Agility Jump Skills Task: Set Point Exercise

I am so bummed, I had done this task with the new slow motion feature on my iPad with the idea I would use the video clips in this blog post. But something odd happened because I'm still getting used to how things work with features like that...and the videos were uploaded to my computer without the slow motion intact. Ugh....so I have just regular speed clips of what the boys did with this exercise. I'm sorry about that. The next time I do this exercise, I'll upload the slow motion videos directly to YouTube from my iPad. Ugh.

The set point exercise is a simplified jump grid for agility dogs. I also am a firm believer that competitive obedience dogs who are preparing for Open and Utility would also really benefit from doing this sort of jump training. If you are seasoned in agility, then you might recognize this jumping exercise from Susan Salo and her jump grids materials. This is found on her Foundation Jumping DVD and her new book Jumping Grid Workbook . Both resources are available on Clean Run's website and I do recommend any of Salo's material. This agility task is part of our Agility Jumping Skills Task Pack and is available on our website: www.trainemtasks.com

The set point exercise is pretty much the only grid that will teach your dog the proper mechanics of getting themselves to lift off of the ground  and over a jump. There is no speed, there is no distance, and there is no influence from the handler on this one....it's just the dog jumping one jump. This grid really should be often as a dog is learning how to jump so they get used to how jumping correctly feels.

With the set point exercise there are two jumps, one's called the facilitator jump and the set point jump your dog is be jumping over. The facilitator jump can be a jump bump or a non-winged jump set at the height of about 4 - 6" depending on the height of your dog. This facilitator jump is never set higher than 6" or else the whole purpose of the set point exercise is lost. All the facilitator jump is defines the space that is available to the dog and more of less put them in the right place for take off. That space will cause your dog to step in, rock back on to it's rear, spring into the air and drop it's head while it's over the jump. The distance the facilitator jump is from the set point jump and the distance your dog is from the facilitator jump is dependent on how long your dog's back is.

The set point jump can be any agility jump you choose with the exception the broad jump. The height of the jump can be anywhere from low to your dog's competition height. Salo does recommend that when working with the set point exercise to change the height of the jump often so the dog will pay better attention to what the job at hand is.

On the other side of the set point jump is a target (that is easily seen by the dog) with a reward. It needs to be far enough away from the set point jump that the dog can finish it's stride after it's landed. This can be anywhere from 6 - 10' depending on the size of your dog.

And so what are you doing while your dog is working the grid? Not a whole lot to be honest. Where you stand is one step ahead of where the target is and one step away off to the side. This way your dog can get to the target and not charge ahead of you. (In the videos I'm going to be posting...I am not in the position because I wanted to show you what my dogs were doing from the side.) Make sure you switch sides of the target at your body is facing the same directions as your dog is heading.

Lars working the set point exercise:

 

Ocean working the set point exercise:

Expectations versus maturity - Part 2

Since I made that blog post last week about online acquaintances struggling with younger dogs in performance sports...I've done some more thinking while off showing in agility over the weekend and have more thoughts on this.

The more I think about this notion of pushing the maturity issue with younger dogs and the parallel idea of people. (I'm not going down the Anthropomorphism rabbit hole here.)  None of us would expect a 12 - 14 year old kid to go and work successfully on Wall Street as a banker...or as an tax accountant...or a police or fireman. We don't expect 12 - 14 year old kids to be able to work college level calculus. Yes, there are some exceptional kids who could take on college level courses or actual jobs like scientists or law enforcement....but they are exceptional and few and far between. Why do we expect that same level of maturity of our younger dogs for them to work at the same level as a 5 - 7 year old dog??

I was joking with an agility friend earlier this summer that Ocean at 3 was like a 21 year old college guy. A 21 year old old college guy is a mix of great choices and not so great choices. And that in a nutshell, was Ocean this past year...a mix or good choices in the ring and a mix of not so great choices. At turning 4 years old in a couple of weeks, Ocean is more or less equivalent to a 28 year old guy and 28 year old men can be successful at holding down an actual job and making a whole bunch of great choice with maybe a not so great one thrown in for fun. I'm really looking forward to this upcoming year with my true adult dog in agility.

