TEETER SUCCESS!!!

This weekend we were at the TAG USDAA trial and Miss Cheetah had 6 good Teeters.
(well 5 1/2...the last one of the weekend, was not called, but it was a little lighter than I would like.)

I guess buying a competition teeter for the house must have helped. I hope that doesn't mean that I have to buy a comp A-frame for the house to get my A-frame back on track...Hmmmm!!!

She actually did about half of her A-frames ok too....just not as good as I would like.

Check out the partial teeter montage!

Here is what I've been trying to work on since I last wrote in. I was attempting to make a video of all of the comp teeters that Cheetah has done in the last year. Well, I have them all clipped together, but my stupid movie maker program won't let me publish it. So I can't upload it - grrr! I was able to publish an older version that only had 12 trials worth of the 20 (actually it ended up being 22 trials) So at least you can get some idea of what is going on. The main part that is missing is the progression from Aug to Nov. last year. I now have a competition teeter at the house ( as of 2 weeks ago) and I have been playing with her on it, which of course she is FINE on! I will have to make a video of those teeters so you can see the difference.

"easy tip it?"

Well we were at the Weim. Trial weekend before last, and While I only got 1 QQ for three days, I was very pleased with a possible discovery towards the fixing of Cheetah's teeter thing! On Fri, we had Jumpers first, which was fine, she loves jumpers. Next was FAST, so I laid out my plan and she didn't get credit for her a-frame (even though it really looks like she got it, but that's a different story) So send her back over the aframe on this loop I was taking, then off to do the send ( which she loves ...its weaves - jump, wrap back to the weaves!) then we do the teeter. She comes off the side, no points called, I send her back around to do it again, she does it good, but no points called again ( oh yeah, I forgot to put a jump in between) then I leave. Well I thought that I had a lot of time to doddle around and I did, because they never set the buzzer to go off. So they let me re-run it. Which was great practice, but I didn't get enough points in the first one do Q anyway, so it didn't really matter. This time, she gets her a-frame and came closer on the teeter, but the buzzer went off, so I don't know if she would have gotten credit or not, but at least we had lots of practice.

Std is next, and it is jump, jump, turn, teeter. So I do a LOP, and she does a great teeter. We Q, got 1st, QQ #11 for MACH 2, everything is great.

Sat - Fast is first again, and she doesn't get the chance to do the teeter, but got the send and Q'd. Then in std, she comes off the side again. People asked if I was putting pressure on her and crowding her, but she came off into me.

Jumpers was good!

Sunday, I got to thinking, that the reason she got the teeter on Fri, was because she was not going as fast yet. ( it was obstacle 3, remember) SO, I got to thinking for some reason about when she was in open and couldn't get fast weave entries so save her soul, so I said "easy weave" for probably a few months, and she would add a stride and collect enough for her entry. So I thought, why not try that on the teeter? So I made a FAST plan that was all about the teeter, and if we happened to get the send, so be it. I planned to say "easy tip it" and then make a little loop and come back by the teeter and do it again. Yes, I will get whistled off and not allowed to do any other obstacles, but it would be my last one anyway, so perfect. I did my plan (she had TOO MUCH send on the send, oh well.) but got 2 perfect "easy tip its" and I was happy.

Std - the teeter was after a long line of jumps and coming out of a tunnel with a FC in just before, I said "easy tip it" and it was perfect! ( we NQ'd on the aframe contact, but I can accept THAT better than the teeter problem.)

I don't know that it will always work, and I am still trying to do some things to help her get her teeter mojo back, but if I have do say "easy tip-it" for the rest of her career, so be it. I will be posting a teeter montage soon.

See Ya!

Good Teeter Training!

I have been going around the last couple of weeks, trying to get Cheetah on some different Teeters. A Lynchburg at the end of June we were warned by the judge that we needed to watch that teeter. ( Like I didn't know it was close, but I'm glad she was nice enough not to call it.) Then at Blue Ridge we missed 3 QQ's by the teeter. @%$)@#$#)%!! So I go to two different peoples houses, sign up for a different set of classes just to get her on different teeters. How do you think they were....they are all perfectly fine! I am ordering a comp teeter for my house, just so I can have another different teeter, but it is beyond me what her deal acutally is. I will upload those two trials ASAP.

I finally uploaded Nationals...

I finally got around to uploading my runs from nationals this year in Concord, NC. I must say I was not very motivated to do this because we only had one clean run and we had a quickly unraveling teeter issue, that I am not at all sure what the problem is. I am actually in the process now of making a teeter montage so I can see if there are any patterns that emerge from that. I will be posting more about that as it progresses.



I am also going to be uploading the runs of my friends GSD, Deva from nationals. She was ranked 20th in the 24" class. Woohoo!

Summer Project!?

Well Cheetah and I are continuing to deal with her rebooting and it's going well in practice, we will see how things go in the next few weeks when we start trialing again. In the meantime, I have decided to take on a special summer project. I really liked Susan Garrett's 2x2 weave dvd and would really like to train them. The problem is Cheetah already knows them, and while I could tweak her entrances - I am really not prepared to screw that up. So - I am taking my brothers 8 yo Golden, Max and seeing if I can get him to weave with this method. I tried it today for the first time, and we had two sessions. Let me start be saying if he gets this either Susan or I are geniuses because he doesn't have an operant bone in his body. But he lives on the same property so, I have easy access to him.

I finally got a couple of tenative passes through the weave poles, but it was a bit contrived on my part ( leaning - having the leash in front of him through the poles, I even lured him a couple of times!)I know that is not correct proceedure, and I love freeshaping, and tell my students that they must be paitent and wait it out - but even I can only stand to watch a dog sit there and stare at me for so long before I do SOMETHING to clue him in that he is to move in this direction!

I will keep you posted on our progress - I may even tape some if I get him doing anything at all.

I think I need to power up the clicker with him and try some sort of shaping in general ( box lid - cone - something - ANYTHING ) maybe I can get a few synapses firing that way!

Wish me luck

RECALCULATING!!

Well, between our performances at Nationals and WT Tryouts it became pretty obvious that we need to reboot her contacts! I was talking to Webb at tryouts about her teeter refusal issue and he asked if I had changed her criteria! Well of course...going from a 2o/2o to a running on the a-frame was bleeding into her DW and Teeter performances...DUH!! I could have maaayybee gotten her to stop on the teeter w/o the other two, but she used to stop on all, and now was trying to run on all! I think it was scaring her sometimes, but she just couldn't bear to do it any slower.



So after returning home from tryouts, I gave her her hop-up command...she did it like a charm. I repeated 3x. C/T each rep, then I put her on the whole thing. She stopped like she'd been doing it all along. ( whew) I trained it that week, using mostly hop-ups not too many full frames. I went to class, she stopped. I went to the trial this weekend, and while she didn't stop, she got her contacts and was much better on her DW and teeter. We were 4/4 and she got 2 blues and a 2nd and a 3rd.



I have a new plan to rework my old plan! ( I am all about recycling!) I will have to proof her some more and try to get her all amped up like at trails. I will miss the dream of having a running contact with her, but her 2o/2o is fast and I really think that this is what she needs for her teeter performance to improve.