.
Zumi progressed to a full height dogwalk recently and is continuing to do really well! Even added a tunnel under the dogwalk without any issue. Today's session was very odd though with her striding. She was much more comfortable the last 2 sessions than today, but cool to see how hard she's trying to hit nicely.
Remaining dogwalk checklist includes:
Fading the toy she currently watches being tossed after a hoop about 20ft past the end of the dogwalk. At one point I was sending Zumi to a tunnel afterwards and then throwing the ball and that wasn't a problem so I'm not expecting too much difficulty with throwing the toy after she does the obstacle.
Better turns. Turn training isn't as great as I want her to hit right now. But still x1000 better than Vito.
Actually listening to verbal cues of go vs left/right. I expect major difficulties with this. Right now the ball tells her where to go and if she forgets I threw the ball to the left/right she goes straight despite my body language and verbal pleading to turn.
Tunnel/Dogwalk discrimination. Right now she defaults strongly to dogwalk which is helpful. But even if I'm physically in the way she does not want to go in the tunnel.
Aframe!
I started the aframe this past weekend. Quickly raised from 3ft to 5ft. Even with less than 2 feet of starting room she was sailing over the apex raise to crazy. Today I gave her about 5ft of room to start. I have no plans to move it higher than 5ft for quite awhile. Zumi had her 3rd lesson today and is still unsure of how to use her body on it. First send terrifying 1 hit on the entire aframe. And then it rightfully scared her so she was much more thoughtful after that.
Zumi and I are enjoying taking Silvia Trkman's online foundation class right now. Very good to work things other than her running dogwalk these last 6 weeks. Only half way through class but with frost already on the ground in the morning, I know we don't have much time left to practice before practice at home is impossible.
Last lesson was working extension to collection:
And now I'm primarily going to be focusing on her running dogwalk again. If possible, I really want to get it to full height before the snow hits and all contact training postponed till next May. I can get Zumi into her first agility class this winter but I won't actually be able to train contacts in a class. And all classes I could get her in need full height contacts. I can skip obstacles and reward as often as needed, but I really don't want to skip half of class all winter!
Getting close though!
So far this whole in heat thing has been a non event. Granted she's not at the "flagging" stage yet, but my boys haven't given Zumi a second glance the last 6 days.
Zumi's been a tad extra clingy and wanting to lay on me in very awkward positions, but other than that she's been normal.
Slowly raising her dogwalk height, up to 2.5ft now. Only thing she seems to be struggling on right now are tight call to hand turns. I also stopped doing the speed approaches to the dogwalk so she's forced to add in an extra stride.
More running across a plank video:
And yesterday I started teaching Zumi how to hold a food item. Started with a wrapped string cheese. Zumi was starting to do it but was pissed that she wasn't getting cheese as her reward too and started spitting out her food. I wouldn't have minded giving her cheese reward but I only had one stick with me.
Zumi still loves me! Soft turns were started on her running dogwalk training without much of an issue so far. Considering I never got Vito to hit as deep as I wanted on soft turns this is a big deal for me!
Much improvement with Zumi's running dogwalk work. It was a brutal last 2 weeks as we dropped all the way back to 2 flat planks and yet Zumi was still not getting the concept of targeting the last 30in or so of the board. If anything we had purposeful flying over the lava zone. Partly complicated by her toy switching issue. But sadly not all blame went on that ( And then miraculously she threw me a bone and decided to go back to running normally. And even started to do some little stride adjustments to hit!
So we went back to the baby dogwalk height and started backchaining that again. Only one lesson so far with it. You can see we have done the tiniest bit of turn training on it too.
Hopefully future sessions will show greater improvement when we keep adding speed.
In Zumi's channel weave training she has progressed to finding the entrance from almost anywhere, with speed on the approach. Starting work now on adding in my movement pulling away or crossing. It's not too hard for her since the channel is still fully open so running through only takes about a second. Thinking I'll fade the toy being thrown ahead and do some rewarding from my hand now before I make the channel smaller. Weaves are the thing I practice the least with Zumi so it might be awhile before our next progression.
