# What sort of foundation work do you do for agility?



## Discodobe (Jan 5, 2012)

I have just got a new puppy intended as my next agility star, so having a lot of fun reading up on and doing foundation work with her- would love to find some more training ideas and games! 

So far we have been doing some of the games from Susan Garrett's recallers course, playing lots of short, fun sessions of tug (she is a tug monster!!!), been playing crate games (which she really enjoys, I was very surprised) and doing lots of socialization. Also teaching lots of fun tricks and working on distance commands (sits & downs at a distance) which she really enjoys.

I need to get to work doing shaping with her, have not done anything there yet (bad trainer!), and we have Susan Salo's puppy jumping stuff to get started on in a month or so (and need to do more waits and proof them more before starting that) as well as the success with one jump stuff (all with jump bumps, no height of course). Need to bring a wobble board home from club too, so we can have a play on that! 

Having soo much fun with this puppy, she really loves all of the training we do and is begging for more when we finish. Switching really well between food and toy rewards too, and she is happy to play with anything I pick up and make a toy, so not fussy about playing with a specific toy yay!


----------



## Finkie_Mom (Mar 2, 2010)

Keep doing recallers - it made a HUGE difference in my dogs, even though they don't all do agility. 

Get her in to targeting, and if you can, start working on 2o2o contacts using the target. We use steps at home, and you can even use a plank of wood or a threshold between carpet/tile or two other surfaces.

Rear end awareness is also important and can help with 2o2os. Discrimination between objects/obstacles (not that you're doing too much with obstacles yet anyway) is something to start on. I think recallers has some cool stuff that covers that (cookie in the bowl is one, I think - it's been a while so I forget the names of some of the mini games). 

What breed/how old?

Also, be sure to be proofing all that you can outside the home, too. My favorite training sessions involve long lines and open fields. And yes. Shaping is your friend


----------



## Discodobe (Jan 5, 2012)

Yep can't wait to get into more outside of the house stuff, she still isn't vaccinated enough to go public doggy places... But in a few weeks we will start going to agility trials to watch, and get some proofing done. Really enjoying the recallers games so far, they are a lot of fun and it's great to have a structured game format for practicing such important behaviours like coming when called! 

I totally forgot about rear end awareness some how! Must find myself a ladder and a phone book to play on. Good idea re. the targeting. Any tips on teaching dogs to target with other parts of their body? (e.g. shoulder or hip). I've never had a problem teaching a paw or nose target, but have not really tried to teach a target with a different body part before- is it just a matter of having a dog that has done a fair bit of shaping, then capturing the behaviour? 

Elsie is 13 weeks old, and a Jack Russell x Border Collie.


----------



## Finkie_Mom (Mar 2, 2010)

Awwww have you posted pics??? They are a requirement on this forum 

You have plenty of time! She's still a baby!!! Good on you for getting her in to all this training early! Just make sure you're giving her time to be a crazy, silly pup, too 

I've never really taught a dog to target with other parts of their bodies (never found a need for it), but yeah, I would go about it just using shaping. 2o2o is just trying to get front feet on one surface with back feet on the other (think 2 feet ground, other 2 feet on the yellow part of an A-Frame as the goal), so no other body parts involved 

If I could raise my pup over again, I would do TONS more shaping vs. luring. When I get my next agility pup (probably not for a long while yet - I've got a full house here LOL), I will do things that way. Makes training TONS more fun for both of us, I think! I can personally see a huge difference in training between my older dogs that were never taught anything let alone shaping, and my pup that has experience with shaping (albeit a bit later in her life that I would have liked in retrospect).


----------



## Discodobe (Jan 5, 2012)

Finkie_Mom said:


> Awwww have you posted pics??? They are a requirement on this forum
> 
> You have plenty of time! She's still a baby!!! Good on you for getting her in to all this training early! Just make sure you're giving her time to be a crazy, silly pup, too
> 
> ...



Yep there are some pics in my intro thread  She is ADORABLE! 

I am being careful to not make her do too much work, we keep our training down to lots of little fun sessions during the day, broken up by playing... So like 2 minutes of sits/downs/stands/waits/stays/come broken up by play and then end on a game and back to doing fun puppy stuff. I don't want to overwork her and make her bored, if she looks like she is tiring of anything even a little bit I back off. She has enough silly & crazy for about 10 puppies though I think! hehehe

I would like to teach it to her for fun really, and maybe as a tool to teach more complex tricks later. I am familiar with 2o2o, I teach introductory agility for my club, but I am really interested in running contacts... Soooooo unsure of which I will teach.... For my class we always teach 2o2o because it's very black & white, hard to go wrong... but I like the speed of running contacts... but I am not entirely convinced they can ever be reliable... Being in New Zealand, we are a little behind the rest of the world with everything and I am not seeing anyone really getting into running contacts here yet, dunno if I wanna be the first LOL. 

