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Private lessons or Barnhire?


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Ok, so I have a choice to make.

 

I could do a 30mins private lesson with my agility trainer in which we can work on areas I need to improve on. She is a great trainer, and is really helpful, especially with handling. I currently do a group lesson with her once a week for an hour with 1-3 other people.

 

 

My other option would be to hire a barn for an hour and share it with my sister. This could help with working on proofing certain parts such as contacts, and I can practise all those parts which are not done in the lessons such as proofing contacts and weave entries.

 

 

What do you recommend/think would be the best option? I will still be doing the 1 hour lessons with her, but this is a second session of agility a week because I need to improve and I am wondering which option would be best?

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Not really possible to alternate due to discounts from barn hire for 10 block sessions of 33%, and for the instructor to keep her slots free too it would be best to choose one for every week.

 

Ive never really had my own equipment before to practise on. I've had a few pvc jumps in the back garden or a house I was in before, but not actual equipment, and it didn't turn out well as I focused too much on making everything perfect than having fun, and it all affected my dog.

 

But in the barn I will be in a working area and not at home (which is a big difference for my dog between work and calm times, he can associate this place with work), and with my sister so I won't be spending my time thinking inwards.

 

I don't know, what I like about lessons is the general feeling of doing well, you want to not fall behind the other people, and you want to be able to do what the instructor wants you to.

 

But in a barn, you can practise and fully flesh out everything you need to and improve, which you cannot do in a lesson so much.

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When working on one's own in a ring rental situation, it can be very easy to have an unproductive, but long session and to in effect overwork the dog with no real benefit (because it is human nature to want to use the entire hour). So, I would approach these sessions with specific goals in mind--perhaps ask your instructor for "homework" or bring a course/ sequences to work on or an exercise from class that you want to work further.

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Where are you in your level of agility knowledge? As a beginner, I would have wanted as much input from a trainer as possible, and then train in short sessions at home. If you are a seasoned trainer, it may be better to hire ring time so you can work on longer sequences. Just my thoughts, FWIW.

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I agree with GCV-Border.


I get 10X as much out of 30 minutes, 1 on 1, with my instructor as I do twice as long shared with even 2 or 3 other people. It's not just about the time I get with the equipment, either. It's that those 30 minutes are tailored to me and my dog, and her eyes are only on me. That has given me more than al of group classes - which are still active instruction - combined. What I get out of actual *practice*, where I have the field and we share and work on our own... Well, it's useful, for sure, but I definitely need eyes on me, and input and feedback, still.


If I were further along in the game, probably not so much.

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I also have to agree with Blackdawgs that having specific goals and homework or a sequence helps. If you go with the rental, set a timer and write a 'lesson plan' for the time you're there. It's easy to do a lot of work and not accomplish anything - I am really prone to that even at home, with the equipment I do have. Knowing when to knock it off and move on is not a strong suit of mine. The instructor breaking my half hour lesson up for me prevents that issue. And honestly another set of eyes to help me recognize that my dog is burning out is useful.

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I also think it depends where you are in your agility career. The ideal situation would be to be able to rotate between the two. I love to train on my own, and I have found my dog has made huge progress since I have unlimited access to equipment but I have learned to focus on specific skills, at the moment we are back working on greater independance in weave poles due to some of the evil entries we have been seeing locally, or I might spend some time working on a specific turn. I also have a dog with a huge work ethic (we have taken 2 hour private lessons). I don't do much extended handling on my own, I have a training partner and we anaylize each other's problems, without that feedback it is very hard to know what you have done wrong, video does work as a substitute but it takes time to watch it back.

Private lessons are invaluable, I always got way more out of them than a group lesson, as others have said the lesson focuses on your teams needs, and you can repeat a sequence until you can wrap your head around what you are doing wrong, in a group class there is never enough time to really figure out the issue.

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I agree with the majority opinion. How long have you been doing agility? How many dogs have you trained?

 

Agility is addictive and I've see too many people do too much over the years.

 

I have a plank, a set of weaves and two jumps at home (plus a tree which is used too) and it's enough to do most of what we need. What is lacking with individual training is the kick up the backside a trainer can give you - too easy to stay within your comfort zone.

 

Five minutes quality training is far better than an hour's repetition. Less is definitely more.

 

If you're relatively new I would recommend the 1-1s.

 

Who are you training with?

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Another option you might consider, if you have the funds, would be online classes in conjunction with the barn rental. That would give you set exercises to work on for the rental, and a space to work for the class, and also a wealth of new instruction.

 

Through Fenzi Academy you can take a class at bronze level (no video submission, nor interaction with instructor, but the opportunity to watch all of the gold students through the class forum). There are a lot of other online options out there, as well. Sylvia Trkman, Susan Garrett (very expensive), Agility University, and others.

 

I do agree that all of this does depend on your level of experience and comfort level in training. I would certainly never suggest that someone who is just starting out rent a ring and have at it. Didn't you say, though, that you are in a weekly class?


If you are going to a weekly class, it's not like you are completely on your own. If you regard the class as instruction time and the rental as practice, that can work.