Nope, I guess I didn't fix Zumi's new toy switching issue after all. She's not blowing off the toy nearly as much but still doing quite a bit of air sniffing and now running slower.
I finally figured out that the sudden issue with her running dogwalk training is stemming from this toy switching preference. Zumi's running bouncier and slightly less in extension because she simply doesn't care as much for the toy I'm throwing after 2 throws. Before this epiphany came to me I recently dismantled my dogwalk again and went all the way back to step 1- 2 boards flat on the ground. But I suppose why we work on the toy issue it's good to be at the easiest level possible.
And in other news I signed Zumi up for a working spot in Silvia's online foundation agility class! Silvia is my hero of the agility world and I've always wanted to try a class with her. Some structure would be good for me to start working Zumi on more than just running on a plank after a ball :)
And of course for those obedience/rally people out there, there is still room in MY online Ring Confidence class that started today!
Started Zumi's first several sessions of channel weave poles this month. Going to be taking it slow and no real weaving action for several more months yet. But in the meantime we will work entries and independence. Zumi is excited about any learning that involves running full speed! The girl certainly has no issues with driving ahead towards the reward line.
Running dogwalk training kinda resumes. I did some experimentation with reward throwing time and pre placing the reward and didn't find much to go on. Zumi has learned not to put her cape on and fly but it still boils down to having no clue that she is to adjust her stride to aim for the end of the board yet. So I might go back to the board completely flat, and actually use 2 boards on the ground and just see if I can get that concept in. I didn't have any criteria when we are on the flat stage previously other than no leaping. Mainly assuming that she would get it as we went through jackpot training the best hits and using starting placement to help her out. But it hasn't happened. But I decided in the meantime I'll also go back to grafting the plank onto a full dogwalk and work on raising the height. Zumi has done extremely well with that setup, it was just adding in the speed of the full dogwalk that she couldn't get.
Scent article training has been dying down. Losing commitment, on my end. Zumi is at the point where I'm having a mixed article pile with me sitting in front of the pile. Accuracy is fairly high and only rarely does she get grabby now.
Obedience fronts are coming along pretty well. Not sure that I'm sold on my experimentation, but I'm moving onto my next step. I've recently stopped allowing her to shove her face between my legs and have been locking up. We're getting some accuracy and surprisingly also fading the physical contact faster than I thought.
Trick training has resumed! Working on a few new tricks for the first time in several weeks if not months. Starting penguin, wrapping in a blanket, and clean up.
Still struggling with Zumi's running dogwalk training. I counted and I've been at the same setup for 16 sessions, about 3 weeks. Previously the plank was grafted to the full DW and was actually at a bit taller height before I lowered the full dogwalk to half height to work on speed. I knew this stage would be hard, I just didn't expect to be here for so long.
Trying to do 3 styles of rewards for the Duck.
1. No reward other than getting to bring me back the ball I threw for obvious jumping.
2. Small reward of light praise and maybe a little tugging for striding over, but not superwoman feats.
3. Jackpot of huge praise, tugging, and recently letting her run victory laps with the toy for nice hits. Zumi likes to run a bit lap and then usually likes to come back over the dogwalk with the toy in her mouth. Those hits are actually usually pretty nice! But slower obviously as she's not driving towards something.
This was our session Saturday afternoon. Starting her very close to the end most of the time, any further out and the rate of jumping goes even higher than it already is.
Zumi is a week shy of the 9 month mark. Growing up so nicely. And a little crazy.
No weight gain this last month and I don't think she's gotten any taller. 28lbs and just under 19in tall.
Must be slouching as I swear she looks pretty close to Vito's height.
Scent article training continues to go well and I continue to be committed to practicing a few times a week. She finally did her first mixed pile successfully! I've tried it a few times with her and she was too grabby not actually thinking. We're getting there.
Just starting to add in a sit to her heelwork. I'm happy with her rear end movement so I figured it's about time. Luring it to ensure straightness and preventing a rock back.
