Diary of Beginner's Agility - VanMorrison

VanMorrison

Morrison enjoyed his first class and he really liked being a show off on the jumps!

 

Woohoo go Morrison go!!

Congrats that sounds like such fun!!

Yay!  I'm glad you were finally able to find a class and get started!  The size of the class is unfortunate, even split in half.  I taught a beginner class with 14 once and thought I would go insane -- even when I had someone there to help me, the seven was still a handful.  In an ideal world, a beginner agility class would have about four dogs per instructor to achieve the most success, but I realize that isn't the most profitable formula for training centers.

I had the same thoughts as you about the height of the jumps when we first started up.  Luke had been jumping 2'6" horse jumps prior to starting agility, so running him over 8" or 12" seemed pretty pathetic and pointless.  What you don't realize as a beginner, though, is that it's not about the height of the jumps -- it's about the handler learning to run with their dog and the dog learning to go over what is in front of him.  When the dog understands his job and learns what the handler's cues mean, then the jumps can go to competition height.

Sounds like you guys are starting out with channel weaves, which is a great beginner method!  My training center didn't have channels, so we learned with guide wires.  Knowing what I know now, I think channels are the way to go.  A friend of mine from beginner agility was really having problems teaching her dog to weave in class so she ordered a set of channel weaves for home.  In two weeks that dog was a weaving fool!  Luke learned his weaves with straight poles & guide wires, but we worked EVERY SINGLE DAY at home.  Channel weaves tend to teach the dog faster and usually helps teach proper footwork (ie: single-stepping) better than straight poles.

Good luck in the weeks to come!  I hope you keep updating us on your progress!

 Yay Morrison! Maze is getting private lessons to begin with until we can proof her against large, young adult dogs but she starts OB in the middle of November. Not that she needs it but it will help with her socialization.

We started her weaves on traffic cones in the park and I just guided her through with a treat and my hand then I moved to a set of 4 weaves in the kitchen and she can do it all with a hand action. She won't use the weaves I have on grass since they have nothing to balance them yet.. *working on that* But she LOVES the jumps and Go Around. Lol. We started her at the lowest jump height and she looked at me like "Yeah right.. Raise them please.." So we put her to 10 inch jumps and keeping her there to begin with.

Yeah for Morrison!  Sounds like a big class, good thing they were able to split it in two groups.  I wish I could find a closer agility class than the place I have gone in the past.  I don't care for one of the instructors.  The last time I went through the class he picked up and threw a nervous dog into the tunnel!!  The owner never said a word.  Can you guess how that dog did on the tunnel the following week?  I spoke to the trainer and his wife, who also trains agility, but they seemed to feel that enough dogs deal with it and those that don't just don't matter.  They are very competition oriented, whereas I feel that some people are there for other reasons and not necessarily to become champions. Sorry to get off on my own little story.  Congrats again, sounds like he will do well and I look forward to reading of your progress.

That is exactly the kind of story that I was fearing in this very competitive class.  So far I have discovered that the owner/lead trainer may have the personality of a log but he totally loves dogs. 

So this Saturday he wasn't there and one of the other trainers wasn't there so we were a class of 20 down to two trainers.  The first half of class went really well, running jumps, weaves and tunnels.  Morrison now enters the weave corridor on his own but, because I can't keep up he hops over the last "guide hoop" to come towards me.  I'll just have to work on my own speed!  He enjoyed going through the U shaped tunnel and we had a little party every time he came out. 

The second half of class was not as great.  The other trainer doesn't watch very well and doesn't provide very good instruction (even her own dog doesn't know what she wants sometimes!).  By this time Morrison was getting tired, it had been over an hour, and wasn't interested in his toy or anything other than doing his own thing.  I was pretty tired too and he was probably picking up on that.  So he did well on walking on the little board but not so well on going through the gate that they use at the end of contacts.

We both had fun and learned a lot about the weaves and the tunnel.  More to come next week.

 

 I am very envious of you and Morrison!! I am enjoying the diary so keep 'em coming!

Good boy Morrison!!

oranges81

We started her weaves on traffic cones in the park and I just guided her through with a treat and my hand then I moved to a set of 4 weaves in the kitchen and she can do it all with a hand action. She won't use the weaves I have on grass since they have nothing to balance them yet.. *working on that* But she LOVES the jumps and Go Around. Lol. We started her at the lowest jump height and she looked at me like "Yeah right.. Raise them please.." So we put her to 10 inch jumps and keeping her there to begin with.

 

I will caution everyone to be careful about how often you jump your dog at too low of a height.  Better to not jump at all, then to jump a lot at too low.  The reason is because jumping too low can encourage either lazy jumping or flat jumping and you want neither.  Lazy jumping means they don't pay attention to their feet and will knock bars as you raise the height.  Flat jumping means they are jumping with their spines flat and could knock bars with rear feet trailing down too far.

