Agility runs by Epic #3

[seashel]

To Toffee´s Mom- you going to teach ring wise dog really fast if you blow past weaves and not correct it during the trial. Avoiding failures will get you dog that shuts down every time things going to get tough...Trials are stressful and you have no reinforcement on you i.e. toys or food to make it different. Stress is a part of life though and teaching dog to deal with it in practice is far more reliable answer IMHO

I would be interested to know what you would suggest in this scenario because as you may remember, at the indoor show Epic failed his weaves four times (the location and position of the weaves didn't alter between classes) and I could see him getting bothered about it with each attempt I made so in the end I just let him have a go so he didn't think he had skipped the obstacle. At the show on Sunday I saw a number of people have two gos at the weaves and then just run past if still no luck. So if the dog is struggling on the weaves do you make an attempt and leave it at that, give up on the third attempt and run on to the next jump or persevere making him do it right however long it takes. Or would you just leave the ring at that point?

Labgirl - that's interesting. I was thinking along the lines of a release cue to drive on to the reward that I could use during training on all lengths of sequences. Currently I try to 'jackpot' for tricky things and give a more minor reward for general sucess so a small frisbee throw for something easy but a really exciting game of frisbee after something new we are learning. So a full length course would be a jackpot moment but taking two jumps is just one small throw or a 'dead' toy. Is that the right path to take? There doesn't seem to be much about how to reward in any of my books/videos. I need to get away from carying the toy all the time in training too, primarily because it's a hinderance.

Yes he's quick - too quick sometimes as he learned today when he fell off the dog walk when he misplaced his footing. He was fine thankfully so I just ran him straight back on. Luckily he is one of those dogs who picks himself up and continues rather than dwelling on things.

SheltieChe, thanks for that, really useful stuff especially the last article and the video. I think you/SG are saying that being in the competition ring should become the ultimate excitement, rather than a lower key? That is something I struggled with with the obedience dogs, particuarly Revel, because he knew the reinforcement was far off he switched out pretty early on.
Something to work at for sure.

 

[corbinam]

I would be more likely to vary your rate of reward and your sequence length than to teach a finish command. I want my dog to run with me whether we are doing one obstacle or 45.

One thing Stuart Mah did in his seminars was to have us do REALLY long sequences. Mentally it's good for the handler and the dog. Even if you are working in a small space plan to run longer--find 5 obstacles to add, add a front cross and run the sequence backward. Also make sure you practice a sequence that runs towards the exit--especially something where Epic might be ahead of you. Jackpot when he turns to come with you and keep going. Sometimes do 2 jumps and jackpot and turn and leave, etc. Keep him engaged and guessing!

While I understand exactly what Sheltieche is suggesting about ring wise dogs, I also think you have to know your dog. Know how strong his skills are and how sensitive he is. If he is worrying and getting demotivated, take a step back and be happy with an attempt. Make the criteria a little more challenging every time. If he starts to gain confidence, ask for more before your reward. You don't want him to learn to worry at the weaves as it will only get worse.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

Yeah, teaching dog agility obstacles is easy part
To Toffee´s Mom- you going to teach ring wise dog really fast if you blow past weaves and not correct it during the trial. Avoiding failures will get you dog that shuts down every time things going to get tough...Trials are stressful and you have no reinforcement on you i.e. toys or food to make it different. Stress is a part of life though and teaching dog to deal with it in practice is far more reliable answer IMHO

I heartily and fully disagree in my dog's case.
It's NOT failure, he's scared out of his mind, and STILL stays with me
I trust my Instructor who has a lot more trial experience than most people I know.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

It's my training philosophy, I'm not a big name trainer but I know that a dog that is TOO stressed, afraid or anxious can NOT learn, because it is an emotion not a behaviour.
For example he did the weaves very well the next day and Q'd etc. Because he trusts me to not push him beyond what he can handle, he trusts me and relies on me to ensure he is always safe with me. That is more valuable as a training decision than micro managing in fear of having a trial savvy dog.

I often do weaves as a choice obstacle in snooker's runs because he IS normally reliable in them, even at trial. Do we have holes, of course we do, we're always working on things. I am never ever pushing it and don't recommend Julia does either, IF she has a fearful/anxious dog who may have had some bad experiences in the past. I cued the weaves late and that started to set him off, combined with that particular judge being so close to him. You can demotivate a fearful and anxious dog in a heartbeat, and it takes a long time to get it back! For my situation to have that type of dog still able to function at trial, not lose his mind to go after other dogs, or redirect any frustration but instead to stay with me in the ring and work as hard as he can and NOT blowing me off... is a heart Q and makes me very proud to run with him!!

With all due respect of the big names, they aren't behaviourists nor do I personally agree with all of their methods.

However, if I had a dog that self rewards and doesn't want to slow down or collect, etc and blows past the weaves because they want to get to their obstacle of choice it would be a completely different kettle of fish...

