Ziggy's
Training Diary
Megs Training Diary
Tim Knee & Megan (Harrjak
Full Speed) DOB 17-11-02
Write ups for pups progress
in Agility Voice Magazine
November 2003
I am 28 years old and live in Exmouth
in Devon, with My partner Michelle and our 3 year old son Harry, our 5
dogs, Jak, Holly, Harvey, Ziggy and Megan as well as Kipper the cat.
I have been doing agility for about 5 years now, starting with my working
sheepdog Jak, (Jak Noir) aged 6, who I started training with and who got
me interested in continuing with agility. I am the trainer for Honiton
& District Canine Society, here in Devon.
I started training others in April 2000
after a motorbike accident in December ’99 left me immobile for a few months,
so I couldn’t run Jak with a broken hip, a smashed arm and broken shoulder
blades, and then someone said that club needed an extra assistant, so that’s
how I started by just taking the odd class at club, this was helping out
the other trainer, Bernadette, at the time, who unfortunately had to retire
due to other commitments, leaving me as the only trainer!
I won out of Elementary after 2 years
of 5 fault rounds with Jak, then a couple of months later we won starters
agility at Dogs in Need 2002, needless to say I was ecstatic! The following
week I won starters jumping, for the rest of 2002 we had a few clear rounds,
and a couple of places. This year so far hasn’t been too bad; we’ve had
quite a few really good places, and even managed some trophies!
I also run Jak’s son, Harvey (Halloween
Harvey) aged 3, who I think the less said the better!! Harv is also from
our Goldie, holly after an accidental mating, resulting in a singleton
pup, dear old Harv. He loves agility, but doesn’t quite see the point
in jumping over a jump when it’s much more spectacular to go through it!!
Up until last year we also had my
brothers border collie Josie (Waggerland Josie) staying with us while he
was living abroad for 18 months, she had done bits and pieces of agility
before and she started to work quite nicely, even getting a couple of clears
in novice and open classes, weaves were always her big problem though,
she really didn’t get them! But generally Josie is a good all round worker,
so we decided to have all of the relevant health tests done and think about
having a litter, and after finding the dog that we liked we hit a snag…she
didn’t fancy him! Luckily we found another a little closer to home, Jazz
(Lydeardlea The Jazz Singer) obviously had the right chat up lines and
then on 17th November 2002 arrived 6 healthy pups, 4 girls and 2 boys,
by C-Section.
The first Harrjak litter!
Initially we weren’t going to keep one(
….so I thought anyway!!) there was a very squawky pup,
she was the first to bark, growl, play
and be a general noisy and feisty little toad!!
This was to end up being Megan,
who had a few people interested in her
but we had to say sorry she’s got to stay!
She hasn’t been easy … far, far, far from
it!! She is still a feisty toad!
She is incredibly herdy and we have to
be on top of her all the time as she constantly tests her limits!
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I haven’t done a great deal of training
so far with Meg, just small bits here and there. I went on a course
in August with Dianne Talbot and Greg Derrett, where I took Meg along aswell
as Jak, and had a few puppy sessions. It made me decide to use a
clicker for parts of my training. Now I’ve never used a clicker before,
so im no expert, but im using it at home and at training, to teach Megan
to ‘touch’ a target, this is what I am hoping to progress onto contacts.
I have done some directional commands using a tug toy, this bit she really
likes!!
Also at training, we have a few other youngsters
not quite old enough for proper obstacle training so we have a bit of a
play session, which I have found useful for keeping her attention on me!
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Jak & Meg in
Mickleton
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Megs target training
23/11/2003
I started to teach Meg to ‘touch’
with her nose, by using my hand as the target, and a clicker as her reward
and motivation. As we are both new to clickers this took a little
while to understand!! Once she had grasped the click and treat idea, Meg
started to look for other ways to gain her click, so we introduced a piece
of 3x3” Perspex to my hand, therefore instead of my hand, she was touching
the piece of Perspex. After a while we moved to the target being
on the floor in front of me, and then I would move away from it, so she
would have to run to it on her own. She picked this up quite quickly,
we now use the bottom of the stairs at home, to make it a bit different
for her, and she loves that bit. Now she is happy with the targeting I
have introduced the command ‘touch’, she has responded very well and I
think from using the clicker she understands this much more than my other
dogs and their contact methods.
At Club we have an A-frame made up of
4 sections, I am now using 1 of the pieces on a step to introduce the target
with the contact. Meg is not to sure about doing the targeting in the club
surroundings, lots of nice smells and distractions. However she has picked
it up without to much bother. One problem we have is to keep her straight
at the bottom, as she touch’s the target then comes to me for treat.
Also she’s not to keen on me changing
sides, so I need to build this up at home on the stairs this week.
