An important skill in teaching agility is in recognizing what skill the team needs to be developing. When faced with a very advanced challenge the dog (and frankly, the handler) might need to build up the base of skills that makes the advance challenge even possible. These are what I call prerequisite skills. I often compare teaching agility to the work of a brick-layer. You can’t set the brick at your shoulder level until the bricks below, say at knee level, have been laid.

Advanced Distance Illustration #1

In a sequence like this I see several prerequisite skills that must be attended before the handler has any hope of the dog actually doing the performance. Now mind you some dogs are quite clever and might surely have figured out the basics of performance without the handler/trainer taking any real initiative in prudent training steps. It is, after all, better to be lucky than good.

Here’s my list of prerequisite skills:

·        The Tandem Turn – A directional command to turn away from the handler’s position; useful in distance work as it creates acceleration and separation. There are two tandem’s indicated in this sequence. Can you spot them?

·        Go On – A distance directional that means for the dog to continue working in the direction he is already working.

·        Parallel Path – Performance of obstacles while the handler is moving at an appreciable parallel distance.

·        Layering – Performance at a distance with obstacles that aren’t to be performed between the dog and handler.

·        Simple Obstacles – Performance of jumps and tunnels while the handler is working at a distance.

·        Technical Obstacles – Specifically in this sequence is the dog’s performance of the teeter while the handler is not camping on the tipping side to ensure complete performance.

·        Front Cross – A handler movement calculated to change the dog’s direction of movement and put the dog on the handler’s opposite lead. And, in this case, the Front Cross is indicated at a distance (the dog turns when the handler turns not where the handler turns).

Advanced Distance Illustration #2

If we were to add to our list of prerequisite skills from the previous illustration we’d have to add to this the technical Get Out. Of course a technical Get Out presupposes that the dog has been taught to Get Out at all and that the handler can coax the performance out of the dog while at a broad proofing distance with layered obstacles and an option to tempt him from the basic bend away from the handler’s position. Let’s just call this very advanced.

The teeter is a problematic obstacle for performance in distance work. A very small percentage of handler/trainers in our sport have actually taught their dogs the performance of this obstacle unattended by the handler (sitting on the dog’s head). Further, if the dog’s trainer has created a 2o2o finish to the teeter then the dog will come to a stop and, frankly, coaxing the dog to obey directional commands is considerably tougher when the dog is not in full flight. This is a significant training objective all by itself.

Advanced Distance Illustration #3

This actually looks like the easiest of the three illustrations for distance work. It probably is in terms of the performance of the teeter. Getting the dog to turn to the handler’s position off the teeter is probably considerably easier than going straight on or certainly easier than bending away from the handler’s position.

In this sequence I would probably show my own students how to shape the dog’s path from the teeter through jump #5 to enhance the chances of success (turning right after jump #5 rather than to the logical left); but I will forgo that discussion for now to avoid offending anyone from Avon, CT[1].

Notes for a Small Universe

While I’ve been collecting small sequences for many years I’ve really never written my front-end discussion of what’s smart for the instructor / franchise owner of the training center with a small working floor. I’m going to start a list right now for you to think about. Don’t consider this list in any way finished.

·        Cut all of your jump bars to the smallest length. 4′ is legal in most venues I believe. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. You could probably get away with 3.5′ because the dog can understand the job of jumping without having a regulation jump.

·        It is useful to have winged jumps. A dog’s first distance challenge is the winged jump. It’s better that he learn to deal with this at class rather than out in competition. In general in a small space your wings should be about 18″. Though it’s a good idea to have a big honker 40″ standard winged jump somewhere around just to proof the working with wings skill. Of course you could get just about the same effect by putting a couple of 18″ standards on either side of the jump.

·        Don’t use 20′ pipe tunnels. 15′ is quite long enough; and 10′ is better for the small space. They cost a lot less in any case.

·        You do not have to put all equipment on the floor every week. Indeed, if you have a 50′ by 40′ training area it would be a grander idea to have no more than 5 or 6 obstacles on the floor for any given training night.