I really need to get into the shaping more, I had a go, but she was quite distracted at the time and it wasn't working well. I think since she's a little older now we might be more prepared... Need to go dig my clicker out!


----------



## Finkie_Mom (Mar 2, 2010)

What a cutie she is! Good luck with her 

I sort of think running contacts vs. 2o2o depends on how fast the dog is/how well they can work at a distance. My girl can work decently at a distance, but she's SUPER fast. So we switched from doing running contacts to 2o2o just to be safe. Once we compete, we may change to running contacts, but for the purposes of practice/class, 2o2o are working fine. So we shall see.


----------



## GottaLuvMutts (Jun 1, 2009)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought 2o2o was for bigger dogs and running contacts are most successful with smaller dogs? That would make sense to me, because a bigger dog would probably miss the contact zone if they were running and had a long stride, right? When deciding between the two, keep in mind that 2o2o gives you the opportunity to catch up if you're behind. A borderjack is likely to be fast, so you might need that extra second! Also, if taught properly, the dog should be able to be released from the 2o2o position practically without stopping, so it doesn't necessarily eat time.

I'd definitely work on targeting, but I think I'd pick either paw(s) or nose and stick to that. I think it could get pretty confusing for a puppy if they had to learn to target multiple body parts. But there's plenty of other shaping activities you can do.


----------



## Finkie_Mom (Mar 2, 2010)

GottaLuvMutts said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought 2o2o was for bigger dogs and running contacts are most successful with smaller dogs? That would make sense to me, because a bigger dog would probably miss the contact zone if they were running and had a long stride, right? When deciding between the two, keep in mind that 2o2o gives you the opportunity to catch up if you're behind. A borderjack is likely to be fast, so you might need that extra second! Also, if taught properly, the dog should be able to be released from the 2o2o position practically without stopping, so it doesn't necessarily eat time.


Nope, that's correct. But it can't hurt to have the 2o2os worked on at least. Kimma is only 19lbs, but she's so fast that we actually had to reteach her 2o2os after she had been doing running contacts for a bit. Also, even though smaller dogs have a better shot of hitting the contact by nature, they could decide to like go off the edge of it or something, and injure themselves. Even if they aren't actively waiting at the end of the obstacle, at least giving the foundation work for 2o2os could help the dog with running contacts, too. If that makes sense. I think


----------



## Discodobe (Jan 5, 2012)

The only reason I am considering running contacts is because Elsie might be smaller (we'll see... I really hope so!). I wish Susan Garrett would release her RC method already! Will probably go with 2o2o, can always train a running contact later! 

Crate games is going well, she was nice and quiet in the crate at club last night (had been barking a lot on previous nights), and was mostly well behaved around the other dogs. Played lots of chase and tugging games around the distractions and she stayed with me yay! She had the wobble board figured out in about 20 seconds LOL, shaping is going well now I have a clicker. Regular puppy things going well too, not too many accidents in the house, she is leaving the cat alone and is an angel in the morning!


----------



## Alerondogs (Mar 23, 2011)

Discodobe said:


> The only reason I am considering running contacts is because Elsie might be smaller (we'll see... I really hope so!). I wish Susan Garrett would release her RC method already! Will probably go with 2o2o, can always train a running contact later!


 Jumping in late but I wouldn't expect her to make her RC method, whatever it is to be public until dogs trained with it are trialing. She has been too outspoken against RCs and reliability to have it any other way. 

But Silvia Trkman has a proven method for RCs that has been around for years. And you don't even have to pay her to learn about it  She explains the method, start to finish on her website: http://silvia.trkman.net/cone.htm

FWIW my understanding is that it is easier to train a RC from the start than retrain a 2o2o.


----------



## Alerondogs (Mar 23, 2011)

I stand corrected. For just $5000, you can join SG's new RC online workshop :jaw:


----------



## Discodobe (Jan 5, 2012)

I knew she was bringing out a running contacts method soon, but seriously, F that! I don't care that much about running contacts hahaha. I think I will wait and see to decide what to teach, for now I am teaching a 2o2o behaviour, but not on contact gear, just for the sake of her learning the behaviour. Will decide when the time is nearer and when I know how big she will be what methods we will use.


----------

