Jet is now 3 years old (August 2009) and he is competing in Grade 4 Agility. He does not have many faults but is usually between 1 and 2 seconds slower than the winning dog. I would like to get into the BSD world championship team in 2010. So I am looking at what training we can do over the winter to improve our performance next year. I thought it would be useful to keep a record of how it progresses.
The Problems
I have looking back over what we have done this year and looking at video of our runs analysing them and found the following problems
Fitness I have had a problem with my foot this year and did not run him for 3 months. Claire did quite well with him and perhaps she should have continued with him. But then she would have 3 very different dogs to compete and 2 youngsters to train. Anyway I am working him again but I am very unfit. I can't do a lot of walking or running without starting the problem up again so I am trying Swinning which makes me feel better but is isn't ideal.
I have been looking how fit Jet is and it maybe we can do something there. Jet has a lot of muscle on his shoulders and not so much on his back legs. It is very easy for us to walk the dogs in the fields and moor behind us but it is very flat and not ideal for building up rear leg muscles. So we have been taking the dogs up onto the Mendips for some hill work. Once week for the last few weeks and we will soon do 2 days a week.
Speed Jet won the UKA Dog Games Steeplechase final beating some very fast dogs. It was a very long course with long runs between obstacles. We worked out he managed 6 meters per second over 175m so why can't he manage that on normal course.
Jumping We have tried setting up some test exercises with a row of jumps at different heights and spacing. We have noticed that if he has a choice he will put in 2 or 3 strides rather than take a stride out and do just one particularly on full height jumps. We are working out some exercises to encourage him to take strides out.
Weaves Of course there are no weaves in steeplechase so could that be an area he is loosing time. We timed him weaving on both KC and FCI weaves. They were both around 3.9 seconds we think that is because the extra distance on FCI weaves makes it easier but the time gained is balanced out because they are longer. I timed some dogs at the BSD selection and a few were getting closer to 3 seconds so we might be able to improve there. We noticed Jet is careful in the weaves he will not push against them. So I am setting up some stick in poles that he should be able to push out of the way. I am starting with 4 and will build up 2 at a time and using a tuggy to motivate him.
Contacts I was pushing Jet this season and it led to him starting to miss some contacts. I then started reinforcing a stop in training and over did it a bit. I noticed a long time ago that big dogs particularly BSD's because of their conformation have to start slowing up early to get a good stop. This was happening with Jet towards the end of the season. Over the winter I am first of all training him to stop after the contact and then I will try a running contact. I have lowered the A frame and dog walk and it is working quite well. If he misses a contact I do not tell him off, put him back or say anything but he does not get any reward, when he gets the contact he gets a high value reward mostly a tuggy game, sometimes chasing a ball, sometimes a treat. It is working really well when I am ahead of him but of course if I behind him he looks back for all these rewards I have. The next steps will be to have an assistant with the reward and increase the height of the equipment.
Progress 21/10/09 Our fitness training seems to be paying off we are feeling better for it and Jet is more lively. We went to Dawn Weaver for some training and she suggested most of the things that I am planning to do which confirms I am on the right track. I have been training in him in short bursts working on just one of the areas previously identified. He is moving much better over the lower jumps and I will soon start building up the height. His contacts are getting much quicker and we are not loosing any accuracy. One very postive thing at Dawns was her seesaw was well used and different from the ones Jet is used to but it did not phase him at all. I would like to think it is now resolved but we know with these problems it does not take much for regression.
28/10/09 Jets Fitness continues to improve it is coinciding with him maturing and to be honest he is getting a bit strong and is starting to power to whatever equipment is straight ahead of himon . I will have to sharpen up my handling and I am working on direction control and obstacle discrimination. He is quite good with them if I can get my timing right. I have to command him at just the right time to give him the best chance of being succesful. I have not been able to do anything with my plans for getting more drive in weaves as the grass paddock has been too wet but the contact work is going very well. I am training a four off stop about 2 meters after the contact. I have found this is about the optomin place to keep him moving but reduce his stride to ensure he gets the contact. If he does reduce his stride and get the contact I reward him. If he misses it no reward but I do not tell him off just quietly go back and do it again. I am also varying the reward both type and value and sometimes throwing his ball for him. We are at about 70 % accuracy and about 30 % improvement in speed.
