Leapin’ Labs

Well, I haven’t been able to post in a very long time, because of school. What’s been going on with that is on MY blog. Because I am so hideously far behind, I’m hoping to do a catch-up blog for each of the puppers and kind of generally cover all that’s been happening.

I left off in the middle of Midas’s agility classes. Which we continued until the end of the advanced class and then I felt that I couldn’t do the time or money during school so we quite . Here are some photos of the last few classes (click on the date to go to the whole set).

8/11/08

8/18/08

9/4/08 – Open Agility

9/15/08

Our first agility trial. We did not qualify for our first run in Jumpers With Weaves but we not only qualified in Standard, we got first place with a perfect score. The videos are HERE.

I went by myself and met up with most of my agility class and kenneled next to them. Midas was very quiet and calm all day. Then he started puking and having soft poops. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or not so we did the JWW course first, and there was some bad handling and some sniffing (seen in the video) but I was pretty pleased with our first attempt.

Our second attempt, Novice Standard, resulted in Midas yacking on the green right before our turn. I decided to wing it anyway and we got first place!!!! I have the actual course lay outs but am waiting for Eric to photo and upload them. For now, check out the videos. Oh, and the one and only photo I have (with my camera phone…)

10/2/08 – Open Agility

Eric finally took the scary chance of running Midas himself, and did very well for his first time

On 11/20/08 Midas and I attended another open agility, by ourselves so no photos. He did well. On 11/29/08 we drove to MSU bright and early for our second trial, which was disastrous and terrifying. He took a wild leap off the top of the A-frame, skidded on his chest/face and then went on to leap off the teeter. Needless to say, I yanked him from the course and dropped the rest of the weekend. I was shaking and in tears I was so upset with recklessness that he had shown (there’s a video, to be posted later – hopefully). We’ve taken a long break and are hopefully going to begin going to classes again starting next week, I will decide from there whether we will be competing again.

Beyond that, Midas is still my heart-dog and the perfect house companion. I love the moody stinker!

Tonight was an interesting class. The instructor made the suggestion that Midas lose 2 lbs. I found that interesting because I asked her awhile ago what she thought of his weight and she said he was perfect, he’s since lost 4 lbs.

Anyway, this was the first class that Eric had the new camera to use and it was awesome. He got a lot of consecutive action shots, which are really fun.

As far as class goes, we had some more hard work. First we started out with a series of jumps, 4, the last one was a tire jump in one direction or a regular jump in another, depending on what we were told to do. The first time through, I was able to talk to Midas to tell him what I wanted. The second time I could tell him the first Jump command and then be silent after that. He was to get his cues on which final jump to take by my body language alone. I did not think there was any chance at all he would be able to do this – but he nailed it!

Oh and did I mention that there was a cross after the second jump? Yup. This photo shows it, as he goes over, I ran behind him to the right for the next jump cue.

The last jump was at a pretty tight angle as well:

Then the next couple of times we went through the tire instead of the last jump, some dogs automatically headed for the jump we had been doing but all got the hang of watching where their handler was directing.

Canisters with treats were thrown to get away from treating our dogs from our hands. Then they were looking forward and out for rewards instead of twisting and looking for us. Midas then brings the canister to me so I can get the treats out for him.

After that we moved to doing one angled jump, a very tight turn to 6 weave-poles, a double jump, the teeter (bypassing one tunnel’s entrance) and then a tunnel and one final jump. Everyone ended with the teeter at first until our dogs found their rhythm and then added the tunnel and jump to the end.

Sometimes I wouldn’t go deep enough to make the weave entry easy and Midas would fly past it:

So we had to practice a few times, but then he got it:

We also went on the Teeter numerous times before he was allowed to do it on his own:

Then he got a turn to go through the Tunnel after the Teeter:

Next we did the exact same station but did the purple Tunnel instead of the Teeter. That went smoothly.

Our final station we never did get down pat. It was the dog walk, followed by two jumps and then the A-Frame. The jumps were set at such an angle that every single dog spun after the first one, to find out where to go next – even the instructor’s dog. We really need to work on “Go Out!” .

The dog walk and the A-frame were easy though

It took a really long time for everyone to work through that station…

At the end of the class, we did the alternating tall and short jumps for practice again (this is when Midas got the diet advice):

This was another chance to practice the “Go!” command again. Midas wasn’t sure the first time but when I pitched the treat canister ahead of us, he was perfect the next couple .

