Dont Spoil What You Have (September Run Thrus)...

Well, today we went to run thrus and had a pretty good morning. For those who may not know, run thrus are like practice after all of your training in class, home, etc. It helps mimic a trial type setting with the ability to train, reward, and redo certain sequences without any fault. Run thrus are also usually cheaper than a trial and you get to catch up with familiar faces and fellow competitors. They are great for testing skills in young dogs in a new environment because all it takes is a change of location to make all that fabulous training a little shaky. Lots of sounds, smells, and sights to offer distractions. 

The morning started with Monster running a Standard course that is above his level. It's been 3 months since we did anything agility related (with the exception of class last week) and we were pretty rusty. We had done great in class so I didn't expect much but that change in environment told me otherwise. Monster was very handler focused and a little distracted. Of course, the course started with a few obstacles Monster doesn't see often when we are at home (tire to chute). I warmed him up with the tire and we had no issue with it. He came out of the barrel of the chute once he realized it was closed (after getting stuck multiple times in the chute at LCDA at our last trial, he's been a little cautious of it). I brought him back, revved him up and tried to send him again without success. Windi, our host, came over and held the chute slightly open and we had success! Then we did 2 small sequences that I made up to test our chute confidence and he did great! The rest of that first run was a lot of turning around and resending him to obstacles, poor weave pole attempts, and we just weren't in sync. 

Monster ready for more action!

Shawty had a great first run with 100% success in the weaves (we have trouble at this place sometimes because I think the weaves are 20", maybe 22" but they are tighter than what we normally train with)! He ran fast at 8" and I had no real complaints. 

Shawty wondering why I'm bothering him after such a great run thru!

Monster's 2nd run was much more fluid. Windi suggested breaking the course up and rewarding him after short sequences and it was very helpful. We had weave pole troubles but I wasn't going to push him since I believe it was not a performance issue. Monster was much more obstacle focused and excited to run this time!

The one constant that I noticed was that our contacts didn't exist! I'm not upset about it because I haven't really been training them. I am not very fluent or comfortable with contact training but I have to do something about it. That is the lesson I learned today. That's the great thing about dogs. If you listen and pay attention they will tell you where the holes are in your training. They're so honest that way :)

So, Phil (my boyfriend) mowed the yard today and I am planning on putting up a small sequence from Nancy Gyes' Alphabet Drills book up and setting the dogwalk up some where as well. We don't have a standard dogwalk (it's shorter in height and length) but we should be able to train what we need to. On top of that, I am going to start training Monster with an aframe box made of PVC that was can place on the aframe in class. I just need to decide if I want him to run or stop on the dogwalk... Decisions, decisions. Contact boot camp starts tomorrow!

The yard freshly mowed and free of agility equipment! I'll post a pic of the alphabet drill we set up!

Alphabet Drills by Nancy Gyes

Oh, how could I forget about Punch?! Punch got to play with his sister, Vamp, today whil the big boys played agility. After run thrus, I let him do a few tunnels and teeters (the bars were too high for jumping) which he executed naturally and beautifully :)

Punch chillin'