Griffin and I finally made it to an agility trial. We went to a CPE trial on Saturday and entered 3 classes.
I had some specific goals for the event:
- Try a start line stay. It can be hard for dogs to stay at the beginning of the course, but it’s helpful for fast dogs so that the handler can be in a good position. Per Silvia Trkman’s comments, I rarely do start line stays with my dogs, they often go faster if I run with them. However, it’s something that I sometimes need.
- Push for speed. In training Griffin is always running. But I know he could put in more effort and go faster. Some trainers believe dogs get faster once they know what they’re doing and are comfortable. I want speed as part of my criteria and I -really- don’t want to accidentally slow my dog down.
- Check his contacts. I wanted to see how he would do his a-frame, dogwalk, and teeter contacts in a new location on the first try. I wasn’t expecting this to go well as I’m a bad trainer. He had his first stopped contact training session on a dogwalk the night before. His only stopped work on the a-frame was 2 sessions in may.
- Check his weaves. He weaves pretty well, but it’s different in a new environment and new location.
- Watch his work in a new environment. Of all my dogs, he’s the best prepared. We’ve done serious training in 5+ locations and some informal training in 3+ other settings. Training sessions are different from trials. First try in a new place with a bunch of strangers sitting around the ring.
- Choose handling that will benefit my dog. CPE has a lot of games classes. Sometimes the handling choices made are for winning a game but they can hurt the training long term. I don’t want to risk ANY harm to our training at this point!
What I learned:
- Warm up: We need some modifications to our warm up before the first run of the day, the other ones are pretty simple.
- Contacts: Still need work (no surprise). We didn’t get to try the teeter. He did hit the aframe and dogwalk every time….but mostly with beautiful running contacts. Later I’m probably going to want to go back and retrain the running contact again. On his second run, he did stop on the aframe twice!
- Weaves: Some successes, some not. He did 6 poles 3 different times. He had about that many errors too. Of the 3 successes he was correct on the first try. We have some training to do and I also know how to better help him when in a trial environment.
- Start line stay: Success 2/2 times I tried it. I played it safe and didn’t go too far for too long.
- Work: He did great work for a new environment! He did run around a little, but mostly came back to work and he didn’t go visit the 4+ people sitting around the ring to reset bars. He didn’t go away to sniff or to get in any trouble. He was all about working. I was actually quite surprised at how serious he was.
- Handling: This is the achieved goal I’m most happy with. My planning for the games was primarily the right choices for him. My choices encouraged speed and movement and I avoided blocking his path or accidentally slowing him down. We were able to test some of our handling skills.
Griffin’s First CPE Agility Trial
Overall: Two 1st places, one 2nd place, and one qualifying (passing) leg. He had a high number of points in the games and it was overall quite a success.
What we’ll work on: Contact behaviors. Crazy weave pole entrances. Moving away from me to take jumps. Start line stay.
We’re looking forward to our next opportunity to do agility!