Running contact training stalled as predicted. Zumi just can't do the full length half height dogwalk. Dones her cape and flies!!! Does have a 100% rate though if I start her almost anywhere on the middle plank vs on the ground. Am going to attempt to put stuff under the planks to see if it's too wobbly.
For tricks I've been re-visiting hind leg lifts and working on a supported handstand. Also working on adding duration to her beg.
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The journey continues! Took an unplanned full week off her RDW training but picked up right where we left off. After the last blog post I guessed we would be at that height for while. I was wrong as the 2 later sessions that week both went fantastic. Almost no jumping being done, and only a few extended strides over the zone! This Monday I raised it a teeny bit at the end, and Tuesday we started with the new height and then moved it up again the last 2 reps.
More excitement of a dog running a plank.
I would think we have to be at baby dogwalk height now, so the plan is to do another session at the newest height and then re-attach the board to the dogwalk and lower the whole thing to 2ft. Backchain it slowly until she's doing the full baby dogwalk. I know the added speed will destroy everything she's learned, so fun times ahead! Vito never got to do this step and I suspect it will be super painful for me as well as very beneficial in the long run.
Running dogwalk training continues. I've been proud of myself for being a little more committed this last week. I think I got 3 quick sessions in and a little bit longer one today. A few big leaps, more extending her stride so she skips the end, and a few nice hits. Zumi gets the toy every time but it's either followed by lots of praise and tugging or just sending her back on up.
Since some of you expressed interested in the excitement of watching dog run over a plank, here was Zumi's session today with a little break somewhere in the middle. I suspect we will be at this height for awhile.
Zumi had her first 2 "bad" running dogwalk sessions. I knew it would be coming eventually, the first hurdle of many, many ups and downs in the process. Since we've only been doing it about x2/wk she just hasn't had that many sessions in since we started slightly over a month ago so thus the delay.
In her fairness Zumi has absolutely zero clue that there is criteria now. She's just excited she gets a thrown toy! And on the big positive side, Zumi's not really jumping, but she is over extending that last stride now. Lowering the board slightly helped a bit so I'll keep it at that height for awhile. I also think it was worse than previously since these were the first sessions I grafted the board onto the full size dogwalk versus being propped up on the ground or grafted onto the lowered dogwalk. The increased angle between the full height board and the grafted board resulted in Zumi doing a little jump onto the plank from her start position. Since I don't have anything around that can prop it up to about knee high on the ground I'm going to continue the grafted setup and just try starting Zumi very close to the plank instead of further back on the actual dogwalk.
I was thinking about Vito's running contacts recently and how much I screwed up that initial training. But persistence paid off. Over a year ago Vito did maybe x1 running dogwalk session a week mixed in with sequence practice. And then I lost that open ring time and it's been almost a year now since Vito has had any weekly dogwalk practice. Owning a dogwalk is very new and I still need to better apply the rubber material so Vito hasn't done much with it at home yet.
Looking over his trial records Vito missed only 1 DW contact in 2014, none in 2013 and only 2 in 2012. Of course I know there were some in there that would have been misses in NADAC if it were a 36in zone versus the 42in. In general the faster Vito goes the deeper the hits, so we certainly have had many in trials I wasn't excited about. It just feels so much more carefree about training Zumi's knowing that it will come. And of course I can always turn it into a stop ;)
Zumi turned 7 months old last week. Almost the same size as Vito although she still seems a lot smaller. 28lbs and about 18.5in tall.
Continuing scent article training. Cookies for me! Zumi is doing fairly well with the training. Since I was able to start applying only a smear of food on the correct article on the very first rep each session, I made the jump to no food on the article on Saturday night. Zumi promptly grabbed the wrong one. I chose to handle errors by grabbing the article, asking her to sit, and then calmly giving her a cookie for sitting. My main goal was to interrupt the wrong behavior, get her to be calm before the next rep, and keep her in the game with a cookie but seen as very different than my parties for the correct article. On day #1 of the new plan it worked as Zumi grabbed wrong twice, but then was able to think and scent out the correct article on all future reps. On day #2 of the plan it did not go so well. Zumi grabbed wrong x3 in a row, the same article each time, so I removed it from the pile (of 3 total). With the 50/50 chance she still grabbed wrong on that 4th send so after getting a cookie for the sit I went back to food on the article. One smear of food and she was correct on all future sends, no reapplying of food. I really dislike scent article training, but the process is fascinating!
