This weeks backyard practice

Inspiration. Need some. Created a little course and am doing a bunch of different things to practice his week. Although one jump is good, I need to teach Fin to "go on" so am working on some difficult turns and then run as fast as I can and reward with ball toss for not looking at me and taking the line.

Goodbyes

My heart is broken. We are saying goodbye to a dear friend today. Molly is my sisters 15 year old BC mix. Total love bug, she who farts alot, the girl with the big smile, auntie to many puppies, Fins good friend, and the love of my sisters life.

End of an era. Goodbye sweet Molly. We will miss you with all our hearts.

Bathroom Remodel Update

The bathroom is coming along. Everyday, it gets better and better.

A stork, the threadle, and the pleasure zone

From the fantastic web universe, there have been some attempts to describe threadles:

• Team Small Dog: here, here, and here
• AgilityNerd: here, here
• Me: here

Basically the handler pulls the dog through the gap instead of the dog following the natural path to take a jump. A traditional threadle is shown below. The threadle is between 6 and 7. As the dog commits to 6, she has three options. Go straight to the tunnel (Fin's preference), make a left turn to backside of 7, or come in between the jumps. The handler determines the dog path at take off.

Now, what does a stork and pleasure zone have to do with threadles?

Last night at class with Laura Derrett (as described quite well by Team Small Dog), the topic was threadles. I arrived, saw the set up, and knew. I hate threadles. I'm terrible at threadles, but after last night, I might have a new appreciation for the threadle. We ran a few courses and confused hysterics dominated our agility field.

We all were having trouble so as a class we started to come up with things to help us define what we were doing. The Stork Pose seemed to help everyone, but it got a little crazy after that.

First some definitions. These definitions are NOT the Derrett system definitions. These definitions are our classes interpretation and might get Laura in trouble if Greg ever reads this...so don't tell Greg.

• Pleasure zone = reinforcement zone = where you reward your dog
• The stork pose = plant outside leg, point with inside arm, causing your inside leg to lift in anticipation of stepping backward.

The key to the threadle seems to be timing and footwork.

• As dog commits to the jump prior to the threadle,
• handler moves to position (next to jump standard prior to take off for next jump),
• handler plants outside leg,
• lifts inside leg in anticipation of step,
• points with inside arm, and
• keeps outside arm out of the picture causing the dog to drive toward the pleasure zone, er, the reinforcement zone.
• Once dog is committed to driving to the "pleasure zone"
• continue the step with your inside leg,
• step around with your outside leg,
• drop your inside arm,
• bring up your outside arm, and
• get to the next position on course.
  

Simple. Yeah right.

Not quite the rabbit hole, but at times I could have used some shrinking potion

Spent Saturday in the land of Derrett. Terms of the day:

• Flick
• Late
• Early
• Need more circle work
• That is caused because you don't do proper Threadles
• And the rarely heard "good"

The title of this seminar was "Top Handlers Seminar." I felt the title should be changed for me to "Mediocre Handler Aspiring to be Seminar."

Driving to this seminar, to be perfectly honest, I was regretting my decision to work Fin. I was scared. No denying. As much as I practice, as many titles that I may have, I was still scared as to what would happen. I've been having a reoccurring theme in my runs:

• I expect her to take the line - she goes wide
• I expect her to go wide - she comes into me
• I expect her to come into me - she takes the line
• But, her contacts are great!

I shouldn't have worried. I learned a great deal at this seminar. All of it will help me be a better handler. The good news is that Fin did all the stuff at the seminar that she does to me at trials (or rather, I handled like I do at trials and we were able to duplicate our errors). Two of the highlights for me were:

• Fin and I really haven't done a good job in my foundation circle work which is causing Fin not to understand and go wide.
• I have not properly recognized threadles on courses and the misuse of this cue is causing her to come into me on sharp shoulder turns rather than taking the jump in front of her (thus not taking a proper pinwheel).

The first half of the seminar started with a clear definition of each handling move. Following in the same vein of the lecture I attended on Friday evening. We started with the front cross.

When walking a course, first thing is to find all the theoretical front crosses. Once the FC's have been identified, then decide how you want to handle it. In the first exercise, it was pretty clear to everyone where the FC was located. The handlers challenge was to execute the FC at the proper place at the proper time.

When I did the first exercise, I heard, "Late." I wanted a mulligan, a redo, a forget you saw that, I'll try it again. I had every excuse in the book. I was nervous. Fin was nervous. Fin was too excited. I had anxiety. Fin had anxiety. Derrett said, "hmmm. Did you reward your dog for her start line stay. She did that very well." I dropped my head in shame and walked to my chair.
The FC exercise was pretty straight forward. Find the theoretical FC and perform it perfectly. The FC should be performed close to the 4th jump standard (the standard closest to #5) and the 3 foot pattern should move you towards jump 5. Mistakes:

• Late FC (cause wide turns)
• FC not in the proper place (caused S curve on dog path and slowed everything down)
• Early FC (in some cases, pulled the dog off of 3, in others caused strange dog path).

For exercise two, we identified two FC and practiced doing both. Then switched it up and replaced our theoretical FC/FC with a serp. Everyone seemed to do well on these exercises. A pattern was seen that if you are late for your first, you'll be late for the second. I was "good" on my first and "late" on my second.

The serp truly was the easier move for me as there was less for me to do.

Exercise 4 and 5 used the same course but tested two very different handling maneuvers. We all agreed that the theoretical FC was between 4 and 5. First run we put a FC there, second a RC. FC must be performed at 5 when the dog is committed to 4. Not an easy feat, but we all tried real hard and there were even a few that got there early.

The RC was a struggle because you had to go into the pocket to get the dogs path down the line in order to execute your cross behind the dog. It was much easier for dogs that drove to 5. Dogs that were unsure and slower, handlers struggled. The cross behind the dog should be at commitment to 5.

The last exercises were all about threadles. My least favorite and of course my weakness. We did an exercise with two threadles and worked very hard on understanding the footwork. Tomorrow I will have a post "all about threadles."

For today, I will say that I was very proud of myself in this little 4 jump exercise. In the afternoon, during the full courses, I wasn't too happy but we worked really hard and had fun.

It is SPRING!!!

The Anatomy of an Agility Handling Workshop

No matter how you handle, a consistent system is necessary for proper communication with your dog. This past weekend found me at one of my favorite venues, an agility handling workshop.

I am lucky enough to live in an area that not only has the weather to support it, but also has enough students to draw some top workshop trainers. This weekend was about the Derrett systems of handling, "advanced boxwork skills."

Some basic rules to live by:

1. Keep your eyes (or eye in my case) on your dog.
2. Use the arm and leg closest to your dog.
3. Face the direction you want your dog to go.

We had a total of 10 different challenges and I learned alot about myself. I'm a flinger. I never really thought of myself as a flinger, but a flinger I am. I don't run with my arm up, nor do I run with my arm consistently in running position. I do both. I need to go to Flingers anonymous.

Timing is a huge issue. At one point Fin was doing a pinwheel to a serp (from me). She came off the pinwheel and I was thinking (here we go again) but I rewarded her anyway cause she came to the serp. Laura stopped me and said she was really glad I rewarded her because I brought my serp arm up early which resulted in her coming off the refusal line of the jump straight to me (in this case I was wrong and Fin was correct).

I'm going to go back and watch some of the videos from trials and see whether some of those "go around jumps" are "handling" rather than her being a brat.

Fin had a great time. I had a great time. Nothing better than hanging out on a beautiful day with your dog and best friends.