#agility

[horse-breed-a-day]

Horse breed of the day: Swiss Warmblood

Height: 15-16 hh

Common coat colors: Chestnut, bay and seal bay

Place of origin: Switzerland

[viejospellejos]

El hombre lagartija 🦎

Enviado por: @clocasduende

[hazard-and-friends]

please ignore everything here except baby being SO GOOD at baby agility. just the best. i love her.

[wyrddogs]

Agility training advice por favor

Okay I have a goofy problem that I need suggestions for.

Zaku looooooves tunnels. He loves them so much. In agility class, he likes to reward himself after training sessions with tunnels.

This means that we do, say, a teeter exercise, he gets his toy, he runs off and goes into the tunnel. He rubs his body all along the inside, he rolls on his back and wiggles on the inside. Eventually he comes out and resumes the actual lesson. It can take two or three minutes for me to catch him, which makes things difficult if we're trying to do reps on an exercise.

We are having to flip the tunnels so he cannot gain entrance to them. So he gets his toy, runs to the tunnel, and then runs back and forth trying to figure out how to get in, before finally giving up and returning to me to play tuggies.

I am planting or throwing the toy for these exercises, so I can't just hang on to the toy. Usually it's quite some distance from me. I'm not going to use food because he finds food rewards mid value at best and i want speed and enthusiasm. (And besides he'd just eat the food and then run to a tunnel.)

I'm using a ball with a rope handle but I can't grab it because he goes WHEEEE and runs to the closest tunnel.

I've tried using a second bally and what happens is he gets his first bally, runs to the tunnel, and then comes back and switches to the second bally.

So this is a very funny problem but I would like suggestions on how to curb it a bit. Reign him in. Keep the fun and enthusiasm but maybe focus on the actual class lesson a little more.

[theadventurek9]

Let the fun for weaves begin! After months of 2x2 training (Though just 1-2 practices a week, so slower progress but better for his brain) I'm saying Ryker has a basic understanding of weaves.

He is able to find easy entrances to the weaves. Which for me is straight on with one obstacle sequencing or angeled entrances with a start line stay into the weaves.

He has also proved he understands finishing the weaves without looking at me. Yesterday we worked on some channel weaves and he moved quickly from four to eight all the way closed in only a few reps.

So now we get to start the really fun stuff IMO. We can start working on speed, handling and proofing. We will keep the weaves at four for working entrances, but start adding in eight for starting to find consistency and to help him figure out his footwork. This will also help him find independence and commitment to completing the weaves.

I'm really enjoying this journey with him. He is picking this up quickly and really is enjoying it!

[tea-time-terrier]

We finally hit up some agility after it being a goal for literally forever. Baby dog got some Q's for a whole four Intro titles <3

[toacody]

Velocirahk, Rahkshi of Agility

Knows how to move with attitude.

Source

Creator: Antak3000

[sammythesheltie]

Not the best pictures, Pino ist to fast for me but he is doing so well!

[syppys-den]

Here's a thing literally nobody cares about but I made anyway. The Main Trio in The Wild Robot's Fallout Stats!

or rather based on the 40 points you start with, if you feel any of these are inaccurate (especially Fink, because I feel like I probably could do him better y'know?) PLEASE for the love of god tell me, and spare no detail anyway here's what I came up with Roz

Strength: 8 Perception: 3  Endurance: 8 Charisma: 2 Intelligence: 8 Agility: 8 Luck: 3

Brightbill

Strength: 2 Perception: 4 Endurance: 9 Charisma: 4 Intelligence: 5 Agility: 7 Luck: 9 Fink

Strength: 4 Perception: 9 Endurance: 5 Charisma: 4 Intelligence: 4 Agility: 9 Luck: 5 kind of funny how I made all of them pretty high in agility (no that wasn't intentional but I suppose it's appropriate)

[pawsitivevibe]

Bree, the 13-year-old superdog, had her last competitive agility run at AAC Nationals recently. Happy Retirement, Bug dog!

Photo by Nancy Miller DVM.

[kitteyrenlover]

it be like dat sometimes

[twobigears]

more flying fur appreciation

📷 Happy Kampa Photography

[coffee-mage-sans-caffeine]

This is Benton. Benton is taking a shrimp nap after a hard day of totally breaking his agility teacher. But wait, you say, how did he break his teacher?

Benton has struggled with hind end awareness, which is dangerous for obstacles like the dog walk, a high, narrow bridge. If a dog on the dog walk turns wrong on it or forgets they have a hind end, they can have a nasty fall and get hurt. Fortunately, we have an excellent agility teacher who teaches backing up onto a platform to teach them to be aware of their feet.

