Agility With Carmel

fickla

Experienced Member
I think she looks great! Definitely motivated and having fun.

I don't think her weave poles looked slow but if you want greater speed than I recommend doing some more proofing of them. I've always found that my dogs speed up on things like contacts and weave poles the more their understanding is pushed. so i'll play the green eggs and ham game with those obstacles- things like can you weave if toys are on the floor, can you weave if a helper is lying down next to them, can you...

Making fun proofing games always seem to make my dogs work harder whether it's heeling for obedience or weaving in agility. It's like the dog grins and says "you can't fool me!" and getting faster performances are all about confidence.
 

Luckydogwhisperer

Well-Known Member
You guys are doing wonderfully so far! I love her enthusiasm!

One thing I would suggest would be to not lead out in any cases that you can. With Lucky, I found that he was really unmotivated and slow whenever I left him on the startline and led out...I always started (and will start again, once he's healed from his CCL surgery) with him, and taught him to get really pumped up with "happy tricks" like spin, wave, weave through my legs and speak and, before we started, I conditioned him to get really hyped up when I say "Ready, ready, ready...GO!!!" He LOVES it! :)

Hope I can help a little! Like I said, you are looking great once you get started!
 

madeleine

Experienced Member
I believe the speed in the waves will come. Don't walk to much in front of the dog jet. Halve way through the waves you decressed your speed well and both off you came out off the wave pretty much the same time. (risk is that she'll come out off the wave to follow you) For now, try to stay behind of next to her, and movite her to go faster (clapping hands, saying yes yes yes yes or what ever that makes her go faster). When she get's that part you can train the more tricky stuff, like having more distance, speeding up, going in a different direction of changing from hand before/after the waves. But that's only based on this movie. Don't know where you really stand in the training, so maybe you can already do this type of things ;)

But other than that, it's a great watch!!!
(And seeing a movie, and giving tips is way easier that doing it yourself:D )
 

SD&B

Experienced Member
If I wanted to increase speed, I would work on fewer weave poles at first, 2, then 4, then 6. I would probably review weaving using the 2X2 method. I would also promote drive coming out of the weave poles at the end by throwing a toy straight away from the end. If I were going to use a treat, I would at least throw it straight away from the end to get her to go after it quicker. I think that's a better placement of reward.

Her weaves looked nice to me. Not necessarily blazing, but nice and steady and quick.
 

dogcrazy

Experienced Member
Update: I have been working with Carmel and today she went to her first house league!!!!!!!!!!:) We ran 1 jumpers with weaves course, 1 game and 1 standard course!!!!She ran full speed!!! For the first course she missed the weave pole entry because she was so hyper! The game trial was perfect (she did a perfect running dogwalk) and the standard course was very good but she went into the wrong end of the tunnel (i should have spent more time at the start line). She got second on every run for 16 inches (a border collie beat her). there was about 28 other dogs! I am so proud!!!!!
 

SD&B

Experienced Member
Congratulations! That's great. Even if it weren't the first time, it would be great, but it's especially great for a first time. Doing so well reflects well on her handler and her training.
 

648117

Honored Member
That's great. Well done (y)

I'm going to teach Holly running contacts over christmas. She can do the 2on2off contacts but not very well and I don't think she will ever be good at them, she is a bit of a speed demon at agility - she has no motivation problems at all (except she doesn't tug - she only works for food) and I worry about her shoulders because of the speed and she is a bit front heavy.
 
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