One of the great debates in the sport of dog agility about the Tandem Turn is which arm should be used to cue the turn. Many are advocates of the counter-arm and many more maintain that only the inside arm will do. This argument is kind of a silly thing. I figure that whatever actually works is correct.

The advantage of using the counter-arm is that it causes the handler’s body to rotate into the turn. If the handler uses the inside-arm to cue he must remember to rotate his shoulders without the assist of the arm drawing the body into rotation.

The truth of the Tandem Turn is that it is not an arm signal at all. The truer and more robust signal is the rotation of the handler’s body and movement in the new direction of the turn.

I will often entice a student into making the turn with no arms at all (akimbo, as it were). And it is amazing how the dog knows to turn without any flapping of arms. This is what we all need to discover and understand.

Attributes

The attribute of a movement has to do with what kind of response it gets out of the dog. The Tandem Turn is a cross behind the dog on the dismount of an obstacle or on the flat. It’s most important attribute is that it creates a wide and sweeping turn and, frankly, accelerates the dog away from the handler’s position.

In the illustration above I have drawn the path of a dog turning when the handler crosses on the landing side of a jump (a Tandem Turn) and have included the path of a dog turning when the handler crosses on the take-off side of a jump (a Back Cross – indicated by the red lines). The Back Cross creates a tightened turn and, according to the illustration, may cause a refusal on an obstacle that demands a wider more sweeping turn.

Note that if obstacle #3 had been back to jump #1 then the Back Cross might have been a cannier handling option than the Tandem Turn. Understanding the attribute of the movement is an important part of the handler’s analysis.

On the Road Again

I have about nine hours of driving ahead of me tomorrow. I’m taking off for Springfield, IL where I’ll give four days of seminar and then three days for the TDAA Petit Prix.

Going with will be Bogie and Birdie for their last trial in competition ever… and my young girl Hazard. I’m excited for all of them. My two boys have been my constant companions for over a decade. When I do take them out my heart is lifted by their eagerness. They know the fire drill. But you know, it will be so hard to just stop with them. Though it is the right thing to do with a couple of old boys, I don’t reckon they’ll really understand why it all just stops all of a sudden.

The competition will be greater this year than any year in the past. The TDAA is coming of age. Though just between you and me and the wall… I’ll play to win it all with all three of my pups. The fun thing about the TDAA is that we play such a variety of games that strategy and the wit of the handler play a nearly equal part to the dog’s raw speed and skill on equipment. I know there’ll be dogs there that’ll be faster than my dogs, and there’ll be handlers with younger legs. But I am armed with the tools of an old man… craftiness and guile.

Let the games begin.