First you teach them to back up. For 6-8 months, Benton and I worked almost daily on teaching him to go backwards on command. No matter what I did, for months, he sat down and visibly fretted, didn't try to back up, even though I've watched him climb stairs backwards. Finally he started reversing!

Next, you introduce a board or other contrasting texture so that they learn to target the object backwards with their hind feet. You repeat this until you see them searching for the board with their little leggies. Once he could reverse, he started looking for the board quite quickly and graduated to platforms.

Sounds successful, right? Why would this break his teacher? Sure, he went slow, but he can do it, right?

Well, there's one more piece to the puzzle. Eventually you have to get them onto a narrower platform because they need to aim. They need to be able to find the platform with their feet and steer towards them.

Benton goes backwards in circles. He cannot go straight at all. He just turns like a baffled Roomba until he finds the platform by accident or I call him off, reset him, and start again.

Today his teacher admitted defeat. He knows he needs to have his feet on the platform. He knows to look for it. He cannot go straight, even after a year. After thirty years of training agility, having her students be the best in the state at contact obstacles like the dog walk, she has admitted that he will not progress further so we're going to stop this exercise and move on to the next steps of agility.

He has broken her and I love him.

[theadventurek9]

Ryker's Agility Update

Weaves : Ryker has been making good progress with the weaves. We still are only on four poles. On straight approaches, and approaches from the right of the weaves up to 90* he is doing great with. (Without speed) The left side approach is harder for him and he can handle about 45* but starts struggling after. I have not started any sequencing yet and he is still not ready for that. I would like for him to confidently get a four pole weave from 90* on both sides and with some distance and speed before doing that.

A-frame : Seems like it depends on the day for our running contact. I've gone back to having a stride regulator in and lowering the A-frame again while adding in some sequencing. This seems to be working very well for him and I'll keep it for a while. I'm not looking for a high speed running contact, just hitting contacts.

Dog walk : Confident and great with his down in the contact zone. I think I may want to encourage him to do a 2o2o behavior. I just because sometimes he is downing too far back. I also didn't really want a down for the dog walk but it stuck from our teeter training.

Teeter : Honestly haven't worked on the teeter in a while. He is confident and correct with it, but does tend to stop a little too close to the middle to wait for a slower tip down than I want. I don't need the super speedy stop at the end, but I want faster than he is giving me.

Handling : He is learning and improving. He can read front, rear and blind crosses well. Yet he does get stuck with obstacle focus and I have a hard time pulling him off of tunnels and contacts. Which is to be expected for a baby dog. I've also found that he is easy to accidentally push off of lines if I crowd him at all. He also needs more connection than Aayla and more obvious 'do that' cues. Which are all baby dog things too. He will run past obstacles if my handling is lacking at all. We are working more on verbals with jumps and layering easy sequences currently as well.

Overall a very good boy. I am loosely considering FEO in May at a ASCA trial for gamblers and regular with maybe entering him in jumpers. (Jumps and tunnels only) But I need to start working on ring entrance and exit skills.

[wyrddogs]

Bub was introduced to the A-frame last night and did fantastic.

We lowered it to training height and put the Rachel Sanders box on the landing side. Had him sit at the top of the A-frame and practice our bounce command a few times so he realized that the box is still in play. Then we ran him over the A-frame.

First session when I was on the left side he did a beautiful job striding correctly and hitting the box on the way down. When I was on the right side he couldn't go up the A-frame. Presentation was too different! He would run around the A-frame and then hop into the 2o2o position, which was incredibly cute and smart of him. He understands the 2o2o task! Just right now I'm asking him for running contacts, which he is still learning.

I walked with him a few times so he could learn what I was asking. Smoke was coming out of his ears at that point so I put him away to suck on his squishie and rest.

Second session trainer had me practice positions (front, side, behind) while sending him over the A-frame. I stood in the front position on the left side, and he did a perfect mount but he was a bit revved and went sailing over the box in a very athletic fashion. Oops! No reward, try again. Second time he collected his stride at the top and hit the box. Woo! I stood in the front position on the right side and sent him over. You could tell he was thinking extremely hard because he went over the A-frame almost in slow motion and deliberately hit the box at the bottom.

We had a party and quit right there. Forget working the other positions. He showed a huge improvement and you could tell he was getting a bit frazzled. Collecting his stride is a huge mental task for him. I put him in his crate with his squishie and I just watched him let all the stress go right there. He's such a good boy.

We also worked on wraps with a tunnel distraction, which was very hard for Mr I Love Tunnels. Had to block the tunnel off at first so he stopped going WHEEE and just blasting on through.

So it was a very Thinky session for the boy. He was happy and enthusiastic all the way through, and got some great speed going on the jump exercise.