We had a great class at Wet Creek last night! Trapper has had motivational issues at times - not all times - but sometimes! Usually in an agility trial, his first few runs are great! He's quick and focused and really into it! By the time it's time for his 3rd or 4th run of the day comes - he's still solid and dependable - but it's like he's saying - "Ok Mom, I've been out there before and it was great!!! But I'm done with it now and I'm only doing this to be with you!"
My instructor Keri saw this during a class recently and told me that Trapper is running with me and I'd probably still get a lot of Q's with him - but he doesn't look like he's having a lot of fun out there, so she suggested that we start "targeting" obstacles for him.
What we're doing right now is putting a target plate with a really yummy treat on it after every obstacle and I say "Get it!!" and after he gets the treat on the target plate I say "GO!!" and he continues on to the next target plate and so on. As we will progress over time we will still leave all of the target plates out on the course but we'll leave a few plates empty with no treats. Obviously when we get to those empty plates I will not say "get it" - we'll just continue on to the next obstacle. The goal is to get Trapper to focus and understand what I'm saying and when I don't say "get it" then he'll know not to look for a treat - only unless I say "get it". The "Go" command is great because it tells him there's another yummy treat coming up!!
The end goal is to lessen the amount of plates over time until they're fazed out. This should build value for the obstacles and make Trapper a lot more enthusiastic about agility!
There would still be a little "maintenance" involved - every once in a while during practice I could randomly put out a few target plates for a run or two - then take them out.
A great example of building value for an obstacle is something I read somewhere (I can't remember where). If you asked a friend, husband, wife...etc....to jump over a jump in your backyard over and over - they probably would - but would get really bored after a few times! Now - if you offered them say, $500.00 for each time they jumped over a jump - they would jump until they were exhausted! They would do anything to get as many jumps in as they could and they'd be really excited about it!! Having a fantastic, high value treat or toy has the same type of result for dogs. They want to play, play, play!!!
It certainly worked in class last night as no matter how many times we lined up to do our sequence, Trapper was so focused and ready and couldn't wait to get out there. It was AWESOME!!
We've finished classes right now for the Christmas break so we have a little time off but I can't wait until our class starts again in mid-January to continue this target training! I'll continue to blog on our progress and we'll see how my little man does!
Motivation is my main goal for 2010 with Trapper - but I actually have quite a few goals to list and some of them relate to myself, Hunter and Trapper. That will be for another post!!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
What we Agility Addicts do to Play with our Dogs!
Major snowstorm, icy highway, near zero visibility at times.......SO WHAT!?!?!?! Let's play agility!!!
Am I nuts!?!?! Last Friday I left for the DAL trial in Edmonton. I took Friday off work and was going leave around noon - but Mother Nature changed my plans!! A major - major snowstorm hit Alberta! To go or not to go. Well - I decided to try - take my time, be careful and hopefully get there in one piece. Thank goodness it all worked out!!
The trial was a lot of fun! Trapper ran very well! He was motivated and focused. Our 1st run was Gamblers and Trappster got his first Advanced Gamblers "Q". He also got his 1st Advanced Snooker "Q" on Sunday!! We missed both of our Regular runs though - the first one he ran clean but was 1.6 seconds over course time!! Those wide turns burned us as they took more time and I was a little too cautious in a few sections of the course! Lesson learned - trust him more!!
His second Regular run was fantastic - clean and fun until the third last obstacle - I led him to the tunnel and as I saw him commit to it I left to meet him at the other end to lead him to the dogwalk and he must have seen me run in the opposite direction and he came out of the same end of the tunnel looking for me - 5 point refusal! We finished really nice and except for the 5 faults - he ran great!!
I decided to skip his Jumpers run so we could leave early and we got home around 5:45pm Sunday evening! That was the right decision! I slept like a baby Sunday night and so did Trapper! Hunter came along for the ride even though I didn't trial her! She just loves hanging out and visiting!
So - the next trial is the Wee Wednesday December 30th. I've entered both Hunty and Trappy - there's a few runs each so that should be a great way to ease into New Years eve!!
Am I nuts!?!?! Last Friday I left for the DAL trial in Edmonton. I took Friday off work and was going leave around noon - but Mother Nature changed my plans!! A major - major snowstorm hit Alberta! To go or not to go. Well - I decided to try - take my time, be careful and hopefully get there in one piece. Thank goodness it all worked out!!
The trial was a lot of fun! Trapper ran very well! He was motivated and focused. Our 1st run was Gamblers and Trappster got his first Advanced Gamblers "Q". He also got his 1st Advanced Snooker "Q" on Sunday!! We missed both of our Regular runs though - the first one he ran clean but was 1.6 seconds over course time!! Those wide turns burned us as they took more time and I was a little too cautious in a few sections of the course! Lesson learned - trust him more!!
His second Regular run was fantastic - clean and fun until the third last obstacle - I led him to the tunnel and as I saw him commit to it I left to meet him at the other end to lead him to the dogwalk and he must have seen me run in the opposite direction and he came out of the same end of the tunnel looking for me - 5 point refusal! We finished really nice and except for the 5 faults - he ran great!!
I decided to skip his Jumpers run so we could leave early and we got home around 5:45pm Sunday evening! That was the right decision! I slept like a baby Sunday night and so did Trapper! Hunter came along for the ride even though I didn't trial her! She just loves hanging out and visiting!
So - the next trial is the Wee Wednesday December 30th. I've entered both Hunty and Trappy - there's a few runs each so that should be a great way to ease into New Years eve!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)