·        Avoid the trap of always having the same equipment on the floor. By not putting up certain equipment because it is inconvenient your students are deprived of the opportunity to grow their confidence and understanding of the obstacle.

·        Feel free to use a dogwalk with 8′ planks.

·        Find a way to go outside in the spring-time or summer (or in the winter if you live in Arizona) to let your dogs get the feel of a big outside park. You’ll learn a lot from your dogs responses to getting out of the small space.

·        Always train with an objective. You can do distance work in a small space. Indeed, you shouldn’t allow the small space to promote tight micromanaging handling habits.

·        When designing sequences for training, boil the sequence right down to the most meaningful bits that approach the desired training objectives. So it’s entirely possible to pull a challenging snippet out of a big course and set it up to work out how to solve what made the bit challenging.

60 x 50

While I’d be inclined to have fairly novice students just run this as a straight-forward handling sequence it is an opportunity for my advanced and masters students to develop and refine their distance working skills.

A lot of work needs to be done on the teeter especially if the dog is required to dismount into an unambiguous stationary performance like a 2o2o. In exercising due diligence as a dog trainer, the handler should step in (yes, over the line) to reward the dog for assuming and maintaining the position.

The containment line might simply be drawn between the #2 and #4 jumps for advanced distance handlers. This will be sufficient challenge for them. For the Master handler I’d be inclined to challenge them with the sequence as drawn. To shape the dog’s path from the teeter through jump #3 I’d show a movement I call the Phat (very rare in our sport) which amounts to a Flip & Tandem. It will have the wonderful quality of shaping the dog’s approach to jump #3 to favor the right turn and it will accelerate the dog away from the handler’s position.

The specific skill we’d like to develop in our dogs here is the Go On! This means the dog should continue working in the direction that he’s already working. This becomes a bit problematic with the dog coming off the teeter as the penchant for most dogs will be to swing toward the handler.

I believe in using a target to shape performance towards a desired objective. For example we might place a “baited” target on the landing side of jump #2. However, I believe with equal fervor that the target is merely a lure. A dog is learning little or nothing when being lured so in the training of my own dogs I will lose the target as soon as reasonably possible and begin to reward the dog for performance. A dog will learn in leaps and bounds when being rewarded. Of course, denial of the reward for not doing the performance is how the dog’s learning the behavior is put in balance.

Note that the use of a “baited” target is likely to cause some dogs to momentarily misplace their brains and actually cause the performance of the teeter to degrade. It might be better to work with this type of dogs only on a progressive lateral performance and use reward for the dog from the onset.

This is a very advanced proofing of the Get Out. I believe I’ll come back to this bit after I’ve written a solid lead up to teaching Get Out to the dog.

60 x 40

The directional lottery… the dog is often faced with multiple options in agility. Success comes from the timeliness of the handler’s cue for directional performance along with the care taken to actually teach the dog the performance implied by the directional command.

50 x 40

There are two basic distance objectives that can be derived from an exercise like this. Note how little space on the floor is required.

1.      Progressive send to a tunnel. I actually do progressive sending exercises for all agility obstacles so that the dog learns quite early that he performs the obstacle all by himself and doesn’t need me hovering over.

The dog’s trainer should take small, reasonable, progressive steps back for each subsequent and successful send. Remember to be in dog-training mode which means that you need a good marker, an appropriate reward, and a clear vision of the training objective (that the dog understands the performance and will dive into the tunnel when directed to do so).

2.      Own the Pinwheel. A pinwheel can be taught to the dog as though it were a single obstacle with multiple elements. I tend to use an exploding pinwheel to do this teaching. That means the jumps in the pinwheel start very tightly together, nearly abutting at the center. Then they are moved gradually farther and farther apart. My objective is for the dog to work out and away from me to own the performance of the pinwheel without me handling or micromanaging every element of it.

