We just returned from our second private agility lesson with Maureen Strenfel of Momentum Dog Sports. The weather is still cool here in the Bay Area, but the summer heat has started up down in San Jose, where I take my lessons. We scheduled our lesson for 8 AM, which meant that I had to get up at 6 AM. Since I usually get home from work at 10 PM, and go to bed at midnight at the earliest, this is a difficult thing for me! But as Moe pointed out, once we're trialing, I'll have to do it regularly.
Last time Dragon was easily distracted by people practicing at the far side of the field or coming and going through the gate. Also, birds, lizards, the wind rustling the grass... This time he was much more focused and responsive and it was a joy to work with him. I gave him breaks to sniff around or chew on the woodchips when I would talk to Moe, but he always got back to work when I asked, just with a few second's delay here and there. Better than the cheerleading and running away from him I had to do last time, haha! When I asked him to bring me his woodchip, he would put it right in my hand, a success thanks to all our recent practice with fetching different toys. He also dropped them when asked, which is a cue he mastered way back when I first brought him home, mainly because he's so soft and intimidated if I have to pry a forbidden object out of his mouth. One time he chased a lizard into the bushes and, amazingly, I was able to call him off it by running in the other direction!
We started off reviewing circle work, which is teaching the dog to move next to the handler's side, at the same pace, without switching sides, and doing both inside and outside turns. Think heeling, but faster and less precise. We've been practicing this a lot, and it showed. Moe did coach me to not mix up practicing inside and outside turns because he wasn't sure yet when I would make an inside turn and this caused him to run wide to feel safe. As we practice this more he'll learn to read my body cues better and maneuver quickly and safely. Ah, tiny dogs, they have so much to worry about.
Next we worked with a wobble board which was about six inches high in the middle, and about a foot off the ground at the highest edge. I clicked and treated for making the board tip. At first he would jump off when it moved, but slowly he gained confidence and started to ride it on the way down. We worked with the board three times over the course of the lesson, and by the end he was searching for the tipping point and riding it down 90% of the time. Moe explained that he has to learn to relax his muscles to "surf" on the board, and that under-confident dogs remain stiff and so they get jarred and lose their balance. Once he was comfortable we added an extra element of difficulty: rather than just having him move around and rewarding for causing the board to tip, I would use my hand to move it for him. It's great that's he's learning that it's a fun thing to create motion and noise. However he also has to learn that it's okay if things move unexpectedly beneath him, because different teeters have different tipping points and we want him to be prepared for that (and of course, it's also a good life skill).
We reviewed his targets. I had taught him a nose and paw target to different objects, but I hadn't taught him to stick to the objects, so I need to fix that. I will work on rapid-fire treats for staying on the object. For the nose target, that also means the treats should be down low, just above the target. I don't expect this to take long for Dragon to learn. He already has duration on a few other contact/target behaviors: lying on his mat, putting his front paws onto various vertical objects, and staying in his crate. I had been using a circular foam coaster as his paw target and she suggested that I get a mousepad for that behavior, which won't slide on floors and can be cut down to a smaller size.
Finally we started teaching him to jump! I stood next to a jump, facing the bar in a neutral position (in other words, my shoulders were not telling him to cross in a specific direction because they were parallel to the bar). I held treats in both hands, on either side of the jump, and waiting for him to orient to it. Soon he was taking mini jumps across the bar to get a treat on one side, then the other, and back. I'll have to practice this one at work, though it would be worth it for me to take the time to build a PVC jump, and practice with it in a grassy field near our house. Most of the agility trials in our area are held in outdoor fairgrounds, on grass. Moe explained to me how to move on with jump training on our own: I'll switch to standing next to the jump but facing perpendicular to it, and only reward him for going over in the direction that my shoulders are pointing. I'll reward him in front, turn him around, toss a treat to reset, and repeat. Then I can start working the clock, teaching him to jump from different angles and distances, making sure that my shoulders are always facing the same direction as he will while taking the jump.
Our homework:
- Refine circle work. Seperate inside and outside turns until he's more confident with inside turns.
- Continue with the wobble board.. Use a lower height but move it onto a hard surface that will cause additional noise. On softer surfaces, work on raising the height. Then combine the two elements. When he's comfortable at a given height/noise level, move the board for him, more and more until eventually he's surfing it with relaxed muscles as it's bouncing up and down.
- Make him stick to the nose and paw targets. Transfer the paw target to a mousepad.
- Start jump training, first with low height in neutral position, then raising up to 12", and then adding angles and distance. I also need to measure him and then look up his jump height in the agility venues common in our area.
- Continue with plank work, building speed and independent performance. We didn't practice this today but did discuss it. I had been sending him ahead of me to run the plank, but she said that I should always be moving when sending him across. Standing still should never signal him to take an obstacle. Oops! So we will practice with me moving, faster or slower, closer or farther, and on both sides.
- Play play play! Especially try to get him to play outdoors, because it's so useful for building speed and drive in training. Right now he will only play indoors, but I'll try to entice him to play in new indoor environments and low-key, familiar places outdoors.
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