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.
Here are some things to think about next time you are training sequences:
- Are there different paths through the course (e.g. a jump that you could turn right or left over)? Which way is fastest? Do you and your dog have the skills you need to run that path?
- For each change of direction in the sequence, how many different ways are there to handle it? Is it faster to do a front cross, a blind cross, or a rear cross? Which gives your dog a better line and a clearer understanding of where she’s going next?
- Can you keep up with your dog all the way around? Are there crosses that you would like to make, but don’t have time for? Look for places where you could send your dog ahead, or leave her and move away earlier, so that you can make it to the tricky parts where you really need to be there.
- Are there extra verbal cues that you could teach your dog to help her understand where you want her to go? For example, I have a verbal cue to tell my dog to take a jump from the back side. She understands this well and runs confidently to the far side of the jump (saving time over other dogs who are confused and hesitate). It also means that I don’t need to run all the way up to the jump to push her around, so I get a head start on the next segment of the course.
My club’s Wednesday night training is starting up again next week. I’m looking forward to attacking our course and trying out some flash handling manoeuvres – who knows, maybe I will find out that my dog is capable of more than I think she is!