Fin Teeter on Saturday Standard

Here is a series of Photos taken at the trial on Saturday of Fins Teeter. I thought they were fun. The pics were taken by Dog Gone Digital.

This first one Fin is running to the end of the teeter, she is almost to the end and it is still at full height, just starting to go down.

Here she is at the end and the teeter is making downward progress. I like how she is working hard to ride the teeter. Head down and shoulders bent.

Here is where she starts to get a little stiff legged. I still like her position. She is really working hard to hold on.

This photo cracks me up. Her tail hasn't quite caught up with the rest of her. I feel I'd like her legs to be a little more bent to take the impact that is about to come (still about 3-4 inches off the ground).

She ended with legs bending to take the impact (don't have that pic) and then stepped into 2o2o position.

I'm proud of her teeter. She was TERRIFIED of the teeter and the bang when we started teeter work more than a year ago. She mastered the bang game before I started her on her run to the end and let it drop behavior.

Tazzy speaks, "I'm Confused About Criteria"

Tazz N I have an issue with criteria. Everytime we work on our contacts, he clearly tells me, "I don't know what you want me to do." Always with a smile on his face of course. He is not an obnoxious confused guy, he is quite happy in his confusion.

I am wishy washy and didn't stick to my guns when I trained him. I rushed because I wanted him doing equipment (the sexy stuff - who could blame me?). I started with all my contacts with a 2on2off (means front feet in the grass, back feet in the yellow, stop and wait for instructions). Honestly, I never really perfected this method and then came "the accident." Not sure exactly what happened, but the poor guy hurt his back. I convinced myself that he couldn't do a 2on2off on the A frame (too hard on his back) so once he was better, we started back teaching the running A using stride regulators. On a good day the A frame looks like this.

Criteria is a funny thing. How does Tazzy know what I want? I certainly have some work to do here as I can't baby sit these A frames in a trial. He needs to learn to get the yellow with out me begging for it.

For the Dog walk, his criteria is 2on2off. Ya think he knows this?

Again, obviously not. The good news is that since I changed to a running teeter, I think he understands that he should go up the Teeter and when I say ok jump off. But that 2o2off on the dog walk is not reliable. More work, more work, more work.

Next blog I'll talk about how I'm teaching Fins contacts MUCH differently than Tazzie. How I am NOT allowing Fin on contact equipment until she demonstrates to me she understands my criteria. How Fin will be perfect. Yeah right...we'll talk in a year and see what woes I share then.

Fin Agility Training March 23

Today my husband was kind enough to help me take some video of Fins training. I'm going to try posting them here for posterity.

The first video is one jump work I'm doing to teach Fin tight turns. I work allot on this as Fin wants to jump long and hard. This is a girl I'm not going to have difficulty getting a gamble, but if I don't do enough tight work, I'll loose time with her going wide over the jumps.

This video is Fin going over jumps to my left. Just a nice video showing jumping style.

Here is Fin Bounce Jumping (YouTube). I'm teaching her to come to me here and take what is in front of her:

These next two videos are of Fin circle jumping:

Here is a YouTube video of the Bang Game discussed in an earlier blog:

We'll see how this video goes. I'll try to post more as I get more people to help me. One last one, I had to post "girls gone wild" taken by my husband after Fins training session: