terratraining1

Terra's Training Diary

November 2007
Training plans with Terra havent quite gone to plan so far due to lack of funds and time, however, all of the dogs are staying put with me since Tim left last winter.
James, my partner now, has moved in since then and has become very attached to her, so he will be undertaking the challenge of teching her starting from the beginning again, this way they can learn together. James hasnt owned a dog before let along handled one in agility, so a learning curve for him aswell!
They are currently on week 4 at Laurens training classes, devon dogs. i have video'd week by week and put on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/harrjak

Feb 07
Terra is slowly starting to grasp the concept of agility! she jumps medium height with no problems, and we are doing the odd few at different heights to keep her aware of the poles, sometimes if i rush her she will go under rather than over!!
We are still only doing bottoms of contacts, im only going to enter her in a few jumping classes this year though to get her concentrating on the work in hand first!! she is coming together on the weaves, still not doing them straight though, but again, getting there slowly, she hasnt got very good concentration and switches off quite easily, so she is hard work!!

September 2006
Well her training is coming along very slowly as we are hardly getting out to club, so i am doing what i can here at home, she is learning lots of tricks, like walk backwards, which she is enjoying, im trying a few more aswell, she has started to learn alot quicker now and her attention span is gradually getting longer!
She has run in a couple of any size classes, only problem is the jumps are low so she is a lot faster than me! She is only just starting to work now at full height, and she is going around the odd one, so something we are working on.

She still isnt weaving properly but she still has a lovely wait at the start, something i hope to keep!!

We have been practising our 'stand' and im contemplating having a bash at a few small breed shows to see what she thinks, i think she is too vocal when she is bored, so we will have to see!

May - June 2006
Well we haven't made much progress as we've had another season,
She is jumping nicely, is still extra confident, she is very nosey and likes to see whats going on in other rings that are working too, hopefully she will soon realise its better to be running in her own ring!!!

February /March 2006
Terra is coming on nicely in her class,
she has had a go now on the low a-frame and had 2 sessions on the v-weaves, so far so good,
she is very keen, altho sometimes is hard to keep her attention when queueing,
as she is distracted in particualr by a couple of dogs that are quite boisterous!
We are hoping to do more 1-1 stuff soon with sam, when the weather is a bit nicer!

January 2006 - 11 months
Terra is now joining in with the beginners training class at club, she is still very confident and friendly.
We are working wioth toys and food, and is very keen with her target training and clicker work.

November - almost 9 months

Terra is really good at our obedience classes,
still super friendly, sits, downs, waits and stays are all good as well as her indoor recall.
her recall on a walk is still touch and go,
most of the time she is pretty good though!
we have had a couple of puppy training sessions now preparing for agility later on, she does tunnels,
waits,poles on the floor and we are working on directions and recall outside in the field.

October - 8 months

She seems to have slowed down with the growing now!
i havent had to adjust her harness or collar for ages!
we had our first puppy agility session yesterday and she was really good,started with the tunnel scrunched up as small as it could go, and by the end of the 15 mins she was running thru it on a curve!
i think she is definatley going to like it! next week we are doing the collapsible tunnel, but i dont think she will have a problem!we are doing clicker training to a target for eventually using on her contacts, as she likes her food so much its been really good,and she understands the click aswell now. she has been doing the stop postition really well on the bottom stair at home,we will start to put the stop with the clicker and target next. she picks everything up really quickly,and i can do it all over and over and she dosent seem to get bored or switch off which is nice!

July - coming up for 5 months......

Not much change really, just getting everything solid! She has a good sit & wait, her down is a bit slower, and she tries to gove her paw, to i need to work more on that - she walks nicely on the lead, and will sit at the kerb to cross the road ( not when she has distractions tho!!!) her recall has been pretty good, i call her back give her a treat and release her with a go go go , she seems to like that game! She prefers to work for food rather than toy, she likes playing tuggy tho, and does her left and right turns while playing, she isnt doing them independantly yet though!

She is super friendly and really confident -
such a monkey too,
she got into the shower with tim the other day!!

June 2005

With her new toy at Supadogs

Doing a Sit-Wait in the garden

Well she is now old enough to be out and about, so we are cramming in as much as possible, she had her first wander round at a show the otherday, and really enjoyed herself! She has started to suss out that she can bark now, and likes to bark when one of our dogs is working!

I have done 2 clicker training sessions with her, she seemed to enjoy it as she loves her grub!
I even introduced the target,although i may have to use the clicker for more than this, she really enjoyed her first few sessions, and picked up the nose touch really quickly!

While at supadogs we invested in a new interactive treat toy for her, a molecube from dog-games, she sussed in after a few minutes, and now she loves it, so sometimes to keep her busy she will have her lunch from it! now she is 4 months she is out and about at shows, she loves meeting all the different shapes and sizes, although she seems to prefer the dogs to the people!

Doing a sit-wait with zig

May, 2005

Well so far Terra has proved herself to be a real
bright spark!
She already has a few commands that she
will respond to:
Terra come, sit, down(with hand signal to floor) and paw,

She loves her food which comes in handy,
and will now have half of her afternoon meal as
training treats throughout the day.
We have started teaching 'wait' now also, when we open her cage and at feeding times, she is learning this pretty well, and knows she waits for the other dogs to get their dinner before she gets hers!

I do alot of her rewarding with her special soft tug toys
which i hope to use for agility also later on in her life!