Agility With Cooper And Jinx

[Anneke]

I just love Agility!! A long, long time ago, i started with my Shane, who thought it was fun, but didn't get the running part I would run to the next jump and then wait for him to catch up with me. So we stopped. It was a combination of reasons why I stopped training with him. The dogclub was a bit too far and Shane didn't like it that much. But I promised myself, when I got another dog, I'd try it again.
So Cooper came along. We have been training for about 4 years now. And he loves it!! He isn't fast, but he really loves it.

This is us, last year.
We did one competition, didn't do too bad, but his behavior took a turn for the worst(he thinks that he can eat jack russels) and after an unfortunate incident I was scared to take him off lead around other dogs. This behavior problem has his roots in his puppyhood, when he had severe growingproblems, wich caused him to have backproblems. My vet incists his back is ok, but I know he has pain.
I recently stopped training agility with him and I find that he is much better now. Too bad, because it was the only training he really liked.
Now Jinx has reached the right age for agility(over here your dog must be over 1 year old to start training) we have started. She loves it! And she is fast!
We have had about 5 official lessons now. I did do some training with her earlier, so she wasn't totally new to it.
This little thing has no fear!! Last week we introduced the seesaw. And after 2 times she did it almost on her own. I help by holding the seesaw, so it doesn't hit the ground so hard.
With Jinx I have to work on her not being so focused on me. She will come to me after every jump, so i have introduced target training. That works really well.
And the weavepoles are a problem. Here we are training on our own for the first time.

I see i've made a huge spelling mistake...poals in stead of poles
Anyway, we are up to 6 poles by now, but she still needs a lot of coaching.
Maybe someone here can offer some advice??

 

[fly30]

I'm so sorry for Cooper. I hope you'll sort out all his problems, poor chap. Jinx is lovely. Yes she looks really focused on you and on the ball. I'm not an agility expert but Fly and I just practiced a bit and she did well with her slalom. Fly is very focused on her ball so I took food so she could concentrate more on what she was doing (she likes saussages but prefers the ball, so I took saussages). If I was to run on her righthand side, I held the food in my left hand and shook it from left to right, a bit like you do on your video but more exagerated so that she would follow my hand and not my face. On top of that, I stuck my leg to her shoulder and accompanied her in the slaloming movement and said "in / out / in / out" so it gave her a rythme. She learnt very quickly and when she was able to do it easily (but not fast), I introduced the toy to throw forward. Hope it helps.

 

[Lexy88]

Sorry to hear about Cooper - I love how he barked before each obstacle lol he obviously really enjoyed it.

 

[ambara]

I'm no expert either, Hauru and I took agility lessons for one summer. I had already taught him to weave on my own but he wasn't all that good at it and apparently the issue was that Hauru was bit too focused on me and kept he's head too high when weaving. So we did all sorts of things to get him to keep hi's head down and concentrate on the poles and not me. From what I understand, looming over the dog is generally a no-no in weaving but for a while I walked crouched and kept my hand really low etc. just to get him to correct he's head position and after that started slowly to fall behind and let him weave on he's own. He got a lot better so I guess we were doing something right