7/12/09 It has still been too wet to try out the weaving poles idea but the other areas are progressing well. We have been to training sessions at Dawn Weavers and with Toni Dawkins at Scrambles and we have not had any seesaw problems so maybe that is solved. The contact training is going very well I am now stopping Jet about a meter after the contact and sometimes rewarding him there and sometimes throwing a ball for him he is doing it really well even with the equipment at full height. He could go a little faster but Toni commented on what a good contact he was getting so I am very pleased with progress. I read through my notes on the year and it reminded me that I had to do some training on pulling Jet off tunnels and generally running onto the first equipment he sees. I have used a couple of ideas from Dawn and Toni about timing and position but kept my basic handling technique and that is working very well. It was slowing us up a bit so I dropped the height of the jumps and moved them further apart. Then making sure to have a running start not a recall I have been repeating the exercises again. I am really pleased with the results. I have done some work with just 4 netted weaves on entries and sending onto the weaves past other equipment, this and general obstacle discrimination is working very so if we could combine this with some more speed we will really be onto something. 20/12/09 The ground has been too hard for full height jumping so we have been doing grid work. Jet will still put in an extra stride rather than take one out and it is taking a lot of trial and error to get the spacing right. On the other hand his turns can be really tight for a big dog. Wouldn't it be great to have both. We have started the pushing against the weave idea. I have put 4 flexible stick in poles out and put Jet through them a few times to get used to them. Then gradually moved them in to the centre so they overlap and he has to push them out of the way to weave. They are frozen in now which helps and when we have a thaw I will start to add some more poles. We have to wait and see if that will transfer to competition weaves. The contact training is still going well particularly if I am ahead or along side him we are now moving on to doing it when I am hehind him, in this situation he will do a 2 on 2 off stop, but slows down I may need an assistant to help with this. 10 01 2010 We have not been able to do much agility training at home because of the terrible weather but we did go to Andy and Helen Browns to do some FCI training. Jet was very good no seesaw problems like last time. We were doing some advanced handling exercises for a couple of hours and he coped ok. Back home we gave agility a break and have been doing some tracking in the snow. Being able to see the tracks shows just how good he is checking almost every footprint. I even got Sara to leave a trail and hide and he found her everytime following the track not air scenting at all. 30 01 10 We have not been able to do a great deal of training or get away to the Mendip hills for fitness training because of the weather and the dog van being off the road. The tracking seems to be helping with fitness and we have also been doing some ball chasing. In agility we have been concentrating on quality rather than quantity. Jet is now turning away reliably on both sides. We have started pushing out around jumps and coming back Jet will do it but looses speed and can almost stall so we are trying to get it smoother and quicker. One thing that has worked well is the contact training the 4 off stop worked for a while with speeding up but as Mike started moving away from the contact he naturally went back to the 2 on 2 off he started with. As it did not affect his speed and he did not start creeping we decided to go with that rather than put a lot of effort into trying to change it. To make sure we maintain the speed we have done some sessions with the dog walk planks on the floor and a low A frame getting drive by using his favourite toy and maintaing accuracy by sometimes replacing it with a high value treat. Sometimes he doesn't get any reward utilising the "extinction burst" to get him to try harder. Its really working but with final selection days a month away we have to get onto some courses as soon as the arena is ok for serious running. All we have been able to do is at Andy and Helen Browns we have been pleased with the dogs but the lack of course training has shown up. 22 02 10 Final selection is only 2 weeks away now. Some of Jets special training has gone well and some not so well. We have been training at Andy and Helens again and he did very well. We are doing more fitness work when we can but the weather this winter has really been against us. It is not that we mind going out in bad weather but that the ground conditions are so bad. Mike tried going over the moor last week and sank in well above his ankles. We have done obstacle discrimination particularly doing the dog walk and Aframe with tunnels underneath he is really getting good at that. Also pulling off equipment, that has been a problem in the past and cost a good place in the first selection. If Mike is ahead and looks back Jet will sometimes take that a command to do a piece of equipment in that direction. We are taking two approaches in the short term Mike has to be more disciplined and trust that Jet will follow him. At the same time we are trying to proof against it giving voice and hand directions to send Jet to a toy while looking around. On the handling theme we are also trying to always be facing the direction Jet will be travelling in and not getting in the situation where Mike is facing Jet so not more dummy reverse turns and front crosses. This is a bit ironic as it is going back to the way Mike handled when we started agility (and had the most success). Contact training is going ok we are sticking with a 2on2off stop about 2 times out of 3 and doing a quick release the other time. There have not been any indications of the seesaw problem coming back. Weave training has been a mixed story entries and crosses continue to be outstanding but we have not been able to work on the speed and pushing against the poles idea because of the ground conditions. This is looking like a project for the summer. In all the training Mike has never told Jet off or used any sort of correction just rewarding the successes and ignoring the mistakes but not rewarding them in any way. This is really working well Jet is really confident and happy training. We have also continued with not doing agility every day but on alternate days doing tracking, searching and sendaways. It really keep hims motivated and we could do a working dog trial in the summer. We have some of the FMBB WC German Judge's courses and they are a bit of a surprise we must get on with some long fast courses in the next couple of weeks. 26 April 10 Well Jet has got into the team for the FMBB world champs only having 1 elimination in 8 runs ( and that was mikes fault) he has quailfied for the Olympia ABC semi finals against some very good competition, and at the WBSDS had 3 jumping clear rounds and 3 agility clear rounds getting some good places. He also did well in the WC training classes at SAS and WBSDS. So his training is going well, he has not had any seesaw issues so far this season, and his contacts are more reliable, we have ended up with doing a 2 on 2 off on the dog walk to make sure and a steady runing contact on the A frame, otherwise he starts breaking far too soon. He is still 1 or 2 seconds off the winning times in most classes so we are still working on speed. We still think we can get a second quicker on weaves if we can get him to push against them he will do it with our push in poles but is too careful with competiton poles. Working on preturning over jumps is going well we can get him to start turns before he get to a jump and he will not have the pole down. And we are continuing with fitness training doing hill walks in the Mendip Hills a couple of times a week covering greater distances and doing power work up and down steep slopes. We also do grid work a couple of times a week which is getting him to use his back end to push off rather than throwing his front end up using his shoulder. In all we are pleased with progress although we feel we could do with a few more months training specially with the world champs 3 weeks away. 9th May We are working on the FCI weaves now Jet prefers them to KC and is doing some amazing entries, Mike would have to be very brave to try them in competition. We are also doing the FCi tyre, spreads and long jump sending on and crossing behind. The other focus is wrong tunnel entrances. Next week we will do some tunnel under the A frame and dog walk and practice the table. Mike and Jet are continuing with fitness training with hill walks and special exercises in the menege. They will then have a good rest as they set of to Cottbus on Monday and do not compete until Friday. 30th May Well the training has worked quite well Jet had a good first world champs only just missing qualifying for the finals. The details are on the WC pages. We came back and promptly won a grade 4 agility and we are now competing in grade 5, again we finding we are a couple of seconds behind the winning dogs. So we are working on speed again. We are doing some exercises that Claire has learned from taking Emmy to the SMART clinic. We are also going back to a fast or running contact we can do it at home but can we risk at shows. We might as well because we will not get placed otherwise.
