Seminar--bummed out

corbinam

corbinam

Moderator
We had a contact seminar today with Janet Rahn. She follows Stuart Mah's training methods and has been a member of the Purina Incredible Dog Team.

As I've mentioned before, Bentley's worse obstacle is his contacts. It's obviously our fault, so we really wanted to work on them so that at least they aren't going to ruin his run.

We had our seminar, and while informative, I felt like it was really a downer. The first thing we did was run the dog walk and get timed--and Bentley took 3.5 seconds. Obviously, that's very slow (I think you want it around 1.5), which is one of the reasons we are taking the seminar. From there, it was just lots of things that we aren't good at. I know that taking a seminar is great because you get a chance to work on things you're bad at, but doing that for 4 hours really makes you feel crappy.

So that's where I am now, feeling crappy. I know it's dumb, and I'm being a baby, but all I think about are all the holes in our training and I'm overwhelmed with things to work on...
 
Look at the good side though. You took the initiative to get help in fixing the problem, and now you are armed with the information you need to work on fixing the problem. So, you are now starting on the road to better contacts.
Agility is always a learning experience. When we think we know something, one dog or another will do something to humble us and remind us of how we're only really scratching the surface, and how much we still have to learn and continue to grow.
 
HopeShelties said:
Look at the good side though. You took the initiative to get help in fixing the problem, and now you are armed with the information you need to work on fixing the problem. So, you are now starting on the road to better contacts.
Agility is always a learning experience. When we think we know something, one dog or another will do something to humble us and remind us of how we're only really scratching the surface, and how much we still have to learn and continue to grow.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Stacey :) I know you are right. I'm just such a competitive person that sometimes it's hard to realize that we have so much yet to learn. I never got into agility to win, but it's hard not to want to. So I'm stuck in this gray area where I love agility and so do the dogs, but I just don't have the time to be as good as I want to be (and as good as I know the dogs can be).
 
Knowledge is power.
You now know more about how to cut your time and improve the quality of your performance.

Now practice, practice, and wait...have FUN doing it.

I'm sorry that you're bummed because you see all the places where you need to improve but ANOTHER way to look at it is you NOW see all the places where you CAN improve.

You have POTENTIAL.
You are not limited by things that are impossible; only by time and training. You can take this as far as you want!
As for the time; if you're limited by the amount of training time you can do per week then you can expect that it will take more weeks to get to your goal.
Competitiveness is fine! Map out a feasible plan and go have fun doing it!
 
Gosh, dont be upset, you are doing something about it. Even seasoned agility people make tons of mistakes. Its easy to tell people what to do in training, but when you are running a course a whole heap of things come into play. Besides, it isn't always the best handler that wins prizes. My last few trials very few people qualify so accuracy rather than speed gets through.

My tactic is to tape every trial and then work on one problem area between trials - its too much to fix everything at once. This approach is working heaps better than trying to fix everything, and the dogs seem to 'get it' better when I just focus on one thing. I think I am more precise in my instructions when I think through what we are doing.

Atm for Tully I am working on what i say to her when running - not just commands but the 'good girl' I stick in all the time. For Deska we are working on not going on the dogwalk seeing as he likes to invent courses that involve going over the dogwalk several times (he has an injury so we need to focus on flatwork anyway)

So maybe dont be overwhelmed by everything you need to fix and work on one thing at a time.
 
awwwww, sucks to be bummed out when you're paying good money for a seminar!!!! Didn't they tell you what you guys were good at?!

Other than that sounds like what everyone else said is pretty darn good advice

Besides that you're still one of the people on here who are MY (and Toffee's) inspiration!!! That counts for sumthin' doesn't it? hehehe, chin up Buttercup, have fun with it!!!
 
Good thoughts from everyone else. Glass half full !

You need to feel good about what you've done with Bentley so far. I'm sorry that the instructor left you feeling this way. Poo on any instructor for not bringing out the best in the group, regardless of the level of the group.
 
And think how much fun Bentley is having!! Fortunately, he doesn't understand English, so he just had a wonderful time spending the whole day playing with you, his mostest favroritest person in the universe!!!! :biggrin2:
 
Thanks everyone--I'm feeling much better!

And really, the instructor was very helpful! I just don't like thinking about all the things we need to work on. Like I said, the seminar was about contacts, and that's the thing we need the most work on. So there weren't a lot of "great" things that we did--but I do feel good about the direction that she gave us.

I'm just a competitive person. Even in my life I really would rather do things that I'm really good at than work on things I'm not (just ask my DH) :razz:
 
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