[Shaina]

Took the kids to the club again last night...went well in general, though the highlight was...

Kim went over the teeter with it moving! I put the low (4-8" dogs) table under the up end (teeter was on low) with a piece of padding to help muffle the bang...the high end fell about 6" before hitting the pad.

She did great...after doing a couple she would sit in her stay ready and eager to spring forward onto the teeter to go across, and never once even threatened to bail.

Another step in the right direction!

[agility collie mom]

Originally Posted by Shaina

Took the kids to the club again last night...went well in general, though the highlight was...

Kim went over the teeter with it moving! I put the low (4-8" dogs) table under the up end with a piece of padding to help muffle the bang...the high end fell about 6" before hitting the pad.

She did great...after doing a couple she would sit in her stay ready and eager to spring forward onto the teeter to go across, and never once even threatened to bail.

Another step in the right direction!

Woo Hoo great news. Go Kim!!!!

[Squeeker]

Fantastic!

[Shaina]

Originally Posted by Kyllobernese

We had our last regular Agility class last Wednesday. We set up a course and were timed. Remmy, my Shih Tzu/Maltese had a clean run and the fastest time until I went through with Susie, my Bernese cross. But neither of my dogs could keep up with the two Mini Ausies, they just fly especially through the weaves. Had a great time though. On Friday night we set up another course for the few of us that are going to some trials coming up and everyone ran through a couple of times. The footing in the arena was a little loose so sure tired out us "people" but did not seem to bother the dogs too much. Our next trials are outside on grass which is sure a lot better.

Sounds great! Good luck prepping for your trials!

Originally Posted by agility collie mom

Woo Hoo great news. Go Kim!!!!

Originally Posted by Squeeker

Fantastic!

Thanks guys!

I'm trying to not get my hopes up and just take it slow. She's not only tolerating it, though, she's having fun with it! Which makes me very very happy!

I sent in their CPE registrations a couple days ago as well...you know...just in case...

[MissMutt]

Miss Mutt,
Yeah tunnels usually get them ramped up and produce a lot of speed. Until she is consistent on the dog walk for you I would suggest not using the tunnel as the obstacle right before the dog walk or the teeter. (But you could use it after.)

Yep ACM - I found that out the hard way. I thought she would have enough room to get herself positioned, but nope, she flew off the side LOL. Thankfully it didn't phase her as she was only a foot or two off the ground.

She is probably really only ready for jumps and tunnels/chutes in sequences.. she's too iffy on the contact obstacles for me to send her to them at a full run. And of course the teeter is out.

Is there anything cheap I can buy to simulate the moving of the teeter in my own backyard? I'd buy my own teeter, but I really have nowhere to put it and they're darn expensive..

Shaina - congrats on Kim's teeter! Muffling the bang sounds like a good idea - I may suggest that to my instructor for Marge and maybe some of the other teeter-timid dogs.

[Shaina]

Originally Posted by MissMutt

Is there anything cheap I can buy to simulate the moving of the teeter in my own backyard? I'd buy my own teeter, but I really have nowhere to put it and they're darn expensive..

I used a 2' by 4' piece of plywood with a bit of leftover 1.25" PVC (from building my aquarium). It's nice and broad, and simulated the motion of the teeter without really *looking* or feeling like a teeter...which was the idea because if it had seemed "teeterish" to Kim she would have had nothing to do with it. Started it off flat on the floor, then put a plush toy under it, then a small piece of pvc, then the 1.25"...with only being 4' long even a little piece of PVC does wonders.

If you want something more teeterlike, you can get a 1' wide 8' board pretty cheaply, and use various sizes of PVC under that. Make sure you bolt the PVC to the board, though, to prevent slippage. Trouble is if you use it outside you have to move it a lot to bring it in.

I really think doing that stuff at home is the only reason Kim's even as far as she is...otherwise we would still be circling 20' from the teeter

Originally Posted by MissMutt

Shaina - congrats on Kim's teeter! Muffling the bang sounds like a good idea - I may suggest that to my instructor for Marge and maybe some of the other teeter-timid dogs.

Thanks!

[agility collie mom]

Class was great last night with Rio. They had a jumpers course set up. It was a fast course. 20 jumps in all. Rio flew! Unfortunately he jumped a little flat on a few (the trouble with running fast.) So he pulled a couple bars. Especially when we did the serpentine. Except the last time he ran it he ran clean. It was set up with an angled jump at the beginning with two others jumps that kind of were lined up on an angle. So we did a three jump lead out, to a 6 jump pinwheel to a 3 jump serpentine, to a single, a double, single, tire, to 4 jumps to home! Savannah and I have class tonight.

[Solid Mutt]

Originally Posted by Shaina

Took the kids to the club again last night...went well in general, though the highlight was...

Kim went over the teeter with it moving! I put the low (4-8" dogs) table under the up end (teeter was on low) with a piece of padding to help muffle the bang...the high end fell about 6" before hitting the pad.

She did great...after doing a couple she would sit in her stay ready and eager to spring forward onto the teeter to go across, and never once even threatened to bail.

Another step in the right direction!

