Chief Cook

Over the last week Marsha and I have had a bit of a role reversal here at Country Dream. Marsha has been conducting the first ever (in the world, I suppose) RallyO training camp. And so I got to be the chief cook and bottle washer. It was a lot more work, and stress frankly, than I had imagined. Just for the record Monday night was build your own taco night; Tuesday night I served pork roast with my banana vanilla wafer desert, by the way; on Wednesday night I served a chicken pot pie; and on Thursday night we had breakfast for dinner (eggs, breakfast meats, pancakes). And, of course, I was responsible for stocking and keeping full of ice the old roller washing machine on the front deck that serves as our drink cooler.

Some day we need to do an all agility cook book. By all accounts my meals were raves, though I expect to have been considerably challenged had vegetarians and vegans been in attendance.

Today there is a CWAGS obedience trial here at country dream. My responsibilities have ended so I’ll putter about the property doing chores, and do a bit of work here at my computer. On the weekend we have an APDT obedience trial. And again, I have nothing to do with. I need to be prepared as we have another 4H camp scheduled, beginning next Thursday. The kids really enjoy these camps. I believe it’s mostly sleeping over in the cabins and being away from home that is about the most fun part for them… and the bonfire in the evening. I’ll conduct maybe four three-hour agility clinics with them. And insofar as most of this bunch are my own students, I do believe I’ll have them play games about as much as we do serious work.

Distance Training Foundation

One of the first rules of distance work is that the dog must learn independent performance all of the agility obstacles. While this might seem an obvious notion it tends to be an overlooked element of basic training. For example, a handler might be working to teach a dog a good two-on/two-off performance of a contact obstacle; but will practice the performance almost constantly while hovering over the dog’s head. The real problem with this is that the handler becomes embedded in the context of performance. Indeed, relatively early in the training the handler should introduce movement and varying relative distance from the dog so that the dog can demonstrate that he truly understands the performance without the handler hovering over his head.

Early in jump training I do a simple progressive sending exercise with the jump. From a couple feet away I’ll give the command to jump whilst pointing at the jump and giving it focus. Naturally I praise and reward the dog for a successful performance. Then, gradually, say 4″ or 6″ at a time, I’ll move back, continuing to send, praise and reward.

The key to a progressive sending exercise is that is should progress. I don’t spend much time staying in one relative position. I continue to move backwards. But the steps I take are small rational incremental steps, because I’m not in a hurry to get it done and I don’t want to back up so quickly that the dog ever fails.

I do the progressive sending exercise with all obstacles, actually. The dog must learn independent performance all of the agility obstacles. I don’t really separate individual obstacles as though one needs to be mastered before moving to another.

The basic sending drill can begin to incorporate more than one obstacle. I might, for example, position myself equidistant between a bar-hurdle and the tire. Or, if the dog’s send to the tire is weaker my station might be slightly closer to the tire.

When doing send-away training I’m asking the dog to demonstrate to me that he understands the performance of the obstacle. So I want to avoid tricking him into space. That means I don’t use a lot of verbalization intended to get him out closer to the obstacle and only then give the verbal command for performance. I also avoid “pick-up truck” logic.

You know how the pick-up truck theory of distance training goes? The question is… how do you get distance work on a dog? So think of it like this… you’re going down the highway at 60 miles an hour in hour pick-up truck. The dog is sitting outside up on the top of the cab of the truck. How do you get distance? You slam on the brakes… and there goes the dog whirling into space.

Well that trick might work with a pick-up truck. But it’s less likely to work with agility. What we find out in practice is that slamming on the brakes is as significant to the dog as mashing down on the accelerator. It will cause the dog to come up short, turning back to ask the question… Why have we stopped?

While it’s true that impulsion is required for the dog to go any distance through space, I want the sense of impulsion to come from that narrow space between the dog’s ears. Nothing straightens the line like the certainty in the mind of the well-trained dog.  

Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston: dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net. And Checkout my new publication the Idea Book – Agility Training for a Small Universe available at www.dogagility.org/store.