Agility Season ending

25.11.2012 was our last agility competitions for this year. It went pretty well and got back tough to better runs. Louise was 4th/65. which is pretty good for perro that is only 3 mm from medium class. Pixie did four nice runs, but I did some handling errors. I have some times mix the dogs in handling and it really gets in to trouble. But I'm learning...Louise is very handler focused and Pixie is very obstacle focused. When I realized this difference, it really changed my way of choosing handling maneuvers to each dog. Janita had to tell me it. I had seen the difference in my mind but just couldn't but finger on the real problem. This learning curve is still on going progress.. But here are videos from our last competition for season 2012:

We have lots things to do on agility brake. Need work on faster contacts, handling techniques, my work on course, how to make better handling choices and so on. This is why love this sport. You can't never be ready. Agility is a life long journey of learning and wonderful times!!!

Obedience training and competition

We have training and training obedience. My is to get OB Champion titles to both dogs. Since the last competition we have working with Pixie with eikka problem (changing handler during OB training). She has done pretty well have some disturbance training. She has done recall from different angels so that there are people between Pixie and I. After few time of training she finally started to come to me. With square recall I ran after recall and that worked like charm to get Pixie come to me.

Louise has been on brake for 6 months in obedience. She hasn't done any retrieving trials even though makes ten point retrieves at practice. So started to train Louise few weeks before the trial. Every time I used someone elses retrieve object. Louise worked really well every time so I decided to enter her trial.

Here is the high light from the ob-trial in 10.11.2012:





Some work to do... But both dogs worked really well! So new trial comming up!! Hopefully we will get nice 1st prize results!!!

Direction and obedience

Yet again I find myself training more OB than agility. Oh well, both dogs are going to compete on Saturday  Louise in OB4 and Pixie OB3. It's going to very exiting!

Last Saturday I did do some running dogwalk work with Pixie. She has wonderful in blank work. I need start doing it on raised dog walk again. My goal is to have 2on2off and running dog with word discrimination.   We will see in the future how still will end up.

We also did some cik/cap work. I changes cip command to tik. Cip was just too close to our contact work kii. Yet again Pixie got he repeat mode on and really trouble of getting anything right... She just jumped jumped... I did fine solution to use leas for while in the woods, just to get her concentrate. It took just few right and calm repeats and we had nice turning in correct directions. Still we have lot to do, but she has done nice job going round object with directions commands.

On Saturday we also did some work in OB. Pixie did winner class parts. Recall had new troubles. Pixie didn't want come on first call. I had do it again few times to get her going. She also got up on the first round. In the end we got nice recall with stops and extra person standing near the line. Pixie didn't do eikkas... :D

In square Pixie did some early starts, so I had took her back once. But most importantly she came to me! Not to other person standing on the way. Both retrieves where nice. Metal object is still really nasty thing. I have tried to make her more keen to it by giving speed retrieves with only metal object. Hopefully it will pay back some day!!

On Monday Pixie did the whole winner class. She did it pretty well. Yet again we had some problems in staying recall and square. With one correction she did both of them wonderfully. I did reward her on both times on staying in place. My smart little girl starts to be too smart and thinks she knows best.

That's for all for know.... Louise did some training too... I just don't have the energy to write about it.

Marianne, Pixie and Louise

Rear crosses

We got homework to work on our rear crosses so went did some work. On Thursday I built really simple training to work on handling from behind. Pixie has tendency to run away from my handling when the distance become too long from me. My goal was to keep the exercise as simple as possible to get lot of rewarding changes. It was really easy training with Pixie. Next time we shall do tighter turns and going round the jumps.

 We also did some cik/cap work from Silvia Trkman ideology. We started with going round a tree and  a light post. I used clikker and Pixie love to run. I have used running aroung trees and light post for obedience training so going round was all ready build in. Now I just had to catch the directions. Pixie got it pretty quickly. Sometimes she got repeat going on we had to take brake to make thinking again. On thrusday I also did some cik/cap work with wings. It went pretty well. Still some work to make directions clear to her.

I so love teach some new tools to agility! I hope to have lots of new stuff when spring comes!

Marianne, Pixie and Louise