Tracking the Training

Today was a very good day! I still have a couple of dogs to work later tonight but we actually had almost a full day with no rain, a little thunder storm this afternoon was all, but mostly clouds with actual sun poking out!

I also got to ride my new horse for a couple of hours. Yes, I got a new horse! I have not ridden other than a trail ride in Costa Rica and a few other vacation spots in years and I thought it was time to revisit that hobby.

I already own 2 horses but neither of which would be safe for a rather noviceish, self employed, need to stay sound dog trainer :-)

I did take these facts into serious consideration before I made the decision to buy "another" horse. You see those of us whose job is also their hobby do find themselves a little tired of it from time to time, don't get me wrong I LOVE agility and I LOVE dog training but sometimes a person just needs something else.

Well, I find myself unable to truly embrace anything that is not somehow animal related and I also know that whatever I choose to do in my "downtime" needs to be either close to, or, at home because I really miss that as well, so, I looked for a horse that was as bomb proof as they come and I ended up with "Ruler" a 15 year old sorrel quarter horse gelding that was the family pet and main transportation to a 15 year old girl. 

She sold him because he was just too quiet and she was looking for more of a challenge! Sounds like the perfect old lady horse to me :-)

So, after a couple of test drives and a thorough vet exam I bought my more whoa than go horse.

He arrived on Friday and on Sat. I took him for a "short" ride to get acclimated, well I met up with my neighbors who joined me for this "short" ride and 6 hours later I was back home wondering if I would ever walk normally again!

So, today was our second ride and I managed to keep it much shorter but he is PERFECT! Never shies, spooks or is bothered by anything. We have traversed all sorts of terrain and surfaces and he handled it all like a champ. I am so excited about my new hobby! I will get a couple of pictures of him and post them with the videos.

Now, onto the dog training. I am so pleased with both Merger and SoBe's progress, it just goes to show you how a little consistent training goes a long way!

The weather was terrible again yesterday so I was not able to get to the fun match I was planning on going to but we got some good training in during the day anyway.

Yesterday was all about contacts and I am pleased to say that SoBe is keeping up her end of the bargain, we have a trial this weekend so we will see how it goes. 

I am loving the running contact method I have devised for Merger and he is really starting to understand what I am looking for. I have not, nor will I even think about fading any props for quite some time but he is actively working at adding the stride at the bottom of the contacts.

Today, he did the old flying wallenda off of the A-frame so I withheld his toy and we went back around to do it again, this time he was perfect, he is truly starting to get it. 

He also on one attempt ignored the broad jump board at the base of the A-frame, I once again withheld the reward and before I could turn around he looked to his left and went between the board and the A-frame and jumped it!

I have added 2 stride regulators to the dog walk and am asking for the same behavior as the A-frame, we just started this so it was not as clear as his A-frame performance but we did end on 2 very successful attempts.

Tonight was weave pole night for SoBe, Maze, and, Merger.  I was setting up lots of really difficult entries for SoBe  and Maze and I put the gates on the entries and exits of the channel poles for Merger, they all did extremely well I am happy to report.

I try hard to sort of compartmentalize my training sessions with the dogs to place emphasis on specific skill sets, this makes it a lot easier to track our progress.

The next big issue to tackle with Merger is body awareness over jumps and how to figure it out when sequencing.

I put him on a straight line sequence of jumps out of a pinwheel yesterday, wow, what a disaster! The spacing between jumps was all over the map and the big boy was completely clueless as to how to adjust his mammoth stride within randomly spaced jumps.

He was so on his forehand that by jump 2 of the straight line he was pretty much offering a handstand over the jump. I use the term over loosely as he basically crashed through the jumps.

Moral of the story, Merger needs grid work to help create a proper jumping style. Then we will move on to evenly spaced jump chutes and then on to a more random arrangement. Until we get there we will still do our single jump work which is always a good thing.

From a jumping standpoint, the Sobster needs collection work, I am sure you can guess what her overall attitude towards collection is. :-)

Maze did beautifully with his weave pole entries and jump work tonight, Wally got the night off.

Vandal is growing up and starting to run his contacts and learn more impulse control as well as low jumps. Stay tuned for updates.

In conclusion, there was a comment after the video post about SoBe's sit at the bottom of the contacts. The question was how did I teach that or was it her own invention, the answer is SoBe came up with the sit all on her own. I really like it because it causes her to rock back on the bottom of her contacts very nicely which is much kinder to her physically but it also helps keep her from being on her forehand literally pulling her off the contacts before release.