 

[SheltieChe]

I would be interested to know what you would suggest in this scenario because as you may remember, at the indoor show Epic failed his weaves four times (the location and position of the weaves didn't alter between classes) and I could see him getting bothered about it with each attempt I made so in the end I just let him have a go so he didn't think he had skipped the obstacle. At the show on Sunday I saw a number of people have two gos at the weaves and then just run past if still no luck. So if the dog is struggling on the weaves do you make an attempt and leave it at that, give up on the third attempt and run on to the next jump or persevere making him do it right however long it takes. Or would you just leave the ring at that point?

Agree with corbinam, you really need to know your dog there is no cookie cutter recipes what will work for me might not be an answer for anybody else. But let me leave you with couple questions- you run at practice and at fun match and have perfect weaves, nail 100% etc. So all you need is to duplicate that experience right? Then you go to trial and suddenly 4 times miss... so what changed? Did you forget how to handle? did your dog forget how to weave?
Also what do you do when your dog fails at practice 4 times? Have you set him up to fail and let him work thru it? Are you one of those handlers that have to ¨help¨ the dog and before you know that dog trains the handler to stand right there... bend just so... move arms just this way... otherwise dog can not do weaves
All those things have to be taken into considerations and I salute you for taking time to videotape and analyze and work on creating plan A and plan B
I am not a fan of removing dog from the ring. As to what I will do here is my current situation, I´ve been working on independent weaves recently and now I have Che stop in the middle of the weaves totally confused, asking me ¨what games are we playing today, mom?¨
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jBqAgqTN3Q
We are competing this weekend so I might yet to see him doing the same at trial Does not bother me at all, those are not failures, those are learning opportunities and yes my plan A is to rev him up with trigger right before weave entry so he does not have time to think and just does the job and plan B use NRM, make big fuss I would normally do at practice and ask to repeat second time. Because of the way I train I know I have thinking dogs so it is their responsibility to get it right
Feels like I was writing a poem but you asked

 

[SheltieChe]

It's my training philosophy, I'm not a big name trainer but I know that a dog that is TOO stressed, afraid or anxious can NOT learn, because it is an emotion not a behaviour.
For example he did the weaves very well the next day and Q'd etc. Because he trusts me to not push him beyond what he can handle, he trusts me and relies on me to ensure he is always safe with me. That is more valuable as a training decision than micro managing in fear of having a trial savvy dog.

I often do weaves as a choice obstacle in snooker's runs because he IS normally reliable in them, even at trial. Do we have holes, of course we do, we're always working on things. I am never ever pushing it and don't recommend Julia does either, IF she has a fearful/anxious dog who may have had some bad experiences in the past. I cued the weaves late and that started to set him off, combined with that particular judge being so close to him. You can demotivate a fearful and anxious dog in a heartbeat, and it takes a long time to get it back! For my situation to have that type of dog still able to function at trial, not lose his mind to go after other dogs, or redirect any frustration but instead to stay with me in the ring and work as hard as he can and NOT blowing me off... is a heart Q and makes me very proud to run with him!!

With all due respect of the big names, they aren't behaviourists nor do I personally agree with all of their methods.

However, if I had a dog that self rewards and doesn't want to slow down or collect, etc and blows past the weaves because they want to get to their obstacle of choice it would be a completely different kettle of fish...

you obviously know your dog, Toffee does not look terrified or scared out of his mind on your videoclips, good job!

 

[SheltieChe]

slept on it and figured out where I went wrong.
Lumped it too much. I do not usually do targets and only did it couple times and abandoned as it was too cumbersome. So my next POA/ plan of action/ is to open up weaves fully so dog has no choice but to run thru and throw a toy in direction of his movement while walking opposite, maybe just slow walking first. Then I might try closing weaves slowly and use MM/ manners minder/ as it will have better remote food control.

 

[seashel]

That's really helpful Corbinam. We did a full course yesterday in training more or less in one go (a couple of readjustments were necessary) and he was 100% switched on. I think he had got very used to doing 8-10 obstacles and getting a reward as for 8 weeks that's pretty much what we had been doing so he was anticipating finishing and the confusion kicked in when I was wanting to carry on. A stupid mistake as I vary duration of heelwork rounds in training enormously to keep them guessing when they will get a reward.