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14 months
12th January 2004
Well, we have taken a step back from training
over the last few weeks, Meg has had her first season, and has been all
wimpy and silly, so we left training all together until she finished, then
it was Christmas, so another 2 weeks off!!
All hopefully back to ‘normal’ again now,
so back to it…..
We have really been concentrating on her
wait training, as she is a bit of a monkey, we like using the ‘ready, steady
go’ release on the start line, the idea of it is that the dog will get
ready for the release word, that being ‘go’.
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We have a couple of jumps at home,
which we have been doing on mini height, mainly adding them into her direction
training, using left right, and go-on, also we use them for her recall
over jumps. Meg will work on jumps for a toy, but is not keen to
work for food.
We have also had out some weaves, just
3, as we found this worked with one of our other dogs, Ziggy, really well.
Chel has been doing some of the ‘home-work’ with her, as I have been working
awkward shifts. I take meg out by herself, for a bit of one to one,
without her watching any of our other dogs, as she is extremely herdy,
and doesn’t like to miss out on what the others are doing, it can make
the garden quite hard work!
Meg is still keen on her target training
using the clicker, and we are still using food for this as well.
As we haven’t got any equipment at home, she will start doing this using
the a-frame again when we go back to training.
Hopefully she hasn’t forgotten anything
over Christmas time!
Chel has entered her in a breed show at
the end of January, we aren’t very keen on showing, but thought the ring
experience would be good, she will be up against her litter brother Tigger.
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15 months
10th February 2004
Well, we’ve had a busy last few weeks,
Meg had a breed show with my other half Chel, which she came 2nd in both
of her classes, brother Tigger came 3rd and 4th so a good day for the Harrjak
dogs!
Meg’s confidence is really growing in
our clubs barn now, we have been taking her somewhere else to train also,
which I think has really helped her. She is now working mostly off
lead, except for contacts where she tends to rush and forget the ‘stop’
part of it!! So contacts and weaves are done on lead, until we can do them
properly!! We are working with jumps on mini height with a couple now and
again at midi height, she is pretty good with left and rights, go- on’s
are working well with a toy.
To build up her confidence even more we
are trying something different to how we would normally do things, we usually
keep hands off with training our other halves dogs, now, Chel will join
in the beginners class that I am teaching, with Meg, as I am the only trainer
at the moment for our club, it isn’t always easy to join in with your own
dog!! It has made a big improvement in Megs attitude to agility, before
it was all about chasing the dog that was running, now she actually wants
to be doing it herself! Before this she was trained either by herself,
or with just the one or two other pups from her litter, now she is in a
class of 7 and thinks its great fun!
We are starting to put a few weaves out
now, we have 3 types, v-weaves, channel weaves and normal competition weaves,
we will determine which she is most responsive with and go from there,
will update on that next time!!
Meg in Training, 21st
Feb 2004
April 25th 2004
Meg had her first
run outside in a ring today, South Devon Show had a pay on the day run,
so 3 of the Harrjak babies had their first, show atmosphere run!
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Meg was pretty confident,
and had a good race round!
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May - September
2004
Meg has been in a few shows,
usually on one class, a jumping, as we are still working on those contacts!!!
She is gradually coming
together, and is extremely fast!!!
Tim misses out weaves in
a round if they are there, as she is still working on angled v-weaves at
the moment, we'd rather get it right now!!!
Update: October
2004
Meg has been on the training week
again in Durham with Greg Derrett & Dianne Talbot,
She was pretty good, and we had some suggestions
on where we were going wrong!
Her training is coming along nicely, she
hasnt run in a show for a while, the last one she did take part in she
was in a lower height class
(a UKA show in cornwall)
Her weaves are coming together and she
is very confident when she is working. she hasnt got her striding right
yet,
and takes down or misses the odd jump
if she knows she cant make it! She is good at going on ahead, and directions
are getting there,
9 times out of 10 she will get it right,
so look out next year!
She is entered in a few limit shows over
the winter,
only jumping classes as tim would like
to get her contacts proofed before putting them into the ring!
Believe me she is quick when she goes!!!
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December 2004
~ January 2005
Meg has been concentrating pretty well
lately, she is a lot more focused on tim, Her 'waits' are getting there,
her weaves have now clicked, when she
has enough room for the entry, her average time is 2.7 seconds for 12 upright
weaves now.
Her contacts are very good on the dog
walk and a-frame, see saw is still hit and miss as she tends to slide off
the bottom!
We have started to introdue more verbal
commands, such as 'in' for pull throughs, and she is listening!!
2nd Jan saw us taking part in our 1st
show of the year, Meg was entered in 24" helter skelter class, for 2 runs,
the first run she had 2 poles, the second she only had one, and also had
joint fastest time with her brother tigget, at a fantastic 12 secs!!!
we have a contact training session in january,
also a couple in feb and march with various trainers, so watch this space!!!
