Both today and yesterday I had agility lessons with Vanilla. This week our training has concentrated on lateral distance, weavepole entries and the basic 'how to cue your dog right when running the course'. Vanilla is getting really good about me going further away at the start (and she hasn't run the start line once in several weeks). We have been even practicing some obstacle discrimination with a dog walk as a 3rd obstacle on the course with a tunnel right next to it and me standing a little further back. Slowly we have been able to get more distance and still get the right obstacle.
I'm getting more lateral distance on jumps, tunnels etc. but I we still have problems with the contact obstacles. When I run past, she mostly takes the contacts really nicely, especially on the dog walk, but for some reason if I run lateral and not past her, she won't get on the contact straight or lies down before her two front paws are on the dirt (our goal is 2 on- 2 off). She does TAKE the contact though, which is really good, but I've quickly adopted the meticulous standards of my trainer Sharon and can't stand those little technical inaccuracies. Right now I feel the best thing to do would be to just go and practice those individual things by themselves before adding more difficulty to the courses we're running. Of course today we were running courses with a little more advanced dogs and that may have made me feel more this way. On the other hand I should be proud of Vanilla, she did really well and blended in nicely with the rest of the group. Oh how nice it would be if she worked this well every time.
We had trouble getting Vanilla to finish weavepoles yesterday towards a dark corner of the course and decided to reinforce already at pole 8-9 on the opposite side of the poles from where I was at. Did that a couple of times yesterday and today we had really nice weavepoles on that same spot. I should later on also keep in mind that the "placement of reward changes the behavior" as Sharon repeats over and over. So where ever I decide to reward Vanilla is what I'm reinforcing. And in our case on the weavepoles we should practice me running ahead and throwing the reward back into the weavepoles (using a release word there would also be a good idea).
Yesterday I also surprisingly had trouble on the A-frame contact. Vanilla was just running through. We practiced it a couple times yesterday after the lesson and seemed to have corrected the mistake, but today same happened again. Weird thing is that the contact has been really good, and still was really good on both dog walk and the teeter. So more A-frame practice I assume. She seems to be coming down with such a speed that even when she tries to stop she can't quite make herself stop in time. Good thing is that she tries and she hasn't jumped the contact.
Today we had a couple really hard courses with a lot of turns so handling became really important and that you are going towards the right jumps at the right time, and doing your front crosses at the right time. And not just going toward the right obstacle but the right stanchion of the right obstacle without being on the dogs path. We seemed to be doing really good on this considering our level so I'm really happy with where we are with this.
One more thing that needs some practice is our table. In Finland this obstacle was often just ignored, it was used in trials very seldom, so I have never really done the good basic training on that -> resulting in a pretty nice "fly over the table" by Vanilla. Not that she doesn't want to stop.. she's just going way too fast. If I slow her down before the table she might lie down before the table... well. My game plan now is to get some target practice under our belt and train her to stay even when I run past. I'm sure this is not one of our biggest problems.
Anyway, today I'm feeling really good about our cooperation with Vanilla and I'm looking forward to try out our skills at the trial tomorrow and Sunday. I'll keep you posted!
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