Why do I want to become a WC in agility?

Why do I want to become a WC in agility?

This is a very good question.  I have always wanted to be world champion in agility but never thought why.  What is my real motivation to reach this goal? I took a little while to answer this. My first thought to get fame to my dog. This is really a very shallow purpose because this really doesn’t matter to my dog. Other thing is to challenge myself to become super good at something.  I am also a patriot so hope that my dog can bring honor to my country. These reasons did raise some feelings but not very strong ones. I really got the strongest feeling of becoming the best agility handler.

So how do you become a best agility handler? I need at least 10 000 hours of training. This has been scientifically proved that you need 10 000 practice hours to become excellent in something. Of course people have some skills that can give first advantage in the beginning of carrier but to become excellent in something you need practice, practice and practice. So I have trained now 10 years agility but I haven’t done my job so intensive that I could say have done work worth of 10 000. I have done this my first years with more emotion than really analytical way. So if we got to the National Team we would really need luck to reach it. I haven’t done my “homework” well enough to say that I’m excellent in agility.

My next goal is to change my training and my other life to support more my goal. I have started to write training diary again and also I plan my training session ahead. I want to get the maximum effect from the training each time and analyze my training from videos. I also know that I can learn more agility by training other so it’s time for me to go back to training other teams. I can train with my dogs only a certain amount but I can repeat my skills every time I teach them to someone. Also from teaching other I can see things what dogs don’t know how to do or get a new idea in training when I have solve a problem of my student. Altogether I need to step up my act to reach my ultimate goal. This thinking has given me a lot of more motivation. I have seen better what I can do better to become what I want. It will be a never ending story but this beginning has too sloppy to really take where I wanted. 

Jukka Pätynen / Koirakuvat

Thoughts after National Team Tryouts

I wrote this blog post before I went to National Team tryout. Pixie did the same mistake she did last year and jumped A-frame contact. This was really a thing I didn't like. She has done 2on2off contacts very well in the last competitions and she never makes this mistake in training. So I was really disappointed to her work. She just got too much steam in her head to make it well. We will see if we can fix her drive issues in big competitions. I was happy of my work in the course. I was calm and kept the contact to her. I know her problems come from the running contact training and I'm not sure can I fix her to be a dog that I can trust on the course. I have had to "fix" our problems too much. I haven't enjoyed competing the whole year. Well in jumping we have had our moments but I hope we will get the same feeling to agility runs.


That's for know.. Soon update of Freya.. She has reached competition age!!!!!

MLPF

Obedience update

Obedience training with Freya

Freya and I missed the National Team championships because she started finally her first heat. Since then we have been working on all ob tasks coming ahead in a higher classes. My goal has been to work little part at the time and make them as good as possible. I have also tried to work with her in different places to make variation skills better. Still lot of work to do but she is ready start competing with the new rules in August.

Distance Control

One big project has been distance control. I have done series of training in pair of two changes (sit-stand, stand-laying down, laying down –sit).  I have done this to keep the technique in super shape. Now I have started to take distance more and more. It comes slowly together but I like the quality of her work. I hope to build up her confidence and speed in small pieces. We will see how this goes. Freya is much faster than Pixie but her staying in one place is the hardest part.

"Square"

Square has had it challenges. At this point I have been able to make her find a right place and run in to the square from various distances. Her stop has been little too slow. This we have worked with Tarja’s constructions where I send Freya to a target mat and stop her before she reaches it. This has made her stops faster and she turns right away towards me. We still need some repeats to get this super stop integrate to the square task.  After we have succeeded in this we have nice and fast square.

Z-walk

Sit-Down-Stand in movement has becoming nicely together. I have shaped each movement separately in different positions around me. Then I have done them during heal work. Freya handles now all three of the positions but we need to work more in different places and I have to start training her between mark cones as you have to do in Z-walk. Freya has pretty nice speed to reach to cues and she holds the positions nicely when I walk behind her. I need to change her focus more to the front so that her position looks more steady and firm. So some work with front reward and that should be fixed. I don’t want her to turn her head when I go behind her.

All together Freya has been super to work with. She is very focused, high driven and very fast learner. What more can you ask from a ob dog? She has so good working attitude that she makes me work better and she makes me smile every time and Freya smiles all the time. I think we will have a super obedience carrier and lots of wild memories.  Just love this little girl <3 <3 <3 <3

For next time I try to make videos of all our work..