I tend to change my verbal language while my dog is working in a pinwheel. Rather than saying “Jump-Jump-Jump-Jump”… I’d be more inclined to say “Jump, Go On, Go On, Finish it!”

Team Relay

Briefing

Three dog & handler teams: First dog runs (white) #1 through #8; The second dog runs #9 through #16; The Third dog runs (black) #1 through #8.

The handler on course is required to carry a baton and exchange that baton with the next handler. The game will be scored time, plus faults.

The Round Robin Format

We ran this in class the other night and it was quite a hoot!

I’ve always loved working with a baton in class. Add to that the specter of timing and scoring them and that little imp of competition pressure is soon sitting on everyone’s shoulder. While they might la de dah through routine training sequences… now that they are set on a competitive path I get to see how the subtle pressures of competition wear at them.

After the Dust Settles

After running the relay I’ll have a pretty good idea bout which of the sequences really need to be visited as training exercises in class. In this case the sequence that needed the most work was the #9 through the #16.

I’ll also give a bit of a discussion about how team sports, how the baton should be handled and so forth. These kinds of discussions are of more value to USDAA and TDAA players as most other venues don’t stretch their players in this particular dimension.

I don’t allow my Novice students to do a back cross. There is no movement in agility that accounts for more dropped bars, refusals, and inefficient turns that crossing behind the dog on the take-off side of the jump. Though of course I understand why the novice agility handler does it. When done correctly, the back cross is a thing of great beauty. The dog working out ahead of the handler soars over the jump, which the handler neatly cuts behind to pick up the dog on the opposite lead, going in a new direction.

In this sequence it is almost inescapable that the handler will resort to at least one back cross, and probably two or three. The crux of the sequence seems to be the #5/#10 jump. The jump divides the two pinwheels and creates a boundary line. The handler is somewhat trapped into holding the dog on one side in order to maintain the line, in spite of the fact that the turn at the end of the line goes in the direction opposite the handler’s position.

The handler probably should do a tandem turn from jump #4 to jump #5. But by jump #6 the dog should be committed neatly ahead, making the back cross the handling of choice. The same scenario occurs in the transition from jump #9 through jump #12. A tandem on the landing side of jump #9 sets the dog up for the line out to jump #11, where another back cross might be the best course.

This NADAC Novice course[2] apparently demands at least one back cross, at jump #13. The handler must be careful to attend the dog in the turn from jump #11 to jump #12. So it will be quite easy for the dog to be ahead of the handler at jump #13.

Another place a back cross might be indicated is in the turn from jump #8 to #9 if the handler holds the dog on his right side coming out of the pipe tunnel.

Both of these scenarios actually have solutions other than the back cross. For example, the turn from jump #8 to jump #9 is easily solved by crossing in front on the dog’s exit from the pipe tunnel. The handler’s must race past the exit of the tunnel to avoid a collision with the dog. This should be relatively simple to do.

The real difficulty of a Back Cross at jump #13 is that one of the very desirable attributes of a Back Cross is that it creates a tightened turn on the landing side of the jump. Really here we don’t want a tightened turn because the dog’s turning radius after the jump is not tight at all but rather sweeping and out there which is the hallmark of a NADAC style course.

Solving the back cross at jump #13 is a bit more complicated, and might be just as advanced as the back cross itself.

What the handler might do is race forward of the dog for a Front Cross between jumps #12 and #13. Note that in the way I drew the handler’s line he is not intruding on the dog’s path. However with dog on left it will be easier to support the dog out to jump #14.

Well, darn it, one of the reasons that we do a Back Cross is because we can’t outrun our dogs to any extent on the course. So another way of approaching the Back Cross is to change the nature of the Back Cross. In this illustration I’m showing what we call a Post & Tandem Back Cross. Essentially the handler will draw on Post after jump #12 and then kick back into a Tandem, resolving the change of sides before getting to the jump.

Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston: dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net. And Checkout my new publication of the Just For Fun Agility Notebook, the very last one I’m ever going to publish at www.dogagility.org/store.