Clean Run - January 2012 - 50

I believe that handling a dog around an agility course is similar to driving a car. Racing car or rally drivers can only achieve maximum speeds around a circuit if they know it really well. Even with driving on everyday roads, if you approach a bend in the road too fast, you have to slam the brakes on, lose all your speed, and gradually accelerate again after the turn. However, a good driver brakes before the turn and then accelerates around and away from it.The same applies to our dogs. If I inform my dog on the approach to a jump that a tight turn is required after the jump, he too can put the brakes on before he takes the jump. His weight would then shift back and he can put in an extra stride before the jump, allowing him to wrap the wing instead of landing long with all his weight on the forehand. He too can also accelerate around and away from the turn. Physically this is much less damaging for the dog as well as being considerably faster.

Why Knowledge Equals Speed
By Dawn Weaver
© WENDI PENCILLE/HORSEFEATHERS PHOTOGRAPHY

Speed of Information
If a handler habitually fails to supply the dog with the next piece of information or the next direction on a course, the dog is either going to make very wide turns or is going to learn to permanently drive ahead on a short stride in case the handler suddenly changes his mind after a jump. For example, when the handler waits till the dog takes off for the jump and then turns quickly, the handler thinks he is waiting for the dog to be committed to the jump before giving him the new direction, but actually the handler is just allowing the dog to take off on the wrong length stride, at the wrong speed and trajectory, and possibly on the wrong leading leg. If you do this then your dog will start to slow, because if you only divulge handling information slowly, your dog will always go at that speed; your handling makes it impossible for him to go faster. Speed is a habit so if the handler informs the dog early enough where he wants the dog to go next, he can keep the power on. Your dog should look like he already knows the course, like he is on autopilot, because he should already know the course; you should have informed him on the approach to every obstacle.

What dogs offer on the agility course or at training will have just been cued by you. I never withhold the dog’s reward for handling sequences since that is my job and I always reward my dog for following what I have just cued. Agility handling, like every other sport today, should be progressing forward all the time. Good handling doesn’t stand still. My dogs are teaching me new things constantly because I allow them to teach me how to handle. I would never make up my own system and then make my dogs learn that made-up system because that doesn’t make sense. When I train I have a sequence in mind that I am going to try but if the dog offers me a different obstacle along the way, then I carry on as if nothing has happened. Then I reward the dog at the end of the sequence. (This protects my dog’s long-term speed.) Then I think about what I did wrong and maybe try the sequence again with different handling and a different dog.
Clean Run | January 12

Learning How to Handle
Many top handlers develop what they call their own “system” but I think that this is a huge injustice to our dogs. Why should our dogs have to use our system with regard to handling? Why can’t we use theirs since that is what suits them best? Surely it is much better to allow our dogs to teach us to actually handle them around a course.They are 100% accurate using their own system and, under pressure and at speed, even the most trained and disciplined dogs using a “taught” handling system revert to their own way.
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Clean Run - January 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - January 2012