Contact Practice and a Little More

Because contact equipment is so heavy, I absolutely hate setting up standard courses.  However, I did want to spend some training time this year on improving Willie's A frame and dog walk performances.  The other day, we ran a course that had two challenges we couldn't meet with my limited mobility.  The first challenge was AF to the tire, and the second was table to the weaves.  Here's a photo of the section of course in question.





















The approach to the AF is from the left, and it is a fast approach from a chute.  I layered the jump and table and stopped between the table and the tire before releasing Will to the tire.  Despite out-stretched arm and foot, Will took the table.  The only way I could get him to take the tire was to actually take a step toward it as I released him, but I'd really like him to also be able to take it with a verbal and my static body cues.

The second problem was the weave poles after the table.  I wanted to layer the tire so I could get a head start on the DW which is off-screen to the right.  What I got was a lot of barking and spinning. I was really, really surprised by this, since I thought Willie's weave entrances were pretty much rock solid.  Apparently, this is a little varation we will have to work on.

I designed this course for working on these two issues, plus our contact performances.

























I ended up adding a couple of jumps so that we could go from AF to DW.  The teeter is rather a dead end, but since its not really as big a problem for us as the DW and AF, I'm okay with that.  I suppose if the teeter were a bigger issue, I could put it where the AF is on this course.  Here's one sequence we ran this morning.

A Difficult Rear Cross

On Monday, Willie and I ran a MC Standard course in class that featured this opening:

We haven't worked all that much on rear crossing the weaves, and this particular RC is going against the direction that Willie is traveling in the weaves.  Since getting this right is a training issue and not a handling issue, I opted to start at #4 on our next turn.  Then I went home and created a plan to work on this skill.

RC Weave Pole Entry

We'll start this exercise with 6 poles and I'll decide whether to work with 12 poles as we get each step or work through all four exercises before starting over with 12.

The first stage will involve moving the position of the jump from the black position to the red.  Then I'll return the jump to its starting position and work on increasing the angle of the weaves away from the tunnel.  Once Willie can handle the RC with the weaves angling away from the tunnel, I'll start moving the jump toward the red position.

The final exercise will be as shown at the bottom right, where I've added a second jump to approximate the challenge we faced this morning.

Here are the videos of our work on this sequence:

From a Dog's Point of View

I set up Ann Croft's 4th of July Happy Hurdle Days exercise yesterday evening, and Belle and I tackled the blue course this morning.  I'm really glad when a course presents either a handling challenge or a training challenge for us to work on.

Right off the bat, I picked a poor way to handle #2, but I quickly realized the error of my ways and opted for one that made more sense.  However, for the weaves, I was firmly committed to remaining on the side away from the tunnel, and  I quickly discovered that Belle's understanding of the weave poles was not as complete as I thought.

To me and to most humans, the weaves are a single obstacle.  However, down at our dogs' eye level, especially when looking through them from the other side, they are a series of openings, and Belle chose to come through several of them to get to my side of the weaves.  She finally figured out she had to come around the first pole, but even then the entry wasn't easy for her since Mom's entire body was turned west (in relation to the course map) instead of east.  Belle did eventually nail the entry, but this is an entry that will have to be revisited in order to be maintained.