Agree with corbinam, you really need to know your dog there is no cookie cutter recipes what will work for me might not be an answer for anybody else. But let me leave you with couple questions- you run at practice and at fun match and have perfect weaves, nail 100% etc. So all you need is to duplicate that experience right? Then you go to trial and suddenly 4 times miss... so what changed? Did you forget how to handle? did your dog forget how to weave?
Also what do you do when your dog fails at practice 4 times? Have you set him up to fail and let him work thru it? Are you one of those handlers that have to ¨help¨ the dog and before you know that dog trains the handler to stand right there... bend just so... move arms just this way... otherwise dog can not do weaves. All those things have to be taken into considerations and I salute you for taking time to videotape and analyze and work on creating plan A and plan B
I am not a fan of removing dog from the ring. As to what I will do here is my current situation, I´ve been working on independent weaves recently and now I have Che stop in the middle of the weaves totally confused, asking me ¨what games are we playing today, mom?¨
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jBqAgqTN3Q
We are competing this weekend so I might yet to see him doing the same at trial Does not bother me at all, those are not failures, those are learning opportunities and yes my plan A is to rev him up with trigger right before weave entry so he does not have time to think and just does the job and plan B use NRM, make big fuss I would normally do at practice and ask to repeat second time. Because of the way I train I know I have thinking dogs so it is their responsibility to get it right
Feels like I was writing a poem but you asked

The show where he struggled on the weaves was his second show and the first time indoors. Since we had achieved 12 poles I had really only done the weaves once or twice during lessons and I don't think he'd ever done a jump with a head on entry into the weaves - plus my handling was...absent. Basically inexperience on the obstacle, very new and different environment and rubbish green handler who was about a use as a chocolate teapot!
I think I had been lulled into a false sense of security because the previous week we had done our first show and he had done perfect weaves twice - but it was held where we train. After the show I went home, put 6 weaves up in the garden and ran him through a couple of times and he was as confident and happy as ever. Now he knows the weave technique I have spent more time on combining with jumps and tunnels so he's happy with doing them as a sequence. I trained him with 2x2s so he's pretty independant irrespective of what I do (he needs to be as I'm somewhat unreliable). I think though at shows I cannot expect him to have the same performance as at home while he is leaning the ropes - in the same way as I can't drive as confidently in London as I do round the local roads.

With a bit of hindsight my instinct is that I should have done what I eventually did much sooner, accepted the attempt, forget about getting it 100% and breezed on with the rest of the round. The more times I put him him, the less confident he became and this was a dog who shrieks with excitement when I put the poles out and runs through them without being sent if I'm not careful! If he has a problem with the poles again at a show I won't put him in more than two max three times. If he's failing after that many attempts then it is a training issue I need to sort at home and forcing the issue in the ring might do more damage than good. I was encouraged by his much impoved performance at this show. Once he got in he did them confidently and quickly so I think things will improve with expereince.

Everyones' responses suggest how you deal with a problem depends on the individual dog. That is brilliant feedback to have, especially with my new training challenge...

It also fits in with what I do with obedience. Yogi recently started to go down in his sit stays during competition for no apparent reason. Because you can't go back and correct a dog under test, he 'got away' with it a couple of times and it became a habit very quickly. Under these circumstances I put him through a sit stay immediatly afterwards outside the ring and made him do it right so he didn't 'get away with it'. (I've also done loads of remedial stay work at home etc). He wasn't stressed, confused or anything, just getting lazy. Epic breaking stays I would handle entirely different as with him it's all about confidence building. He finds stays hard because of the distance to me, the proximaty of other dogs and he doesn't do lack of motion well either. Correcting him would be wholly counter-productive.

For me, one of the most enjoyable things about doing agility is learning a whole new dog sport, I feel like a sponge just wanting to soak it all in - but it's also good to know that somethings hold true for all kinds of dog training.

 

[labgirl]

Weaves can be such a pain!

Merlin has been hitting 12 perfectly for weeks and weeks, now suddenly he is skipping a middle one. In practice I take him back to the start and try again, I make him get it right before I move on. Sometimes that means slowing him down so he hits the weaves right. For him I think when he goes fast it is 'easier' sometimes to miss a middle weave, so I have to be on the ball!

I don't push him to complete an obstacle he has failed on in a comp, depending on the scenario. For instance, if I think he is likely to shut down if I try to force him. If it is just a basic error I will of course send him back. Again it is all about understanding your dogs needs and limitations.

With Epic's weaves, I would be going home and practicing the poles three or four times a day at home, then at the next comp I would slow him down for the weaves, use a close command if necessary and then take him through them steadily. I did this with Merlin on our first comp course with weaves, I wanted it right even if it meant slowing him. Because so many dogs messed up their weaves and Merlin didn't we got second!

I think accuracy over speed has to be the first goal, then you can move the dog on to go faster. So many dogs I see are fast but make endless mistakes from not being accurate.

And I add myself to that because Merlin keeps missing his end contact on the dogwalk

 

[Sharon]

Agility runs by Epic

Weaves can be such a pain


With Epic's weaves, I would be going home and practicing the poles three or four times a day at home, then at the next comp I would slow him down for the weaves, use a close command if necessary and then take him through them steadily.

If you have a fast dog don't ever slow him down.It's demotivating.It's only going to come back and bite you in the butt!! Weaves aren'ta pain.If taught correctly they are easy.JMO