WOO HOO Go KIM!

Originally Posted by agility collie mom

Class was great last night with Rio. They had a jumpers course set up. It was a fast course. 20 jumps in all. Rio flew! Unfortunately he jumped a little flat on a few (the trouble with running fast.) So he pulled a couple bars. Especially when we did the serpentine. Except the last time he ran it he ran clean. It was set up with an angled jump at the beginning with two others jumps that kind of were lined up on an angle. So we did a three jump lead out, to a 6 jump pinwheel to a 3 jump serpentine, to a single, a double, single, tire, to 4 jumps to home! Savannah and I have class tonight.

Wow 20 jumps! That sounds like a great class! Go Rio and ACM...

I can't wait to hear how Savannah's class went.

[lucyloo2]

Sounds like everybody is having a blast!! Last night our class went pretty well too, we worked on weaves and the contact trainer again. We also worked on left and right turns and Lucy is catching on quick to that! Next week is our last class. We are going to do a mini course so that should be interesting! LOL!! Hopefully they will have more classes this summer, I want to take more!

[agility collie mom]

Savannah and I had agility classes last night. She did wonderful. The instructor had two small courses set up. Savannah and Gus are the two large breed dogs so we worked together with one instructor while the other instructor worked with the small breed dogs on the other course. Than we combined the two small courses into one large course which ended up to be 13 obstacles. It was jump, jump, turn left, jump, front cross, jump, turn right, tunnel, turn left, table, a-frame, wrap to tunnel, right turn, jump, front cross, small serpentine, (go jump, come jump.) finish. Plus at home she normally will only jump 16" because she will limbo under the bar if it is set at 24". The instructor placed another bar under the top one at the first jump (which was set at 20"). She jumped that one and consistently jumped all the rest even though they had only a single bar! I had great attention with her (my barkey party girl) last night. The trick was an afternoon walk in the heat! Just like a horse turned out in the afternoon it took the "edge" off of her and helped her to concentrate. We had a wonderful night. We even did touch coming down the A-frame. What a good girl she was!

[Shaina]

That's excellent, ACM!

Last night we went to do some jump training...basically just improving our communication and teaching the dogs (read: Kim) to collect over jumps instead of flying over all of them with the same gleeful abandon lol. (Webster is SO SO SO handler focused on the course that to get him to run extended at all is tough...so we worked on language (body/verbal) cues but his collection is almost too good so we just touched on it).

At the end I pulled out the teeter...started Kim off with the short table and bit of carpet for padding again and, based on her body language and attitude, took the legs totally off the table and just had it on the floor...still not even a blip in her reaction so I finally took away the table altogether and had her go across the teeter on low with just the carpet to pad the bang...and she did AWESOME! No hesitation, offering a 2 on/2 off at the end w/ no (verbal) cue from me, thus showing no desire to hurry off the (formerly evil) teeter!!

Next time we'll go back to just the table top with pad, and then assuming that goes well, quickly to just the floor with pad...once she's comfortable there I'll start her back with the medium table at the end and no pad (so with a BANG) and work her back up again.

Also...Webster did his (our) first ever full height teeter. We've been building up to it for a while and last night was the night...he was tired enough from his other training to focus, but still energetic enough to want to do it. Did a quick "reminder" at low, moved it up to halfway between low and full height (no sweat), then up to full height. He did great

It was another good night lol

[Solid Mutt]

ACM - WOO HOO that is great!

Shaina - It sounds like you had another good night as well. That is just awesome!


My night was not so hot. LOL Well it was hot literally but seems every dog in class decided they did not know or remember anything. It was funny and frustrating. I guess something must have been in the air. We did work on some more sequences. Which was fun. We started to learn about pulling and pushing your dog. We did the teeter at full height! WOO HOO, luckily that is one thing Voodoo did remember and loves to do. HA HA I was pretty stoked about it. Seems most had some issues with it. One sequence was tire, post turn- weave-tunnel-weave-tire. Voodoo decided she forgot the tire at first. LOL I ended up starting her from the side on it instead of in front. She did get the weaves once I corrected my body lanquage. She got the whole sequence after a couple times and she did good. My biggest issue to work on is getting my commands out earlier than I do. Another sequence for the night was Chute-jump-tunnel-broad jump-table-jump. Hard to explain what we did but he had to push them to the opposite end of the tunnel not the closest to us. Anywho Voodoo did good not great. First time thru the chute, the chute came off and she was stuck in it running around. Luckily she thought it was a great game. Some said their dogs would have been scared to death afterwords. NOT VOODOO!! She was like Oooh this is fun. LOL Anyways we did complete the course from both sides then also did it reverse as well. It was a good class just not great. Seems every dog just lost their mind last night. LOL Hopefully next week will be better. Next week is our last class for this session. I just hope the graduate us to the next level and we don't have to repeat this one. (Keep your fingers crossed for us)

[Squeeker]

ACM, we have to run Libby before class as well to take the edge off. It wouldn't be so bad if our class wasn't 8:30-9:30 PM... after we get home from work, she's just ready to move. If we didn't run her beforehand, she would be nonstop-zoomies.

