Friday, July 6, 2012

Bending

Pax has been racing in flyball for almost a year now and has made lots of progress. He's more confident, has better striding and just started passing with no issues. It's nice to have him in 4th because his box turn is very variable. You couldn't pass into him easily as he is coming off the box because often he goes wide.

We tried to figure out what causes him to go wide. We thought maybe it was when he gets tired, but it's variable throughout the day. It definitely has to do with the way he collects himself between the 4th jump and the box.  Also he hits the box too far to the left and isn't able to bend his body easily.

I'm still working on his striding into the box, but I'm focusing on improving his flexibility so he can bend more easily. I want to be able to practice his box turn without using the upright of a box prop to keep his head in. Most dogs with this problem only have a tight turn when the prop is in, so that doesn't really help fix the problem.

This week I've been doing wall work and experimenting with some agility jumping. He already knew some basics from his classes with Ben, so getting him around the jump was easy. I need to work on calling him sooner so he starts bending mid-jump and we plan to add some serpentine jumps for more bending skills. For the agility jumping I'm purposely working on both sides event hough he turns to the left. Please excuse my "agility handling" or lack of. I'm not an agility person!


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3 comments:

  1. K-KoiraJuly 8, 2012 at 4:51 PM

    Is there a reason that you were doing the jump bending with Pax going the opposite direction from on the wall and board?

    I've been doing a lot of similar stuff with Koira, with less focus on fast and tight but more focus on her bending her body, because she defaults to running straight at the box and slamming it with her front legs.

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  2. DeborahJuly 11, 2012 at 1:47 PM

    I wanted to do both directions with the agility stuff, but keeping his correct side on the wall. Just to keep him flexible in both directions. What have you been doing with Koira?

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  3. K-KoiraJuly 12, 2012 at 12:41 PM

    Mostly have been doing over-and-backs with her, and teaching her to wrap around a pole. I don't have any walls that are usable for wall work, with or without a board, so have been using my training board (it has a snub nose and is adjustable to 4 different angles) to practice tight four footed turns. I think the main problem is that if she gets too excited, she forgets to do her turn.

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