A Lesson With Bex

In this post one of our instructors, Bex, gives us a peak at her beginner Agility class plan.  Read more from Bex in her blog: http://dogagilicious.m.webs.com

Today's lesson was a combination of working on old maneuvers, the front cross, and introducing new ones, the rear cross.

Rear crosses were introduced with the use of just two jumps in a straight line, the dog was released over the first, and their toy was thrown over the second, coaxing them to drive forwards giving the handler time to cross behind them (as shown below), once this was smooth, it was practiced within a sequence of obstacles.

The same course was used all night, but by changing either the order of the jumps or the handling, the focus split between these two crosses. The diagrams below show the same course repeatedly but the solid line shows where the handlers should run, and the dotted line shows where the dogs should run.

The classes homework from tonight's lesson was to begin training back foot target with the use of shaping, this is demonstrated nicely below in a video with my mum and Mia. 

To begin with a channel needs to be set up with only one entrance and an upturned box (preferably with some carpet or material on top to prevent the dogs feet from slipping). The trainer should sit on a chair at the entrance with the box not too far away and the dog in between the two but facing the trainer. When the dog puts their back foot onto the target (box) the behaviour is rewarded by a click, and the treat thrown under the chair. This is done repeatedly until the dog confidently puts both back feet onto the target, at which point the distance between the box and the chair can be increased slightly. 

The second video is what we are aiming for.

The other piece of homework for the class was to walk their dogs, but as they do, practice rear crosses. Basically, the dog is on one side of you whilst walking, you let the dog go ahead a little, so you have room to walk behind them and switch sides. The idea of this is to enable the dogs to become more confident with their handler moving behind them for when they have to rear cross in a course.

A Night At Heelwork To Music

Heelwork to music, or doggy dancing as I like to call it, is something I most look forward to when watching Crufts on the telly! Especially when I was little I could not wait to see Mary Ray and her dogs performing some awesome tricks and it used to amaze me what they could do! It still amazes me today, but now I see the logic and methods which she uses and the simple way to teach your dog to perform all of those stunning tricks.

I recently went along with my Border Collie Guinness to our first ever class. My pockets bursting with treats as I was dragged into the Obedience Hall by a very eager dog!

Gwynneth runs our Heelwork to music classes at Dig It and she is an inspirational instructor. Very experienced and knowledgeable,  she adapts flawlessly to each dog that is in front of her and gives you confidence to work through your struggles.

The class starts off by looking at some small exercises which are later all put together to form part of a routine to music. Everyone works to their ability and progresses at different levels. You need to teach your dog what to do, add a cue, increase distance and improve the dogs ability to perform on the cue only. I looked like a lost puppy at first having not done this before, but Gwynneth demonstrated the method for everything and then gave really useful feedback and improvements as needed. She also shows you how to do something using your own dog which I find very helpful and a pleasure to see.

We then moved to working on some heelwork. The clue is in the name, heelwork to music involves heelwork! And competitive heelwork at that as we want the dogs to hold a nice, neat position while we are dancing around with them.

Next Gwynneth brought out various props! This was my favourite part of the night. We each worked on a different prop and swapped around a few times. I taught Guinness to perch on a step, to circle a walking stick, how to jump through a hoop and began to teach him to touch a target stick. Others were retrieving items into a bucket and carrying the bucket around (the dog not the human) and I even watched a dog put together a childs toy! 

After some time using props we moved on to teaching and improving other tricks. We covered the beg, roll over and getting the dog to walk backwards through your legs. I had started to teach Guinness to do a beg but Gwynneth told me to use a different method and explained that he wasn't using the correct muscles and therefore wasn't building balance the way I had been doing it. Of course, I thought!! No wonder we weren't improving. As with all of the exercises everyone worked to their level. Some people were able to step away from their dog while it held its beg and others were starting to circle around their dog. It didn't matter what stage you were at as long as you were working through in order to progress.  

After a coffee refresh we returned to working on heelwork, but different exercises than earlier. Then to finish off we had another go at the routine to music that we had put together at the start of the night. This went with varying levels of success but it was certainly good fun and Guinness and I were even doing some of the moves to music after only being there for a couple of hours!

Phew! What a great training session! My brain was packed full of new ideas and knowledge and so much to take home and work on. I felt really pleased and inspired.

The class is really relaxed and friendly but is kept moving at a good pace. You work on exercises together but at your own level and Gwynneth moves round to give everyone short one to one sessions. If you want to do something different during the class then that's up to up, although you get the most out of it by joining in with everyone else.

A must try for everyone and their dog! They're only held once a month and its well worthwhile just going to one session if that's all you fancy! It improved my training skills and I taught my dog some new tricks all in 2 hours full of fun!