Purley

I guess she just doesn't like the first lesson because today she was happy and doing everything. She was excellent on the table. We were trying to have them stay down for 1 second the first, 2 seconds the second time etc. Lucy went down and stayed down and I had to say OK to get her to come off the table. She was a bit hesitant the first couple of times in the chute - when I called her from the other end she was fine but going in by herself - not so much!

But at least she had fun and that was my main aim. There was no sniffing the floor or pulling on the leash!!!

schnauzerpoodle

YAY~ Glad to know that Lucy is loving her class now!

ArreauStandardPoodle

That is wonderful Purley! Way to go Lucy!!

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debjen

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh Gald she is having fun.

JE-UK

Wonderful! Sounds like she's just a careful girl ... now the fun can start.

I can't tell you how much mine loves agility. He's impatient to go, go, go, and when we send him out, he gives this little yelp/bark that sounds like it's just been squeezed out of him, it's hysterical.

Have fun!

Purley

There is a Standard poodle in her class. She was in her obedience class too. The dog is black with white on her chest and white "slippers" on her front feet. She is a bit of a goofball. She reminds me of my son's Doodle actually. She is very "clunky" looking - looks like a male to me, but that obviously doesn't matter to the owners. Anyway, she kept slipping out of her collar and then she would race around and avoid being caught. Lucy gets really excited when another dog races around and she was yapping her head off!!

But she watched me most of the time. We did some "push-ups" -- sit, down, sit, down -- and then a treat. We did some "watch me's" in between. She was just a totally different dog from last week - tail up and wagging and obviously enjoying herself. We had a different trainer last night. She said she prefers to do the equipment as it will be - i.e. - she does the teeter with the teeter on the stand - whereas the usual trainers do it without the stand. Tyson is small and he crouches down when he knows the teeter is going to go down - so it lowers his centre of gravity and it doesn't "bang" down.

The new trainer likes to do the weaves "as they are" just using a treat to weave them in and out. Lucy was pretty good at that.

When I started with Tyson, we learned the weaves with the poles spread almost on the ground and then gradually they were raised higher and higher. It took Tyson ages to do the weaves with the poles vertical.

I think its easier to teach them with the poles vertical from the start. Anybody else have opinions on teaching the difficult things - weaves and teeter??

JE-UK

Vasco likes agility so much that we are training with two different clubs. One teaches weaves with the channel method, and the other with guides. He's picking it up much faster with the guides (plastic strips to demarcate the path). Like this pic.

One instructor likes to teach the seesaw first, the theory being that once the dog is comfortable with something moving under him, he'll be fine with the dog walk. Doing the dog walk first then surprising them with the seesaw can be intimidating. That made sense to me.

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Purley

That is interesting because Tyson, my shih-tzu has always absolutely loved the dog walk. We do course practice all the time and if there is a tunnel beside the dog walk and I say "tunnel" Tyson will quite often decide the dog walk is way much more fun and choose that instead. On the other hand, the teeter is not one of his favourites even still. He does it all the time but I can tell he would go back and forth on the dog walk all the time if I let him!!

debjen

In the 13 years I have been doing agility and with 4 different dogs I have probably tried most of the various ways to do different obstacles..and have found that things once taboo are now common place. I personally like to teach things in parts and pieces. I have found the dog has a better understanding of things if I teach the contact performance whatever it might be and actually running the contact separately. For the teeter I teach the bang game at the end of the board first so the get use to the movement and sound of the board.

For the weaves I've used the lure, the push and pull the channels and the weave a matics. But I am completely sold on Susan Garrett's 2 x 2 method.

Of course I start my dogs pretty young so I do a lot of stuff on the ground before ever getting to the actual equipment such as walking on a board..learning contact performance on a board, tunnels, jumps without bars and focus work.

Purley

Yes. I did check on youtube for Susan Garrett's method and I think I will try it when I get my own equipment out when the lawn is dry enough. What is the bang game by the way?