Morgan's Training

Today Morgan and I met a fellow club member to practice agility. I spent the first part of the training time helping with his dog and letting him tell me some of the agility practice he was doing. Then we brought out the wild child. I told him we had to start from the very beginning with her because I have done nothing for over a year--more like 2 years. Anyway, we started with the trainer he set up for teaching bottom on the teeeter. He and I have the same problem with a dog who likes to fly up the teeter and not worry if it comes down before flying off. We're following a plan he found on Clean Run. She took to it very nicely. There is a table at either end of the teeter with a little give (about 1 inch) on the downside of the teeter that is resting on the table. The dog is to travel down the teeter to the table and rewarded on the table. I think the next step is to create a little more space on the bottom end and start teaching them to bang the teeter. But for now Morgan is eagerly walking the teeter and getting to the table for her treat.

We next tried a 2-jump sequence on lead. She did quite well with that. He suggested that we take her lead off to see how she would do (the bars kept falling off with the lead on). The minute she knew she was loose, she was off like a bat out of hell. He has a kitten that was on the screened porch and she went bonkers over it. Not a good idea. She wouldn't come when called and I had to chase her down. Not fun. This actually happened a couple of more times when he or I let loose the leash. ARRRGG! We absolutely must start working on the recall. I'm warming up the e-collar as I am blogging :-)

The next sequence we tried was to add the tunnel to the two jumps. She didn't do the tunnel the first time but got it the second time. I tried the sequence a third time and she wouldn't go into the tunnel. Finally I tried back chanining it--one jump, then the tunnel. Bingo! Twice more and then I tried adding the second jump. No tunnel. Back chain again -- good. Second jump, no tunnel. I didn't understand why she wasn't getting it. (Now in between she has run off a couple of times--what a nuisance). Then a light bulb went on. I tried to keep up with her going over the jumps and when she approached the tunnel I veered toward it and tada she went into the tunnel -- Yay!

I learned something about Morgan that pleasantly surprised me. She is actually paying attention to where I am because the reason she was missing the tunnel was becuase she was pulling toward me instead of the tunnel but when I stepped toward the tunnel so did she. Hmmm. Handling her may not be as hard as I thought.

The plan for our next training session. Do more of the teeter training. Straighten out the jump tunnel sequence. Get her to focus on the obstacle more and start doing a turn to the right and to the left on jumps. Work on weave poles.

It was fun getting out and training Morgan although it was so hard leaving Merlin in the car the whole time. I feel like I am punishing him for getting older.