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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Dognerd level: maximum. Dogsports Megathread!
 
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Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!
I'm running recreational agility with my little broken dog (2 herniated discs in his back), waiting out the clock until he hits veteran age so we can do some light competition at a low jump height. I'm also training more seriously with my 3-year-old (pre-)novice border collie. She doesn't quite have her contacts reliable yet (and we're doing running contacts, so it may be a long progression).

My handling has changed considerably over the last year or so since I changed instructors and started a faster dog. My old instructor (whose classes I help out with) had her foundations with Greg Derrett's handling system, then switched over to Mecklenberg so what she teaches has flavors of both. My new instructor's handling is more purely motion-based, and she's recently started playing around with OneMind stuff. I find I have to switch on the fly between the old and new depending on which dog I'm running, since I haven't done all the forward focus groundwork with my little guy (though I'm tempted to take a month or two and teach him, the OMD stuff feels way more fluid and faster).

I've been doing a refresher of the 'around the clock' portion of the MEB 2x2 method for teaching weave poles with my BC (link). I'm trying to get better fluency with angled entries, particularly with the dog on my left.

We're at the really awkward point where she's almost proficient: I need to actually handle, but I also need to reward frequently to keep her from guessing.

Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jun 18, 2015

* # ¿ Jun 18, 2015 17:45
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:53
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Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!

Aquatic Giraffe posted:


We can flawlessly do Masters level courses in class but as soon as we get to a trial he goes all hurf-durf sensory overload. The only way I've found so far is to run him ragged before we go so he's running on fumes and doesn't have the extra energy to expend on visiting the ring stewards and judge. Everyone says he'll grow out of it and I'm seeing some definite improvement but it's really frustrating to drop money and time on a trial only to have him blow it in the first few seconds he's in the ring. He just needs more trial experience, but there are only 6 local trials a year and I don't want to spend the money and time on traveling to out of town trials (closest is 3 hours away) until he's more reliable in the ring... which he'll become once he gets experience from going to more trials. It's a Catch-22.

If he's zooming for distraction rather than stress, there's a proofing exercise we do that's kind of a bridge between Control Unleashed and agility. Basically you scatter stuff (starting with boring stuff and working up to toys and eventually bags of treats) around the course and proof against distraction, switching from box work to running agility and back as he needs it. You just have to be careful not to put anything right in his path or yours.

* # ¿ Jul 7, 2015 03:40
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Dognerd level: maximum. Dogsports Megathread!