#you can think I'm an indulgent moron rewarding the wrong thing

[pippindot]

Had another agility lesson today. Still feeling a bit frustrated by the tendency for lumping by our trainer 😭 EG Pip mounted the dog walk incorrectly, did the whole thing and stopped correctly at the end. But she says no reward because she mounted it wrong. But Pip doesn't know that's what went wrong! We have barely practiced that. She did have us go back and do a reward for a correct mount and then a correct 2o2o after but I am frustrated that Pip has to do it wrong FIRST before we take a step back. I need to advocate better but I am also being lumped just like Pip is so I don't always catch on until I'm already not reinforcing how I want to be. 😓

Pip was such a joyful little hellion at first, very silly and happy, but by the end she was reluctant to leave the shade. I hope it's partially weather and partially just working for a long time, and not a general Over It attitude with the work itself. Ugh!

We did have some really nice success with a jump-tunnel-jump sequence, and several variations on that. I'm getting better at shutting the fuck up and using body language, though I still have a million miles to go. Instructor gifted us a little platform to use for contacts practice at home, which will also be useful for position changes... Our biggest problem with contacts rn is she is watching my hands instead of going to the target. And head turning to watch my hands = butt rotating off the contact 🙃 So we need to do more work with our Mark and forward drive instead of MAMA HANDS HOLD CHEESE. Our recent success with pivot work will probably help with butt manipulation I would imagine!

A few weeks ago I did a lot of at-home sessions with building value just for going over a bar (broomstick on boxes ftw) because she was doing a LOT of going around the jumps. It has totally paid off! She went around maybe 3 times today, and several of those were my error. She had a ton of success and way more confidence taking jumps in front of her. That felt so good. She also did 6 channel weaves with minimal setup after taking a jump, that was awesome! She isn't lazy or giving me a hard time, she just wasn't clear on what she had to do. I can't tell if our instructor thinks I let her "get away" with too much, but oh well! She can think I'm a dingus as long as my dog is having fun.

I think I'm going to give us some time to do foundation work just using my textbook for now instead of scheduling another session...that way when we show up next time it will be more like with the jumps, where she is already at a certain level of understanding. We just both get overwhelmed and the last thing I want to do is poison this game for her. Then it will be more like refining behaviors on the actual equipment when we are in class, which I think our instructor will be helpful for.

As always I am so monumentally proud of her. I just don't want to ruin the game for her.