I think there's something to be said about being honest with where your young dogs are in their mental maturity. Yes, a 12 month old large breed dog looks like a grown up dog. But their brain is still in puppy land. So, if you have the 4 legged equivalent of a 12 - 14 year old kid, try to allow them to stay in middle school where they belong instead of trying to shove them into post doctorate work.

Dog training life lessons from the yoga mat.

I think life is full of lessons for us to learn. Most of them are subtle lessons that are easy to overlook or miss if you're not open to them. I actually had one of those lessons this week. Or, maybe it was more of a reminder than a real lesson. But I'll get to that lesson in a moment after a little bit of backstory.

Earlier this winter, I had seen my doctor and she suggested that I do some sort of physical activity every day. This was when I was just starting my self improvement journey and I was having some problems with getting some emotions under control. She felt that moving around would help with that. I dabbled with yoga with a couple of DVD's I had kicking around and playing around with the wii fit we had gotten years ago. Spring came and then I got busy with agility and going more outside. I had dropped the yoga stuff until this July and I really understood the idea of self care better. I found GaiamTV online, set up my subscription to it, and uncovered my yoga mat. I started out with doing a yoga practice a couple of times a week. Then that morphed into 4 - 5 times a week. Now the yoga practice has become the first thing in the morning ritual that I do at least 6 days a week now.

from bradleypjohnson

I have never been a flexible person...I was never a little girl who could do a handstand or a split. So, doing yoga has been a slow going progression of me being able to do different poses. Slowly over these weeks of my morning practice, I have noticed that I have gotten stronger in plank position and I can drop myself into chaturanga position to upward dog with control instead of plopping my stomach onto the floor. I can move from one pose to another without feeling like I'm going to fall on my head. I don't shake as much and I can do forward folds deeper without my hamstrings screaming in agony. Every day I step on to that yoga mat, I am 1% better than I was yesterday. So, let's get back to that lesson I started with.

"Keep looking for ways to keep improving that 1% each day."

There is a parallel between learning yoga and dog training (especially performance sports.) When you're starting out in yoga, most likely your body will not let you bust out some crazy advanced stuff like flying pigeon pose right out of the gate. Trust me, after 2 months of yoga, there are things I can do better...but there's a lot that I still struggle with at the beginner and low intermediate level. It's going to take me a long time for my body to be able to master the intermediate and advanced levels of yoga. And you know what, I'm okay with that because that is something I cannot control. That's not on my ego's time frame, that's on my body's time frame. So, for the mean time, I will just keep looking for ways to improve that 1% each day. (Just for clarity's sake....this blog post explains what I mean by the word "ego.")

Looking at dog training through this same lens...our ego's put a lot of dog training results on a time frame. You hear it all the time."I want to get ______ titles on my dog this year." "By the time my dog is ____ years old, they will have their _______ titles." "This dog will be my (OMG title) dog!" I will even admit that I have been guilty of letting my ego run rampant with prophecies of greatness Lars. Who's time frame is it really?? It's not really yours at all....it's really your dog's time frame. There's plenty of things in dog training that we cannot rush as trainers. If you do rush somethings, your performance will fall apart in the ring. I've seen that happen to people too and then they get angry at their dog they rushed instead of admitting they didn't take the time the dog really needed to be solid. It's those people who want to be at advanced levels of stuff before their dog's skill sets are ready to do it. My agility journey with Ocean has been very different this time around....especially this year. I celebrate being 1% better than we were yesterday or last week, or the last trial. Rottweilers tend to be a slow to mentally mature breed and being an intact boy doesn't help his cause. Sure, there are dogs who are younger than Ocean working in Masters level agility. But....their time frame is different than Ocean's time frame that is currently being controlled by his level of mental maturity. I have zero control of that....there's nothing I can do to make him mentally grow up faster. All I can do is keep training, keep building experience and mileage, and keep trialing and NQ'ing with him. But, everyday we get a little bit better just like me with my yoga poses. Instead of getting frustrated with what poses I can't do....I celebrate what I can do that I couldn't do 2 weeks ago. 

