Thursday, October 25, 2007

Agility 101


I am starting to work with Vito a bit more seriously (a bit, not a lot) and thought it would be fun to blog about some of the things I am doing with him.

Motivation:

The most important thing for any dog- and especially a dog like Vito is building up a motivator. In Vito's case he loves the tug 'n treat, aswell as a long furry purple tug like thing. He has been a hard to dog to motivate so I am thrilled that now he will tug almost anywhere- we do lots of fun warm up games to get his brain working, and to increase the excitement of the training- so sit, down, throw the toy; down, sit, stand, tug the toy etc. etc.

Contacts:

Even though I am not going to keep a 2on2off I do want to teach it- I want him to learn independant contact behaviour so that I do not have to be there with him. Also- I want to have f-a-s-t contacts- so it is quite a complicated thing at this point as I mostly want fast- not accurate. So- I am racing him- I have a target on the bottom, loaded with goodies I might add, I hold him back get him pumped and if I get there before he does I get the cookies! The nice thing about this is that with the target there he isn't jumping off-which is what I was getting when I was racing him without the target. I am teaching his actual bottom behaviour on a contact trainer. Using a clear target- asking for a nose touch in a traditional 2on2off stance. This is coming along well, but not great as he tends to sit...I am also continueing on with the happiest place which has made the most impact on him. He loves this game and I think that this is what is actually helping him to understand what I want. The teeter is his best piece of equipment at this point. I started doing teeter games with him months ago so this dog LOVES the teeter. He gets on, runs to the end, and rides it down- exactly what I want.

Jumping:

He is jumping 6" and knows how to find a jump, will go out to a jump, and is learning jump patterns. He can succesfully complete a pin wheel on his own, as well as a serpentine. We have just started threadles and 270's. I am trying to do a lot of jump work- as I do not need another bar knocker. We have a goodie container with PB or canned food that he gets when we do jump games. I want him to think that jumps have the most value.

Handling:

He can follow a front cross, and a rear cross on the flat. We are using tunnels to teach rear crosses on a jump and he has front crosses down pat. I think that he is the dog that I will have to be doing front crosses- alot. With Wicca and Sam I tend to use a lot of rears- mostly because I am always behind them! With V I think that I will be using front crosses to keep him moving and paying attention.

Weave Poles:

I have been teaching him entries- just with two poles and clicking. And that is about as far as I have got so far with weaves. I will be using gates to teach them, but am not in any hurry.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love this picture of Vito.

manymuddypaws said...

thanks! it is kinda fuzzy but I don't have one of him full out running so thought it would be good for now! He's so cute.