MLPF

Competition mode

Mental training

Iris Kieme

I have been doing a lot of reading and practicing of mental aspect of competing. I have tried to find a right focus when I enter the competition ring. Usually I have had very different mind sets depending on the day. Now goal has been to built a mode that I would perform as good as I could. To achieve this I have read several books about mental training and writing a diary about my trip and doing homework from the books. It has been a hard work to find out your strengths and weaknesses. To me hardest things has been to actually say to myself that I am good at something.

Visualization of event and training situation has been the most important tool for me. This has given me a change to find out what things give me power before the course and what are the biggest distractions. Mental visualization of things can take you to competition before it even happens and you can go through things that it happening and make them as a normal thing to you. So you can focus you energy to the real performance. I also use this technique to train different handling maneuvers. You can so much work in your mind before an event or training then you can safe you energy to a top performance in any part of your life. I have use visualization before in my work life but now I have used it even more to little details that can  affect my work.

Pixie competition mode

Iris Kieme

I have done a lot of in my mind but then I have found out that our old mistakes come to hunt us in our competitions. Pixie does super 2on2off work in training. In competition she does poorly. Even though I trained 3 competition full stop contacts, she jumped 2 A-frame contact on competition on Sunday. This was really frustrating feeling. Her mistakes comes from the time that I tried to make her A-frame to running contact (my biggest mistake!! try to make 2on2off dog to running contact dog). I have know idea at this point to make this mistake gone from our competition performance. Pixie's drive in competition is much more higher than in training. Especially this problem comes out if I have to run in front of her in full speed. I guess we have to train this again in a competition. I just hope we will get to point that I can actually just compete with her and trust her work.

Competition mode to a dog and for handler is thing that need to be trained. Most of us get much more excited in a competition and dogs catch up this excitement. I have made many mistakes in competition of letting Pixie take too early from start, leave contact zone before a release cue and so on. Could I have done a perfect competition dog if I had stop every time Pixie broke our training?? Or would I have to still correct mistakes in competition?? I can't be sure but I know mistakes will come during her whole carrier. I will try to be more black and white with Freya and try to make more reliable. We will see how this goes. :D


That's all for now... Next some ob and Nosework update...

MLPF

Agility and Nosework

Winning yourself

Last Sunday Pixie and I went to agility competition in Nummela. On first run I took a goal that I would keep my plan even though it seemed to be choice that you had to hurry. I was so happy that I did it even though my plan didn't go totally ok. I won myself on this run. I need to do this more often. Safe way isn't always to coolest :D :D

Second run I trained contacts and on the last one I did handling sequence all over to show myself we could do it. After this they I felt like I had won myself two times even though we didn't actually win anything. But I think this will takes us more forward than just keeping it on the safe zone. When is the last time you took a risk and went off from your safe zone??

Here are video's from last Sunday and week before:

Nosework training in a farm

We went to a farm of Koirataito to train our Nosework skills. We did a scent discrimination line in tack room of a horse stable. It had lots of different distraction smells so it was a challenging environment to my girls. At this point we had only trained in our house and in our back yard. First I loaded them with a target smell (click and smell from a glass jar with target smell). After this I send them to the scent line. First we did was quick rewards as soon as they hit the target. 

Next round they had give a sign that they had found it. We did few round like this and we started to teach target smell expression and a showing after it. My both dogs express their find by laying down. This is a problem if the target smell is high of the ground. I wanted to add a cue that they need to show by nose target the location of the target smell. This action chain came together pretty fast.  Now I just need to built even stronger.

Pixie's homework was to make her express her findings better and start doing more harder tasks. With Freya I need do more straight reward repeats to built up her confidence in her smelling work. She has a strong target expression but this can give you false target expression if she feels unsure. So work a head of us but this has super fun for all of us this far. 

That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Nosework training

Basics under control

Mesoft (soft bandage)- target smell "carrier"

It has been so much fun to work on our Nose Work skills. I have know all the scents you need teach your dog but we are still working on our first one which eucalyptus. I first started to introduce the scent with a scent discrimination line. I gave the dog starting smell and I teach them to find a pair to it. First I just clicked when they hit the right jar to built a connection with the target scent and reward.

Next stage was to teach them to mark a finding. I choose laying down as marker position. This was made stronger with a one jar and target smell. I waited a laying down response to a target smell and rewarded. I also gave a little help cue to the dog as soon as it has found the right smell from the line of jars. This has been an ongoing work every time we have done work in a new environments.