 

My journey with dogs is becoming very much like this. Instead of getting all bent out of shape about what we can't do....I celebrate what we did better, especially if it was something that we struggled with before. I would like to challenge everyone who is training their dogs (and this includes pet dog people too working on basic manners or tricks or whatever) to celebrate that 1% improvement you see every time you train your dogs....let go of your ego driven time frames because they will bring you as much disappointment as you think they will bring you happiness.

From the Agility Obstacle Task Pack - A-frame!

The agility grab bag gods knew exactly what we need last Friday morning, right before our last agility trial for July. Ocean's a-frame contact behavior goes between 2 on and 2 off at home and at class to running at shows. Sometimes that running ends up being striding just above that much needed yellow zone. So I sat with this card for a couple of hours and thought about what my plan of attack would be.

I ended up opting for this little course out of Clean Run's Exercise Sourcebook Volume 1. I swapped out the tunnel for my a-frame and kept the teeter as bonus contact training. I ran the black circles for our session. Since we would be showing for two days right after this session, I also swapped out the jumps for my hoops and jumps with no bars. For two trials in a row, I had jumped Ocean for three days straight...I wanted to give him and his body a little bit of a break from that. I really like working handling at home with those hoops because it's essentially working flat work with an obstacle.

 

This video is of our entire training session and it's nine minutes long. But, at least you can see how the hoops work and I wanted a visual for anyone who might want to use the impulse control exercise I worked with O at the bottom of the a-frame.  In class last Wednesday, we worked on getting O to hold his 2 on, 2 off and not self-release to something very high value (a tug toy.) For him, running agility is very self rewarding and his "running contact" is him quickly self-releasing from the a-frame. I used this same exercise here at home...and will continue to when we have an A-frame in practice. The exercise itself is pretty simple. I place the tug toy on the ground about 4 to 5 feet away from the bottom of the a-frame. If you're training with a friend, you can have them place the high value reward for you. The high value reward can be anything your dog loves...it could be really yummy food/treats or their favorite toy. Tugs and balls are much more valuable to Ocean than food is. When Ocean runs to the bottom of the a-frame and holds his 2 on, 2 off....I release him to the toy and we play as his reward. The first attempt he does self-release and grabs the tug which is what he shouldn't do. But he figured it out the next and following attempts. Another thing I like to do which you will see closer to the end of the video is to play tug with Ocean while he is in the correct position on the a-frame. I'm more or less rewarding for position like how you would feed your dog a treat in the correct a-frame criteria position. This idea would work for any pieces of the contact equipment and the table. If the dog moves out of position off the equipment....the play stops. If the dog moves back into position...play more. If your dog is very tug play motivated, they will really enjoy this sort of game and reward.

Welcome to Excellent Agility Ocean!! New Open FAST title

Yes!! I am so happy to announce...I FINALLY HAVE AN AKC EXCELLENT AGILITY DOG!!!!! Little Mr. Ocean earned his Open FAST title Saturday!! Ocean is my first AKC Excellent dog despite me playing in agility for a bunch of years now. Lars has always been very challenging in agility....so the Kidd-O at the age of 3 got farther than his genius brother ever did in AKC agility.

Going back to my earlier post this week about spiritual gangstering...I can't tell you how much of mind game it was to me that I struggled and struggled to get a dog to Excellent levels in AKC. I was convinced that I was that limited of a handler that AXP's and MXP's were something that would always just be out of my reach. I didn't step back and say, my dog's (meaning Lars)  strength wasn't agility. It wasn't me as a handler...I had challenges facing me that even most very experience handlers would have struggled with. My work on my inner self has allowed me to step back and get some clarity that it would come. That my dog (meaning Ocean) and I were getting a little bit better each time we stepped into an agility ring. And...it did finally come when I let go and just enjoyed the journey with Ocean. How about that shiznit??

