Tricks and ob

Pixie had her ostheopathy treatment on Tuesday so we had to take a little slower the rest of the week. On Thursday we trained some "dog dancing" tricks. Our basic trick has been that Pixie can back up around an object. My goal was now to teach her to do a figure eight backing up around an object and I. I have done this combo before but we work on to make even better and also to make Pixie really understand the change of direction between me and the object. Other version of this trick was to make Pixie back up to an object and then go around it. To this combo I also combined a par where we both back up away from each other. These trick are really fun work on even though I don't have plan ever to take part in dog dancing competition.

Here are few part we have trained separately to reach our goals:

• backing up
  • first away from me when I'm standing
  • gradually I start to take steps backwards after Pixie starts to back up
  • then we start doing backing up at the same time
• going around an object
  • this I have done with shaping and I used my divan sofa to make a route that she needed learn to back up
  • next stage was to make this trick work while the object in the middle of the floor in both direction
  • use to same commands to make Pixie go around me
• 8 figure combo
  • first around an object and stop her between me and the object (this part I had to do a lot with Pixie make her calm down enough listen to my cues)
  • teach to the dog to do the combo in both directions and learn to start this combo from my side or from the side of the object
• back up away from me and going around an object
  • first a rewarded back up that went near to an object and then I cued Pixie to go around
  • when the ground work is done well this should come together pretty easily
  • start with short backing up and gradually built up the distance that the dog needs to back up to get an object

Here is a video of our work:


Freya and I worked also on our obedience. I have really been very lazy lately. We haven't really done anything new. I have tried to work on our healing to make as good as possible. I have done some distraction work to make Freya work very intensively. She is gettin better and better all the time. I have also done some work with our stop and laying in healing. Going down is starting to be pretty good. Stopping still has bad and good days. I hope to make the stop faster than it is right now. 

Here is video of work in Ob and some tricks:


That's all for now...

MLPF

Freya's contact training

Today we had a another training session with running contact. I had goal to make full runs on dog walk and make turning exercise. First we did few straight runs. Freya did pretty well. I saw from the video that I need get her focus more lower. She touches the contact zone pretty well but sometimes she does it too high for my taste. I really would love to have two video-cameras- one on the side and one in the front. I could see better how different touches look like. It really is different what I see from the side and how it looks from the front. I still have problems to see when does more jumping type step. More work for me.

Turning has been easy to work with. I use same cue that I have used when taught her to turn around a jump. I have used long jump pole to make it little bit easy for her and to prevent her coming down too early from the dog walk. I have still to teach her going behind a jump after rc and go forward a long distance. Here is video from today:

Freya is really super to train. Even though she has mild ADHD sometimes, she can concentrate super when we work. We have more to learn in normal living so that she doesn't need to love everybody so passionately. Also she has some issues when it comes to passing unfamiliar dogs. One on one situation still needs some work. I don't like that dog makes any sound when it is passing. Freya is so unsure that she need to bark sometimes. We are getting better and better at it. This is our biggest issue that need to be worked on.

That's all for now...

MLPF

Running Contacts and almost good runs

Running Contacts

I have done more training with Freya's running contacts. First I have worked on her turnings and her running to an obstacle. Our first session was really good. She did really nice turns and went without mistake straight to a tunnel. I did my training from the middle part of the dog walk and also did this exercises when she did the whole dog walk. She did miss few contacts but all together Freya did really well!

Our last session from Thursday wasn't that good. Freya had really problems touching the contact when she was on my right side. On the left side did just perfect. This was really weird because her right side has alway been the "better" side. I forgot my video camera so I don't know did I do something different or has she got some kind of muscle problem. We will find this out this soon in our physiotherapy session. I also need to film our work more.

Training agility

I have started make Pixie do again her 2on2off contacts on A-frame. Our competition A-frame just became a disaster. I had enough doing fault on that. I didn't give up on our A-frame but we started to focus our work on gallop step after she comes over the peak. She really needs understand that she need to make one real gallop step and not jump or slow down. So this will our winter project.

Pixie and Freya also trained side release (this is probably isn't the right saying). This an import skill to make starts even smoother and also make them also more easy. This is something I haven't really tough Pixie. She has done this on her own. So it was nice really work with them. I still a problem of forgetting to make my move to towards a takeoff side. Here is our work from this exercise:



Competitions

Pixie and I had a competition weekends. We had good moment and not so good moments. A-frame mistakes were part of the problem but I go to train with them the next weekend. Our work can be really good when we have it all together. Course running is starting to feel really easy with Pixie and feels super. I made few handling mistakes but we very close start making nice clear round. Our team work and feeling is really good right. Here are few of our competition runs from the last few weekend:




More work ahead but it will be fun and I have the best team in the world!!!

That's for now!

MLPF

I think I have a little genius :D

Running contact project

I have tough Freya left and right turns on a jump. Tik as cue going right and cap as cue going left. At first I did it around a stick and then round a jumping wing. My plan was to use this also as cue when she need to turn after a contact zone. I used a stick again to help her figure the turn better. This has worked really well so far. I have always done first straight line rc and after that done some turning ones to a toy or to a tunnel. Freya has really good ability think and she changes her behavior really well if don't get reward. Our RC's will need a lot of work but o'boy love to work with them with Freya. She is just super!!!

Pixie and I had a long conversation about running A-frame. She has a habit of missing her A-frame contact in a competition. So I started to do just one at practice and if she missed it she needed go on a brake. This started to really make a change and her drive started to be on right level. I also used a box for a while to get go a little bit lower again. We will see will my work get results. We have two days of competitions in this coming weekend. I can only hope!

Obedience

Freya had training session where we worked on our laying down. This seems to be the hardest task. She just want to do active stuff. I have had a little problems to make her understand that laying doing is also a very important task. Leaving a toy to wait seems to be the best way to keep her mind in focus. We a long way before she will be ready for trial in this area.

I have started distance control training almost every day to make her body get used all the movement. Freya has improved a lot and all her changes a starting to be ready. Now we just need to work on repetition and of course little by little distance. Freya had a problem of going on side ways while she did the changes of positions. This was solved when I put her on a edge of a carpet. She didn't want to go over the carpet line and this is the way learned to control her side way movement. Freya is just so cool!!!

Clicker training

I had a fun evening few days ago. I took a piece of mouse pad and started to work on paw touch on it. My goal was to get the paw touch to a stimuli control. Paw touch has just a trick I have used to get a focus with my dogs but I want to improve clicker training skills and really make under a cue. I had so much fun to watch how differently my girls learn.

Freya got the idea pretty quickly and stopped paw touching the mouse pad until I said a cue. She only tried few times. She really used her brain to figure out what would bring the  reward. Louise just hit the target with super power and did this in many session before she could wait. After she got the idea of waiting the cue her drive went really high but she could herself from hitting the target. Pixie was the hardest one. After didn't get a click from hitting the target she started to do many trick she new. It really showed that none of them were really under stimulus control and she couldn't just do nothing. I needed to catch even a little moments that she went away from the target so I could give her the cue. It took a long while but she got a hang of it after multiple session. I really recommend this kind task to everyone. It really teaches you so much about your dogs and of course improves your training skills.


That's all for now!! Enjoy your time with your dogs!!

MLPF