Some cute photos :)

Some splendid photos taken by Marysia Pajzderska in Warsaw :). Hyena running wild :)

Eri's runs from her first real competition - a bit messy, but the last one is really nice and we won that:

Finał PP Agility 2009 - Warszawa from wafelka on Vimeo.

How not to teach weaving? ;o)

I've got some more photos from the seminar and the competition. She looks funny :).

Anyway, I really finished weaving with Eri - in a sense that she is doing full set of real weve poles, not the ones we used for training (we use channel method, but the poles can be also V-shaped).
I even started doing some entries from the jumps as well as "lazy ass weaving" (I sit on the grass, Eri does the weaving). I used to complain a lot that she is quite slow etc, but now I'm really happy with the final product. Eri really is the kind of dog that gets faster as she manages to understand the task.
Anyway. It is usually recommended not to progress too fast with channel method, that is to wait until the dog is really fluent at one stage before going to next one. Also, if the dog slows down considerably or begins making mistakes, it means we've progresed too much too soon.
Well, I wasn't completely following these directions this time. First of all, our training weaves are really stable, but it means that have lots of supporting elements which kinda get in the dog's way when the channel is open. I could see Eri didn't like it, so I wasn't bothering with narrowing the channel really gradually (it's true, I started with weaves like in January, but in the beginning a was doing 2 sessions per month, so if you think about numbers of sessions, there really weren't many). Secondly, when I got to the straight line and slightly slanted, V-shaped poles, I got stuck. Whenever I tried to put the poles straight even a bit, Eri started to slow down or dropped out of the weave poles, so I made them slanted again and it lasted for several sessions. Then I watched Susan Garrett's video on weave poles (she uses completely different method, but there are lots of useful tips anyway) and she said to move forward fast and if the dog is making mistakes, just let him figure that out - provided the dog has some experience in shaping which would allow him to keep on trying. So I thought, what the heck, let her do it. The first session on straight poles was disastrous, she made lots of mistakes, more than a good trainer would allow, but I could see she was still enthusiastic so I stuck to my plan. Second session was much better, like 50/50 rate of success, still not the best one, but I could see we were going in the right direction. Then we went for an agility trial in Wrocław (our zero class doesn't have weave poles yet), and I could practice on some other set of weaves, which were old and much narrower that present regulations allow. Eri loved them and started single-stepping them. Then I started with our normal, not training, weave poles set and she was brillinat. Not only she has excellent ratio of success (about 90-95%, which is really good, considering that I'm starting to challenge her with entries a bit), but she also started single-stepping them!

Good girl :).

Now, you've got to really know your dog in order to know when and how much to challenge it. With some other dogs, I wouldn't recommend doing what I did with Eri, that is allowing such a big percentage of failures even for one session. But I'm happy it worked with her. And I really like her weaves.

Eri the agility dog

Last weekend I could run her at a competition as a white dog. I tried agility runs as well, not only the jumping, she missed the dogwalk the first time, but in next run it was okay. She's getting faster definately .

On Monday we were at the agility seminar with Magda Ziółkowska. She really made us work hard and I'm pretty proud of my little Eri, who did quite advanced combinations well and also was such a good girl, just staying in a shadow in a down-stay even though the other dogs ran around :). Instead of putting her in a sit-stay on a start line I started some tuggy games with her at the start line and then we ran - it really helped her develop speed and motivation.

I can tell she'll be a star one day!

Eri's weave poles

We've finally reached a closed tunnel:



Still lots to do, she does LOTS of mistakes - you can't see that on the movie, she tried really hard for the camera. The odd thing is that she makes all kinds of mistakes, sometimes popping after the 10th pole, sometimes missing like the 6th pole in a row and then continuining with weaving etc. Her entries are quite decent though.

Anyway - my policy not to leave her at the start line seems to be working and I think she is a bit faster, she also doesn't knock many bars down, so the work made on jumping seems to be paying off.

I also tried to tape her A-frame but it was disastrous, I really must put some serious work into it, she just meets the contact but really high, I'm afraid she would start jumping when she gets more excited (which I hope she will eventually). I must go back to a lower A-frame it seems.