I have some video of some of the awesome NQ's we had the rest of the weekend. This Open JWW had two bars down in the closing line. And the Open Standard here was an NQ because Ocean leapt just over the yellow on the dogwalk. I crowded him on the weave pole entrance. But....this was identical to the Ex/Masters Standard run. It was only missing two jumps at the very end. :)

Train 'Em Topics! - The Why in Dog Training and Why It Matters:

           This post is derived from a photo I shared on my Facebook page a while back. I was going to make a cute comment about the photo which was a little kid standing next to a very large dog and it had its arm around the dog. There also was a quote from Orhan Pamuk which said "Dogs do speak, but only to those who listen."

     I had a moment in an agility class once that involved Ocean. He is much more environmentally sensitive than Lars is. He notices things that Lars typically doesn't give two hoots about. Sometimes those things bother him and that's something I've become more aware of. Anyway, Ocean doesn't usually have start line stay issues in the classes I have taken with him. But for the last run

Good Wait, Ocean...

that night, I left him and headed out to where I wanted to lead out...when I got there, he was standing in place. He wasn't moving...but just standing. I went back and re-set him back in the sit and told him to wait. I did my lead out again and when I turned to look back at Ocean,  he was standing again. This was something that was different than what he had done before...when he does break his start line, he will start running. But, he was standing with a look on his face...and he was uncomfortable with something. It was like he was trying hard to stay but he was very uncertain. I looked up and just a couple feet behind O was another handler and dog playing a vigorous game of tug. I hadn't noticed them until I saw O's expression. Typically people standing behind a dog holding a stay can create a good bit of pressure and with some dogs, that can be unnerving enough to the point they break the stay. That pressure can be increased adding movement to that position behind the dog. The pressure that people is creating can be magnified the further and further the dog's handler moves away. A dog of Ocean's age (he has a year and a half old at the and experience, it doesn't surprise me he did what he did. I have not proofed a stay with Ocean with that much pressure (or much pressure at all at this stage of the game.) That is something we need to work on, especially as he does more and more obedience. But, I want to gradually expose him to increased pressure during a wait/stay  in a way that he is successful and confident when dealing with it. A dog of Lars' age and experience, I would expect them to stay despite a person and dog playing tug behind them.     So, I returned back to Ocean and set him back in a sit. I asked the lady who had been playing with her dog, if she could just hold off playing until Ocean left the start line. She was more than happy to do that and placed her dog in a sit. Ocean held his start line perfectly with them just standing right behind him. That sort of pressure was okay and the play was too much. Ocean was trying to tell me that and I listened.

     Dog do tell us stuff all the time in their behavior...but we as trainers should really listen to the message they might be trying to tell us. I distinctly remember thinking "Why is he doing that?" as I stood on the other side of a tire jump and a bar jump at class looking at my young dog standing when he should have been sitting. But, I'm the kind of trainer who likes to know the "Why." If I don't know the "why" behind incorrect behavior, then I can't really fix it.

    There are trainers who are in the mind set of "just fix it" and not bothering to know why is their dog doing what they are doing. There are trainers who don't like dealing with problems and will attempt to put a training band-aid on where they have weak spots in their performance and even their relationship with their dogs. Figuring out why your dog is behaving or performing incorrectly will get you to understand your dog on a deeper level. Sometimes, the problem doesn't lie with our dogs. Sometimes the problem lies with us and we need to put our handling under a microscope. Maybe we're not cueing the dog correctly, maybe we're not clean with our handling, or maybe we're not showing up the way we expect our dogs to show up in our training.