I think I did 2 or 3 more sessions of running dog walk training this last week as well. Moved from a completely flat board to being raised about 6in or so. Still rewarding absolutely everything right now. Just getting Zumi comfortable with the setup and seeing if she will run the same style on the plank as she will on the ground. I rested the board on a tipped over trashcan and it does wobble a little bit but I'm hoping it will be OK before I have to think about switching setups.
Some slightly older pics from the first week of May when Summer was actually here. I am sure it will return.
Zumi's a good swimmer. Thank God! Now if only Vito could learn to paddle his back legs instead of looking like he's drowning. Zumi managed to steal the toy from Vito every time.
In just over a week Zumi will be 7 months old. Seven months always seems like a big age for me. No longer an uncoordinated little puppy.
Her interest in food is still on the lower end, but not as bad as the re-sudden increase that marked her 6 month birthday. I can usually get her to work for her food in public if I make the presentation more fun to start with- moving it around and having her chase it.
I can't say that I did all that much training the last few weeks but I'm a sudden surge of motivation again. Resumed many of her in progress tricks such as hind leg lifts, backward circles, and hugging.
Also have been pretty good about her go out training and Zumi is now pretty eager to run ahead and bop her nose to a solid barrier. I went back to a bit shorter distances though to work on more strength, but I'm most happy that Zumi seems to understand the concept of going straight-ish versus running to the last spot that was rewarded. If I move down the wall every 5ft she is fairly good about going to the new correct spot.
Resumed front training. Not quite sure what method I'm using, more of an introduction to different things. Luring her for little pivots and side steps. Her platform. Chair fronts.
And I recommitted myself to scent article training with Zumi. This time with a plea to facebook for others to train and shame me if I stop doing it several times a week.
Biggest fun factor is I started running contact training this week!!! I got my dogwalk recently, something I've been wanting for years. Zumi's first 3 lessons have just been about running on a flat plank towards a toy. Basically zero criteria yet other than stay on the board. I put up some guide sticks to help her but I'm not sure she needs them anymore after the first 2 lessons. So far her running looks good, but then again I wasn't expecting any difficulty with zero height.
She likes to do a naughty victory lap with her toy before bringing it to me still.
Vito's having fun running over it at a low height. Actually it's the first time he's actually done real training on a dogwalk in over a year versus just running it in sequences in our weekly class.
Haven't done hardly any other agility training with Zumi since quitting the puppy class. Occasionally we do some sends and wraps around a wing to chasing me. Zumi has fairly good commitment and I can continue my forward motion for a 360 wrap pretty well.
This blog is about life with my 3 dogs. It's mainly to keep track of my training with the dogs and my exploration into the world of competitive obedience, agility, disc dog, and trick training. We reside outside of Minneapolis, MN.
Train With Me!
I offer online private lessons, online group classes, and in person lessons! Find out more by visiting my official training page, Tandem Dog Sports
Fenzi Dog Sport Academy
Lance the Corgi
Lance is my first dog, born April 2007. We faced early retirement due to an injury but Lance enjoyed playing in obedience, rally, and agility. He got me hooked on dog sports.
(photo by Sarah Beth Photography)
Vito the Toller
Vito was born on Halloween 2008. We currently compete in agility and are slowly making our way back to the obedience ring. Vito is making me into a better trainer every step of the way.
(Photo by Great Dane Photography)
Zumi the Duck
Born October 2014, Zumi is adventuring into the agility world and competitive obedience. We are working on some over arousal issues!
Luke the Kitty
Luke is a 10yr old kitty who finds his greatest joy in tormenting Lance. He also loves to wrestle with the fosters, cuddle with his tollers, and steal as much food as possible through trash can raiding and chewing holes in pockets.
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