Eric was able to come to class tonight so there are photos to show what we worked on . When we first got there, Mason was very excited and had kind of a hard time concentrating. The instructor had to come over and say hello – he likes to greet everyone.

He always breaks the lay down/stay at the beginning of class, too excited to sit still.

But, after that initial wiggle-fest he is usually ready to concentrate on the tasks at hand so I usually try to have him do a stay while the instructor goes over the different stations that we’ll be working on for each class. Then he does the stay perfectly.

This is his calm, but attentive, face:

When the stations were all explained and everyone split up to work on separate ones, the only one open to us was the Teeter, so that’s what we started with. This week we actually walked the dog up the one end and down the other, the instructor held it so it wouldn’t slam and scare them while they hit the contacts and Waited at the end.

Mason is still struggling with where his back-end is and if I am hanging onto his collar, he leans one way or the other and then he usually can’t control his back-end and it slips off. Something we definitely have to work on!

We did it over and over, I made sure to keep my hand as light as possible on his collar (a heavier hand caused such intense shaking that the entire Teeter was swaying), until he was steady going up and down. He looked forward to the treats throughout the process and eagerly awaited his treat after the Wait command as well.

We borrowed a tab from the instructor because the tab I was using on Mason was Midas’s and Mason’s poor little foot kept slipping through the loop and tripping him. We’ll have to make or buy one that isn’t a loop that will work better for the little dude.

The next station we moved to was the dog walk. I figure the more practice that Mason gets, the better he’ll be about where his rear-end is.

He really likes the dog walk and likes to sprint the straight away – I think it’s eagerness to hit the Wait command and then get the treat at the end. He is learning the command Easy though so that’s good.

After that we moved to the Weaves. The guides still occasionally screw him up but as long as I go alongside him, he does them fine. He hasn’t quite mastered being able to do the Weaves by entering one end while I wait at the other – he skips several or comes out early etc. I tried lowering the guides all the way to the ground, so that they were out of the way for the most part and then he did them perfectly, without a hitch.

We worked on the A-frame next.

He has never had a problem with this obstacle and I really wanted to practice more on the Wait command (he does it so extremely well I want to make sure I don’t begin to expect it instead of praising for it).

Here is Mason slamming on the brakes!

And the big praises:

We moved to a tunnel and two jumps for our next station. The jumps are what we struggle with the most. Once he gets the hang of the station and what I’m asking for, he tries to add some speed – at which point his jumps become rather flat and he starts knocking bars. This is an area we definitely need to work on.

When we’ve had a bar-hitting spree, I usually set him up as close to the jump as possible, in a sit and then command him to jump Over, this teaches him to jump up.

The tunnel on the other hand, he has perfected. He never enters without a command and he is always very conscious of which end I’m directing him to, which is awesome.

Because of the jumping problems, we moved to the Speed Circle next. It was a series of 4 jumps in a circle that then leads to either the collapsed tunnel or through the tire jump, depending on the direction that we took with the speed circle.

At one point, Mason hit 3 of the 4 bars and knocked them down . So, we practiced on this a lot.

That summed up all of the stations for the one-on-one time. We took a short break while everyone else finished up.

It was almost the end of class so we gathered together and went through a couple of the stations as a group. The first station Mason nailed without any problems whatsoever. It involved the A-frame, weaves, tunnel and jumps.

The second station was the speed circle, the tire and the collapsed tunnel. The instructor had seen him knock down all but one of the bars on one of our practice rounds so she called on us to go first. I was nervous he would do the same thing but trusted that he would do his best regardless…

…he did not hit a single bar!!! He did awesome!! I was very proud of the little dude! Since we went first, we got to practice our down/stay again while everyone else went through and then that was the end of class .

We missed Midas’s real agility class time because I was trying out a new SAR group with Mason. Instead we went to one of the open agility times that anyone that is interested in can show up for and there were quite a few people there, including our regular classmates .

When we first got there, I tethered Midas to the wall so that I could check out the course we would be doing (a difficult one).

I walked the course after catching up (I am really sad I missed class, I never realized what a huge part of my week seeing everyone is!), it was tricky and I did it multiple times to try to figure out where I could cross:

We went third, and by that time Midas was really revved up – but I was soooo proud of him, he did a little moaning and whining but nothing loud and he laid down and was quiet when I told him to!

First we had a jump at an angle from the start line (the jump behind us), then an angled jump (the one he’s going over)…

…and then right angled up onto the dog walk:

Then we had to run past the first entrance to the tunnel and he had to go in the second. The first time, this was no problem. The second time he went partially into the wrong end but came back out when I called him (we started over) and the third time he did fine as well .

