Road Trip

We were rained out from practicing yesterday. I may do a session or two tonight to reinforce his turns one last time, but I think he has it down as good as he'll have it for the tournament.

The rest of the evening will be packing the trunk and making sure I have everything I'll need for an early a.m. start on Friday. Susan trimmed his nails and the fur between his pads yesterday, which avoided a ritual last minute item from the list.

Final Practice Before Memphis!

I can't put into words how impressed I was with Zio at practice today. He was very focused and ran recalls great, did fantastic practicing on the box, ran fourth on the Step On It team, and had great passing with the whole team. He was even fast coming back to the tug, even when tempted to look at the other lane that Wisp was running in. Super focused and running hard, I couldn't ask for more from the little man.

We celebrated later by playing soccer in the backyard. One of his new favorite activities!

Friday Night Review

We held our second informal "north practice" last night before the flyball class Susan and Katie are holding. For the second time, Zio was too distracted by the new surroundings to concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing... initially. After a few sloppy turns and general disinterest, we did a couple of simple recalls over the jumps to end on a positive note. After the rest of the team ran their dogs through their paces, I brought Zio out of his crate and he did great. We finished with a successful full run, with swimmers turn, over the 10" jump board.

Tomorrow is our last practice before next weekends tournament. With Zio running third on the Step On It team, he'll need to get plenty of practice passing Deuce and Wisp.

Hopeful

I'm very encouraged by the consistency of his box turn now. He is also doing great on the tug play too. A few times, he missed the ball when it shot out and he left it on the ground to come back to the tug! I can fix that easily enough, but the fact that the tug meant more to him than chasing the ball was awesome!

I ended up moving back to about 35 feet with no loss of focus. He is actually doing so well that I may put the 10" jump board back in to get him a little higher on the box. I just need to figure out how to do that without going backwards with his training.

We're down to four dogs running on the Memorial Day weekend tournament. Scout came into heat, so Zio will be running third with the rest of the Step on It team. This Sunday's practice will need to include some passing drills.

Moving Back

As I've discovered, you initially teach from close to the box and only move further away from the box when you have consistency. Zio is very consistent now from the 6-8 feet range, so I moved back to about 20 feet. We'll stay at this distance for a day or two and go back a little further, maybe with some jumps in. Out of ten turns from 20', he only had one that was three legs on the box turn. No reward, so he got all four on the box the next time. Good boy!

He did go wide on a few turns in the beginning yesterday, so I put some PVC pipe on the ground parallel to the lane (where he was stepping when going wide). After that, he was tight on his turns again. Eight more days until the next tournament. I'll be super excited if he'll do the turns like this in the tournament.

Exciting Progress

Zio and I made a huge leap ahead on his box turn training yesterday. I continued sending him to the box on command from about 6-8 feet, without a jump board or ball. He did so well on our first session, that I started putting a ball in the box. The first try, he went to stab the box and I corrected him and didn't give reward. The second try, he totally ignored the ball to get the tug. Every time I loaded a ball after that, he would turn correctly to get the tug and completely ignored the ball. Wow! He did make a few turns looking at the ball, but seemed to understand that the turn is what gets the tug!

During the last session, he again ignored the ball and we played tug for a bit. I asked him, "Where's the ball?" and he ran back and retrieved it to me. After that, he grabbed to ball every time while doing his turn correctly!!! I was ecstatic and very proud my little man!

Weekend Update

Zio and I entered the Oklahoma Spring Fling disc dog competition Saturday. It had rained hard Friday night and into Saturday morning, so everything was wet. Zio and I both showed how rusty we were during the first round. I did not throw very well and Zio was jumping too soon on my good throws, so we definitly proved that you can't enter a tournament cold and expect good results. My back started to spasm while waiting around, so we packed it in and didn't not throw in the second round.

Flyball practice was indoors on Sunday. Zio did great recalls against Jeep as the team worked on discouraging Jeep from coming across the lanes and chasing. Zio even did some good work on the box, doing several full runs with a jump board in place.

He didn't do so well later in the passing drill, but I'm not sure he was focused by the time we did that. I think we were too close together and Zio was tired and unfocused. I think he'll do fine on passing in the heat of competition.

Limited Practice

We haven't been able to practice at all since Tuesday due to my back. Tonight was supposed to be another "north" practice with Susan and Katie, but the field is muddy due to the overnight and all day thunderstorms we've had. I'm itching to get back to box turns, but I really need to get my back healthy first.

