New ADC and new training plan!

It's amazing how much I have missed agility.  My last agility trial was in August, I had decided that until Spryte was old enough to run, there wasn't much point in entering a trial just for Strider. I wanted to do stuff that both dogs could do together. So our fall has been full of Rally Obedience, Seminars and formal obedience. It has been fun, but it is nothing compared to the thrill of running agility. These last two weekends have left me with the Agility bug again. There is no dog sport that compares to agility. The challenge of remembering and handling different courses , controlling the dog at top speed, anticipating the dog's next move so you can time your crosses just right, seeing the extreme joy and enthusiasm on your dog's face, there is absolutely no other sport that provides all of this in one great package!  So I am officially hooked once again :)

So onto the results of our weekend.  Spryte was a dream again.  She amazes me with her ability to listen to my handling.  She doesn't "blow me off" like many starters dogs would do. She genuinely wants to get it right. She watches me, and goes exactly where I tell her to go.  She has wonderful obstacle commitment and I can send her to an obstacle and get into position for the next handling move, and not worry about her pulling off.  She is such a thrill to run.  Spryte ran clean 7/8 runs and earned her ADC title. She is also just one snooker leg away from her starters gamers title.  The highlights where an advanced jumpers run where she ran 5.76 yps. And a starters gamble where she got 98 points!

My only complaint was that she was just so excited to run that we pretty much didn't have any 2 on 2 off contacts all weekend.  Lucky for me she still hit the contact zone each time she lept off the equipment, but since that is not what I want for my contact criteria, it was a little annoying.  So there I am at the trial trying to make a decision.  Do I blow my run and make her redue the contacts, do I let her go on and get the Q but then she learns that my expectations at a trial are completely different from practise, or do I find a way to add a consequence without sacrificing the run.

 Well let me tell you it's not easy to blow a run when you know you can get that Q! But at the same time I didn't want to let her get away with it either.  So my compromise was to ask for a sit if she blew her contact criteria.  Seems pretty mundane to us, but to a dog that just wants to RUN, it was a clear message that she had done something wrong.  So that is what we did, she blew a contact, I told her to sit, then we moved on to the rest of the course. I was hoping that she would figure out that if she doesn't stop, I will still make her stop, so better to stop on the contact and continue with the course as quickly as possible.

Well the first few rounds found her a little confused.  Then we had a round where she stopped on her Aframe, so I'm thinking at this point that maybe she is starting to clue in. But then she missed the teeter.  Well our last round was Snooker. I made a course of 3 six's that involved tunnels and jumps. The dogwalk was number 7 and we would only have to do it if she made it to the end.  Well she did her sixes perfectly and did in fact make it to the end of the dogwalk 7.  She was accelerating ahead of me and I thought for sure she was going to leap again as I called out "bottom". But to my utter surprise and pleasure she stopped in a perfect 2 on 2 off position and looked back at me catching up. She got a really loud "yes" and a run to her tug toy. So I have hopes that this might be the answer to our contact issues.

So now the plan is to make training the same as practise.  Because as you can imagine she is perfect in practise, but a trial is a whole other ball game.  So I began thinking that in practise I always reward her stopped contacts, and I am not doing that in a trial. So when she figured out that no reward was coming she thought she might as well keep on going.  Clever little girl :)  So now I need to change how I train.  Now I will no longer feed the bottoms, the reward for correct bottoms will be to continue on with the course, which is rewarding in itself, but the completion of the course will be highly rewarded too.  If she misses a contact I will do the sit and we will go back and try again.  Hopefully this will teach her more impulse control when the food is not there to slow her down or calm her down.  And if she misses I now have a way to make it clear in both practise and trials that a mistake was made, without shutting her down or turning her off the sport.  So lets hope this new training plan works.  Problem is I am done at the barn until mid January. So I will only have one practise with the new plan before her next trail that weekend in January. I hope she can figure it out quickly!!!

Our Jumpers run where she ran 5.76 yps

An Advanced standard run where we had to stop and sit when she blew her contacts. There was lots of barking as she really didn't want to sit! but she had beautiful weaves :)