Idaho Trial

We went to Idaho to an Agility trial. It was fun. Raygen continues to show improvement. His speed is satisfactory. He is very confident while running. I am a bit disappointed that the DQ's aren't coming as easy as I wish they would. The highlight of the weekend was him having the perfect run and making it in time to earn a second place, but NQing for running out to say hello to some of his dog friends. I was told by a few that they thought I handled it quite calmly.
What can I do? The damage was done. He was put on the leash and right into his kennel. I have decided to enter him in preferred for the next few trials. At least I can earn titles in either JWW and STD.
Ryker had some amazing runs. He however has not been able getting into the weave poles. Training at home has been non-existing. Snow on the ground has made it hard to practice weave entries. I am hoping this issue will be resolved by mid-summer.
Ryddick was entered his first Open JWW leg. No faults! It was nice. He will be taking a break for at least until September. More herding is planned soon.
Coming up... CO, FRAC.

Control Unleashed Seminar, Flyball, Agility and Herding

Raygen is going to be a helper dog on Monday. He did really well at the classes and he was asked to help out at the seminar. I am looking forward to it.
Since a few weeks ago he seems to finally understand how to play Flyball. There is a difference in teaching the behaviors and the dogs understanding the behaviors. I swear I heard the switch turn on. He loves it! He has also become more confident in Agility. I would bet that Flyball has helped him with that. He is consistently Qing in Jumpers and even places a few times. I have to insist on contacts and not rush him for speed points. He has not yet been over course time and those DQ's are so needed.
Herding is going well, too. He is trying very hard to understand what I am asking him to do. I am not sure what I am doing either, other then staying clear of those darn sheep. Almost got knocked over, that would hurt.

PKC Agility 9-26/28

Ryddick is the new owner of a PKC STD 1st place ribbon. This was the first time I had entered him in an AKC trial. He did really great. He got a bit upset when I raced him to much. I will tone it down a bit next time. He got a very nice weave pole entry in JWW, but he ended up knocking a bar after that.I entered him in 16" preferred, but the judge measured him just under 23"? He has been measured just under 22" and just over22", but never that close to 23".He can certainly jump that high, but I was really hoping that he would be able to jump 16", less stress.

Weave Pole Entries

Ryker has a hard time getting his weave pole entries. He does not collect before hitting the entry. Then a few months ago he was weaving and he must have hit his nose. It was bleeding and a few times after that he ran past the weaves. I have been training a bit the way Rachel Sandres showed us. I will do some more and hope he will understand the entry a bit better. USDAA trial is coming up and I hope we are going to have some great runs and a Q would be nice.

Teeter Work #2

We went to Agility practice to Huntsville and I worked Ryddick on the teeter. He did not show any sing of going over threshold and wanting to attack the teeter. I click when has take 3 steps on it and reward at the end. It works great. He is concentrating on getting his treat and not on attacking the teeter. I did a short sequence, jump, tunnel teeter and he again was great on the teeter. I tried again and the little stinker actually bypassed the tunnel and ran onto the teeter. Shauna laughed at me for creating a Teeter sucker. Heehee

ASCA Trial August 2nd and 3rd

What a great weekend. Ryddick has some great runs. He did his SLS, never knocked a bar and I added the weaves to our gambler course and he did great. His contacts were very nice and he loved going through the tunnels. When we were almost done with our Gambler run he ran past the last run out of the ring and did a "perimeter check". I was suprised and waited until he came back. I am going to teach him to go to his leash after his run to give him a target end behavior. Not sure what I cue it as yet. He did earn his first ever title in Agility, JS-N. Maybe he is ready for JWW?

Weaving, weaving, weaving

Last night I had 12 weave poles set-up for Ryker to play in. Ryddick offered me a ball to throw and ran to the weaves and did all 12. I threw the ball and he came back and did it again. He loves the poles. What a good boy!

Single Stepping the Weave Poles

I have been practicing the weaves a few times each day and Ryddick is single stepping them. He finds some really hard entries and doesn't give up if he won't get rewarded for a mistake. Operant dogs are really great.

Agility pics by C. Heyman

Weave Poles

Yeah! My baby is doing weave poles. He is very cautious about it at this time, seems like he doesn't want to make a mistake. I am going to do some of the exercises that I learned at camp to proof the weaves. Now I have to do some more handling exercises so I can enter him in AKC sometime early next year.

One Jump Training/Call to Heel

Karen Holik did some one jump work with us and had me try a call to heel serpentine. Ryker read my cues and got them the first time. Running them at Gerry's class was a different story. Adding a fast sequence ahead of the jumps were very challenging. His speed is phenomenal and I really have to be on top of it. We practice short sessions often and he is getting better in collecting.

Teeter Trouble

Ryddick has been having difficulty with the teeter. While he is going forward on it he will go into attack mode. This weekend I have had the opportunity to do some Teeter work in Huntsville. He did really good and by the end of day 2 he was not showing any sings of attacking the teeter. At first I would work on some low "slam it" exercises. Gradually leave the teeter higher. Once I felt he could get on the full teeter I would click as soon as he stepped on it. That way he was looking forward to a rewards instead of thinking about attacking the teeter. It worked great. I was watching for sings of stress and always stopped before he would have a raging fit. I hope to be able t do more teeter work in different places. I can't trial him unless he is "healed" ;-)

Lesson with Liz

One whole hour just Liz, Ryker and I. We worked on some SLS exercises. Really got to proof him more and challenge him to think on staying. He forgets to think when he is around the Agility equipment. He loves thinking and guessing and anticipating. And that is great, however he has to think with me, not against me. We also did some weave pole entry training. Been battling this on and off for some time now. Shauna has been giving me some great ideas and Liz added some more great ways to help him collect. He did some really nice collection with one of the exercises.I voiced my concern about his 2o2o at the A-Frame and possibly putting to much force on his shoulders when he stops. But Liz said that he does it very nice. I will relax a bit more and make him stop every time.My plan for the future. .... do the trials I am entered in, go to camp, re-train, re-train, re-train, no more trial until he can get it right. ASCA and DOCNA trials only and train in the ring if (when) he needs it.

