Alphabet Drills A DI OS! By Nancy Gyes Goodbye to the 26 letters of the alphabet! This series of articles has been challenging to pull together, but from the standpoint of writer’s reinforcement, it has been the most successful of my efforts to date. I have been writing for Clean Run for many years and have never received more letters with comments and thank-yous than I have while presenting these last two years of exercises. The drills took on an aspect that I could not predict. I found myself referring back to specific letters during seminars and classes as homework exercises for skills handlers needed to perfect. Problems getting your dog in the correct entrance of the tunnel? Do the R drills for a week. Wide front crosses or problems with lead-out pivots? T is your drill. For dogs that cannot tolerate rear crosses without spinning the incorrect direction, I always refer to J drills before the handler tries to solve the problem with handling Gimme an exercises. Need to practice a bit of everything when you are just getting started with your young dog? Put up a double box for a month, then move on to the letters E and M. To wrap up the drills I have created a review of each letter and an index so that you can quickly locate ideas for working on specific handling drills. The index gives priority in the first few listings to the drills I most often recommend for working a specific skill. The “Alphabet Drills” will soon be in book format to make using them easier for both you and your students. I hope they have proven a good resource for you and have also piqued your interest in teaching your the dog basic patterns in our sport. What’s next on the scene? More of my favorite jump drills of course. Join me next month when I will start a new series on focused agility handling drills. D aB 3 2 6 4 7 3 5 4 2 1 5 6 1 5 4 4 5 3 6 3 2 2 7 1 1 5 2 1 4 3 6 46 e d 1 2 8 3 7 6 4 5 Clean Run | May 07