Year end

Mild winter weather is appreciated by Hoppu and Neeo. Kumma doesn't really care, he is a real weather proof pal, always ready to go. Today we had a nice long walk, and a short training session with Kumma after that. Some tight turns and flips with two jumps in the garden, in one small not so muddy and wet spot. Another training session in the evening, tricks and games inside.

Highlight of the week for Kumma was two days ago when after some agility training he got a possibility to run free with all his brothers and other relatives. He was so happy! In training we did a start of a course set up by Mia, 8 obstacles total. Third one was a tire, after two jumps. There was a slight turn after the jumps, and it took some repetitions before we managed to get it working. Kumma is not yet fully confident with the tire, and it was good to see how he still managed it with a slightly harder entry angle. After the tire a closed tunnel, no problem there, Kumma loves it. But life after the closed tunnel is something we haven't really practised. There was a tight turn after, I was late and not focused, Kumma shot out of the tunnel straight looking for a toy. Something to add to our training list. I was pleased with a dogwalk, good up and down contacts. A double jump next, there I made a mistake of releasing Kumma before checking that he is focused on a jump, not on me. 2nd bar was dropped.

There has been nice progress with many agility details during past weeks, and I'm thinking of entering Kumma in his first trial at the end of January. That would be a jumping class, as we need more time with contacts. We are far from ready, if ready means perfect, but there are several reasons why I don't want to delay starting trialing too much. One is that I've had a long break, and I want to be there again :) But also I want to see how Kumma will behave in a trial atmosphere and environment, and start preparing him to trialing conditions rather sooner than later. We are ready enough!

Kummajainen fyssarilla

Kumma kävi eilen fyssarilla, tässä yhteenveto. Liikkuu hyvin, lievä selän notko ajoittain ravissa, taipuu hyvin. Seistessä symmetrinen, rangan jousto riittävä, syvät lihakset vaikuttavat kehittyneen etuosassa, mutta takaosan ja vartalon syvät lihakset saavat aktivoitua vielä tehokkaammin. Lihaskireyksiä ei tänään selkeästi havaittavissa, nivelten liikkuvuudet normaalit.

Jumppaohjeet säilyvät ennallaan, paitsi osa niistä tehdään epätasaisella alustalla. Mukava oli kuulla, että kaveri on kunnossa!

Kennelliiton viralliset terveystulokset tulivat myös jokin aika sitten: lonkat B/B, kyynärät 0/0.

Step by step

It is starting to be more and more in my thoughs: trialing! Kumma being now over 18 months, and able to participate in agility trials, is getting my excitement increasing. I like and miss a positive stress of trialing. I have no idea how we will do with Kumma in terms of results, but I'm sure we will have fun.

But to be able to start trialing, some basic obstacle skills need to be completed.

Seesaw: Kumma can perform a seesaw with a lowered obstacle, need to increase height little by little, and make sure confidence is there all the time. Good 2-on-2-off so far.

Tire: no problem as a single obstacle, but needs more training as parts of the course (distances before and after, entry angles).

All contact obstacles: 2-on-2-off is pretty good, but lately I have focused on upside performance. This is still under work, but today's training session showed that there is some understanding and we are on the right track. I'm currently adding more handler movement as a distraction. My plan is to transfer solid performance with distractions, when get rid of the plastic box little by little, and transfer the behaviour onto a complete dogwalk and A-frame only after that. I don't want to mix and confuse Kumma's 2-on-2-off performance if he is making a mistake with the upside contact.

Jumps: I've been pleased with Kumma's jumping. He is now jumping 50 to 55cm, and there is typically zero or one knocked bar in one training session. Need to increase height to 55 to 65cm, and start training tight turns with full height.

This is the minimum, and will be our focus during coming months so that we could enter first trials early spring. Perhaps jumping courses even earlier.

From my side, I need to switch my thinking and consequently my handling and timing from one obstacle at time mode into a fluent flow mode.

Neeo is now fully recovered from his operation, doing kamikaze jumps again from the sofa. Hoppu is also fine, having sometimes too much speed considering that he doesn't see. This is making our walks a bit complicated as I need to protect him from attacking trees and poles. I have enjoyed warm autumn, nice long walks and training sessions in the garden. There is no hurry to get snow, I don't miss it at all, neither the IGs. Kumma will love it.

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!