# Body awareness?



## hamandeggs (Aug 11, 2011)

So I've been doing agility classes with Biscuit for a few months now, and it's been great! She loves it and I am having so much fun with it too. 

Last night was the first time she was on the teeter totter without anyone supporting it. We've been working on the teeter for awhile now, very slowly in small doses, and it has been very heavily reinforced. So, Biscuit likes the teeter and thinks of it as a hot dog dispenser. She did not much like the new banging sound when the teeter moved from side to side last night, however. She's still game for it, and she still was driving to get back on the teeter, but she started trying to brace herself against the motion with her back feet, and once she slipped and fell sideways off the teeter. She got right back on and did not seem even phased, but for me, it was scary! I started thinking, what if this had been the dog walk? A similar narrow board? 

So, what I'm thinking is that I need to help Biscuit become more aware of her back feet. We've done some work on this, but if anyone has any particularly good training exercises, I'd love to hear about it. We generally use shaping and a clicker for most training things. I was thinking about teaching her to put her back feet on a board and eventually to back up a wall with her back feet. Any other ideas? 

Thanks all!


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## petpeeve (Jun 10, 2010)

Back up in a straight line.

Walk over ladder, laid on the ground, length-wise.
Walk over jump bars, laid on the ground, then increased to a 'minimal' height.

*Pivoting*, all positions and directions. My personal favourite. 
*Side-stepping*, another favourite. Can be performed with dog in either front position (moving both directions) or left heel position (moving R direction only). However if it's for agility purposes I would probably work the dog on the right heel position also, and move left.

Tricks: 
Bow vs down.
Sit pretty.
Dance.
Chase your tail (although I wonder if dogs truly realize they have a rear end for this one, lol).
etc
ETA: Hip check. Almost forgot that one.



Disclaimer: NOT an agilty expert by any means, so perhaps others will have more specific advice to add.


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## Shoul (May 8, 2012)

If you look here: http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=459
and scroll down to the Strengthening Exercise for Agility, Part 1 and 2 PDF files there's a few more ideas.:wink:
I love looking through Clear Run's articles!


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

I would get her used to the sound in a separate exercises. Have her near it, play tug with her or do something else she finds fun, and then have someone else bang it very loudly and repeatedly. Start at a distance away where she's not too worried and gradually move closer.

The tip should also be introduce in small doses, by lowering it and putting each end on tables to reduce the amount of tip, padding it with blankets to reduce the noise etc, and then gradually increase the amount of tip in it.

As for body awareness, there's lots of variations of backing up you can do, e.g. back up, back up onto object, back up stairs, back up in heel position, back up in heel position up stairs. There's spiderman (2 back legs on the wall), side paws (2 paws on each side on the wall), sit pretty, stand up tall, back paw targeting, individual paw targets, shape 4 feet in container, etc. I love body awareness exercises, they're fun and easy for when you don't want to do a serious, planned training session


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## hamandeggs (Aug 11, 2011)

Thanks all for the suggestions. Great stuff! I like the back paw in container especially. She already knows how to put her front feet in a box, so maybe next I'll do the back paws. Seems like a simple place to start!



lil_fuzzy said:


> I would get her used to the sound in a separate exercises. Have her near it, play tug with her or do something else she finds fun, and then have someone else bang it very loudly and repeatedly. Start at a distance away where she's not too worried and gradually move closer.
> 
> The tip should also be introduce in small doses, by lowering it and putting each end on tables to reduce the amount of tip, padding it with blankets to reduce the noise etc, and then gradually increase the amount of tip in it.


Thanks for noting this. I should have been more clear but I was trying to keep from writing a novel! We have done all of that - over a period of months. We started with a wobble board, then moved to a very low teeter with someone holding it, and so on. She wasn't thrilled about the sound, but it wasn't the first time she heard/felt it (by a long shot). This last class was the first time she was at full height with no one holding the teeter for her, but she didn't fall until about the fifth or sixth time across unassisted. She wasn't startled into falling off - it happened after the teeter moved - more like she was experimenting with bracing herself and lost her footing. We made things a little easier for her after that, but we didn't need to - she hopped right back on like a champ (or maybe like a dog who thinks the teeter is a hot dog dispenser).


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

Ah right. Do you do muscle building exercises with her, like for core strength? If she'd gone over it repeatedly and also done other stuff in the class, it could be that she was wearing out and she was unable to balance herself due to muscle fatigue.

I wouldn't be sending her over equipment over and over and over, even though I know most classes are structured like that.


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## Sibe (Nov 21, 2010)

For the sound, we played "the bang game" when learning agility. We (all the students) faced our dogs with clickers in hand and a handful of treats. The instructor, starting from a height of about 6 inches, gently pushed the teeter down so it "banged" the ground. Instant click and reward. Repeat. Gradually, over the course of about 5 minutes, she was banging it down hard from full height. Denali at first, being the naturally shy dog she is, was a bit jumpy. By the end of the 5 minutes she would watch it go down then the instant it banged would snap her head to me to get a treat! It was great to teach them that the sound is a predictor of reinforcement, and they love hearing the sound so much that when running the obstacle they drive to the end of the teeter.


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## hamandeggs (Aug 11, 2011)

lil_fuzzy said:


> Ah right. Do you do muscle building exercises with her, like for core strength? If she'd gone over it repeatedly and also done other stuff in the class, it could be that she was wearing out and she was unable to balance herself due to muscle fatigue.
> 
> I wouldn't be sending her over equipment over and over and over, even though I know most classes are structured like that.


Yeah, we've done "sit pretty," although it had been awhile so maybe her core is getting flabby, haha. I do think she was tired. This class was set up in stations and the teeter was at only the second station (after weaves), but she had been boarded at her cage-free daycare for a couple of days and we had just picked her up earlier that afternoon. I had to wake her up from a dead sleep to go to class! She seemed super into it, but I'm sure fatique was part of it.

I agree re. sending over equipment over and over - the class is indeed set up like that, but I make sure to give Biscuit frequent breaks (drink of water, belly scratch, a couple easy tricks, sniff around). The teeter station also had the chute, so we were going back and forth between those two. 

Sibe, I'll try the "bang" game. Can't hurt to reinforce the sound. Currently Biscuit is driving to get to the beginning of the teeter - the end would be better!


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