Mix in the morning

Nice training session with Kumma in the morning. Here is our training mix! Funny how you can squeeze 1h training into 2 minutes :)

Seesaw and turns

Good and not so good training sessions with Kumma this week. Good ones are those that are well planned, well executed, and well stopped. How hard it can be to stop at the right point... Too hard sometimes. One more, just one more. If this one more is successful, good. But when this one more is a fail, a good and effective training session turns into a longer and blurred one. Fortunately majority of training sessions have been good with clear progress.

Turns - We have worked on different kinds of tight turns. Jumping and turning tightly, going around and jumping, and turning away from me. Plan is to start mixing these more, as well as increase height.

Serpentine - Some work with serpentine to increase Kumma's ability to find jumps independently. Nice! With low jumps, so need to increase height gradually.

Seesaw - Training with lowered seesaw, and using a small table. Free drop was ~40cm. Nice confidence and 2on2off. Practised separately staying in 2on2off when I moved the plank a little.

Weaving - It seems difficult for Kumma to find a pure single stepping rhythm. I will leave this for a while, and focus on entries using 6 poles, taking full set of poles only every now and then. Two reps of 12 poles is enough for Kumma, after that speed decreases.

Jumping - Height estimation this week, 45-55-60-65-50cm, nice jumping. Need to work on long and wall jumps. On courses jump height has been 40 to 55cm, could start using 45 to 60cm.

Upside contacts - Working with a target box, criteria is both front feet in the box. It is so easy to click for not good performances... Good practice for me as a dog trainer. I'm so happy I'm not training running contacts!

Relaxing loooong walk today with Kumma. Short walk with Hoppu and Neeo. A really fun shaping session with Neeo.

Kumma 18 months - pics

Rain

Rainy weather all day long. In the morning a walk with Kumma, some recalls and playing. I decided to skip the agility class in the evening, training would have been outside and children were supposed to come with me. Some shaping sessions in the living room instead. I shaped Kumma to take a toy and to drop it in the box. Final target: collect everything (mainly toys and clothes) on the floor/yard, and to take to correct places. With Neeo I shaped all 4 legs in a box, funny how hard it is for him to understand his rear legs. Kumma offered this right away when trying to shape for the toy instead... With Hoppu some rewarding for sits and downs, and he was so happy for attention.

For some reason Kumma stopped jumping into the car. He was uncorfortable with this also earlier, but after building value for jumping into it worked fine. I believe his hesitation is due to a metal plate as a crate floor, it makes some noise when Kumma moves. I removed the plate and replaced it with a soft textil. In addition I have given majority of Kumma's food inside car crate, and this is clearly making a difference. I will continue to do this for a while, to get him to relax and enjoy being in the car crate.

During the weekend we did some turning and weaving exercises. With weaving I need to be very careful not to take too many reps. 2 to 3 reps after exercise when muscles are warm, that's our recipe now. This is for achieving a single stepping rhythm, with slightly open pairs.

I have plenty of things in mind that I'd like to train, but weather and shortening daylight are setting limits for garden agility sessions. Good news is that our agility club's indoor facility will be in use starting next week!