Month: January 2019

Last month I went to a seminar by American agility trainer Tracy Sklenar. It’s been a few years since I made it to a seminar due to various life events, and I really enjoyed myself and came away full of new ideas. This is the first of probably several posts inspired by Tracy…

When you are running a course in a competition, your goal is usually to get a clear round in the fastest possible time. Most handlers will take some small risks in an effort to save time – but they won’t do something that is very unlikely to work unless they feel like they don’t have any other options.

When you are running a sequence at club training, your goal is probably to improve. For maximum improvement you need to push you and your dog to the limits of your current skill level, then figure out how to extend those limits. If you turn up at club and run the same safe handling strategy that you would at a show, you are not going to improve as quickly as someone who experiments with new techniques to see what works.

Continue reading “Train Like You Want to Compete”

Running order boards are read left to right and then top to bottom. Each call steward has their own unique way of doing things, but the general conventions are:

• A cross (two diagonal lines) or a scribble over the dog’s number – the dog is scratched and won’t be running in this class.
• A dot above the dog’s number – the handler and dog have checked in and are waiting nearby.
• A single diagonal line through the dog’s number – the dog has already run.
• A circle around the dog’s number – the handler may not turn up because they have a clash with another ring, or they’ve missed their turn because they didn’t arrive at the ring in time.
• A circle with an arrow – the dog has been moved to avoid a clash.

Continue reading “How to Read a Running Order Board”

This weekend Rik and I went to the CCATS jumpers show in Christchurch. This was a very large show, and it seemed that some people had travelled a long way to have their first runs at the new heights. All of the C and B classes were split which is very rare for a South Island show!

Our runs on Saturday were a little wild at times, and the teamwork could have been better, but we went clear in one of them and picked up our second Jumpers B win. On Sunday we were working together much better and had two really nice runs with just one little mistake each … we were lucky enough to get a second placing even with five faults though.

Sunday was a warm day, just perfect for a wetting. My clubmate Natasha obliged by getting her last challenge to make her dog Pascalle up as a Jumpers Champion – well done! Pascalle is an extremely keen agility dog and it is not always easy to control her enthusiasm so a lot of hard work has gone into this title.

This weekend Rik and I made the trek south to Invercargill for our first agility show of the year. It was great to catch up with some of our southern friends and I enjoyed the more laidback atmosphere that comes with a smaller show.

The courses this weekend gave us lots of opportunities to test out our wraps, and showed us that we still have a lot of work to do before we can nail them reliably. We had a couple of nice runs, particularly today’s Intermediate where Rik did some great distance work and didn’t put a paw wrong until I got in her way at #19.

What did your agility dogs get up to this weekend?