Clean Run - April 2018 - 7

Training Freedom:

HERE I go agaIn!
By Jo Sermon, photos courtesy of author

This month we went away on holiday
for a week to celebrate my birthday. My
daughter booked us a cottage by the
sea in North Norfolk, where we spent a
week relaxing with all the dogs. A good
friend joined us with her two dogs, just
to add to the fun! There were seven
dogs, one toddler, and three adults. We
had a wonderful week and the dogs did
no training at all. They ran and played
on the beach, chased in and out of the
waves, and in general relaxed. Shady
saw the sea for the first time and loved
it. He had waves crashing over his head
as he tried to retrieve some sea weed
that was floating, but he discovered that
drinking sea water isn't a good idea.
We didn't walk very far each day as my
granddaughter doesn't walk quickly and
also wanted to explore the beach, but
it didn't matter as the dogs just played
around us. We were out and about for a
good couple of hours each day, and the
rest of the time we spent sitting around
enjoying relaxing and chatting, with
the dogs curled up around us, sleeping peacefully. This is my ideal holiday. I
think it is so important for handlers and
dogs to have a break. It refreshes both
sides of the training partnership. It stops
people from judging their dogs on their
results (or lack of) and instead reminds
people why they have dogs. We sat in
front of a fire in the evenings.
April 18 | Clean Run

Shady is 16 months old this month. At
this age his contemporaries are getting
ready to compete, whereas Shady is
only just starting to learn equipment. In
the UK at the moment there is much talk
about jump height and its long-term
effects on dogs. It is my opinion, early
training of puppies on agility equipment is far more dangerous than the
jump heights. Growing bones, tendons,
and ligaments should not be subject to
the stresses of a sport designed to test
the agility of an adult dog. I'm in no rush
and I want the associations that I draw
with agility equipment to be kept crystal
clear. Agility is fun, fun, fun! Shady is now
physically able to thoroughly enjoy the
training, and he has the requisite skills
and physical ability, so I can now focus
on making agility enjoyable for him.

Handlers and dogs alike need
a break where they spend time
together doing something other
than agility.

Tidying Up My Training
On my return home, I videotaped a couple of training sessions and reviewed
them. I was somewhat horrified to realize that Shady was grabbing toys out of
my hand, not letting go when asked to
do so-in general, our training was extremely sloppy! I know why-I wanted
more drive from Shady and was probably subconsciously accepting approximations of behavior because I was
running scared of putting him off toys.
That's obviously nonsense so we set
about tidying up.
First on the list is let go of the toy when
I say so, without me having to take hold
of your collar. To work on this, I shut everyone away and offered Shady a toy
with my usual cue of "Get it." I then vigorously played with him. As I said "Thank
you," which is my let go cue, I stopped
playing and relaxed my hold on the toy.
The instant Shady's mouth relaxed on
the toy, I cued "Get it" again. Note, he
didn't actually remove his mouth from
the toy at this stage, he just relaxed his
hold. We repeated this sequence about
20 times in that first session and he was
soon letting go entirely.
We progressed to me tapping his face
with the toy, and waggling it under his
chin, and then cueing "Get it." I repeated
that session several more times indoors
7

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