Odin's first Box Turns

[Cassidy's Mom]

This is how crazy organized our captain is - this is the schedule from our last practice, and we get one of these every week (I highlight Halo's exercises so I can quickly glance at it and see if I need to go get her):





Everyone's tasks are listed for each exercise, the jump heights, the number of reps we're going to do, and the ball type and hole for each dog. We get a schedule for each tournament too, and they're even more detailed!

[KristiM]

Wow that is very organized, our practices are pretty casual, but we are a small club. I can definitely see needing a schedule if our club was any bigger. The club is called go all out dog sports. I am pretty certain that every dog on our team is a multi sport dog.

We haven't done any of that yet with Odin, not many people came today so all of the other green dogs were paired up with the experienced dogs to work on that stuff. Today we just focused on the box stuff with Odin, next time I think we will start working in passes etc. Odin is very neutral with other dogs, so I'm sure one practice will be all it takes to get him used to passing and having other dogs running beside him.

[KristiM]

We had Odin's 5th flyball practice today. I am very happy with his progress, his box turns for the most part were very nice! We had a couple where his back feet missed the box but I think with a little more experience that will stop. I was also calling him just before the turn and that seemed to be causing him to miss the box more often with his back feet, I started calling him later and it seemed to take care of that for the most part. Today was his first time running with another dog, we weren't really passing just getting him used to another dog running. Only problem we had was with the other dog he got more amped....but it was all directed at me. So on the line he was bouncing around barking at my face, not really ideal. So at home I am going to work on his set up, sending him to a ball. I have a good "mark" command that I used for schutzhund send outs and I think I will use that to get him focused down the lane.

Odin's 5th flyball Practice - YouTube

Any thoughts on his turns etc are always welcome!!!

Anyone know why I can't get my videos to embed???

[Liesje]

LOL that sounds JUST like Nikon! Even literally he sounds like Nikon (Nikon barks the.whole.time, some of the judges give me a hard time in play, lol). I'm still working on focusing the energy and drive *forward*. You may find that it improves once he's racing or running singles against another dog. I think Nikon is running lead-off again in March which will improve his time because he runs much faster when it's a real race and he's head to head with the other dog (when he runs in the middle he's faster than in practice, but not as fast as lead-off because by then the lanes are pretty staggered).

[KristiM]

He has a very strong "mark" command (stare straight ahead) I am really hoping that will help. I think he just needs something to channel that excitement into. We'll see if it works, I didn't think to try it at practice. I remember reading your thread about Nikon doing basically the same thing as Odin he also head butted me once and came scarily close to biting my face lol not cool Odin! I can work on this a bit at home, we have two weeks before our next practice since we have an agility trial next weekend.

[Liesje]

I also find that my routine changes at each tournament. It all depends on what position Nikon runs in, what's happening before him/ahead of him, etc. In the last tournament he ran third so once the owner of the dog before him crossed over into the runback lane, our line of sight was clear and I started his "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreadyyyyyyyyy". After a few heats he figured it out and was ready to pull forward and not just jump around and bark at me.

[Cassidy's Mom]

I think he looks really good - he's hitting the box well (except for a couple of flying prop moments ) and also coming off the box lined up straight down the lane. Being a larger dog and still fairly early in his training, his progress on the box turn is especially impressive.

Halo gets very excited and starts barking nonstop while we're lining up getting ready to go, but fortunately she does direct that forward. A few times she's flung her head back towards me while I was kneeling down restraining her and nearly bonked me in the face with her head, but if I just say "ready, ready, ready" and don't use her name she won't usually do that. Yep, learned that the hard way, lol!

She clearly takes her cue and "turns on" from the start dog running by her. I think she'd actually run slower as a start dog, although she does look over at the dog in the other lane and seems to know that she's racing it when we're doing SBS full runs with a single dog in each lane at practice. Several people in the club have commented that she's competitive, but it seems to me that she really understands flyball best within the context of passing into the dog running back.

It may be that Odin will cue off the exiting dog too, once he gets more work on passing, and that will help keep him focused forward. In our club we have plenty of good start dogs, it's better for us to have dogs that can run in the pack, and are solid passing into other dogs and having other dogs pass into them, so that's probably where Halo will stay. She started out in her first few tournaments in the 4th spot, but now she most often runs 3rd, and occasionally 2nd or 4th. We have a couple of dogs who can ONLY run 4th because they're not comfortable with other dogs passing into them, so I'm glad that Halo is more versatile and can be plugged in anywhere she's needed.

[KristiM]

Thanks Debbie! I am pretty happy with his box so far, I'm not sure if maybe I should go to a prop that doesn't have the side on it. I am thinking of making a prop out of taped together eaves troughs so that he 1. Isn't slamming his tail into the side of the jump every time (that's gotta be uncomfortable) and 2. He doesn't start trying to use the jump as a launch. There were a few times where he hit the prop with his back feet, on top of the couple times where his back feet missed the box. The team did have an eaves trough prop before but I think we pulled it apart to use it for something.

Me sayin rrrreeeeady seems to get him overly focused on barking at me, so I will have to experiment with what works best for getting him to focus down the lane. I have been finding lately in the other sports i do with him that the less I try to amp him up the better he works, flyball might be the same thing.

[Liesje]

Personally my main concern with my large dog is coming OFF the box straight, so if any of my props have upright sides it will be on my right side (so the dog is turning into it) and I like it flush with the side of the box or even cutting into the lane (because Nikon has a habit of turning wide again if I give him too much space). If I have sides on the props on my left side Nikon will also bump with his tail. When I had someone record his last training session she did a few "box cam" angles and it was interesting to see him starting to turn his head as he came over the last jump, already anticipating the swimmer's turn and trying to position himself for turning into the box. I want him to move wide going into the box, not coming off of it.

[KristiM]

Ya I do want to keep him nice and straight coming off the box, right now I think he looks pretty good. I just feel bad for his tail smashing into the jump upright on the left side I also really don't want him to start to try and avoid his tail hitting that cause it could affect his turn. I will make a drain pipe prop and see how he does with it, if it doesn't work out its not like they are expensive to make. I will probably still use 1/2 a jump on the right side to maintain that tight turn.