Friday, March 18, 2011

Rally Class and Pivots

Saturday Bug had Rally class. Unfortunately the class is very full so there really isn’t a lot of time to work on trouble-shooting. The 270 Left was included again. After class Jennie showed me how she teaches it. She uses two leashes and a typically a pinch. Hmmm…One leash goes in front of you and one goes behind you. As you do your foot work you pull with the leash behind you. Yuck. Not only do I not use pinches, but I am fairly certain Bug would never talk to me again if I opted to try.

I talked to Katrin about it and she was willing to show me how she teaches pivots so we met up last night. Bug was VERY stressed initially, I think because Katrin’s house was the scene of nail trimming for some time. He bounced back surprisingly quickly given how stressed he was acting. Bug is about 25% quirky.

Katrin had me start Bug in heel position and lure him to the left – initially having him go in a complete circle. The second his rear legs started to move I was to click and treat. Pretty quickly we stopped having him go in a complete circle and started adding my footwork. A problem became apparent immediately – I keep ending up with my dog way ahead of me because that is where I am putting him! Gah! I think I am going to have to tie my wrist to my knee or something. I have a lot of work ahead of me! I think I should video tape my practices so I know what the heck I am doing wrong.

It was helpful because I truly had no idea where to start and I am not interested in putting a pinch on the Bug. Katrin also suggested I start playing the space game with Bug again because he has become SO sensitive to pressure. He was always relatively sensitive to pressure, but since the last week of November he has become highly sensitized to it. If we start playing the space game again it should hopefully help him relax when I move into his space. Guess I need to stock up on some Evanger’s canned meat.

I am looking into other options for a class and talked to Katrin about setting something up with her. I do not have a competition obedience background and I need a bit more direction than I am getting in my current class (given how full it is). I think I will finish this session up and move in a different direction.

We finished by going out to Takara (yummy Japanese restaurant) for a lovely dinner and to catch up. Bug took the opportunity to take a nap and was full of piss and vinegar when we got home!!

5 comments:

Lani said...

Julie -
Regarding left turns -- the technique I used w/ Ziggy and am now using w/ Rip is to first teach them to pivot in the correct direction using clicks n treats, then move me into the picture.

Celeste Meade trains her dogs this way, and she's posted some videos on YouTube that show her technique. Just go to youtube and search for her name. It pulls up a series of videos -- you're looking for the "brick work Get In" parts 1 & 2. I use an old text book instead of a brick, as I had some handy and it's a good corgi height.

This worked really well for Ziggy - he can swing his hind end around like no Cardi I've ever seen. I just started it w/ Rip.

Good luck!

Katrin said...

Was great to catch up and see you and Bug last night! The brick work videos Lani suggested are like the ones I mentioned last night as well. The human part is the hard part to any dog sport :-)

Sara said...

Rally is way harder than I thought it would be! So much to learn.

We learned pivot at our last class. Worked on it all week!

Jules said...

Thanks, Lani! I will google "Brick Work Get in." Katrin had mentioned she thought that might work well with Buggie.

@ Sara - I agree! I like a challenge. :)

Unknown said...

LOVE corgis!. :) I think Seren will be really good at an agility course or something like that. Once the weather warms up we'll take her to one, for right now she has our home made course of couches, chairs and tables.