Clean Run - February 2018 - 23

I reward the head drop before asking
Shady to do the tunnel.

You can clearly see how far Shady has to duck to actually get into the tunnel and
how much he has to crouch to move inside the tunnel.

After the first training session, instead
of throwing Dexi's food toy into the
tunnel I placed it on a cheap mat to save
him from grabbing mouthfuls of sand.

Darcey is oh so dainty.

Dexi has a strong instinct for ratting so
I didn't think he'd have a problem with
the tunnel. I simply lobbed his food toy
in. I use much smaller rewards for Dexi
as he only weighs 10 lbs. Since a tiny
piece of cheese or sausage doesn't go
far when it is thrown, I used the food toy.
I was lucky enough to throw really well
and on the first attempt, the toy went
right through the tunnel and Dexi went
after it. After that, he had a really good
time chasing his toy through the tunnel.
It's really important that Darcey enjoys her training. It's important for all
of them, but Shady would try for me
anyway, Darcey won't. She has not one
scrap of work ethic anywhere in her
dainty body. So I got some cheese out
which is her favorite, cut it into half inch
square pieces and crossed my fingers!
She loved it and happily chased food
in and out of the tunnel. She's small
enough that she doesn't have to be
careful so I simply lured her all the way.
With all three of them, the rest of the
month was spent simply building a de-

cent reward history with the tunnel. I
didn't add a cue. I didn't try distance
or angles or curves. I just rewarded all
three for going in and out of the tunnel. After the first session I didn't throw
food. I waited for them to venture in, ran
alongside them praising the two that
can hear, and rewarded at the end.
I aim for at least 100 rewards before we
do anything else. That base association
is really important, so please don't be
tempted to rush. If you build a really good
reward history for each obstacle, it's easy
to add cues and also to add distance. If
you rush you often run into problems later on and an unpleasant association with
an obstacle like a tunnel can be really
hard to move past. We moved onto placing the reward ahead of the tunnel and
sending them through the tunnel to it. Be
very careful here not to use a cue as you
may well associate it with behavior that
you don't want such as running round
the tunnel, or turning back inside it. I wait
until I'm sure they have the idea before I
make the association with a verbal cue.

If you look at the photos of Darcey doing the tunnel for food, she's ho-hum.
She lacks drive and is daintily picking
her way along. As that's never going
to be something I want her to do, so I
asked my daughter Kris to play some recall games with us. Kris stood one end of
the tunnel with a toy, I stood the other.
Darcey had great fun with this and very
quickly discovered that games were
only available when she actually went
through the tunnel. For toys, she is happy and drives through, but she isn't yet
interested in a dead toy. We repeated
this exercise with the other two dogs,
being careful not to overdo it with Shady
as crouching through a tunnel is hard
work. Dexi is a little more difficult-I'd
forgotten how much I rely on my voice
to encourage dogs-he started offering
all sorts of behaviors in the mouth of the
tunnel before he cottoned on.
Next month I'm planning to introduce
the seesaw and jumps if all goes to
plan! D

I started agility training and competition in the late 1980's, about the same time I started clicker training, and have also competed in working trials and obedience.
After all these years, I still think agility is the best of all dog sports for both dogs and handlers, and clicker training is the best way to teach it. I am a positive trainer
because reward builds behavior so much faster and better than any other method. If the solution to a problem is going to upset my dog, it clearly isn't the right solution.
I thoroughly enjoy training my dogs and teaching others. Over the years I've been privileged to teach all over the world, from Australia to Japan, and across North
America and Europe. I have worked with many talented handlers and thoroughly enjoyed every moment. Contact me via my website at www.kissagility.com or via my
Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KISSagility.
February 18 | Clean Run

23


http://www.kissagility.com https://www.facebook.com/KISSagility

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - February 2018

Contents
Clean Run - February 2018 - Cover1
Clean Run - February 2018 - Cover2
Clean Run - February 2018 - Contents
Clean Run - February 2018 - 4
Clean Run - February 2018 - 5
Clean Run - February 2018 - 6
Clean Run - February 2018 - 7
Clean Run - February 2018 - 8
Clean Run - February 2018 - 9
Clean Run - February 2018 - 10
Clean Run - February 2018 - 11
Clean Run - February 2018 - 12
Clean Run - February 2018 - 13
Clean Run - February 2018 - 14
Clean Run - February 2018 - 15
Clean Run - February 2018 - 16
Clean Run - February 2018 - 17
Clean Run - February 2018 - 18
Clean Run - February 2018 - 19
Clean Run - February 2018 - 20
Clean Run - February 2018 - 21
Clean Run - February 2018 - 22
Clean Run - February 2018 - 23
Clean Run - February 2018 - 24
Clean Run - February 2018 - 25
Clean Run - February 2018 - 26
Clean Run - February 2018 - 27
Clean Run - February 2018 - 28
Clean Run - February 2018 - 29
Clean Run - February 2018 - 30
Clean Run - February 2018 - 31
Clean Run - February 2018 - 32
Clean Run - February 2018 - 33
Clean Run - February 2018 - 34
Clean Run - February 2018 - 35
Clean Run - February 2018 - 36
Clean Run - February 2018 - 37
Clean Run - February 2018 - 38
Clean Run - February 2018 - 39
Clean Run - February 2018 - 40
Clean Run - February 2018 - 41
Clean Run - February 2018 - 42
Clean Run - February 2018 - 43
Clean Run - February 2018 - 44
Clean Run - February 2018 - 45
Clean Run - February 2018 - 46
Clean Run - February 2018 - 47
Clean Run - February 2018 - 48
Clean Run - February 2018 - 49
Clean Run - February 2018 - 50
Clean Run - February 2018 - 51
Clean Run - February 2018 - 52
Clean Run - February 2018 - 53
Clean Run - February 2018 - 54
Clean Run - February 2018 - 55
Clean Run - February 2018 - 56
Clean Run - February 2018 - 57
Clean Run - February 2018 - 58
Clean Run - February 2018 - 59
Clean Run - February 2018 - 60
Clean Run - February 2018 - 61
Clean Run - February 2018 - 62
Clean Run - February 2018 - 63
Clean Run - February 2018 - 64
Clean Run - February 2018 - 65
Clean Run - February 2018 - 66
Clean Run - February 2018 - Cover3
Clean Run - February 2018 - Cover4
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