After the tunnel we had a funky jump at an angle and then onto the Teeter. The first time he slammed the Teeter and jumped off the end, the second time he slammed it but didn’t jump and the third time I held his collar and he did it properly lol. From the Teeter it was onto the Table:

Through the Tire:

Then through the weaves. He knows what they are about now, that’s for sure. He also really wants to do them fast, but then he ends up skipping and popping out too early. But, he’s progressing quickly and I think it’s only a matter of time until he gets them down perfectly!

Then there was a jump. This jump then led to four other jumps, not in a row, no, that would be too easy. They were all set at opposite angles. So, I could choose to run on the outside the whole time (hard to keep up with my fast dog), the inside (and have to send him Out) or do a cross to optimize both.

Here is the first jump:

I tried running the inside first, Midas does not know Out very well and I had to do a little nudging with my leg and some exaggerated pointing but we made it…sort of:

In this one we are going over the third jump, but you can see the second jump in the background – see the angle? Hard.

Then I tried to do the recommended cross…it went like this:

He started to go Out, paused when he saw I was running past and tried to turn and we collided – neither fell and he did make the jump though so that was good lol. I went back and showed him what I meant by Out:

The middle jumps went alright in that one though:

Then I didn’t trust him to go out so I could cross in the last jump so I was too slow to move over toward the A-frame and he did a little turn trying to find me – oh well, practice makes perfect.

Our only problem on the A-frame was I didn’t say Wait fast enough (he was flying!) and he might’ve missed the contacts but otherwise he loves this obstacle! And I did it right after the first time:

Then we had an extremely tight turn over another jump:

Through the collapsed tunnel and we’re done!

Since tonight was Kelly’s Going Away party, I headed to Mason’s agility class on my own. There were some spectators tonight. One lady had brought her parents and another her husband. They were seated around the outside, the best spot to observe.

I arrived late so everyone was in the midst of their long sit/stays against the wall. Once they were finished, Mason got to do a shorter one, which he broke twice and I had to reseat him. But when I gave him his release word and told him to Come he flew at me full speed, skidded to a stop right in front of me and sat for his treat – it was adorable and the whole class laughed

Next we went through a walk through of the stations. The guides were back up on weave poles so I decided to work on that. He does the best on the weaves when we are on the same side and he is on my left. So, I practiced the most with him on the opposite side from me and on my right – he was starting to get the hang of it and go faster. Everything else was pretty much the same. We practiced the tunnels from various angles and even from the center and he nails that every time. There was a series of three jumps with the last one at a tight right angle from the second one and we struggled with that. He jumps very flat and knocks bars a lot so we have to work on that for sure! He is doing really well waiting while I lead out though .

The dog walk went much more smoothly, I held onto him at first but he was way more steady and even slowed down on it when I told him to. His Wait command was extremely solid, he would even glance back at me for the release word before lunging ahead for the treat. I can also put a treat on the target with the command Leave It and not even touch or look at him and he’ll leave it alone until he does the obstacle properly. It’s pretty neat, the instructor even commented on it. I had to remove the tab because his little foot kept going through it so we’ll have to make him a shorter one.

We did more work on the teeter. I am still picking him up and placing him but we are almost to the opposite contact zone, the instructor holds it flat and lets it slowly tilt down while he walks off – he is a little sloppy at the end because he’s so eager to check with me on the wait command but hopefully that will clean up with practice.

Then as a class we all did some combined obstacles. The first one was to send the dog to the table from a spot farther away, the dog sit and stays and then we release them to the dog walk, over the A-frame and they’re done. Mason is doing wonderfully on being sent ahead but he doesn’t like it when I move around him and he can’t move so we had to start our count over again but otherwise he did terrifically.

At the end of class we did a mini-course. Start at a jump, into a tunnel, through the tire (at a slight angle from the tunnel), through the collapsed tunnel and then through the weave poles. No one wanted to go first so Mason and I volunteered. He was fast, he was accurate and we didn’t have any sloppy crosses or anything. Part was I planned my course better than everyone else, I’m sure because of the practice I get in Midas’s class. But, Mason was eager and right on so it looked amazing. I never figured Mason would get the “he’s fast” comments like Midas does! He did very, very well. Plus, he was off-lead and off-tab the entire time and was perfectly mannered. Several people commented on his happy-go-lucky attitude and friendliness .