Shaina, great job! I'm glad to hear that Kim is getting over it. We have a dog in our class that had the exact same thing happen with the teeter. He just did his first full-height teeter last week. It was a real great sight to see!

Solid Mutt, it happens to everyone! We had ours a couple weeks ago!

This week's class went well! It was SOOOOO hot... youu can SEE the humidity in my videos. It was rediculous. Luckily, Libby kept her head on straight most of the time! She even went through the Tire with no problems

First we did the weaves... we are down to the smallest barriers set up on the competition weaves. All of the dogs are doing brilliantly!

Then, we did the teeter and chute. Video:



The "theme" for the sequences this week was "Front Crosses!" Yay!

The first sequence was our best. Don't mind the little dance I did at the beginning... I was trying to remember the sequence! I treated Libby at the end of the chute because we don't do it very often.



The second sequence was difficult for Libby because of the angle of entry of the tunnel. She ran right by on the first try both times we did the course. It was also hard for me... I did a wrap on the second-last jump instead of a front cross! However, she was the only dog in class that nailed the double-jump leadout! All of the other dogs ran around the first jump.

[agility collie mom]

Shaina Great job on the teeter with both of your kids (does happy dance!)

Lucyloo. Can't wait to hear how you two do on a full course. Will be on pins and needles till next week.

Solidmutt, That is awesome that Voodoo loves the teeter. I agree the heat can sometimes be distracting for both dogs and handlers.

Squeeker. You two just get better and better as a team. Your handling is very fluid. Great job!

You all are simply great! I love hearing about your classes and your wonderful pups.

[lucyloo2]

Great videos Squeeker!! You and Libby make a great team

I have a friend who is hopefully coming this Tuesday, so maybe I'll be able to get a video! *fingers crossed* LOL!

[MissMutt]

We finished up the first session of classes on Tuesday. We didn't do too much because it was humid, rainy and there were a LOT of people and dogs around, but we did some jump sequencing with the instructor. Also some tunnels and weaves, and that was really it. Weather permitting, we'll start Session 2 on Tuesday.

[MyCharlie]

I really need to get Kaya out to practice now that our beginner agility class is done and another one won't be starting for a while with this HEAT, but it's so hard when you have so many other things going on!

Squeeker, you guys really are doing great. On that last video there were a lot of traps where Libby could have totally done a different obstacle, but she didn't. Awesome!

[Squeeker]

I feel so bad for you who are at the mercy of the weather... even though our arena has a dirt floor, it is nice to be away from the bugs and the rain! Unfortunately, we still get the heat, cold, and humidity... can't win 'em all!

I have a friend who is hopefully coming this Tuesday, so maybe I'll be able to get a video! *fingers crossed* LOL!

Let's hope! It's so much better to watch! And it's great to see yourself on video!

Squeeker. You two just get better and better as a team. Your handling is very fluid. Great job!

Great videos Squeeker!! You and Libby make a great team

Squeeker, you guys really are doing great. On that last video there were a lot of traps where Libby could have totally done a different obstacle, but she didn't. Awesome!

Thanks everyone! We have a lot of fun!

[MissMutt]

*squeal* We had a great night tonight. The rain (that ceased 1/2 hour before class started) scared the other dogs in our class away, so we were the only ones who went to the field. We essentially had a private lesson, and it was the COOLEST #@%$@ THING IN THE WORLD!

We started with this jump sequence. Please pardon my horrendous drawing skills.. goes yellow to orange to red to brown to blue (tried to color code it so it looked less jumbled) I think it is a pretty common sequence though? Or at least set up of jumps, I know that for sure



There is a front cross between 5 and 6 and a back cross right before 11. We split it up into two halves before putting the whole sequence together. It was the first time I've ever done a back cross so that was pretty cool. I am consistently late on my crosses but I did notice some things in my handling that I thought I was doing better than I did last time (the kind of things that are hard to explain, lol). Marge really enjoyed it and my teacher says she really loves agility and looks for the next obstacle to take.

Before starting one of our runs through it, we all (including Marge spotted a rabbit at the far end of the field.. but she didn't move The field is not fenced at the far end so it's very important that she listens to me and doesn't bolt.

After the jump sequence we did the teeter.. O. M. G. huge success! It's at the low height with the table underneath it, but still. What my teacher did was have Marge on the table, and reach up to push the high end down with her paw, such that SHE created the bang and I guess learned to expect it coming. Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. After maybe 15 repetitions she was putting her front paws on the teeter and slamming it down, lol. She went over it a couple of times and while she did brace herself a little bit seemed to be better about it. At one point when we were working on something else she flew up to it like it was the greatest thing in the world, without een being asked to go to it. I was so happy!

Worked on the weaves and A-Frame contacts a little bit, but not much to report.

It was a VERY good class and I learned more tonight than I did in 8 weeks of beginner. I might eventually inquire about private lessons because my teacher does offer them.

[Shaina]

Sounds like a fantastic nice, MissMutt!! Congrats on the teeter success!

I love box games with jump like that...endless possibilities with easy setup, even if you are working solo