Tags: agility

• Training Challenge…Week One

  As planned we went somewhere different to train on Friday. Not part of the plan was the rain. So, Dare and Raven got to do some agility in the rain, and the good news is that none of us melted even though we got pretty wet. LOL Actually I think the dogs liked it being a little cool. Dare has been to this place before, but just as an observer when Layla was working at the agility field. Raven has [...]

• Training Challenge: On the Road

  My cold seems to be giving me a little break during the days now. Just recurring at night to keep me awake coughing, but I’m grateful for the improvement! In the meantime, I’ve had time to do some thinking. I know that one of the areas my training can use improvement is in taking the dogs to places away from home (other than classes), to help them generalize behaviors. For some of the dogs, it isn’t a huge problem, but [...]

• Distance Drills With Motion

  So, today’s drills proved to be quite a bit more difficult than the previous ones. Isn’t that always the way it works when you start adding motion and a little speed to things? What was once so clear and simple can turn into a real mess. All in all though, the girls did really well. On her first run through, Raven apparently thought that my hand signal for the “out jump” looked enough like the obedience hand signal to drop [...]

• More Distance Drill Stuff

  Today I thought I’d set up a different obstacle to work on the second drill some more with the girls. I was lazy as usual, and I thought that I’d cheat a bit. Instead of hauling out two different obstacles, I thought I’d make use of one with two ends. LOL Actually, I thought it would be a good idea anyway, since a lot of times you have to discriminate between ends of a tunnel on course, even when it’s [...]

• Distance Drill 2

  The part of the distance drills that we worked on today is adding a second obstacle into the picture. You start out with a second obstacle, they don’t have to be identical, but that was easiest for me today because I had the pvc jumps out of the lawn already. I didn’t do the greatest job of filming today but my options for setting up the tripod and not having it blow over in the aweful wind were a bit [...]

• Too Many Options?

  So, there is discussion on one of the lists that I’m on about how entries/support in some of the various Obedience venues in Utah seems to be dwindling lately. Specifically in regards to ASCA and UKC obedience. The discussion seems to branching out into the other dog sports too though, including agility, and field trials. When Zoe and I first got involved in Agility we competed in NADAC/ASCA. It was a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere and we had enough trials within [...]

• Distance Drill 1

  So, if my memory and notes serve me correctly…the first distance drill only involved one obstacle. In this case I used a jump, but I also remember him having several stations set up and one would be with a tunnel, one with a tire, etc. So, I should probably make a point of switching obstacles out so that the dogs generalize what we’re doing to any obstacle. Anyway, back to the drill. It just involves setting the dog almost in [...]

• Improving Distance Skills

  After Zoe managed to complete her Elite Gamblers title this last weekend I got to thinking…maybe improving her distance skills wouldn’t be impossible after all. I keep putting it off with her because she’s older and I just know that teaching her new skills turns into such a fight sometimes. Especially since she’s an opinionated girl that thinks that she knows how everything is done already. LOL But the way she’s running, she’s not ready for the retirement home, checker [...]

• Video From ASCA Agility

  Ok, so far I’ve managed to get a couple of the videos from this weekend, uploaded. Unfortunately, I didn’t get either of Zoe’s Gamblers Q’s filmed. I usually don’t even bother to ask anyone to film Gamblers because it’s almost always a mess. Guess it just goes to show that I shouldn’t assume the worst. Here’s one of the Standard runs from Saturday. And here is one of her Jumpers runs from Saturday. In other news…my husband went into the [...]

• ASCA Day 1

  Day 1 of the ASCA trial went great! It’s another super small trial. I love that it’s small, it makes the atmosphere nice and relaxed. II don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing for the club that’s putting the trial on though, so I sure hope they were able to make enough to cover their expenses. It’s always fun to catch with everyone and hear all the new dog news. A friend of ours is expecting puppies. That’s always exciting [...]