Another difficult class tonight in agility. We didn’t just work on control, we also worked on distance. I don’t know if it was because of this, or in spite of this that Midas was under perfect control but didn’t care for the distance.

The first mini-set that we did involved sending our dog over a jump from beside us, but then forward and away from us to a tunnel, into the collapsed tunnel immediately after and then onto the table. All of this from at least 8 feet away ending up about 15′ away when the dog landed on the table. It was difficult. The jump was fine but when I threw my arm out for Midas to go into the first tunnel, he kept jumping up, trying to catch/get the non-existent treat in my hand. After a couple of times though he settled down and went through it fine. The collapsed was no problem and neither was the table (there was a treat waiting for him there). We did this quite a few times until it was more seamless, although there was still some hesitation and confusion before entering the first tunnel.

Then we reversed everything and started on the table, with the handlers 15′ feet away. From their Stay on the table, I sent him to the collapsed tunnel, into the yellow tunnel, over a jump and across the dog walk, with a Wait at the end. He nailed this one no problems at al with the distance. But, we did have some problems with the tunnels not being properly anchored. In this one you can see that the collapsed tunnel was pulled a little ways with him:

This next one is after I finally got him out of the collapsed tunnel. He ran in fine, the tunnel came unattached from the bungees holding it down and he ended up thoroughly wrapped up in the end. When I finally untangled him and he popped out, I kept acting like nothing scary happened and treated him really well. It didn’t bother him at all

The yellow tunnel started out fine:

But then one of those bungees got him too:

Luckily, I have a dog that is not bothered by things like that and he never hesitated going through either of those tunnels again.

Because these two things were really difficult for everyone, we had a lot of waiting time. He was really good tonight, quiet and calm and laying down for the most part.

That’s Logan’s Mom’s leg in the background of this one. Logan snuck up and sniffed Midas’s butt a couple of times. The first time Midas growled. The second time he looked and then immediately checked with me for his treat. The third time he shifted his weight away from Logan’s inquiring nose and laid down like a good boy. I was very proud!

Next we did the dog walk, two very oddly turned and placed (and therefore difficult) jumps and then the purple tunnel, which was in a new shape than any of them had seen thus far. It was in a serpentine shape rather than just one U. Midas never hesitated, it did slow him down to make those turns but he went flying through like he always does.

Then we had to wait some more:

We did a short station with a jump, a broad jump and then a choice between a tire and another regular jump and then the teeter. It was way easy after what we had been working on. This was Midas’s first time on the teeter with no handling on my part except for a well placed Wait command and he did fine, it was a little awkward at the bottom but fine . After that we moved over to Midas’s favorite obstacle, the A-frame.

This one was different. We could choose the side we wanted to be on and which obstacle we wanted to end on, as long as we did them all. First the A-frame, then there was another oddly angled jump that we had to do, then we could choose between another jump very close to the foot of the A-frame, a jump farther our and at a different angle or the weaves behind the first jump.

We did the A-frame, the jump and the jump by the A-frame first, no problems.

After that we did the A-frame, the jump and the farther out jump, again with no problems. I saved the weaves option for last because we don’t quite have them down yet. For that one I reversed the way that we went over the first jump and asked him to enter on the side opposite me, which is always kind of difficult.

He knows what I’m asking now and is really trying his hardest to give me some speed. The problem is that once again the guides were on the poles and he was distracted at first (when I asked why they were back on there again, I was told “because that’s where they go”) but he eventually caught on.

That was the end of the real class. To cap it off, we set up some taller jumps again. Five jumps in a row, from one end of the building to the next with every other one tall and every other short. This is to help them learn their strides and how to correctly gauge the distance between the jumps. Along with helping them get used to jumping at the height they’ll have to for trials.

That was really fun. At the beginning, I led out one jump away at a time and then called Midas over them, by the end he was running the entire thing with me at the end waiting – which was awesome to watch .

Good class

Tonight started Mason’s Round II of Agility classes. He is still struggling with the sit/stay at the beginning. He lasted for longer this week but still broke at the end. I worked on it a couple minutes before we started the stations. He does have fantastic recall though!

Then we started to work on the dog walk, which he’s a little shaky at. The ladder wasn’t out so I couldn’t lead him through that to remember where his rear-end so instead we had some falling off issues on the dog walk. I made sure to have a firm grip on his collar to add as much stabilization as I could.

Here is what happens with his foot when he’s trying to walk and listen to the next command – in this case Wait.

