Dylan's Blog: Sunday Training
Sunday was a mixed bag at training. I didn’t take Kim with me because I figured she needed a week off, we had a pretty hectic January. So just me and the tall boy!
We started off really well, working on the 12 channel weaves about 1″ apart, and on a basic flick-flack. Flick-flacks are not my strong point with Kim, and I hadn’t tried them with Dylan until now, but he was fantastic! Really responsive to his left/right commands, letting me cross in front and behind, and actually watching for the next obstacle rather than concentrating too much on me. I also figured I give the tyre another go, since it was out and nobody was using it. I had been hoping that the last incident was just a bit of a off moment, and apparently it was because today the tyre was not scary at all. We had a lot of fun with it actually, with Dyl working it with me a long way behind or infront, from a wait, from a full out sprint, and with a few left/right rear crosses thrown in for good measure.
Second exercise was a really simple Aframe with a couple of jumps. Now, for whatever reason, Dylan just threw his wait out of the window. I think I have another Aframe crazy dog; he loves it, it’s like a magnet that suckers him up from whatever else he should be doing. So I wasn’t happy about that! And then when we actually got to the Aframe, Dylan just wanted to do a 2o/2off. I’m not sure why because I have a completely different command that he usually foolproof on. I kept demanding a touch behaviour but he was just doing the 2on/2off and then the touch, and so now I’m really not sure what to do. I wanted to avoid the 2on/2off on the Aframe because I hate the shoulder impact, but Dylan is performing the 2o/2o faultlessly, it’s obviously something he understands and feels comfortable with. So I’m not sure whether to keep demanding the touch until we get it, or just let him do what he’s happy with and work around the problem from a different angle.
Best laid plans, eh! Any suggestions very much welcome though, Dylan is having to suffer being my first properly trained agility dog, which means he has to try and overcome my experiments and mistakes. Poor lad!