One of my students, Vicki Davis, identified to me a nice crop of Poke greens alongside my training building. Apparently the interesting Poke plant is an opportunistic kind of weed that seeks out bare earth with little competition. And so the fringes of recent construction are ideal for the emergence of the plant.

I don’t reckon I’ll talk Marsha into trying it, but I do have a tried & true recipe for the plant. What Vicki said, and every reference confirms is that the Poke must be boiled three times before it is suitable for human consumption. Indeed, each boil must begin with cold water to leech the undesirable acids from the plant. We add to the mix bacon bits, dripping, sautéed onions, and a crumbled boiled egg garnish.

Marsha has an up and coming Rally obedience camp for which I get to be the cook. Marsha does the evening meal cooking duties for all of my agility camps. I really look forward to this new role. Frankly, I’m considering trying a twist on an old Shoe Peg Corn Salad (very southern) recipe. The recipe calls for a couple cans of white corn, a Jicama root, 4 scallions, and a tomato; everything but the corn finely diced. You add to that a half cup of mayo and chill the lot; then salt and pepper to taste. My twist is the use Jicama (instead of the cucumbers). Jicama has a crunchier and sweeter taste and should jazz up the recipe.

I look forward to being cook. I should include a Gorgere (cheese breads) medly one evening.

Back to Work

This is, of course, a continuation of my last two web-log posts. You’ll note that I’ve rearranged the equipment on the right side of the floor to have a completely different flavor and consistency.

Continuing on, many handlers will be tempted to Back Cross the dog at jump #4. Though in the case of some dogs, it might be an easier feat to step forward to the landing side of jump #3 for a simple Front Cross. Movement is direction; movement is motive.

For the most part the remainder of the sequence is uneventful. However, I find the radius of the dog’s path in the turn from Jump #8 back to jump #9 will go longer when the handler’s movement is fatally flawed, and will be efficient when the handler’s movement is demonstrates trust, grace, and efficiency.

I delight in mixing up equipment so that there’s nothing that is so cumbersome to use that the dog only gets to see it in trials. So the long jump, for example, will be a regular enough feature in my training program.

In this exercise I’ll let some of my more advanced students show off by beginning with dog-on-right for a layered Tandem after the long jump at #2. By layering back on the opposite side of the long jump/teeter while the dog is away to chute and jump #4 the handler can easily be forward enough of the dog to be in position for a neat little Front Cross on the landing side of jump #5. Beware again of the phantom Blind Cross as the lesson is… the dog turns when the handler turns not where the handler turns.

My own inclination at the #6 through #8 transition might be to push through jump #6 for a simple Front Cross to get the dog into the pipe tunnel on my right side. The downside of that strategy is that it begs that I be forward of the dog. A real fast dog should win that race, so I should also have the Fast Dog handling solution and skill… which would be, I suppose, the rather technical Tandem turn with dog on left coming out of the pipe tunnel at #7 to flip him back onto the A-frame.

One last little bit in this sequence will be the interesting transition from jump #11 to #12. This might surely call for (dog on right) a modest little Post & Tandem (Post to improve the approach; Tandem to flip the dog back).

While this is a short enough sequence, it is not without peril and consequence. The handler might want to try a couple different handling options just to proof and refine a winder spectrum of skills. I’m not much of a fan of the two-dimensional skill set. All too often if the handler’s skills are limited (what do you mean you don’t get to do Blind Crosses?) it doesn’t take much of a riddle to allow the team to fail.

In the first place we might simple attack the weave poles, dog on left. Given the short transition to the weave poles the dog should have a pretty good understanding of the entry. This is a laudable and necessary objective in the dog’s training program. Of course this leaves the handler with dog on left for the approach to jump #5, surely necessitating a Back Cross to tighten the turn to jump #6 with the pipe tunnel both looming and inviting.

On the other hand the handler might actually attack the weave poles as describe, but Back Cross the dog in the entry. Again, this should be a part of our training program, requiring the dog to continue working even when the handler chooses to change sides behind the dog. I’m quite an advocate for “spiking” which means the handler should make the shift of sides as subtle as possible so that the dog isn’t startled out of his convincement of what obstacle is actually next. The more perpendicularly the handler makes the shift the more startling it is to the dog.

The handler might also slide through jump #3 into a deft little Blind Cross effecting the change of sides before the performance. This too constitutes an attack on the weave poles but requires the handler to outrace the dog to the landing side of jump #3.

 

One last cruel twist in the lesson plan…the movement from the pipe tunnel at #2 to the pipe tunnel at #4 might be tougher than it looks, particular for a dog with powerful obstacle focus. Most handlers will be inclined to Bend the dog away after jump #3 by stepping into his path. This might cause some spectacular collisions with the dog and mightn’t be the best handling plan overall. Consider sliding into a Blind Cross between the pipe tunnel and jump #3 so as to help the dog default to the right… and add a subtle little RFP for insurance to wiggle the dog around the dummy jump.

The handler might be inclined to Post the dog around to jump #6 into a magnificent and error-prone approach to jump #6 with a Back Cross in mind. The smarter handling might be to give a twizzle of a Front Cross on the dismount from the weave poles to that the change of sides is effected before the dog gets to the jump.

That reminds me, by the way, that my next lesson plan probably should be about the Back Cross. Most Back Crosses in our game are terrible flawed making them not a great tool and a terrible handling selection when neither the dog nor the handler have been trained to how to do it correctly.

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.