- This episode is going to be all about
dog agility training, so if you don't know what
dog agility is, or if you came here
looking for puppy training or dog training stuff,
this isn't going to be the episode for you.
We have lots of vlog episodes
that are perfect for you, and I'll post a link
to some of those episodes here above me.
But if you came here looking for dog agility,
then this is the right episode for you.
Coming right up.
(guitar chord) (dog barks)
- So we just ran a course in class,
I'm out of breath because it's really a lot of running,
and we had a competition to see who could get through
the furthest without making mistakes.
I happen to be the wiener.
So the winner gets to pick a punishment
for the rest of the people that are training.
They (laughs) have to go through a straight tunnel,
quack like a duck, and then look like a donkey,
so I hope you enjoy.
- [Woman] Quacking!
- [Man] Quack. Quack. Quack.
- [Woman] And then like a donkey.
(warbling metallic ping) (participants laughing)
- [Pink Shirt] Hee haw. Hee haw. Hee haw.
- [Blue Shirt] Hee haw.
- [Woman] Where's your donkey?
- [Black Vest] Hee haw. Hee haw.
- Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw. (snorts)
- [Woman] That was the best present ever.
- One of the ways that we like to prepare
for big competitions is doing a lot of skill-based stuff
up until a month or so before the competition.
And then we start to work on course work.
And then right before the event, we do like little stuff.
So no course work anymore, just little tiny things,
reinforcing weaves, contacts, that type of thing.
So right now we're in our course work phase
since the competition is at the end of the month.
So what we're going to be doing is setting up courses
that are from the various judges
that we'll be competing under,
or making courses up that have similar themes or trends
that we often see from some of these particular judges.
So tonight we have a course from a judge named Judy Riley,
who has really great courses.
This particular one has tons of running in it,
so you have to be in the right place at the right time,
otherwise (blows raspberry) down it goes.
So we're just going to give it a try
and hopefully we'll be prepared
for the competition at the end of the week.
(electronic dance music)
Yay! Good girl.
In. In, in, in.
Okay. Yes!
- [Male Speaker] You look tired.
- Yeah. I've already run it four times with Rad.
That's a lot of running.
How were my contacts?
- [Male Speaker] I was watching through the camera
so it was hard to tell: we'll have to watch it after.
It looked good.
- I did an early release.
- [Male Speaker] Yeah.
- She was so good, she nailed that weave entry.
That was excellent.
So one of the skills that I train my dogs to do
that I don't get to show off very often
or utilize very often, is that they mark,
look forward at the first jump,
even when I'm really, really far away,
and this particular course requires you
to lead out really, really far down the course,
but you're side by side with the dog.
In agility, they call that a lateral lead-out.
It's really common for a dog, if they can spot their handler
to the side of the obstacle instead of out in front of them,
to miss the obstacles and run right to the handler.
In order to avoid that from happening, I always
train my dogs to mark the first jump.
So even if I'm far away, if I tell her mark,
and I sort of cue towards the first jump
she will stare right at the jump and she won't look at me.
Then she just listens to my voice commands
and doesn't worry about being able to see me.
I found that extremely helpful in this particular course
because I could basically be all the way down.
This run is almost 110 feet long.
So I was doing probably about a 70-foot lead-out,
which is really helpful.
That's 70 less feet that I have to run.
One of the things I try to be really aware of
is not overworking Funky.
She is going to be 10 in like four or five days, actually:
her birthday is coming up.
She knows she doesn't have the same stamina
as she did when she was younger, and I want her
to continue playing and being competitive
for as long as I possibly can.
I'm really careful about the amount of repetitions
that I do and about warming her up.
You can see she's really hot now,
so before I put her away in the car, I walk her out,
make sure she's watered, make sure she's basically
not panting by the time I put her away
so that her muscles don't get too tight.
She can wake up and do it all over again tomorrow.
One of the things that we like to do
along with course training is have smaller skills
set up for people to practice while they're waiting
their turn for the course, just so people feel like
they have a lot to do while they're here.
What we have today are three small simple skills to--
I cannot talk and tug at the same time.
Out, out.
Sit. Good boy.
We have three simple skills that we're going to work on.
The first is proofing the entrance to the long jump.
There is lots of wrong ways that you can take the long jump.
There is one right way to take the long jump.
So we just work on a little shaping exercise to get
the dogs guessing about how to do that and then big rewards
when they make the right choice, just so
they learn to do it a bit more independent.
On the wall jump, we're working on the dog's technique
on jumping, especially if they have to take it
from the back side and do some turning.
A lot of dogs, because it's a big jump, often struggle
with them wrapping their body around more easily.
