So what have been working on in training all this time?! I have spent the winter really trying to get Pebbles to work away from me for 2 main reasons. First, to try and get her to go faster, I always felt she was just going at my pace and not running forward as fast as she could. Second, to try and get her to run in front of me to allow me to cross behind and not necessarily have to be at each obstacle for her to do it.
I feel that things have gone really well although whether anything will transfer to competitions remains to be seen! Although for me to just be able to cross behind and send her in front will make a huge difference. It will give me much more flexibility around the course. I have put together a little video clip of Pebbles for you to watch. As you can see she is definitely working in front of me which she has never done before. There are still some bits that don't always flow when she looks round to see where I am or looks at me when she is not sure what to do. In the last run I send her over a jump on my right and I cross behind her before sending her into the tunnel. As you can see she does it but she is still not totally moving forward by herself. However, I think all this will come as the season goes on and we put it into practice week in week out. To even be able to do it at all is amazing for her.
As for Barney we have spent all winter working on his dog walk. This has been our failing for the last few years where I have had no confidence that he will get the contact and it is a hit or miss. I have been using the method of getting him to go flat at the bottom of the contact and rewarding him like mad when he is in this position so that he thinks it is a great place to be. It certainly works in the garden and on the lead he does it brilliantly at speed. Off the lead he is still a bit slower but that is coming on too, especially if I put a fast combination before it. Now all I need to do is a couple of training sessions over the full size dog walk and one on the A-Frame which uses the same principle. Here is a short video clip of a few runs on and off the lead.
I really hope it transfers to competition, although much of that is up to me to be patient as he is learning and to hold him on the contacts. It would be so good to be able to go into agility runs confident that he will get the majority of his contacts. That would be good progress for one year, the speed aspect can come later.
I must say thanks to Kenny, my agility trainer, who I have really enjoyed working with over the winter and who has really pushed me on and provided all the great ideas for training.
So that is where we are with a month until the season starts :-) I am so looking forward to getting the caravan out in 2 weeks and getting it packed up for the first trip. Fingers crossed it doesn't snow at Dundee like it did last year!
