Elke and I make the perfect partnership - she makes up half the course and I make up the other half! # teamwork 👌🤣
Elke and I make the perfect partnership - she makes up half the course and I make up the other half! # teamwork 👌🤣
Resource guarding - correcting the early signs
Resource guarding - This is a little video of Elke showing some early signs of guarding the bones on the bench. At the moment she just wants to make sure she’s the closest out of the 8 dogs waiting for their bones.
I’m sure I would be doing the same if there were some nachos sitting there! 😆
But on a more serious note, if I am aware of the early signs with this behaviour I can show her the correct way to behave and get her bone!
It’s the same if a dog was obviously making a point of sitting the closest to the bag of dog biscuits that might be in the pantry or their dinner bowls etc. I ask them to move away and don’t allow anyone to dominate the space.
(On a side note - Once she’s given her bone she’s free to enjoy it in peace. Taking your dog’s bone away while they’re eating it just to show you’re the boss is a great way to create resource guarding!)
This week with the beginner pups!
Lessons with the babies/beginners this week were about building confidence to drive ahead into the tunnel without much handler movement.
For Porky Chops with his brain disease what a joy to see him running and having so much fun! There isn’t a dog alive that loves agility more than this little guy!
I included Ziggy’s run too as it was beautiful to see a moment of confidence building. Most of his training time is just playing and if he wants to do some agility in between play that’s a bonus!
Sampson is starting little sequences now he’s 1yo! Some lovely work but you can see a couple of times he’s looking at me too much and misses a jump! 😆 That will come as his confidence to drive ahead builds.
One of our most important foundation exercises for teaching our dogs to jump.
This is one of our most important foundation exercises for jumping.
Our goals here are to capture the moment the dog moves towards the jump with our YES reward word. We want to capture their intention to jump rather than the jump itself.
Our other goal is to throw the treat in a way that the dog then chases it over the jump, activating their prey/chase drive.
This exercise builds so much value for the jump, and so much independence and understanding of what their job is.
A huge milestone in Ziggy’s confidence with being touched! He now loves to jump up on me for a crazy wrestle! It’s just the best thing ever. 🎉 👏
I have to be careful he doesn’t feel restrained at all or he’ll still cower and wet himself with fear but other than that he’s confident with me playing a bit crazy with him!
This week we’ve been lucky enough to celebrate 3years with this most special dog who couldn’t even be in the same room as me, what a gift you are Ziggy-Zag. ❤️
Arena renovations
The arena renovations have reached the final stages! 🎉. Still doing classes in between the renovations but it will be so great to have it finished at last! It will be wheelchair friendly so I don’t keep getting bogged in there and big enough for full size competition courses.
Bonnie
Fun with Booboo practicing:
-backwards wraps with no handler motion
- 2 turns away in a row with no handler motion
We only did one try of each as it was too hot but she did so well! ❤️🐶
Sampson (10mo) learning turns away without handler movement. Im starting the foundations of this concept very early as it’s a tricky one!
First they learn a turn away just on the flat with no equipment, then we add 1 jump.. and now 2.
All of these game are also teaching him to keep moving while I remain in the one place! Good boy puppy face! ❤️
Sampson learning a pinwheel without handler movement. It was his first time with a larger pinwheel and he found the jumps, and kept moving without depending on my movement really well! 🎉
Little Porky Chops jumping the big boy jumps! 🎉 ❤️ He’s able to run more and more steps these days and although he’ll always be severely disabled, he’s determined not to miss out on a thing! He can now balance at a run around the corners at the start, and balance over 200mm jumps. Still a little wobbly but there’s no stopping him.
(Augie was born with cerebellum disease)
Yesterday I filmed this little example of how I try and build impulse control into routine parts of everyday life. Here we have the front gate wide open and I’m a few metres back with a box full of meat from the butchers which they’re very interested in scoffing!
I like the dogs to know that they don’t leave the yard unless they’re invited and it really helps with people coming in and out of the gate to not have 8 crazy dogs trying to barge past them!
Lil’ Porky Chops achieved another milestone in his battle with cerebellum disease this week! 🎉
He did his first 200mm jumps!
Mainly we are continuing to work on strength and balance with his body and learning to do everyday things like running, but the challenge in this session was to increase the height a little.
I left the middle jump low to start as corners is where he needs to use his balance skills the most. I was so proud of him and his very unique little jumping style! 🎉❤️
Training independent verbals for distance agility
*independent verbals foundations*
Here I’m working on Zig’s understanding of our backside and wrap verbals. Backsides can be really tricky for the dogs in this set up as the whole front of the jump is open and saying “jump me Ziggy!” 😆
I want my body to stay the same so he has to really listen to the verbal command to get it right.
Independent verbals are tedious to train at times but rewarding when you see them coming together for sure 😊
Impulse control with car crate
Sampson and Augie working on some impulse control training, out and about today. 🥰 My goal is always for the dogs to remain in the crate until they’re invited out one at a time.
Bonnie & Elke learning distanced turns away out of the tunnel and layering the tunnel with jumps! #agility #agilitytraining #distancehandling #wheelchairagility #wheelchair
This is definitely going to end badly for my face.. but it’s so damn funny I don’t care! 🤣 #laughteristhebestmedicine #laughterisgoodforthesoul #doglover #doglife #jackrussellterrier #jackrussell #jackrussellmoments #dog
Sampson learning “stay” with the wheelchair motion
This was a new one for me! Sampson has just started learning about “stay” and today I introduced the wheelchair motion to it. Poor bugger must be saying “don’t run me over woman, I know all about your driving skills!” 🤣
A year ago this little man couldn’t walk forwards along a plank without falling over. (due to his neurological disease) Check out the cuteness overload of him starting to walk backwards along it! 🎉He just tries his little heart out, little Porky Chops ❤️
Almost ready to start off lead work! Sampson practicing his forward drive cue “gogo” and recalls without movement with the wheelchair. I find it helpful to use a 20m long line as the last step before off lead work begins, because for both of us it feels like he’s off lead.. but I still have that little bit of security to reel him in if something unforeseen happens.
I like to start recall with simple response to name games on a lead and then progress to a 5m lead where I can reel them in if they don’t immediately respond. Starting in low distraction environments, I want to use movement away from the dog, lots of excitement and high value rewards. Once you’ve done some great foundations work with your dogs they’re usually so focussed on you and find being with you so rewarding that recalls are second nature. If you always set them up to get it right in the beginning, they never know there’s a choice not to come to you.
