I ummm'd and ahhhh'd!

.....whether to put this in a post or not. I am certainly not secretive about how I train, I just find it may be boring for those family members that know nothing about agility and really aren't interested.

and in this case I wasn't sure whether I was doing it right!....in the begining I had a definate plan on how to train the seesaw, for me....my thoughts where: what was the point of a small dog running just to the pivot point and then tipping and moving down to the contact area....takes far too long and you would have to always be there for them....at the end of the day, the fastest dog wins....So I did my homework, watched loads of youtube videos on how others had trained their dogs and read articles etc.......

and I chose to use the method of the dog running all the way to the end with you there with food or toy, what ever gets the dog motivated, yes it would have been much easier if it was a toy and I would rather a toy, but I have learnt you need to adapt with each dog, if I had used a toy with both of my small dogs, I don't think I would have got Mindy anywhere near the SS again after her accident in June this year at Thames DTS, she got the contact the seesaw touched the floor then as she ran off it it bounced back up and hit her on the chin, it then took two weeks for her even to be within 2 metres of the ss, lots of clicker training and cheese got us to the start of the video, so from there we decided to use the "bang it" game and she eventually managed to "Look at it" (click, treat), then touch it, (click, treat) with her nose to touching it with a paw,(click, treat) often these click treat would be a jack pot too, then to jumping on the end, whilst it was on the floor (she had no problem with the dog walk and continued to run it in the ring) we then raised the end a little and she learnt to jump on the end and ride it too the floor...the rest of her progress is in this video diary...up to you whether you watch it all as it is long and some cases unedited......but this worked for us.....Harry joined in too.

She then managed to do three ss in the ring before the end of "My"season (September) and won the last agility class, to take her into G6.

No video's of that run, as she had at the previous weekend show, left the ring to go and chat to Ian who was videoing....Bless, such a baby, well actually she is a baby, I keep forgeting this was her first season competing and she's now up with the big guns!

Dogs are such great teachers........Love them.