There is one thing that amazes me about training dogs, it's how unpredictable they can be... of course once you have been training a dog you know what will be easy for him and what will be trouble, but there is always some surprise, for good or bad!
yesterday I went train my boys for the first time in almost 2 months, I attended to a seminar a month ago with Koda, I'm training slalom and running contacts with him but that's all, we haven't trained much more than that... High was really sick this days, it was a really tough month for both of us, a lot of medicines, vet every day, steroids, corticoid, anabolic... was suspected that his body was destroying the cells it produced. After a looot of prays and dedication not even the vets believed that now he is not just alive but with all rates back to normality =)) I just can thank God for this miracle!
It's been two weeks since High is better, so we went for some exercise, and both of them were amazing, I couldn't be prouder. For the first time ever I finished a "big" exercise with Koda, he listened to me so well, he was flying trough the field, and he was jumping that high for the first time, on the video he is not that fast because he has trouble with tunnels so I had to do a thousand tunnels before the course and we still have some trouble with communication, but that's perfectly fine for me, he's young and we have all the time we need to improve!
About High, it's so hard to write or remember yesterday without tears in my eyes, he was so perfect, he IS so perfect! he was way slower than his normal supersonic self, but I really don't care! he was happy, healthy, barking, listening to me, and in the middle of the run I could almost see the smile on his face, and this meant the world to me! it's all that matters!
ps: Shannon is my sister's dog! the golden fish =)
As I already said, agility is more than a hobby for me, it's a passion and a life style! but I'm not a really good handler, so my favorite part is the foundation... I guess it has something about my love for teaching new things, anyway, today I want to talk more about those two things: agility foundation and seminars!
Foundation: there is nothing more important than foundation when it comes to agility, it's obvious that all of us want to go to the obstacles and see our dogs doing it all, but why the hurry? if you think about it, teaching foundation helps with good performance in all the obstacles, makes the dog enjoy every bit of it and even makes our dog healthier, because if we didn't spend so much time in foundation we would be more tempted to put them sooner in official obstacles, what in some cases (like teeter, slalom, a-frame) is not good for dogs younger than 12 months, at least.
some things that I consider awesome to teach are:
jumps- Silvia Trkman tight turns- cik/cap
Susan Salo- jumping skills
cik/cap and grids (until 3min)
slalom- it depends on your dog, with Koda I tried:
channel and 2x2 (Susan Garrett), both are awesome, but Koda did better when doing for 2x2 method, because he thinks to much... so you have to try it on and see what works for your dog!
channel (until 35 sec)
2x2
A-frame- for the health of the dogs I think no one should do stopped contacts on A-frame, so for me it would be running, there are a lot of methods, Silvia Trkman's running, box, strides...
dog walk- stopped contacts are more common on this obstacle, I use it with High but I'm thinking about other options too, well with High I'm retraining it with nothing but teaching him that he needs to run until the end and the criteria is to put two front paws on the ground, but there are a lot of methods: target (nose or paws), 4on, lure with food, and so on.
- now I'm trying running contacts with Koda, Silvia Trkman methods, and I'm in love!
stopped (from 1:19 to 2:19)
beginning of running
teeter- as all the contact obstacles, there are a lot of choices- 4on, target, lure with food... I'm trying Wendy Pape method and it's great so far.
of course those are just options!
About seminars, there are few things better to make everyone enjoy the sport more and more, it's unbelievable how all the agility people are amazing! seminars are so much fun! we get to learn, meet awesome people and have a great time, also the memories last for life time long... so enjoy it <3
That's the first post of the blog so it'll be kind of an introduction, just for you to know a bit more about my boys...
High was the first dog that I really committed to train, so I was a lot lost on the beginning and it made me lose a lot of opportunities! but after I realized what I was doing, I ran after time to fix things up, and at first it was so hard because we didn't have a connection... so I started training tricks, what in my point of view is the best thing ever to build a relationship between animal and owner! at first we had a tough time because he didn't know how to think, than he mastered tricks by shaping =)
in agility I got all the way back to fix misunderstandings in both sides, and now I really feel that so desired connection and love, High mean the world to me, and I'm so happy just to look at his amazing eyes avery day, mostly now that I can say we're walking in the right direction!
He put me in so many situations... in the beginning we were training agility in a old fashion school, so I couldn't teach tricks, or use new techniques because "it doesn't work", and I couldn't leave my dog with other people or playing to much with other dogs because "he would lose his focus", and all this stupid things! but High have really strong heart and personality, he always used to bark while running agility and that fine, actually I love noisy dogs, but soon he started biting me, I know he did that for frustration because we did so long runs with so small rewards, but the trainer wanted me to yell at him and when he really bites, beat him... that's when I got to reality and said I'm not doing agility for that! what's the fun?
Since then I'm training on my own, with my sister, and the support of lots of friends on the other side of my country, and that's why I say High was, and will always be, my biggest challenge... and the best one, because after we past through this, we traveled so many times to seminars that I never imagined my parents would let me go, we entered online classes, and we managed to show people from here, that it's not impossible to train a dog with positive methods, and that's actually the best way to go! We also did a lot of socialization, hiking, play times, swims, tricks, obedience, fun agility, cuddles, kisses, sleep overs (on my bedroom haha), and so on! now I can say we managed to get back all we've lost, and I'm so glad I didn't let it go! "they enjoy the goal but not the process, but the reality of it is that the true work of improving things is in the little achievements every day, and that's what you need to enjoy. " Before Sunset
things High love:
swimming and ball (mostly big ones)
Koda is my second dog, and I can say he's lucky lol, because I could learn a lot with High and such mistakes we never do twice, so I managed to make a looot different with him, in all the aspects of his life. in training I decided that we would just start when he was not as much fearful and agility would come easily, so I taught him all the tricks I could think, because as I said it builds connection and with that comes trust, so it was the easiest way to overcome his fears, we also did a huge socialization, with places, animals, people, and so on... but even so he's still not sure about people, I guess it's a sheltie thing!
Even not been into people (that are not me) Koda will obey anyone if it's to win his toy! he's a pleasure to work with because we can always see the joy on his eyes, and he learns so fast that it's almost too easy haha, because of all the shaping that we trained he is always offering behavior in exchange of everything and some of this behaviors are so funny that I cry laughing! that's also the reason of my biggest frustrations, as he's such a fast learner it's hard to understand when he's doing something wrong to many times, for example: I'm teaching him to walk in a handstand, and he knows the behavior I want, because we have been training this, but in the beginning of every section he acts like he've never done it before! I guess he just doesn't like some tricks xD it's also my fault, I could have taught him a bit less of shaping lol.
things Koda love:
me and training
I used to watch all this videos on youtube with people teaching agility foundation, and lots of tricks, and obedience, and I found myself so lazy, because everyone can do it all, all we need is desire! and I really wanted that, so now I'm proud of me, because now I see we are doing it all! or at least trying!