New places and box search 

We have done some scent work in our backyard. I have used a matchbox or a plastic container to hold the target smell. I have hidden the target on a ground inside a bush, inside a fence gate and in different high places. It has seem to be easier for them to work outside. All my girls have been super fast when they work outside. Next I have take this search work to unfamiliar place. I think they will just love it!

Box search was harder for them at first. I did too hard exercise in which I used straight away boxes that where totally closed. I needed to take step back to make it work again. I did a training session where I had open boxes and a target smell in little box which had some treats over it. I did this few time and then I left the treats off and gave treats from detection. After this I did first closed boxed exercise. Freya was just perfect!! She just dropped to the ground as soon as she smelled to the target scent. Pixie and Louise took their time but in the end they did ok. 

Now we just need work with boxes and containers made from different materials. Also we need start using distractions smells and objects. I have used  already food as distraction. in the scent discrimination line. Different places will be also on our training plan. This sports has no limits and it is really fun even though the basic idea is really simple. Dogs have fun and it pretty simple to set up. I can't wait to able to test my dogs skills in real trial!! :D

That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Obedience training with Freya

Freya has been getting ready for her depute in obedience National Team competition. She will be doing a beginner class performance for our team. She still hasn't had heat yet so that could ruin our change to take a part. So one day at the time. We have done lots of basic work. I have wanted her to be driven when she does ob and that she has as good as possible attitude.

Distraction training

One big thing we have been working on is distraction. In the National Champion Ships there will be several ring going on at the same time. So the dog has to handle multiple commands, distractions from other competitors rewarding their dogs etc. I have had a plan to build up a distraction duration so that Freya will see it as a mark to sharp up her work and rise from it. We have done a lot of work with this. First we done was a order command work this a distraction that come from a Stuart in the ob trials. We did some heal work and every time she ignored the extra command I rewarded her. I didn't take any notice if did something while she heard the command from the Stuart. It took few times reward her and her drive just started get higher and higher.

I have done distraction training with corrections with my older dogs and this has show in their work. You can see from the dogs in high level ob are their trained with correction or rewards. Correction use left to dog tense and wanting to keep contact to avoid correction. This showed out in the dogs postures and also many of the dogs make stress signals in they are in high level stress. I wanted do this a different way. I wanted to make Freya work for me rather than looking or reacting to things out side. I wanted her to like even more training in distractions. This has worked out super well!!! I hope that every time you correct your dog from reacting to distractions think again. Are you interesting enough?? Does your dog know what is expected from him/her???

Scent discrimination

We have had a problem in the scent discrimination. Freya has always took one bar in her mouth before she starts use her nose. She brings the right bar but it's a fault to take one incorrect one her mouth. So we tried a new trick. We put treats on the ground before the bars. We had long line of bars she needed smell before she could find the right one. This really worked good! Nose went on right away and no retrieve mode. Freya did excellent job. I need to keep using treats for a while to get her nose working right away. I think soon we have full scent discrimination handled!! :D

That's all of Freya's ob at this point!!

MLPF

A new way see training process

It' been a long time since last update. My perfect Pixie turned 5 years-old. Time has really flied fast. I can remember my black little lighting as puppy. Pixie always ran fast and slept a lot. She also destroyed my house but I love her so much. She has been a super dog that has taken me totally new level in many sports. Pixie has been the dog that stole my heart and soul. I hope to have many many ahead of us. My dear diamond <3

 Pixie 7 weeks and Pixie as an adult.

Training thinking evolves again

I was got a light bulb moment when I read an article in the Dressage magazine written by Eliza Romm. This as article was written from a dressage point of view but this could written also from an agility view. When you read the article you really find yourself in all the stages of incompetence and competence. The key in to really brake the training a part and find the answer to reach the level of unconscious competence. Super trainer can help to reach the level and also help you to see what skills need developing. In agility I find myself finding new skills that I have reached the conscious incompetence which means I have seen a fault in my work and I need to find help to reach the next level.

For example I didn't really realize that Freya didn't really know how to jump a jump in a side way position ( unconscious incompetence) until my coach pointed her fault to my. Freya did high jumps and bunny jumps to a side way jump (slalom jump). I had hard time doing pulls and pushes in slalom jump setup. Her jumping skills was to key to the whole problem. At this point I have started to work with her on her jumping skills (conscious incompetence). Today we reached a level of conscious competence. Freya had started to make good jumps an side way jump. Now we just have to master our new skill to level that she can do everywhere at anytime. Work, work, work but I have learned a new way to see things in training. :D

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”– Vince Lombardi