Click for silence

My Spanish Water dog barks a lot when we do agility and I mean between the exercises. So I tried to make her silent between the cues and make her listen better. I just started marking every time she was quiet and I didn't give her any cues if she barked. It just worked like wonder! Louise became more focused and listened even better my cues which didn't drowned under her barking. We were both much happier and relaxed.

Next barking problem, that we will attack, is barking while I'm training Pixie. For that I probably will need some assistant to click the right periods. I have just learned so much more after my readings about clicker training. I have just been absolutely blown away by all the scientific work done behind it. Especially about the things that happens in brain. Clicker is to powerful and I hope to try it soon training humans in agility.

TAGteaching is very interesting area of training and have made some plans to try it in agility training. I spend last night planing first some tag points that I should work more on tracks and other tag point ideas evolved from there. Hopefully I will get change to try my new learned skills in reality.

I can't wait to get this all together!!! So just brief note what I have done in these few days.

So excited!!!

Marianne, Louise and Pixie

I'm living my dream!!

Thank you Jaakko so much of telling me to enter Louise to Finlands National Championships!! Louise was amazing!! My dear Louise just flied and showed what she made of. Final result 22. /221.!! Not bad for mini maxi. Amazing weekend!!!! Here are few runs from that weekend:



To this all Pixie just flied yesterday!!! She has been recovering from all the treatments and we had this one competition time to make our double zero to our ticket to National Team Trials... And hell WE DID IT!!!!!!!! Thanks again Jaakko! So much work has been done in my mind and our brake came on perfect time. We have starting look like agility team. I could have just cried of happiness after these two runs:



Other work I have been doing is studying more about clicker training. I bought new books of Karen Pryor. Reaching the Animal Mind has been amazing. I understand my clicker training even deeper and done some changes to improve my skills. Hope to some day keep a course about clicker training. I hope to also find a horse that I could do some training. It's been amazing to read about dolphin and other training event happen in Karens life. It just makes want learn even more. Hopefully I will have money to go Clicker Expo some
day. I will write more about our clicker training when I have more time.

That's for now
Marianne, Louise and Pixie

Some training videos from Spring 2013

Pixie is getting better and better. Hopefully she will fine to run in few weeks. We have been on brake again because the last years dog attack. She has still problems on her right side and we are trying to make it better. Pixie was treated by Leena Piira and Tanja Kotti. She also got laser treatment to her injured muscles. I will be going to my Finnish Natiotal Championships with Louise, Pixie has to wait yet another year. It might be actually a good thing... We are still developing team.

Long spring with lot of changes

It's been long time since I have been writing. So much has happened during this spring. Our team moved to Turku for better training and competing opportunities. Time started like a fairy tale. Pixie won big agility class and showed that she has potential to be high class agility dog. It was just a little light. Pixie has been working like a dream. I have developed serious problem not to been able concentrate during runs. So we have been working my mind to make little steadier.

It's been really hard to see runs turning to DQ just because of my mind hurry go forward. I have had trouble of keeping thought on the run and on dog especially. In Pixies case the second you forget her, she will be gone like a wind doing best she sees. There was point of braking when we had enough DQs. I had to think things in a new way and put all my thoughts together in different way. We have come long way as team, but I need still time let it all sink in what we have learned since we moved in Turku. I have thank Jaakko and Janita so much of keeping us on the track of becoming a better handler in training and in competitions. Still lot to do but the mind is moving forward and skills are developing. I just have to give myself some time to figured all out. I'm not natural talent in agility but my dreams and my perfect Pixie, will keep me working to the ultimate goal.

In OB my both dogs have been doing super. We have been tending Lentsu's ob course. Both dogs have been doing better and better. Louise has learned to do scent discrimination with canter both ways. Pixie has fire on her heal work. After high season of agility I will start working on both dogs OB champion titles. I can't wait to get working on that!!! I think I have started to like obedience... ;)

That's for now!!!!
Best summer for all!!!!

Getting there.... :)

Pixie has been competing few times. In the end February we did two really nice runs with one fault. It gave hope that we would getting clear rounds. Pixie had change her focus more to me and I had started to find inner peace on the tracks. It started to feel like real team work.

In the beginning of March we did it! Nice clear round and a win. First time I felt this was just the beginning  I have started think competition more as way bring all our work together. I have started understand Pixie better and even my own thoughts. Mental work as really helped to find balance in our work. I have known all the time that we have talent in us. This has been first time that have been able see how we can achieve our goal and enjoy even more of the trip to it.

Tears, sweat and blood all that and much more have been needed to learn to be better at agility. But it has been just perfect trip that goes on forever. I needed to go really deep to find my errors in mental training to find the keys to become good handler for my perfect Pixie. We still have lot to do but my diamond is starting to be at her best after the dog attack. Thank you all that have helped us during the hard times. Agility is nothing without the very best friends!
I'm finally also working on our training method page and also on somethings about mental work what I have been working on.

That's for now...

Marianne, Louise and Pixie

OB training

We went to an ob seminar to Kirkkonummi. Our trainers were from Kennel Tending, Riitta and Juha Korri. I asked helped for Louise for distance control and lying down in recall. Louise has been frozen in distance control in competitions. In training she has done the work pretty well. So we did some exercise that I told with nice voice it wasn't ok to not responde to command. We did this with long distance and one person right next to Louise so she would little disturped. First Louise just froze, but eventually she started to come up on the first command and all this work paid off last weekend and she did the distance control!!!

Pixie also got some training in Kirkkonummi. With her we worked on the herding of the dumbbells. We had first homework from mark work. She had too much going on and mark wasn't strong enough to make her do it before trieving. Pixie first had to brake her ambitition to trieve. It took awhile but in the end we got her stand calm before letting her trieve. This helped lots if the herding of the trieve object. Still lots of work ahead before this move of ob4 is perfect.

Januari 2013

So it's been a month since last writing. Lots of thing has happen in January. Pixie and I have been going trough some major work with our agility. In competition we have had some bad days, but we have been working to get our things together.

In January we went to Next Level training in Kelpokoira. In total Pixie ran super fast and I didn't have any control over her doings. So we got lot of homework. I needed to calm down, Pixie needed take more notice of me and we needed to even more specific that everything happened under my control. So we have been working with these issues for a month and we are back to track! Here's a Video from last weekend:



Pixie has also work lot of running A-frame. I have needed change the foot work to near to end of the A-frame. We have had problems of Pixie still being little unsure of what do on the contacts zone. The best thing I learned from this work that you should teach running contacts first. So I got something to do with next dog better. But in the end I have got better results. In competition the running A-frame is still little slower than in practice, so more work a head of us!