2x2 Weave Training

After 8 months of not training Ryddick on the 2x2's, I decided that it is time to start again. I made is very simple and started with one, then two, then three. He not only picked up very quick from where we left of last year, but he seemed to have a better understanding of what to do and I was able to move forward within minutes. When he doesn't do it right I don't toss the toy and he knows to try again and correct himself. He is so damn smart. Raygen and him are the most operant dogs I have ever met.

Agilty Training

Ryker is currently enrolled in an Agility class with Shauna. My main goal for him is to hit those darn weave pole entries at the trials. He has been doing really great at home, but can't seem to get in the first time at the trials. Shauna gave me some more ideas to work on with him. One of them is weave-jump-weave. Interesting to see him pop out of weave 4 and take the jump. I worked on this this evening and made it easier and then started to reduce the distance of the jump to the weaves. He got it and stayed in. I will train some more tomorrow.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

We had a great weekend in Pleasant Grove. I like ASCA since they allow training in the ring. Ryker needed some start line stay training and he responded well to it. He gets so exited to run and can hardly wait to start and breaks his starts. Not so good if there is a lead out necessary. Most courses that I have run into do not need a lead out, but it is always a good idea to have a solid stay.The highlight of his weekend was earning a leg in Gamblers Novice and an amazing Jumpers run. 117 yds in 17.88 seconds = 6.54 yps. It was smooth and we were a team. Can't wait until next weekend.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

Smooth Dog

It was Ryddick's Agility trial debut. He had 2 amazing runs on Saturday. One was in Jumpers and he did great with 6.01 yps. He did knock the second to last bar and therefore did not qualify. Gamblers was great, too. He earned his first ever leg in 3rd place. On Sunday I did a bit more training in the ring. He was very upset with the teeter. Not sure how to describe it, but he wanted to tear it apart while he was performing it. Since he hasn't displayed this at home I am almost certain he was stressing.
On the other hand the Jumpers run was perfect and even though I almost lost the course he ran it at 5.37 yps, Q'ed and earned first place. Now we go back to a bit more training and maybe he gets to run again the end of the year.

Scary Dog Walk

At the Silvia Trkman seminar, Ryker was horrified of the dog walk. It had no slats! He got up to the "pivot" point, I truly think he thought it was a teeter, and jumped off. 5 people got up and told me, to pull him up by the collar (he had no collar on), lure him with food, pick him up and put him on, blablabla.I didn't, because I know it would only cause more harm. For the next 2 runs I just by-passed the dogwalk. Then we all went to lunch. After eating I had some time to shape Ryker to take the dogwalk. 5 minutes of no pressure training. That is all we needed.I didn't tell anyone and when it was our turn to run the course and he took that dogwalk in 1.5 seconds flat, I could hear them all gasp! Ryker is truly amazing.

Chasing MACH

Raygen is entered in the AKC Agility trial. He did really great on Friday in Standard and earned 12 points. Jumpers with Weaves started out great until he went into the weaves. "Oh, no" I though, "He is shutting down." At the corner of my eye I saw a loose dog on the outside of the ring gates and it was.... Ryker..... by then Raygen had popped out of the weaves to say hi to him and off course at that was our NQ. However we got to finish the course and I learned not to put my dogs in a friends X-Pen that I don't know how to lock. Heehee!Saturday we had a great Jumper run and he again earned some points. Then we got to do Standard and me being anchious that he would run into the tunnel trap called him to early and made him refuse a jump. Wished for that intelligent disobedience at that point. We went on and he did some great weaves and got to the table and then realized that the poor Raygen had to go poop, NOW!!!. I scooped him up and he got to finish on the other side of the fence. Again lesson learned, no feeding bones before trials. All fiber and chicken and skin.

USDAA Trial April 26th and 27th

I am learning every time I take this dog on the course. He was very good with his SLS. I am not going to lead out to much until he has overcome the bar knocking issue with chasing me. Nevertheless, he stayed for as long as I asked him to. I was expecting to get his AD this weekend. He only needed one leg in Jumpers. On Saturday he did great in Standard and earned his SSA and SG. He still is not getting into the weaves from a jump. Pairs was a disaster, he was all over the place and I lost my connection with him, but we finished the course.Sunday was a lot better. He earned an extra leg in Standard (no move-ups in USDAA) and even though he didn't Q in Jumpers, he had an great run. I was going to handle Snookers the same a I did with Raygen. The A-Frame was my major concern. It was close to the red jump and I tried to do a title left wrap around (taptaptaptap). He took the frame, no big deal, but I had to go all the way to the other side of the frame to get to my closing sequence and hesitated for one second and he put his rear legs back on the A-Frame. That was the end of that, but maybe he will try to do better contacts next time. I praised him as we left the ring. What a good boy!!!