Also, if you want to compete someday, or are even thinking about it, don't do a lot of jumping where the dog jumps extended.  Meaning you start 10 feet or so, run fast to it and stop 10 feet or so past.  This encourages extended jumping instead of collected jumping.  Extended jumping is easier so the dogs will tend to that even when you need a tight turn.  Collected jumping is harder but if they have a solid collected jumping foundation, then extended jumping will be easy for them later.

All that said, I can't bellieve the class is so big!  20 students and dogs?  Wow.  I take 8 for my class and I think that's pushing it!

I totally agree Leslie - the class is too big!  I waited about 10 months for this class to happen so I assumed that they didn't have enough people registered but, as usual, I assumed wrongly.

In regards to the extended jumps, my class has an interesting set up to avoid that.  The trainers crate their own shelties (all of them) in the corner where we start our jumps so we can't back up too far away from the jump.  We also have 4 jumps in a row, just to start, which avoids the post-jump extension.

The first week I thought that the jumps were a little low for Morrison so the next week I asked if we could raise them.  We had a different trainer for our section on the second week and when I asked his response was "You didn't do that last week?  ".  I guess that my not-so-favourite trainer wasn't aware of the height differences the first week.

In a class of that size, I can see how changing jump heights could be a pain.  If I were instructing it, no doubt I would set the jumps to a do-able height for the smallest dog in the group and then run everyone through the exercise.  Since you guys are splitting the 20 into two groups, I would hope that the smaller dogs are being grouped together and that you are working with a large dog group -- So technically, your jumps should be at least 12". 

I never put my beginners over 20" jumps.  It's not because the dogs are not able to jump that height, but rather because the beginner dogs are almost all on leash and I don't think it's fair for the handler (who generally cannot keep up) to keep yanking on their dog as the dog runs past them to take the jump.  When a pair has proven they have the skills necessary to do sequences off leash, THEN they can start to work close to or at competition height.

It really stinks that you got stuck in such a huge class.  I hope you enjoy yourself enough to stick it out and try the next one -- and hopefully that one will be a more reasonable size.  If you get a questionnaire at the end of this class (my training center always gave one out), make sure you voice your opinion about the negative aspects of a class this size.

You really can't expect to keep the dog's (or handler's, for that matter) attention for more than 45 minutes at this level.  You aren't going to be able to run 20 dogs through many exercises in that amount of time.  A class of this size is a terrible waste of everyone's time.  Hopefully your dog at least comes out of it with a basic level of comfort with all of the equipment so that fast progress can be made at the next level.

tashakota

oranges81

We started her weaves on traffic cones in the park and I just guided her through with a treat and my hand then I moved to a set of 4 weaves in the kitchen and she can do it all with a hand action. She won't use the weaves I have on grass since they have nothing to balance them yet.. *working on that* But she LOVES the jumps and Go Around. Lol. We started her at the lowest jump height and she looked at me like "Yeah right.. Raise them please.." So we put her to 10 inch jumps and keeping her there to begin with.

 

I will caution everyone to be careful about how often you jump your dog at too low of a height.  Better to not jump at all, then to jump a lot at too low.  The reason is because jumping too low can encourage either lazy jumping or flat jumping and you want neither.  Lazy jumping means they don't pay attention to their feet and will knock bars as you raise the height.  Flat jumping means they are jumping with their spines flat and could knock bars with rear feet trailing down too far.

Also, if you want to compete someday, or are even thinking about it, don't do a lot of jumping where the dog jumps extended.  Meaning you start 10 feet or so, run fast to it and stop 10 feet or so past.  This encourages extended jumping instead of collected jumping.  Extended jumping is easier so the dogs will tend to that even when you need a tight turn.  Collected jumping is harder but if they have a solid collected jumping foundation, then extended jumping will be easy for them later.

All that said, I can't bellieve the class is so big!  20 students and dogs?  Wow.  I take 8 for my class and I think that's pushing it!

Very well said, however, remember the structure of the dog plays an important role. Some dogs can jump tight and some can not. Chloe is a 'rectangle' JRT as AKC refers to a "Russell Terrier" and she doesn't jump tight the bar. Yet with Scout, he is square and he collects really well like most AP dogs, actually he looks like a BC jumping. What Denise (My instructor, she was at Cynosports) tells me Linda's Awesome didn't jump tight but made it up for it with speed carried. There's turn radius and turn rate on the types of jumps. Where the radius is the tightest distance with some speed lost (Stellar)while turn rate is carrying more speed but jumping with a wider radius (Awesome). Using Linda's dogs as examples. Since my dogs were vastly different, I decided to time them on a 180 and you know what? They both ended up finishing the sequence in the same amount of time! Chloe jump's 12 and Scout will be going 16.

The new floor arrived and it's blue and squishy!  The lead trainer was there to give us a lecture on how to protect the floor and then he left to go watch a football game    We were left with the guy that I like and two new young ladies to train us - huh.

