29 February 2008

Agility training again this morning. Set the jumps up as below.


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Put the poles on the ground and sent Ruby through the jump uprights by saying left and Right. She is responding nicely to the cues now. She has had problems turning left. Right is what she tends to default to when doing turns. She has a nice tight right spin but her left spin tends to be a little trot in a circle.

Did quite a long session on directing round jump uprights with verbal cues using food then broke off and had a really good play with football and stick

Put the weaves out only slightly off set with poles just each side of the measure tape. Asked Ruby to do them but she just ran along side the poles touching them but not weaving them at all. Quite funny really. moved alternate poles out 1/2 an inch and she was able to weave with good speed and a nice action. Will stay at this level for a day or two.

Ran Saffi round with jump uprights in the same pattern. She is happily galloping through the straight ones to a thrown treat and going round the star both clockwise and anti clockwise. I have not introduced the verbal directional cues yet, she is cueing of my body position. Using titbits for rewards mainly

Brought various toys toys out to use as food is not working brilliantly. Saffi tends to look at me as she does the last jump to see if i am going to throw the titbit. She doesn't always see the titbit being thrown as she is looking back at me and then spends time looking round for it on the ground. A toy will be easier to see but she is not as crazy about toys as she is about food. Her favourite toy at the moment is the squeaky furry tug from Canine Kennels and she will play with that and tug.

Did heelwork with Dora with toy as reward. She was working nicely. working on getting her to move into the heel position to get me to throw the toy. she does tend to just bark at me rather than moving into position but is starting to understand that she has to respond to the cue to get the reward.



Saffy 7 months old