 

Really it is a matter of figuring out what is the best option for you at this point, and which you would benefit most from.

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Hmm, I guess I am still learning, this is my first dog admittedly; he is 3 years old and we have been doing dog agility from puppyhood, but its more about use of the equipment. I currently don't have the use of any form of equipment outside lessons, so weaves, contacts, seesaws etc are basically something I am unable to practice in any form. I could get some, but I do not have a space to use them. My garden is about 2mx2m, and everywhere else is public space.

 

I have done as much as I can with a stool, or absolutely anything with practicing contacts. Its fine, until you add anything else to the mix, like jumps, the A frame itself, or just the working environment.

 

In 1-2-1s we more focus on handling, which is great because I need it to gain skills as a handler.

 

But we cannot practice other equipment as the lessons are generally for focusing on what we need actual help with.

 

We have been competing occasionally recently (not every weekend or something, about once a month) and our practice of equipment is definitely our weakest point.

The situations mostly have been that I could handle the course well, but my dog leaps off the seesaw, or cannot collect himself for the weaves, or misses the contacts, etc. And honestly, its not even a case of a 30% success rate, its 0%. Well, we got the weave entry once in a competition... That one time...

 

I could ask to practice the seesaw every week in a 30mins private, but it is something you can train without the instructor. An hour of practicing all the equipment, and doing this every week, I would probably do very week at getting them more reliable.

 

However, I would probably not be able to see what goes wrong in these sessions. An example would be in the weave entries we practiced last session, we were doing it on the easier side of the weaves but from behind the first pole (so coming from the opposite direction the dog would go when entering the weaves).

Alone I would have no clue how my handling would have affected the dog, and would most likely have given up, but with the instructors help we could see exactly what was going on with my handling (e.g overcompensating, turning to soon, etc) and eventually begin to learn the right handling. (she could quite easily pick up my dog and get a perfect weave entry herself every time, and did so, so it wasn't the dog)

 

So yeah, its a thought. With a barn I can practice more and do so more consistently and actually have the chance to practice everything so we can do the equipment, and perhaps practice what we learned in the lesson, but in the lesson we learn how to do certain things which we never would be able to do without the guidance.

 

Its been much better with my current instructor than in previous places. The place where I went to originally and first started agility with didn't even practice the weaves once every 4 months. I had to begin looking at going to other places too as after 2.5 years we had seen the channel weaves about 5 times, and the seesaw twice.

So that is where I found my new instructor and I went to both for a while before quitting the first one.

 

I spent most my time learning with these people, so while we practiced serpentines, rear crosses, object discrimination, etc. We didn't touch much else. Of course, my dog can now weave, and do all the equipment, but we are still novices getting a portion of a lesson every other week on the equipment.

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If you tell your instructor the problems you are having, she will help you with those specific issues during the private lessons - at least she *should* be willing to, and if not you need a new one. It really, really is not an either/or.

 

Yes, having access to equipment to do the homework will help but it's still a rental, it's still limited in how much access/time you have - both by renting and by the dog's ability to brain - and having someone basically hold your hand to help you figure out HOW to most effectively handle those things is the absolute best use of both money and time you have.

 

Particularly as you say you've had problems with overdoing in the past.


You don't have to do privates forever to benefit from them, and ultimately I think the rental is a good idea, but probably not until you've gotten a grip on these things with some help from an instructor.

 

I'm at < 2 years of lessons and a year in trial - I consider myself beyond new enough to benefit from more experience and one on one instruction. I would certainly put you in that category. The difference in my dog and I's performance is ENORMOUS, thanks to those lessons.

 

But ultimately it's your time, money, and dog.

 

(As an aside, even at 2mX2m, I'd be looking for some stairs and curbs to work 2o2o behavior, and a park and some stick in the ground weave poles to work on that a little bit. As in 5 minutes a day, maybe 10. Especially the weave entry things.)

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Yeah, for us trick training and agility training are very different, due the the sheer excitement of agility and the speed he runs at. We can jump onto anything that exists and do a perfect 2 on 2 off position, even on walls. But when running at top speed over an A frame, he does often forget to do the trick

 

Also, our 2x2 garden is made of wooden planks, and in the parks there are a huge number of dogs and people walking about, its a huge park as well, setting up weaves not only would not work well due to the lack of other jumps to get the good practice, it would be both very strange and bothering to other people, other dogs bothering us, as well as could form some complaints. Plus incorrect spacing, weaves which will not remain straight when the dog goes through them, and generally not the best of times.

 

Yes, we probably could do the equipment in the sessions, and we do, but if we spend 15 minutes on weaves and 15 minutes on a course (of course talking as well on how to improve and generally being instructed), that would be a session where we didn't practice seesaw or contacts.

If we do 15 mins of seesaw and 15 mins weaves, we well end up with no work on contacts or handling.

Not to mention 15 minutes is relatively short, since we can spend the whole hour practicing a difficult weave entry in a lesson, though split between 2 people would be 30 mins.

 

IDK, I couldn't say what would happen. Perhaps we could get everything done in 30 mins...