    I know they appreciate that you are listening to them. I saw that when I left Ocean for the third time with no one playing behind him. He was relieved that the pressure was gone and he could do his job. I know now it is a weak spot in our training and I have a game plan on how to address it.  If I had gone in and read him the riot act about not staying put, that wouldn't have been fair to him because we haven't proofed something like that. He's the kind of dog that if I had gone in and really corrected him for not being able to handle that sort of pressure...I would have put a huge dent our relationship and eroded that trust I'm trying to build between us. Ocean is more my husband's dog than he is mine and That was one of those times where "Oh, just fix it..." would have blown up in my face.

    Trying to figure out "the why" can be hard and it may not be a quick fix...but it will be worth it in your relationship with your dog and your performance in the long run.

Tasks Indepth: Agility - Angled Jumps

      I'm a little bit behind the 8 ball with making this post since I pulled this task card for Ocean on Thursday of last week. **blush** So, the agility task bag told me to break out some lines of angled jumps for Mr. O. Which is a good task for him since he's still trying to figure out what he needs to do to adjust his striding while coming down a line of jumps.

     This particular task card is from our Agility Jump Skills Task Pack. So, I again used my Nancy Gyes' Alphabet Drills book for my sequence muse and chose her "Z" drill but put my own spin on it. Ocean also has had some issues with gauging his striding on long, straight lines of jumps. He tends to get one speed going and won't deviate from that speed even if he needs to collect to get over a jump. He's big enough that he can take a bar down with barely noticing he's done it....or he's athletic enough that he can do some crazy bounce jumps with no stride to get over the next jump. Neither of those, I really want him to do. I ended up taking four jumps putting them into a straight line, at different angles, and at varying distances between the jumps.

The first time I sent Ocean through, the first jump was not a problem. But, he had built enough speed and momentum that he bounced (this means, he landed and the jumped from that spot with no running stride) between jump 2 and 3 and then flung himself over jump 4. Okay...not really what I was looking for. I've begun to teach Ocean a verbal collection cue which was unintentionally taught to Lars over the years of trialing and training. Lars' word for collection was "Easy." I've been using "easy" more and more with Ocean when I am decelerating and I saw that Thursday with this task card...he's actually starting to understand the verbal cue.

        I started Ocean over at the start of the line of jumps...and I used "easy" in the place where he started to think about bounce jumping. And, wouldn't you know it, he powered down a couple of notches and actually put in a stride between 2 and 3, chipped in nicely at the take off and got himself over jump 4 with control. I just about fell over. Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I sent him through again coming away from the house and used my easy command...and he was able to collect and put in a stride. Good Boy! So, I brought him down to what was jump 4 and made that jump 1 and ran towards the house. I wanted to see if Ocean could generalize what he had just done going the opposite direction. No...he didn't and he bounce jumped 2 and 3 again. No biggie. We went back to the new jump 1 and this time I had told him "easy" again before he entered jump 2 and 3...and he collected his stride and chipped in at take off. He is starting to understand that verbal collection cue!

      We spent the rest of this training session going through the 4 jumps with me changing the severity of the angles and the distances between the jumps so that way Ocean really had to think about what he was doing instead of becoming patterned to the same striding and angles. The "easy" cue was used each pass and he was listening and was changing his stride and not bounce jumping jumps. (I do have a bounce jumps task in the Jumping Skills Task Pack. That is more like a grid exercise to teach a dog to power from the rear to get lift over a jump. The jumps are set close together and there isn't room for a stride or two in between jumps. I just wanted to clarify why there is a time and a place for bounce jumping...this line of jumps O and I were working on here was not the time or the place.)

    I cannot tell you how happy I was that we ended up working this skill a couple of days before our USDAA trial this past weekend. Our P1 Starters Jumpers course was loaded full of jumps at funky angles. If we hadn't just worked this two days before, I probably would have had a stroke when I saw the course map. 

No joke...there were some of the same lines we had worked on in our backyard. With some well timed "Easy" cues and some other well timed "GO!" cues...that baby boy O nailed this course with a Q and a first place.

