In has been my observation over the years that when faced with this approach to the dogwalk, with the dog coming out of the pipe tunnel wrapped underneath, many handlers will run to the tip of the ascent and flap their arms around in a display of micro-management. However I’m a firm believer that the dog already know how to move his feet and merely needs information.

So what I had my camper students do in this sequence is, after getting the dog into the pipe tunnel, fade to the opposite side of the tunnel and merely point up at the ramp as the dog curled out of the tunnel.

Most dogs will do this without real problem, to the tune of about 90% of 95%. And note the advantage it gives to the handler getting to the descent side to manage the dog’s dismount of the dogwalk.

 

With the same idea in mind… what if the handler were faced with the wide open discrimination from the start-line? In this exercise, just as a scientific test, I had my camper students lead out to the opposite side of the pipe tunnel and show the dogwalk as they released and continued to move. It worked marvelously. Again, the handler has a great advantage in distance forward of the dog to manage the down contact performance.

 

Okay, this is a bit tougher. What about the three-headed beast of a discrimination with the U-shaped pipe tunnel around the dogwalk? Once again, we had a 100% success rate with the handler going to the opposite side of the tunnel before releasing the dog from the start.

Note that to the dog’s point of view the dogwalk continues in the direction of the handler, while the pipe tunnel clearly doesn’t get there. Dogs can be clever about these things if we give them space to do so.

 

Okay, this one is trickier still. Here’s the way we played it. The handler led out with dog on right, taking a blocking position on the dogwalk and left-side tunnel. After getting the dog into the tunnel the handler stepped to the opposite side, showing the dog the ramp as he curled out of the tunnel. Once again, a 100% success rate.

Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston: dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net. And Checkout my new publication of the Just For Fun Agility Notebook at www.dogagility.org/store.