It was so cold this past weekend during the agility trial–I didn’t take very many photos because taking pictures requires that your hands actually be on the camera and not stuffed in your coat pockets! I do enjoy my panning pics–just a little bit different from the usual ‘dog coming at you over a jump’ shot. Here’s a few I got this weekend:
That’s how many inches of rain we got yesterday. Yep, it’s a record amount for the day. This morning, almost every highway in the state was closed in at least one location because of landslides. Lots of melted snow + lots of rain=bad news.
On a non-weather-related note, Zoey! and I are entered in an agility trial this weekend. As usual, we are just running in the JWW class. I have no expectations for her as we haven’t actually practiced any agility for…oh…about six weeks now.
Last night Zoey and I went to our weekly agility lesson. We’ve been working on weave poles for, oh, about 3 years now. I know she knows how to do them (she can get them a lot of times in practice although rarely in a trial environment). Anyhow, we did some work on weaves and weave entrances last night and most of the time she entered the poles wrong (going in between poles 2 and 3 instead of between 1 and 2).
I couldn’t figure out what the problem was until Patty asked me if she could run her through part of the exercise–Zoey doesn’t seem to have too many issues with running for other people so Patty took her through the sequence while I watched. It dawned on, while watching them run, that I give NO cues to zooming Zoey when we are running. I THINK I’m giving her cues, but all I’m really doing is running next to her. Patty gave her some very obvious signals (with her body, her feet and her arms) and Zoey ran with her BEAUTIFULLY.
Essentially, when I run with Zoey I’m either trying to keep up with her or trying to ‘guide’ her around the course with nice flowing motions. This is not what she needs–she’s a fast, fast little dog and she needs instant and obvious direction and cues. This is, of course, what many good agility handlers have been trying to explain to me for years, but to no avail. I had to actually see someone handle her ‘correctly’ before I could grasp what I need to be doing.
I tried the sequence again and didn’t use my nice ‘flowing’ body language–I used my entire body (torso, arms and legs) to tell her, “Go here. Now slow down. Now go there.” I didn’t use a single verbal cue (there’s no reason to as long as you are giving them enough body language) and she nailed the sequence. More importantly, she got the weave entrance EVERY SINGLE TIME!
After 4+ years of training her, I feel like we finally had quite a breakthrough last night. If I am bold and direct with my body language, she will listen and do everything I say.
Really what this all taught me is the same truth that always seems to come out when doing any type of dog training–any issues you are having can be blamed almost entirely on the handler!
