Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I feel like we made it to the moon or somthing...

OK I know mankind will probably not be greatly affected by what has happened here at the bordergirlsmoms house...
I will probably be the only one in the world to be sleeping better tonight because of what has happened....
I will walk a little taller and feel a little prouder but I doubt anyone else will and I doubt the newspaper will be interested....

BUT WE HAVE CONTACTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEA I MEAN FOR BREEZE!!!!!!!! Can anyone believe that?

I know it is not a big deal to train some nice contacts but Breeze is a retrain-she was doing a gorgeous 4 on the floor on the dog walk and a sucky four on the floor modified running contact on the Aframe. I was having so much trouble getting her to change to a 2020 on the dog walk and fix the Aframe. I had almost given up, and Diana encouraged me to keep at it, thanks Diana for that!!!



Things I have learned from this whole retrain process and lessons I will take away:
Keep at it just when it seems most useless it always seems I am on the verge of a breakthrough.
REWARD PLACEMENT, REWARD RATE, key factors you always have to really think about when teaching anything new.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, when I train ANYTHING, I need to have a super clear, super detailed, very specific picture of what I want in my head and always be working toward that, even if things get broken into smaller pieces you have to have that picture of exactly what you want to end up with ;-).

I AM SO EXCITED!!! I have now got two dogs with retrained contacts, I had no clue when this started how hard it would be to do a retrain, and with two dogs...I never thought it would happen!!!!

7 comments:

Diana said...

WhooHoo!! Good for you for being persistent. Miley has tried to fix herself a few times to. I dont reward that. we just run the board again and if she does it right, which she usually does, then I reward. I just worries me she would do that in a trial. Love the music you pick. All day today,I kept hearing "Super girl" song in my head. I hope I dont here this new music tomorrow. LoL

Sam said...

That's amazing! She looks great. Contacts are the bane of my existence LOL, Marge learned everything else so quickly but contacts are still a major work in progress. I wish I had access to all that equipment every day.. you are SO lucky!!!

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

I am REALLY lucky to have equipment in my own yard, boy, I appreciate that....I do have a little dog walk that I made though and that was terrific until I was able to get a real one for Christmas last year.

Sara said...

Congratulations! Maybe you should call the newspaper...you could be a "special interest" story! I'd read it :)

Morganne said...

Great news!
I agree that contacts are not that hard to train. But they are difficult to MAINTAIN. Especially in the ring. I learned my lesson with Sage (1st agility dog) who now has moving contacts that I need to manage in the ring. Congratulations on the retrain. That is indeed a challenge.

Chris and Ricky said...

Way to go!!!! It's great that all your hard work and persistence has paid off!

Love the 2001 music! It's perfect for your video!

ffluffy said...

woot! good job on breeze's contacts.