So, we split into two groups (bigger dogs vs smaller dogs) and my group started with the board and doing turns.  Morrison's back feet tend to fall off the board so we're going to have to work on that.  He just hasn't gotten it yet.  He's really good at the turns and has a fantistic recall.  We ran the tunnel a few times, most of the dogs are refusing it right now but Morrison isn't too bad.

Then, we switched with the other group to the more fun stuff.  We were doing 4 jumps in a row with no trainer at the far side calling the dogs so most of them lost direction and didn't go over.  Quite a few of the dogs run off and don't have a great recall which is pretty disruptive.  Then on to the weaves which have been narrowed down to a corridor but Morrison now has the move his shoulders to not hit the poles.  He did really well there.

Again, the class ran really late and we all lost focus except for one guy with a border collie.  I can tell this guy has trained other dogs in agility and this dog is going to be really good.

I guess this week was good but not great, probably due to me not feeling 100%.

jdata

Very well said, however, remember the structure of the dog plays an important role. Some dogs can jump tight and some can not. Chloe is a 'rectangle' JRT as AKC refers to a "Russell Terrier" and she doesn't jump tight the bar. Yet with Scout, he is square and he collects really well like most AP dogs, actually he looks like a BC jumping. What Denise (My instructor, she was at Cynosports) tells me Linda's Awesome didn't jump tight but made it up for it with speed carried. There's turn radius and turn rate on the types of jumps. Where the radius is the tightest distance with some speed lost (Stellar)while turn rate is carrying more speed but jumping with a wider radius (Awesome). Using Linda's dogs as examples. Since my dogs were vastly different, I decided to time them on a 180 and you know what? They both ended up finishing the sequence in the same amount of time! Chloe jump's 12 and Scout will be going 16.

 

Oh I totally agree about structure!  Of my two dogs, one is a great athlete and the other not so much.  However if all I ever did with the less-atheltic dog was extended jumping, that's all I would ever get.  I wouldn't be teaching her how to use her rear end or to keep her feet up.

I can't believe that in your SECOND class, they have you doing 4 jumps in a row....  I teach Intro classes and I understand the "fun" of doing 4 jumps in a row but that doesn't help anyone that decides to go on to compete someday.  I do very little jumping in the Intro class because while it's "fun" it's also not worth it unless they want to compete.  The reason is because I know that people coming into class "know" their dog "can jump 3 feet" (and it's a 12" terrier) so I don't need to let them prove it.  Not when the safety of the dog is my top concern.  We do a little bit of jumping and work on all the other stuff instead.  And that only scrapes the surface of the teeter and does not even touch on weaves.  Plenty of other stuff to do.  If you want to go on to compete, then we can work on jumping correctly and with good form so that your dog has a long life of jumping ahead of him.  Sorry for the rant but I hate to hear instructors teaching that way....

I hope that it remains fun for you despite the trainers! 

The football game was no doubt the Viking/Packer game, so I'm not surprised that your (male) trainer wanted to watch the game!  lol  I'm actually surprised that we didn't have a t.v. set up at my trial here in La Crosse this weekend -- we have a couple of absolutely rabid fans that I know of, but I didn't see anyone twitching from the stress of missing the game.  No doubt they were recording it to watch at home later. 

It sounds like Morrison (like a LOT of dogs) is not really aware of what his hind end is doing vs. his front.  One thing you can do at home to work on this is ladder work, if you have a ladder that is!  Just lay a ladder flat on the ground at first and walk him through it, paying mind to have him step through each rung and travel straight.  At first, most dogs hind ends will be back and forth and all over the place -- just keep working at it until he can walk calmly through the ladder.  Then you can raise it up a bit with books or wooden blocks so that he has to pick up his legs a bit higher.  This exercise really increases hind end awareness and helps the dog to stay within the confines of the 12" plank.

I'm really not a fan of how this class is being run, but my repeated posts about it aren't helping anything so I'll just stop commenting on it.  You've paid for the class and I would finish it out -- but I'd also be looking at a different club for the future -- or talking to people in advanced levels to see if it's this chaotic in the non-beginner classes.

KarissaKS

I'm really not a fan of how this class is being run, but my repeated posts about it aren't helping anything so I'll just stop commenting on it.  You've paid for the class and I would finish it out -- but I'd also be looking at a different club for the future -- or talking to people in advanced levels to see if it's this chaotic in the non-beginner classes.

Agreed! I've taken other classes with Monroe in Delaware and it was very different there.  Finding another club is an issue considering my time restraint in travelling.  Having been in an obedience class then advanced I know how many people do not continue so I'm hoping that we can get some of the basics down here and then really concentrate in a more advanced class that is run better.  There are some very successful agility dogs coming out of this club so I'm remaining hopeful.

Our next issue is that we are going to be missing some classes due to adoption class and thanksgiving.  Hopefully they will cancel some...

I love the ladder idea and we can do that in our garage where it is relatively warm!