Moe Strenfel-Foundation Training for Agility-The road to a perfect partnership

Anyone who knows me knows I have my addictions, and one of my more harmless addictions, or at least I think it is harmless.....sort of.....is dog training DVD's. A friend of mine is scheduled to go to a seminar given by Moe Strenfel this month and it is on foundation training, so I really thought it would be something that I would not get that much out of and decided to save my money for something else. Another friend does have the DVD and because I was curious and I hate to miss out on anything-I borrowed it.

YIKES, there is some really, really great stuff. I thought it would be another DVD showing how to train equipment, and get dogs used to movement, that type of thing. WELL, there is more to this video then equipment skills for sure-this is a great DVD! Moe shows how to do a lot of flat work so your dog understands handling maneuvers, I love how she showed to break down front crosses and teach the dog where to be. The third DVD (it is a 3 DVD set) has some great stuff on how to teach rear end awareness and develop core strength using stools of different sizes, balance discs, and what she calls "pods". Nice exercises. Since I am teaching agility class this month I did see some things I am going to use.

I was surprised to find some good ideas even for my dogs that are well on their agility path. I did not get to sit and devour this DVD since I have an agility class to teach (where I am going to try a few things I saw).......but I did skim through it and am going to take my time with it tomorrow to really watch it and take some notes.

What a difference from last weeks class..thank heavens!

whoo hooo!!! I had Deanna's class tonight, and it was a MUCH better class then last week's barkfest Lizzie treated everyone to. I hired my kids to take the little Liztard and put a blanket down over her crate when she made any noise, and take it up when she was quiet and throw in food when she was quiet. She actually did really well, but I can not believe how much food the kids ended up throwing in, but.....small price to pay. Well, I paid for all that food, a shake to reward the kids and I did have to pay them an hourly fee, but it was quiet in class, and hopefully Liz is learning something.

The other great thing was that just a few weeks ago I was getting so discouraged because it just never seemed I saw good lines or figured out the best way to go on a course...well, things just seem to be popping in place. Tonight, just to toot my own horn, I figured out a couple of sequences and set what I thought was a really nice line--I was channeling Alicia, looking at the dogs path and which was the turns worked best for the dog, and no one in class was running even close to what I was doing-they were all turning around the jumps the opposite way from where I was going to turn. Our turn came and it went off without a hitch, then it came time for the class to discuss...well, lots of ooohs, and ahhhhs, when Deanna explained the whole course and the second time everyone ran the way I had run the first time. The great part is that it all feels like it is making so much more sense again-the last few times I felt like I totally saw why a certain path worked and it made so much sense-I just saw it without overthinking things and confusing myself. I might get this yet!!!! Next week I might be wandering dazed and confused again-but tonight it felt really cool to feel like I had a handle on it.

LIz/Breeze some teeter brush up...

After the accident Breeze has been bailing off the teeter mid teeter pretty consistently, something was bothering her. I started doing some teeter work and this is a new game I just starting trying yesterday. This is some of the height work that was on the Wendy Pape teeter video. I would DEFINITELY NOT do this with any dog that did not have a LOT of plank work and back end awareness, and I did stay right next to the dogs. It was just funny because this is the third try at this little game. The first time Liz was a little weirded out, Breeze had her nails out and was not at all comfortable. I just lifted them up to the end position and fed, fed, fed, then lifted them down. By the second time Liz broke free and went running up the board, and Breeze was OK, by the third time both dogs were really into it. Anyway, I just have been trying to get the dogs really driving to the end of the board, but they have been slowing a little bit at the pivot point, so I had been working with the teeter permanently going down and working on getting them to drive to the bottom, which was working somewhat. I like this because as far as treat placement- there is a piece of duct tape-taped to the end of the board and the dogs can not see it when they get on the board, then I put spray cheese on it and I can deliver the treats from under and in front of the board or on the tape, and they really seem to get the forward position and driving to the end with just these couple of sessions. Cherry is not good enough on the plank for me to feel safe letting her do this, more plank work for her first. I can just put Cherry up at the top though and feed and it does not bother her at all, I just do not trust her not to quit paying attention, spazz out and let her feet go flying all over the place, she is an excitable girl!

New Teeter DVD from Wendy Pape

I am watching a new DVD-it is

Wendy Pape's Teeter From Start to Finish

First off we have a pretty good teeter performance, my dogs love the movement and have always been pretty good. After the car accident Breeze has been more freaky and something about the teeter is scaring her for the first time, so I started retraining the teeter bit by bit to get her confident and not worried again. When I was first watching the video, Wendy is not training the teeter how I trained the teeter so I was not sure I liked the video, but the more I watched... there are some things I found very helpful. One thing Wendy does is to teach all the elements of a fast, safe teeter seperately. So you work on the approach and teaching the dog to load properly on a plank on the ground. Goodness we are doing a lot of plank work lately, and the plank has moved into being one of the most valuable pieces of equipment that I own! LOL. Then she teaches the bang noise and being comfy with that, she teaches the movement seperately, then HEIGHT, which is something I had not really trained for before, of course the end behavior is taught and then putting the whole thing together. She also has a chapter at the end on how to train really large dogs. Wendy also addresses the different positions and why you would chose different positions for which dogs.

The one thing that I realize is that I had been having an issues with Chloe she was starting to load on the teeter from the side more and more, so Wendys method of training that is a pretty easy fix, and I had noticed my border collies were stopping more and more right at the tip point and they had never been afraid and I just noticed a little slowing and was not sure what that is about, but now I am thinking it is because I had never really taught and desensitized for the height of the obstacle. That is the one thing that I do not think is addressed quite as well the way I origionally taught the teeter. So I took the dogs out this morning and sure enough Breeze was scared of the heigh, Liz was a little uncomfortable, not bad but a little worried and Cherry could care less about the height-good ol' Cherry.

The other thing I really appreciated that Wendy really addressed was the placement of rewards-she uses duct tape at the end of the teeter so the dog can not see it as they load, and then have to have their head down and straight, and she uses some spray cheese on the tape. Now how clever and easy is that??? I think that is the other thing I have not been as careful at making sure to reward with the head straight ahead and low.