Clean Run - June 2018 - 41

ing to look ahead when I've indicated an
obstacle and is gaining some lateral distance from me, as long as he can keep me
in his peripheral vision.

offset Jumps
The aim of the setup shown in Figures 1
and 2 is to teach Shady to look for a line
through offset jumps and to ignore my
movement while he does so. If you are
thinking about trying this exercise, first
think about how it fits into your handling
system. Lots of the handling systems rely
on movement as a cue, and this would be
teaching your dog something that many
of those systems prohibit. My point of
view is that if I've told my dog to "go" then
I I have cued a sendaway and I expect him
to drive that sendaway-no matter what
I'm doing or where I'm going.
I use my sendaway to enable me to get into
position somewhere else on the course,
and they wouldn't be a lot of use to me if
my dog automatically followed my line.
With this setup, I initially trained it as a
sendaway and then introduced my movement when there was a good success level.

Speed Circle with Dogwalk

Shady is fine when my line of motion is straight as in A. If I veer even slightly
around a jump, however, he will follow me as shown in B. The aim is for him to be
able to drive a line through offset jumps when cued to do so even if I get stuck
behind a jump. I should be able to run any of the handling paths in C and have
Shady go straight to the target.

The speed circle with the dogwalk included, shown in Figure 3, was fun for both
Dexi and Shady. It made the dogwalk part
of a sequence and started both dogs looking for the next obstacle rather than looking for or expecting a reward at the end
of the walk.
Since both of them are running through
the dogwalk, with no criterion other than
"go under the hoop," introducing other
obstacles helps with their forward focus.
The speed circle in Figure 4 has been
changed so that the tunnel exit is offset
from the next obstacle. This is something
that Shady finds very hard. He tends to
watch me closely as he comes out of a
tunnel and often by the time he's registered that I'm asking him to turn away
and look for a jump, he's gone past the
jump. After a few sessions with a toy out
as shown, he started to get the idea. I don't
want Shady to stop looking for me or to
ignore me, but in this situation where
there is no other equipment out, I want
him to use that independent brain of his
and actively look for the next obstacle.
June 18 | Clean Run

A: After training this setup as a sendaway, I add handler motion. I drive a straight
line while maintaining some lateral distance. B: With success I start to slightly
deviate from a straight handling path. C: This is my eventual aim. I will also work
on increasing the offset of the jumps.

Since Dexi is merely following me, he has
no problems with this setup, but I quite
often set up a random sendaway for him.

I place his food pod carefully, letting him
know where it is, and then I take him several
obstacles back and let him drive forward.
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