Tomorrow morning is the Spring Fling Disc Dog competition, so Zio and I will go down and throw amateur toss and catch. We haven't done much as far as practicing for it, since our time is spent learning flyball stuff. Zio loves catching Frisbees, so we'll go down and throw in the rain, if we have to, and have a good time. I need to remember to bring some towels for a smiling, muddy border collie.

Flyballer in Training

With my back acting up and giving me very limited mobility, my wife, Susan, pitched in to get Zio some work on the box. She took a few pointers and Zio was turning off the box for her and then it was tug party time. It was very hot, so we didn't do anything for very long and had plenty of cool water for Zio.

Since there were two of us, we tried lining him up about 6-8 feet from the box with the other giving the "hit it" command at the box. It took a few tried before he didn't try to go right for the tug, but he eventually started going to the box first.


I decided to put a ball in the box to see if he would stab it or turn correctly. The first try was a stab. The second and third were three legged turns. After a few more without the ball, I put the ball back in. Zio surprised me by ignoring the ball to turn for the tug! WOW! By then, my back was screaming in agony again and we had to call it a day.

Good Practice

We had a good practice yesterday at the club practice field. I drilled a hole in a tennis ball and added it to his tug and I think it got an approval from the handsome man. Zio ran some awesome recalls and was a tug maniac! We have a lot of dogs to work through at practice now and I can foresee some fast teams ahead for the club. Zio got to work a little on the new box near the end and was doing well with the jump board in place.

I brought the team's new box home with me, but didn't practice at home with it yet. My back is acting up and rain was threatening, so we'll see how this afternoon shapes up.

Doh!

Sometimes, I get reminded how much I have to learn. That happened last night... again! I've been struggling with Zio's turns in tournaments, because he always reverts back to punching the box. We practice at home... he'll do great swimmers turns 98% of the time. Go to tournament, he punches the box again. I've reviewed early videos of his training on youtube and he was doing great turns without the cone. I had decided that it was the excitement of the ball and the race that made him "forget" his turn. We even discussed that maybe he needs to train with the jumps and the ball all the time to get the mental connection.

Since last weekend's tournament, we've been concentrating more on doing the turn without the ball and using the new 10" jump board I made. My theory was that the ball is too much of a reward and he needed to learn that the turn gets the reward, not the ball. I decided to put the ball in a couple of times and he continues to do a good turn... at home. About that time is when I had my epiphany. I took the jump board away and put a ball in the box. Zio stabbed the box. Tried 4 or 5 more times... stab the box. DOH! No jump = stab the box! I was always under the impression that the jump board is used as a constant reminder in practice. Well... that is probably true for a dog that knows to turn, but Zio always had a prop and never learned to turn without a prop. Double DOH!

Back to touch training this morning! We bounced off the wall a number of times and then transitioned back to the box without using a jump. Great turns without a prop from six feet! Now I'm excited that he's making that connection! He'd be doing great if he had a decent trainer!

Interrupted

We've been practicing going to the box without the ball fairly well. Yesterday was a wash out because I had brought an injured BC pup from Sallisaw home to spend the night until he caught his flight to Denver this morning. The puppy was very interested in "helping" Zio, who was not very appreciative of his efforts.

We'll get back to it tonight now that he can focus. Tomorrow is going to be the first Friday where three of us hold a practice in Edmond at the Twister Agility location. I think I'll mix in some recall training by having someone else release him to the box while I start running back before he gets there. The theory is that he sees me heading the other way and hustles to get the ball and head back to where I'm running. Now if he'll actually throw a turn in there.

Groovin' in Grove

The weekend was packed full of great racing. Zio's turns reverted back to punching to box, but he seemed to finally come around to tugging as the reward. All I can do is try to keep re-enforcing the correct box turn. He actually ran faster this weekend than he ever ran in singles. In team racing, the time that displays after your dog hits the timing lights includes his time plus any pass time from when the previous dog broke the plane. Zio ran several 4.4 second races including the passing overlap! The team ran personal bests several times over, including a 21.7 and a 21.8 (previous best was 23.044 seconds).

I think everyone had some personal bests along the way. For Zio, it's back to training before Memphis. Susan Owens mentioned doing some training on the north side on Fridays and I'm all for that.