Kristina & Myle, Miniature Schnauzer, 4 years, Lithuania

Welcome! 🙂

Great idea to use chestnuts! I like when people observe the dog and use what makes him excited in every day life! 🙂 What did you use for jackpot? And did she know you are calling her to get the reward and not to just end the session? If she knew you have the reward, than the reward is not important enough for her. 🙂
Try to play a similar game every day when you go for a walk with her. A little running game, throwing chestnuts or balls up and down a couple of times, followed by a tasty snack or whatever you wanted to use as jackpot. 🙂 You can do it without any “obstacles” or you can use a tree to send her around now and than. When she gets to know this game better, she will be less confused on agility field. I would do some kind of variation of this game for the next couple of trainings, to really encourage maximum possible speed. She was running really well through the tunnel in the first round, second was already a bit slower. But as I said – I think she will get more confident and enthusiastic when she gets familiar with this game. If she likes food, you can play a variation with it as well. Just throwing food (very big pieces) instead if toys/chestnuts. The more of this crazy RUN RUN RUN game she experiences, the crazier she will get about it. Just make sure you don’t play for too long at once, because running like this is tiering and you don’t want her to think it is hard work. 🙂 Observe and stop before she starts slowing down.

Yes, first of all I think the amount of repetition and a total duration of the training is just right. Here you don’t want the dog to get tired. It has to be “exclusive” – short and sweet. So she starts to look forward to it and really gives her best. I don’t know how often you can go to the field, but since in total this training is quite short, you could do it almost every day now. (later when things get more complicated I never suggest training this often), but I think it can help in this phase of just a “running game”. As I have suggested earlier I would also encourage running in other situation – just a couple of throws (up and down) on your walk and also a couple of food throws in front of your house before you give her dinner. The more often she is encouraged to run full speed, the easier and more natural it will get for her. But always really short sessions. Just up to 4-5 sprints and than at least a break. So she has the energy to sprint. If you go on for too long it is more a marathon than sprint. 🙂
And yes, the distance between you – I didn’t think it was that problematic, but yes, if you are too much in front it is slightly demotivating for some dogs. So you can also take shorter lead-outs. But try to avoid getting in her way. When you were running around the tunnel you were a bit too slow. 🙂

“Now we go to the field twice a week, we spend there more than an hour.”
I don’t know how convenient it is for you to go to the field. If it is far away from where you live, you don’t have to make yourself troubles. But if you can just drop bye quickly to do a short session or two, it can be useful. 🙂

“When you suggest to encourage her in trainings with food, do you mean I should work just with food constantly or can I mix – sometimes food, sometimes toy/ anything else?”
On the field I would use what she loves most – chestnuts. 🙂 At your walks you can try different toys and also chestnuts or anything you can find that could be fun. What I meant with food is – I don’t know what she normally eats, but if it is at least approximately in pieces you can make a little running game out of it as well. Throw one piece, than turn around, run in another direction, throw the next piece, turn around, run in the opposite direction, turn around… Usually dogs love this game. You just have to make sure that the ground is not slippery but also not high grass, because in that case they can’t see the treat clearly and have to start sniffing to find it. And that is breaking the flow of the game. And since it is a hight intensity game you can only do a couple of throws and than give the rest of the meal from the bowl. So the dog does not see it as a marathon. 😉

Good to see you guys after a while. 🙂

“We were playing with food, I find it more motivating than her toys (I still cant understand why, so time after time will try to change toys instead of food)”
Why not? 🙂 Every dog has their own preferences. I don’t see any difference between toys and food. For me playing is action not what kind of object you use. So if the dog prefers food and you know how to use it to get the best speed and attitude, why not? I always respect the dogs wishes. My little mudi girl was my most successful agility dog and one of the fastest dogs in her time and she always preferred food over toys. I used toys for some things, but the final reward was always food. If I were you, I would work on playing separately. Just playing, without any training “demands” (and sometimes for some very simple agility exercises). I would use food for training all the things that are new/hard for her.
Tunnel turns were mostly good, but she was expecting it. Because you were giving the turn cue very late and she still was able to turn tight. So next time remember to say the cue sooner. If the dog is “forced” to react in the last moment, they learn it is better to go a bit slower and be ready for everything at all times. To really get maximum speed you need to make sure they are fully confident that they know what happens next.

Straight tunnel + out – great! She really enjoyed that. That playing at the end was really nice, but try to always touch her from the side, try not to reach over her head. Overall she loves this game, but she always (like 99% of the dogs in such situation) pulls off when you are trying to reach for her that way.