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Well, if you're going to spend 15 minutes on weaves and 15 minutes on a teeter in a barn alone, you're still only going to have that time - but it's going to be less productive time.


You're not going to get it all done in 30 minutes - or an hour, or 2 hours. You're going to get it done working 30 minutes this week, thirty minutes next week, and thirty minutes the week after - and so on - lesson or barn rental.

 

I don't know your dog, of course, but you are still limited by how much you can do at a time. It's a *danged* rare dog that can get anything out of doing more than an hour of training, period. You're not going to be able to hit everything every week and have your dog take away what you want from it. You're still going to have to pick, choose, and prioritize what to work on in a given week and time period. You are going to lose time talking to the people you're sharing with too, but at least the instructor talking is going to be giving you experienced, technical, useful feedback.


And honestly, if your dog isn't translating contacts and weave entries, then they need more work both with speed and in sequences or courses. Throw a ball and ask for a 2o2o before releasing to it, do it at a dead run, whatever. I mean, again, I'm not the most experienced person ever. but I am on dog THREE - and they're very different dogs - with this foundation stuff, and one is a really crazy BC, one's a deaf dog, and the other is kind of moderate and soft, so different - but this mostly sounds like a training issue on your end, rather than from lack of equipment. As in a creativity + mechanics one, and like talking to your instructor and asking how you can do more proofing without the equipment will provide you more solutions and better results than throwing your dog at equipment more.


And you really, really can.

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Weaves and contacts are really hard on dogs and you should not be spending 15 minutes on either. I would devote the first 5 minutes of a private on a quick brush up of contact skills and then do sequences incorporating contacts and weaves for the remaining 25 minutes. One can do a lot with flat boards and 2-3 sets of 2x2 weaves (also in short sessions)--ask your instructor for homework in this regard. You can do much of the foundation work off of the full height contact equipment.

 

2-4 reps of contacts per session is plenty--be sure to change something on each rep and use a target at first to help your dog stop at the bottom.

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^ Also that. I didn't even *catch* that. If my dog weaves twice in any given training session - home or practice - it's pretty remarkable. She does more on trial days, but there are longer breaks... Usually it's one side, other side, different entries both times, done and gone.

 

Besides, if your dog knows how to weave and do contact behavior, you need to work it into sequences and with speed, and that's going to take it's own brain power and time.

 

No matter where you are.

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It is possible, if you let the private instructor know the specific obstacle issues you want to work in, that he or she might be willing to allow you to practice, but be a set of eyes and then help you troubleshoot. But that would be something you would need to arrange. I know some instructors who would be willing to help me do that, and others who would not, in the context of a private lesson.

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From your description I would go with the private lessons, your instructor should know you and your partner well from the group class and know where the holes in your training are. From you description it sounds like some of the fundamentals aren't clear and I think working with a trainer will get your dog up to speed much quicker than trying on your own.

 

I actually don't agree with the concept that weaves are only something you need to do a couple of reps of, to get really great independent entrances, and for the dog to stay in the poles regardless of what you are doing takes much more practise than that. I think it is the hardest skill for a dog to learn. I appreciate that it is hard on a dog, what I do is work in blocks with it, at the moment I am working on him staying in the poles regardless of what I am doing, once I am happy with the improvement, the only weaves he will do will be in sequences, and I will assess how far we have come, in a few weeks I will up the criteria and focus on training the weaves again.

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Well, one of the major benefits of a trainer who knows both handler and dog is that they can give more targeted, appropriate to the team, advice than we can here.


I know that for me, specifically, I took a dog with happy, fast, independent weaves and destroyed them with overworking. As in, a dog I could send 15 feet away from me, with a contact obstacle between us and have happily weave turned into one who wouldn't weave at all. It wasn't a physical issue, it was a mental one. I had to start over, but working her a couple of times a day for all of about a whole 60 seconds at a time has done it. That's my dog. I don't know OPs dog really, but neither does anyone else here.


That's the *real* benefit of the trainer. Going to those private lessons can get you a personalized plan, that takes your dog's temperament, drive, and mental and physical condition into account, as well as specific issues and goals.

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A friend used to refer to first-born (human) children as "experimental children" because new parents will make many mistakes with that child. Same goes for first agility dogs. Almost everyone makes (bad) mistakes with that dog. So, if you have an opportunity to work with a good instructor, go with that for now. After you get through novice or whatever you call it in the UK, then start thinking about working on your own.

 

30 minutes is a really long time to work a dog. I suspect that your dog is not working for 30 minutes in the groups--if the instructor is good, you will likely get more out of the private. Explain your needs to her and if she is good, she will work out a program that caters to your specific needs.

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We had access to equipment any time we wanted when our now 10 yo was young. We went to the field once a week and never stayed more than 30 mins.

 

Training went 5 mins work, a few mins lying or playing in the stream, another 5 mins work etc. And this was with a very keen dog. In addition he had one hour long communal class a week in which he did very little actual work and a few minutes here and there at home. It was plenty. Not our first dog though.

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