Rio's Agility Update

A selection of brief notes based on training in the past 2 weeks.

Rio is relaxing and enjoying training again. Her focus is great, and I’m using a mixture of food and tug, and regularly scheduled breaks. Doing some single-jump reward work has helped her engage faster on course.

When I cue appropriately and in time, her wing wraps at Standard are wonderful. It makes my heart happy and amazed when she wraps so tightly and neatly. When I fail to cue appropriately and in time, she sails off and does what she pleases. That makes me laugh. Everybody wins!

She’s weaving 6 uprights at home, but not anywhere else just yet. She was weaving before, but then we had 4 months of no weaving and she’s gone a bit backwards. No surprise there, more homework needed. She really really LOVES weaves now, it’s all 100% all the time, lots of speed and barking and go-go-go. Could do with more thoughtful Rio for weaving.

I am going to stick with a running Aframe. She is at 100% hits with no RC contact training, and if her percentage drops I feel comfortable and confident that we can revert to a 2o2o. Her dogwalk is underconfident and I’m not sure how I’m going to address that right now, so I need to make a plan. Up/Down planks are fine, it’s the flat plank that she isn’t sure about running on. Could be due to apex adjustments?

Must start seesaw work soon. Have plan, need to figure out seesaw access. Other things left to introduce: spread? Is that it?! Wall? Need to proof Tyre/Long Jump/Cloth tunnel a bit more.

Her jump confidence and take-off-points are improving at Standard/Large, as expected. I think this will continue to improve, I don’t want to mess with it too much at this point.