Jumping "0" - Eri in agility trial in Legnica

For those of you who don't know that - "0" is our class for beginners dogs, it doesn't contain weave poles, see-saw and tyre and the courses are usually pretty easy. As I wrote before, Eri ran as a white dog - and here's a video of her run:



Despite the fact that she missed the last obstacle, I'm quite happy with that run - she is not the fastest dog in the world, but definately getting better :).

Photos from the competition

Isn't she a beauty?

Though she is undergoing second phase of adolescence or whatever. She got terribly scared of an inflatable penguin the other day. Today she was retrieving a ball from a river and she saw something else floating on the water, so she swam to examine it. That's fine, but she GOT SCARED of that (from my perspective it looked just like a stick...) IN THE WATER! You should have seen it, she started splashing the water histerically, trying to get away from that scary stick, she forgot the ball whatsoever. Fortunately, when she swam back to the bank, I told her to go into the water again and bring the ball, and she did, even though she stick was still nearby :).

I've never thought I would have Eri and Brava going through that stupid phase together - Brava for the first time, Eri for second...

Eri - agility

I've made a little video of Eri doing agility: first part of the clip is made during agility camp with Nigel Staines - you can see Eri doing a short sequence of jumps and then dogwalk, that was new to her. Last part is weave poles - notice the entries :).



This weekend we were on the competition and I ran Eri as a white dog in jumping "zero" - the courses were pretty pleasant and fluent. Actually, I was really happy with her. On the first day and first jumping she was pretty slow, but still faster than some other dogs and had a clean run. Second run - she went off course into the tunnel and I was really happy for it, because she was faster and she showed some initiative, instead of being worried about going wrong :o). On the second day of competition with the first jumping she escaped from the start, because see saw me leaving the ball outside the ring - I called her back and ran without putting her in a formal sit - boy, she was pretty fast! She missed the last obstacle, but I didn't want to call her back and praised her anyway, as I was really satisfied with that run. I asked somebody to video it, so I hope I would be able to show it to you. Next run I put her in a formal sit-stay and she was not that fast - so I think we would start without putting her in a sit for some time, until I figure out some way of teaching her to explode from a sit - stay with all the speed she can master. But most of all, I'm really happy, cause she worked around all those distractions, didn't knock a single bar down and I'm sure she will be ready for real competition in October :D.

Back from vacation

We're back from 2 week vacation and as usually, it is difficult to adjust to a normal life again. Especially than we're renovating our home a bit and the mess is just horrible.

Anyway. Eri was with us, of course. She ran in the forest, swam in the river, chased the water from a hose (we've got another maniac apart from Sunday... the pyrsheps hide, whenever they see the hose), climbed Łysa Góra with us. My grandma said it was the only good dog of our four :), not like to furry ones.

And then we went to an agility camp with Nigel Staines, who is great. Eri had the chance to test her contacts on strange dogwalk (which she did really well). I'm really happy that such an excellent and wise trainer could have a look on her (even though I mainly trained with Vigo), he told me some things how to work with her, like not to do all the work, but allow her to seek obstacles, think, send to obstacles and work independently.

A couple of photos:

Agility competition in Kozłów

Yep, we're still alive, it's just difficult to have two separate blogs. Well, four, actually, considering that both of them are in Polish AND English.

Anyway, Eri is still alive too. She is 1 y. o. already! Time flies. I took her with me to an agility competition to remind her of the atmosphere and also because I knew I would be able to train with her a bit. She did another dogwalk for the first time in her life and did quite well:





For Eri it was quite a difficult experience, it seems. Too many dogs, too many people, too hot etc. Also, I'm afraid she is going into phantom pregnancy and her reaction to it is similar's to Sunday's in her youth ("Don't bother me with any WORK, I'm having imaginary pups, let me just sniff the flowers" etc). All in all, I'm quite satisfied with her contacts, but not so much with everything else - like speed, motivation etc. Still, she's an adorable dog, very easy to live with, people and dog-friendly, a bit too soft for my taste, but really cute, all in all.