And then over here, with the straight tunnel and the wings,
we have an extension to collection type exercise;
and for a lot of the dogs, working on
tunnel distractions or tunnel turns.
So getting the dog to be able to blast out of the tunnel
or turn tight out of a tunnel, based on the cues
that you give, and then also being able
to bypass the tunnel, which for me, that's a really hard one
because my dog really likes the tunnel,
as I mentioned in previous vlogs.
So I'm going to play around with some of the skills.
I did the course with him earlier,
and I just thought this would be
a nice way to close out the night.
Rad is the kind of dog that likes to go really fast,
and sometimes if he has to make a sharp turn,
he doesn't want to take the extra time
to sit back in his rear end and take off,
so he can be very powerful.
And also he can square up and take the jump really nicely.
This is an exercise that I work on a lot
to teach him to go to the backside of the jumps,
square up, and really lift with his hind end
so he can be as powerful as possible.
I find that I have to practice this ever so often
in order to keep him really sharp at it,
and this is just a great little exercise I do.
I'm jumping him about four inches lower
than what he normally jumps, just to make it
a little easier on the guy, and help him be successful.
Yes. Good boy.
Yes, okay, yes. Good boy.
Yes, beautiful.
Yes, good. Okay.
Yes! Okay.
You got it!
Aw, did you see what he just did?
So he was so good there: I thought he was unsure
about something, and I realized I never actually
gave him permission to get the toy,
so he didn't go for it.
He's so kind, this dog.
You're always wanting to do exactly what I want.
Just before I finish, I'm just going to finish up by doing
a couple figure eights on the wall jump here,
so he's slicing across the jump.
I just emphasized squaring up so much,
but that's not the only way you take this jump,
so I just wanted to keep him balanced
by also making sure that he turns really tight
when I'm asking him to slice the jump as well.
I'll finish with that so he gets a little bit
of both aspects of the training.
Yes. Yes, good boy.
Yes. Hey!
I just walked him out a little bit.
Now I'm gonna stretch him out a little bit.
I call these cookie stretches: so I basically
just lure his nose to various parts of his body
to stretch his back out, and his legs and whatnot.
Yes, good boy.
We don't really like to force the dogs to stretch,
so I don't really lift his legs and stretch it myself.
Just like, you know, a human. Over here now.
A human, we can tell somebody when they're
stretching our legs too far.
Good boy, buddy.
Dogs can't tell us that, so if you use food,
they'll only stretch as far as they want to
in order to get the food.
It's sort of unusual for me to have
the entire agility room to myself late at night.
Usually a lot of my co-coaches stay and train with me,
but tonight a lot of them had to go home.
I took advantage of all this space and had some
great training sessions with the dogs.
I was happy with how Rad and Funky ran,
and I even snuck a little something in there
with the puppy as well.
Classes went well: I'm really lucky that I have
such good sports in my students.
I make them do some ridiculous things sometimes,
and they are always up for it,
and just have so much fun with it.
It makes teaching classes a lot of fun.
On top of all the funny stuff,
the dogs did exceptionally well tonight,
and I'm starting to feel a lot more prepared
for the competition at the end of the month.
At the end of the night, we're all
going home tired and happy.
Yeah, Rah-Rad?
- I think Rad looks pretty tired out,
and I think Kayl and Rad had
a pretty great training session.
Wouldn't you say?
- I am also tired out. Very, very happy.
- Understandably. It was pretty funny to see
Kayl's agility students having that punishment.
It's so much fun to have goofy things
like that in the classes.
- This is all Angela's doing, though.
She is the instigator when it comes
to these types of things.
- It's so nice that the students
are willing to do stuff like that.
- Oh, absolutely: they like the sense of competition.
It makes everybody take class, which can sometimes be
not as serious as far as the mental side of things go.
Just put something stupid on the line.
It doesn't even need to be... I didn't even win a prize.
I just got to laugh at everybody else.
But that was enough for me to get my mind
in the right mode in order to compete well.
Whatever floats your boat.
- Most importantly, if Kayl had lost, then,
or whoever, if she was one of the losers--
- I would have been one of the best donkeys out there.
- I know. There is a lot of jokes there
that I'm not going to go to, because in moments
I have to head home with her.
But we want to wish you guys happy training.
If this is your first time with us,
make sure you hit that subscribe button,
and if you like this video, hit that thumbs up button.
- If you want to see more agility videos,
hit the thumbs up button.
- Yeah, we have a mix of puppy training, dog training,
all different, and just everyday average indoor stuff
with your dog and outdoor stuff with your dog,
of course too, so let us know what you think
in the comments below.
But most importantly, we want to help you guys do
something awesome with your dog today.
Happy training. Bye for now.
(upbeat energetic music)