I can’t believe what just happened. And of course I have no video 😦
The dogs were restless so I decided to train a little to tire their brains and help them settle down (probably not a good idea if you have a working breed, but with whippets it works just fine 🙂 ).
For Ruby the exercise was cik & cap around a cone on verbal only, no help with body or arm cues. Not that this is important to me… the main reason he can’t tell cik from cap is that he has a handler that shouts out the first word that comes to her mind, and it’s usually the wrong one 😉 I thought it would be a good exercise to make him think. Continue reading →
Even though it might seem like all Java does these days is run down a plank, we have actually been doing a little bit of sequencing as well. I tried to build up to Agility Foundations homework 2 sequence on the left, but it’s all wraps and more wraps… and occasional tunnel. Not a great fit for Java right now. She needs more action 🙂 Continue reading →
The class has finally begun! Unfortunately Java has injured the skin on her paws while running after balls. I think the ground is too rough at the moment as there is not much grass and her skin is not used to it. We won’t be training for a week while her skin heals, but here is what we did so far:
2on2off: we progressed to the point when I can throw the treat ahead and she will stop in position (well, mostly… and sometimes she will get slow while watching the treat – who said stickiness is for BCs only 🙂 )
Multiwraps: she is quite tight and focusing on the cone much better than before.
Figure 8: I asked for more than she could do, then I tried correcting it with multiwraps, then she got slower 😦 But that first try had lovely speed! Need to have a better plan prepared for next time.
Single wrap sends: I used a bottle on a string so that I wouldn’t use thrown toys all the time and she didn’t drive into the turn quite as well, but turns were nice and tight.
Weaves: within a few repetitions she was running ahead into nothing and recalling through 🙂 Too bad we’ll have to stop using tennis balls for a while.
Since the weathermen predict all sorts of nasty weather in the future, we stopped by agility club again to sneak in another short session. Unfortunately the snow was a bit slippery today so we only did a few repetitions for the camera and then went for a walk.
This is the same exercise we did yesterday, figure eight around jump wings:
Only today it was a bit slower due to snow conditions. Still a lot of fun, though 🙂
Don’t worry, we haven’t started real agility training, but every new trick she learns is building some skill or muscle group that she will need for agility. Today we went to agility practice just to hang around and see if she can focus on me. She did really well, and was ready to do some tricks while other dogs ran.
However, I soon grew tired of doing same tricks over and over so when I spotted a cone in a corner I thought perhaps we could do a bit of Cik & Cap. This trick was popularized by Silvia Trkman and is used for teaching dogs to wrap jumps in agility, Cik for wrap to left and Cap for wrap to right. Since the beginning stages are done on the ground it’s safe to teach it to puppies.
Practicing Cik & Cap while another dog was running was quite a gamble: I had to unclip her leash and didn’t know if she will run off to chase the dog or if she will find Cik & Cap fun enough to work with me. Java really surprised me: not only did she not run away, she was BARKING as she wrapped the cone! She was clearly excited that I finally gave her some real work to do 🙂
Of course that made me a bit over-confident, so later she did run off to see the dog running the course 😛 But then again when I called she turned around in the middle of a full-out run, so she gets bonus points for that.
To see what Cik & Cap on the ground looks like, see below for video of Ruby doing this exercise after 4 months of rehabilitation from a shoulder injury. Cik & Cap is at 1:10 mark.
Speaking of Ruby, his sprained toe is doing very well and I can’t wait to be able to let him run freely in another two weeks. He is going to be sooooo happy… and so will I 🙂
Ruby The Whippet 