     Hopefully, this blog post will help give some ideas on how to work "Angled Jumps" when they get pulled out of your tasks grab bag!! Happy training everyone!!

Tasks Indepth: Agility Flatwork

     

Agility flatwork (also known as shadow handling or circle work) is a skill that is a critical part of every agility dog's foundation training. In a very large nutshell, flatwork teaches your budding agility dog to run along side of you and to follow your directional and speed cues. I didn't realize until recently with my own dogs how little weight I put on Flatwork in the beginning stages of their agility careers. The foundation classes I took with Lars years ago just touched on flatwork in one class for about 15 minutes. I thought to myself in my newbie agility handler mind "How important can that be?" and it wasn't really ever discussed again in class. Ocean had done a lot of foundation training at home before he  got into an advanced beginners class. Again, I didn't spend much time on flatwork like I spent on obstacles and teaching "fun stuff" to him. It was this summer that I started to see some early Lars like behaviors (running past me, not staying with me, etc.) pop up in Ocean while running agility. After some serious thought and mulling over the issues of how the same problem popped up in two different dogs...I decided the problem lay with me and what I had or hadn't taught them. What I hadn't done was putting in the time and mileage with flatwork.

   When teaching a dog flatwork, you are more or less teaching them a lot of the handling moves they will see you make in agility without the distractions of the obstacles. If you really think about the sport of agility, your dog spends the majority of its time on a course running to each obstacle than actually performing those obstacles. What happens on the ground from obstacle to obstacle is as important as what your dog does with those obstacles. When one does think about that, it becomes very clear that teaching your dog to focus on you, your body language/movements, and your changes of pace needs to be in your training tool box. This is where you teach your dog deceleration and to accelerate based on your body language and your speed. Flatwork (as I found with my guys) can help an obstacle focused dog become much better balanced out with handler focus at the times when you need your dog to check in.

   Flatwork is truly the backbone of agility teams. While it teaches your dog how to read handling movements without distracting obstacles, it also develops a communication line between you and your dog. When we as handlers are working flatwork, we become more aware of what you're telling your dog through your movements. Before I work some flatwork with Lars or Ocean I make sure that I have a clear picture in my head about what my cues will be for each dog. I've lucked out with my boys because they both run in a similar manner and I don't have to completely change out my handling methods when running one or the other. Handlers with dogs who run as polar opposites may have to do a dry run of flatwork without their dogs to get in the frame of handling each dog needs.

    Some basic flatwork exercises are:

     - Large circles in both directions - This helps teach the dogs to work rounded distances to the right and the left as well as lateral distance.

    - Front and Rear Crosses on the flat - This helps the dog learn lead changes and direction changes.

    - Serpentines - This is a must have for higher level courses. Dogs will learn how to change their pace and turn in tight areas.

    - Small circles/Figure 8's - These teach dogs how to negotiate tight obstacle sequences like 180's in higher level courses.

I find that Lars can run both directions easily with small circles. Ocean has a hard time on the inside of the these circles and he doesn't yield well to me turning left and towards me.

    - Straight Lines - A lot of handlers take straight lines of obstacles for granted and that their dogs will do them easily. But it's best to work that into your flatwork program as well. 

     Now that I have been playing in agility with my dogs for a while now, I am continuously going back to it throughout Lars and Ocean's career. I will keep going back to it because it helps maintain the definitions of my handling to the boys as well as letting me reinforce them when they respond correctly. Sometimes you can even use flatwork as a type of game to play with your dogs because there's no pressure of obstacle performance. It's just a game of follow me and that can be a load of fun for both handler and dog.

     If you want to learn more about how to teach your dog about Flatwork, (there's a lot to know on how to do it correctly) look for Barb Levenson's book Flatwork: Foundation for Agility. I picked it up from Clean Run earlier this summer and found it absolutely wonderful. It explained things well and thoroughly. So, pick it up for your agility reference library! It's a book you will refer back to every time you get a new agility partner.