He really nailed the Wait command this week and was paying good attention to me.

He got better at the A-frame after we had done it over a half dozen times. The last time I was still holding his collar, just in case, but there was no pressure and I was releasing well before the Wait command so that was good.

Next we moved to the yellow tunnel at the foot of the dog walk. I put a target on the ground with a treat to speed Mason’s progress through. He apparently thought that it replenished itself because he ran into the tunnel a couple of times with no command and came out to eagerly check the target for a fresh treat lol. Silly dog! I switched from using a treat to tossing the new toy I brought (a ball with a rope attached) and that really sped him up . Who would’ve thought he would work harder for a toy than food!?

We worked on the tire next. The idea was to start leading out and calling him from the other side. He did great with that and never once ran around.

After that we moved to a different, darker tunnel. Some dogs have some fright going through a darker tunnel turned so that in they can’t see from one end to the other. Mason never paused. We worked on sending him to different sides from the center of the tunnel, using not only the command, but also hand gestures. He did great watching me and choosing the correct size.

We moved onto to the A-frame next. It was a little taller it seemed this week but Mason had no hesitation.

We worked on it in both directions with the Wait command at the end, again nailed it .

The objective with the table this week was to send the dogs from a bit farther away. She marked where she wanted us to send them from with bright yellow markers, which Mason had to check out for treats (they do look like targets) before he could concentrate on my commands. But, he did terrifically after that.

This is an example of an obstacle that treats work better for than the ball:

We worked on the broad jump next which was made a lot simpler by tossing the the toy over it .

Then we worked on some regular jumps in a row:

He had the weaves down pat last week. This week there were guides on them, they were totally threw him off and we struggled . Stupid guides!

The collapsed tunnel was next – he had absolutely no hesitation and bolted straight through:

Tonight we finally introduced the teeter-totter. First we picked our dogs up and placed them on the yellow contact, facing off and then had them Wait off of the teeter and then treat. Then we picked them up and placed them farther back, still facing off. We did that a couple of times.

I don’t think Mason even noticed he was on something new. He was too busy enjoying getting all the attention of two people!

After all of the dogs had been on the teeter that way, we all stood around while the teeter was banged on the ground and then the dogs were treated so that they would associate the noise with being treated. Mason never flicked an ear or turned his head until I asked him to watch lol.

At the end of the class, we all ran some small 1/4 courses, Mason did really well!

Midas’s class tonight was another difficult one focusing on control. We started off with the A-frame and a tunnel. The tunnel was set up to run underneath the A-frame and the opening was right next to it. They call it the sucking tunnel in class because dogs love to go in it. I was more worried about the A-frame than the tunnel because Midas loves to climb.

We were supposed to do multiple things. First, I was to block the tunnel with my body and send him up the A-frame:

That didn’t work so well, when Midas realized I wasn’t running alongside he bailed by jumping off the top, onto the tunnel and then tumbling the rest of the way to the ground, in an effort to be where I was. So, we had to remind him the proper way to be on the A-frame.

He got the hang of it after that:

He got lots of treats for that!

Next, I was to use my body as a magnet and pull him away from the tunnel, onto the A-frame. His Wait command is still going spectacularly:

And more treats:

Then I had to run with him, starting back at a jump:

Then I had to run with him and direct him into the tunnel. Since we didn’t get to practice that beforehand, he just rammed his hard head into my leg – leaving a beautiful blue bruise….

(in this photo I’m yelling, pointing and looking at the tunnel – is Midas? No. He’s looking at the A-frame)

He eventually got the hang of it:

Then we did the blocking bit and the magnet bit, but directed toward the tunnel:

Then we finally got to hang out and rest until everyone else finished that exercise:

Then we sent them over the A-frame and through the tire jump, which was an awkward angle to the side:

Then we did some mini-courses, labeled with cones and everything. The first one was extremely complicated, going over most of the obstacles two times. Part of it was to go on the dog walk, do a jump and then onto the table:

Then another jump and passed the entrance to another tunnel, onto the dog walk again, ignoring the tunnel on the other side as well. I stopped him and had him follow my hand and he never even glanced at the tunnel!

Then we did another mini-course, with less obstacles and more straight forward. But, this time it included the collapsed tunnel:

And of course the dog walk:

At the end of class, we set up the jumps closer to the height they would be expected to actually jump and sent them over those – Midas hardly noticed:

I’m interested to see what next week’s class will hold…