Polona, and what about this part:
“And after that I tried another strategy – to put food on the ground after the barrier. I am not sure if it is a good idea to put food in running course, because thinking logically, the dog begins to stop at some point before the food… But this time it worked, Myle’s speed increased. She was very eager to take bites. Later I changed food place and put it after the tunnel, at her first run she was trying to cut her way and reach food escaping the tunnel (you will see it), next try was good. In a long and normal courses probably it would be difficult to do the same, but maybe this could be a good strategy for our start trainings and her speed increase exercises, what do you think? On summer we did the same putting toys on the grass and competing who will be first, I dont know why, but Myle likes this kind of “game”.”

Do you think it is a good way increasing her speed?

Thank you very much for the link, I will look for it.
Meanwhile, we have tried to do target few times more. At home she does it better, touches target with all four paws. When we did it in agility field, few times she jumped over (I asked my friend to watch the process, because I cant always clearly see it while I am running), also it was few times, when she touched the target with 2 paws, I mean right front paw ant right back paw. Unfortunately i didn’t film it. But she was more concentrated, just because of hurrying to get food she was still cheating. Next time i will do everything little bit slower, to show her that she must do it the same as at home. Will show you the result later.

And we are practising other lessons as well. This is video from yesterday training.

I cant find the “button” to make her run faster. She was rested enough, she was hungry enough, even she had to be missing me enough. But still she was running in her usual speed.
After the run I also did few start positions. It looks she is watching after me, we have a contact, i try to tease her and she is ready to go with a full speed, but when I give start sigh, she is like “hm, ok, if you say so, lets go” 😀 . This is my Myle 🙂 .

And one more try with the same course, the beginning was slightly different. Maybe this way of beginning she enjoyed more, but i am not sure. The overall attitude was the same.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Kristina Jugulyte.

“I was trying to suggest starting with some starts, but you said you did – were you doing it on the same starting spot as for the sequence or in some other way? How many repetitions? Was there some break in between training starts and doing the sequence?”

“Start exersises” I did with other obstacles at the beginning of other course, I mean not with these ones which we run later. It was totally different course, even to opposite direction from the ones which we were training later. We did 4-5 “start” repetitions, a break was approx. 5-10 mins. Maybe that was the problem – too short break? But in the start exercises she wasn’t sprinter as well, she was trying but didn’t put all efforts.

I have a suspicion that other obstacles was distracting her – when she sees lot of stuff around and have to run straight 15 meters without any action, its not usual agility training. If you remember, in our last start training session she chose A frame instead of trying to chase me. Sometimes I don’t have possibility to “clean” all field and make lot of free space without any agility stuff (I mean to destroy standing course, because it will be used for other groups). Some barriers or tunnels stand from the sides in 1-2 meters distance.
What do you think, can it affect general concentration or it is just a small detail and I should try other things to motivate and attract her attention??
I will try to prepare max free space in the next session and check whether it works better.

I will try to play target outside. This week we have some snow, but not so much to disturb running. 🙂
And I still have some chestnuts!, but it will be lost in the snow, no chance to use it now. 😀

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Kristina Jugulyte.

Happy New Year, Polona! I wish it to be promising and very happy for you 😉
Here is our video from the last training few days ago

From the beginning it wasn’t easy to make a connection with her. I think I made a mistake practising start before the course.But well, i realised it too late … I made few tricks and then started to run, i think it helped her to create some fun and wish to chase me. As she didn’t give all her efforts for the first run, after joyful reward I repeated the same course once again (i don’t know, maybe it wasn’t a very good idea). As always, it looks she was faster, but then i failed at the end, damn it… 😀 (please, don’t ask me, what i was planning to do at the end…). Then we made a break and run another course. I was trying to reward her with a ball, but it is obvious she wasn’t concentrated to it. So, again, I repeated the course from the beginning trying to engage her to feel fun, but I am not sure if i succeeded. I think simply it wasn’t one of her best days :-).

So far that’s all. Today we will do exercise with a target you described above.

So, yesterday we were working on starts. As you advised, starting point was approx. 15 meters from the first barrier. We tried various combinations on the parcours which was already prepared for another group, reward after 3-4 obstacles. Sorry for insufficient lighting!

One more try. Obviously A frame was too close to our starting position :-). Later I tried to start in front of Myle (approx. 2 m distance). Her speed was more or less the same as first time.

Yesterday she wasnt on a working mood. She ran without any excitement, just because i asked. At least she was trying.

And here is our seesaw progress. I was trying to force her to jump on the small platform first and start seasaw from the higher point this way, but she was very stubborn 😀 (normally she jumps on that platform, but I guess there is no big difference whether to use platform or not). This game she enjoyed more

Last evening we were running different combinations of your prepared course from lesson 3.
First run. I guess it was her best speed from the very beginning, i mean from the first obstacle. Usually she needs some time and gains speed after 3-4 obstacles.

second combination:

and the third one:

Each course I run twice and rewarded her at the end with food or toy. I have noticed, that at the second round of each course Myle becomes faster. I tried to run just one round (from 1 to 8), but she was running so-so – didnt put all efforts and didnt reach best speed. So all next courses i run twice and each time I lost my breath, omg 🙂

Coming back to DW. On my method we are working maybe 6 months or even more. Sometimes she touches zone, but being honestly, fails accurate quite often when she runs full DW .

Here is our lesson 3.
Firstly we started with seesaw. I am not sure if I did everything correct from technical side, because sometimes Myle jumped over it, you see in the video. But maybe it was just a coincidence because of unusual position. I tried to play few times to check whether she “pushes” seesaw with all 4 legs. After that I put a barrier before the seesaw and was running together with dog.

After seesaw exercise we practiced longwalk. We do longwalk as a running zone (I mean without stopping at he end), its not very ideal and sometimes Myle jumps, we working on this issue and do it almost every training. Running longwalk I also connected few barriers and a long tunnel (its wasnt taken in the shot) to reach some speed. The course was very simple, just a straight line to gain maximum sprint speed.

And the last activity this evening – simple straight course with two tunnels and barriers. I used specific part of a course which was already prepared for others. My goal was the same – to make running fun, fast and reach maximum speed without tricky turns.

It looks like she was enjoying, next time I plan to add few challenges to stimulate her brains :-).

Yeah, i got your point. Will try to combine inside and outside trainings.
“Little sequences – I loved how she got faster and faster towards the end!” Exactly, towards the end :-). Some time ago I noticed that she needs time to get the speed, she is not a sprinter at the very beginning of the course. I hope after these short sprint games we will solve this issue or at least improve sprint skills.
Today we participated in a competition. We won second place (A2) 🙂
First course

And the second one

I had no idea how she runs, because we didnt train long courses from September. It was very nice to come back.
I participated without expecting any results, just to have a good time – this our club annual Christmas competition.