We've been doing nothing, nothing at all lately. No agility classes, no trials, not even practicing in the backyard much.
We've been doing a ton of hiking though, everyday for a couple of hours. It's so gorgeous right now, there's leaves covering the trails, some are still on the trees too. There's been this great mix of weather, everything from snow earlier this week, to the mid 60s yesterday. I love all sorts of weather, with the exception of extreme of HOT and humid.
I've been doing some work with Miss Abby too. Trying to figure out just what happens some times at trials in her little head. I really believe she's somewhat worried and over stimulated when she's at trials, so we've been working on lots of impulse control stuff, and she's been going everywhere with me lately, without the others....and I think that's key. I always bring either all 4, or take 2 anywhere I'm going, never just 1. I don't think she's used to being all by herself and some of her confidence goes away when the other pugs aren't around. So she's been my helper lately, coming to help me walk nice dogs, coming along when I run errands, going for little trips in the car. She's signed up for an agility class that starts next week at Splash and Dash agility, the club I started out with.....hope that goes well, we don't always see eye to eye.
I'm going to try a little experiment with Kittie. No agility classes! Just real short practice sessions in the backyard. She knows what she's doing, I know how to run her, we just have some specific areas to improve or correct: her totally out of control teeter for starters, reminding her that come means come, right now, no matter what and really that's it, yes she has jumping issues, but not much other than some tweaks in my handling makes any difference, so we'll see what happens......it's a good time to experiment, since there are no classes I want to put her in anyway!
Things will be in full swing for the month of November, three weekends of trials and then just one (a huge one) in December. We may take most of Jan. & Feb. off. I have a little theory about when Kittie seems to peak and when her performance seems to fall off, that I may experiment with more over the next year. I do need to find somewhere to train though over the winter (it's one thing to not do classes when you're trialing regularly, but quite another if you're not), so she can bring home mach 2 next year!!
4 comments:
What topics do you not see eye-to-eye with regarding Splash and Dash? Just curious...
Let's see,
to start off they only teach 2 on 2off contacts, there's no other option given. Even with my dogs who I have been successfully competing with, I get a lecture about contacts.
They only teach the teeter one way, run to the pivot point and then continue to a 2 on 2 off.
Start line stays, refuse to acknowledge that for some people it's a *choice* to run with their dogs, not a training issue.
They always put way too much equipment out (way too close together), it does not prepare dogs (or handlers) for real trial situations, and they have a nice big building too.
There was zero jump training, I've been told this is changing.
There is this weird issue with having a lot of distance, but they don't actually teach *how* to get distance, even if you are very successful in venues that distance isn't particularly helpful, you get a lecture because you're "escorting" your dog to each obstacle.
There's probably more, I'll see what happens on Wed. but that's all I'm thinking of at moment.
I should add, the classes are taught by club members, no one is making any $$, and they take anyone into classes.
Most of the good instructors either don't want to bother with new people, or you just don't know about them until you're out there regularly competing. I didn't find about Donna until Kittie was already in Ex. B
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