Crickets goal seemed to be to get me to understand to stay out of her way. I think she feels she is running full out and collection is a bit of a pain, so people need to learn to stay out of her way.
My goal was that say coming out of tunnels if I am standing/running right in front to her Cricket should collect a bit and avoid crashing into me like a freight train.
CRICKET IS LIKE A BULLDOG, NO HANDLER WILL SLOW HER DOWN-GET MOVIN' OR GET OUTTA THE WAY!!!
I think we have a little hole in our training.....LOL, I SWEAR I am pretty brave when my dogs really run at me I have never had dogs that do not make sure they do not run into me so I am pretty comfortable with them driving pretty close into me....I don't think anyone has actually run into me....until now and tonight it just kept almost happening.
The first close call of the night was at our first tunnel-it was a curved tunnel and Cricket and I almost collided when I was in running past the tunnel as she came out. I stopped and rewarded her coming to my side a few times.
After our near collision we did a few obstacles then a table to a tunnel, this tunnel was a straight tunnel, and as she came out she kept running really fast right to my side then right under my feet, she totally took me out,OUCH, she took my feet right out from underneath me without slowing her stride.
I am much too fragile to be falling, hahahaha, I really hurt in lots of places now....for a little dog she packs a lot of punch.
Not our best class, Cricket was just so over the top excited and was stuck on extension and going at hyper speed, which is good at some places on course, but at sometimes speed can kill if you do not use a little collection occasionally. I just think that it would be hard to do too much collection work with the Crickster, that extension sure comes naturally!
Our aframe seemed to have fallen apart a bit, If you saw Cricket tonight you would not think she has ever heard of a start line stay.....ahhhhhhhhh....lots of things to put on our to train better list. She was an excited little girl.
LUCKILY it was not all CACA, the parts of the course we have had trouble with in the past, sending to obstacles, reading lines, driving to the table, those were all GORGEOUS. Her weaves were sooooo fast and soooo good, there were some TIGHT turns and great obstacle discrimination that I was not sure she could do. Guess all the tweaking is just part of the process, we worked on some object focus and now I need to pull back and work on a little more handler focus again.
I SWEAR Cricket is just so different then any other dog I have worked with, she is such a trip and so fun, after tonight though I just hope I am up to the challenge. I was beginning to think we had it all under control and we were pretty hot stuff, LOL, but I feel knocked down a few pegs after tonight's class, but at the same time I feel so excited for what is to come, she has soooo much potential and she looks so good when I look at the big picture, but there sure needs to be a lot of little adjustments!
12 comments:
I'm sure today was just a one-off.
Cricket is really a little superstar and has such a long way ahead of her. Hopefully she'll learn that colliding with you isn't the cleverest thing to do and more importantly, hope you are ok too!!!!
LOL. I can totally picture all of this! Cricket having a complete blast, oblivious to the fact that you really aren't enjoying being tanked!
I think trying to control all that happy enthusiasm has to be a really, really difficult task. But, for sure, you'll leave each lesson laughing.
LOL, that just like a dog. They just want to make sure we dont get a big head.
"it was not all CACA" - LOL!! You are just too funny! Sorry Cricket took you out and hope you are feeling a little less sore this morning! She is an amazing girl and some tweeking here and there along the way is to be expected, right? Sounds like the good stuff was awesome!!
I guess each dog has different lessons to teach us! Thanks for sharing, lol! -- I love how you always find the humour in every situation!! :)
Cricket,
I am so glad you have your own agenda. It's very important, to keep our people in line, but if your goal is to go as fast as you possibly can, bumping into your person Does Slow You Down. I recommend avoiding them, especially since they don't bounce very well. Lotta vibes for your person getting over her soreness.
Those damn baby dogs!
I hope you're not sore today. I think it is hard to find a balance between encouraging speed and acceleration and obstacle focus and yet having them be able to respond to those decel cues too. I have faith in guys though. You'll get there. :-)
Oh man...hopefully the next class will be better and you guys will connect (or maybe not connect, LOL) better.
Cricket is just so happy to be doing agility with you that she can't contain herself!!
Ha ha! Your post reminds me of all my group classes with Summit! Yes, he too thought collection was overrated and class was for yodeling as you ran as fast as you could (bars? what bars?). And just look at him now!
At least she loves agility. You could have worse problems!
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