Day 1:The Letter "M"

Tonight's training session was great! I love it when I can walk away from training my dogs feeling great even if there were some mistakes. That can be difficult for me to do some times. Today was the first day we tried working the letter "M" from Nancy Gyes' Alphabet Drills. We had many successes but a few failures. Monster nailed the rear crosses. I am sure I wasn't the best at executing them all. After all, these exercises are for me too- probably even more so than for them. I made sure to take breaks in between the tough exercises so that we good do some things that we are typically successful at and to keep it light and fun. We worked a few front crosses, pushes to the pack side of the jump, and some serpentines. Had some good weave poles (only room for 6 in the yard right now) and worked some targeting on the dogwalk. I used the Manners Minder to reinforce a 2 On 2 Off position. I feel so bad for Monster because I haven't been able to make up my mind, but since I don't have dreams of Nationals I decided that we don't need those extra seconds and I feel more comfortable teaching him a 2O2O. I think it will take lots of repetition and some muscle memory to get the best final product but he's remembering the foundation we started with quickly. Overall, I am really happy with how tonight went.

Shawty and I tried working some rear crosses with quite a but of difficulty. But I made sure to take breaks to get/keep him motivated and we had a few successes (not without some verbal directional cues). We will keep working at it until we don't need verbals. Once I can video how sessions, I think I will be able to see how much is my timing and how much is his necessity to see me. I know that this particular issue is not all my handling but I am hoping with more consistent cues from me, he will be able to handle a rear cross better. While we were misreading each other, he sent himself into 6 weavepoles away from me and into a fence!!! I couldn't believe it! I was so proud of him and cheered and screamed and he got a big ol' party! He did it twice! Finally, I had to reel him in so that we could work on what we set out to do. I attempted to work some serpentines with him but he preferred threadles, lol. A lot of it is my handling but some of it is that he stays on handler focus too long and then I am forced to either cue the jump to early and push him to the back of the jump OR I cue it late and have to do a (successful) rear cross. We worked the dogwalk as a running contact to the Manners Minder. I am hoping that with enough repetition, he will have the muscle memory of just running straight through the yellow. I want him looking forward and not at me on this obstacle. We had a pretty great training session tonight. I want to make it clear that none of the comments about our failures are meant to be negative or complaining. I want to keep track of our strengths and weaknesses through this blog so I can look back and see how far we've come. I have every hope and intention to be able to do so. 

Last, but certainly not least, Punch got to do some jumps and tunnels. He is gonna be FAST! That boy can run and he's got drive! We just need to harness it a little bit, LOL. I sent him through to jumps (working a startline stay) and then to the tunnel. I then added a few jumps in different sequences after the tunnel. Had 2-3 instances where he got too focused on the ball I had and barked at me but I made sure not to correct him too much and just keep moving to stay motivated. I learned this from Janet. Less do overs make puppies stay confident while they are learning this crazy sport called agility. Then, I introduced him to the dogwalk with a 2O2O and the Manners Minder (he is familiar with the Manners Minder but not the 2O2O). I only work the last 1-1.5 planks. He did great tonight too and I am so amazed at how different the strengths and weaknesses in all of my dogs are. I think it's more interesting that their breed and foundation backgrounds speak a lot for where their strengths lie. 

Stay tuned for, hopefully, some video of our next training session! I will certainly try to post some video from some point this week. G'night all!