Clean Run Magazine - September 2008 - 26

Trainer’s Forum By Brenna Fender I’ve been doing agility for a few years with my German Shepherd, but I recently got a Yorkie pup. Do you have any advice for training a mini dog? Should I be doing things differently from what I did for my big dog? For example, I have noticed that a lot of mini dogs have trouble tipping the teeter. Are there different teeter training techniques for little dogs? © www.mattallisonphotography.com Webb Anderson Webb is an AKC agility judge and currently competes with Nigel, an AKC top-ranked Miniature Schnauzer. Webb is a full-time agility trainer and coach. For seminars or lessons, contact him through his website at www.performanceplusk9s.com. Congratulations on your new pup. This topic has become such a popular area of agility, I have devoted an entire seminar to analyzing and working on the differences our heightchallenged dog team members have from their taller canine counterparts. As you begin training your small dog, pay special at tention to training foundation skills. Solid foundation skills are essential for a successful performance regardless of size, shape, or personality. You will need to pay special attention to training some of the obstacles for your mini dog. In AKC agility, competition height for the A-frame is the same for all dogs. Your Yorkie will need more momentum to ascend the A-frame than your German Shepherd does (think about climbing Mount Everest versus a hill). Developing drive as a young pup will pay huge dividends when it comes to training the chute. To a mini dog, the chute looks like an endless sea of fabric with no way out. Simplify the training by shortening the chute in the beginning. Teach your pup to drive through the chute by offering huge rewards for negotiating his way out. Although the tire looks simple enough to us, try getting down on your dog’s level and take a look at it. To a mini dog, there are four possible places that he might be asked to jump through. Be careful to teach him to focus on the tire and not the spaces around or under the tire. You specifically mentioned teeter training. Obviously, small-breed dogs have to travel farther up the teeter board before it will tip. Some large dogs can tip the teeter as they pass the fulcrum. But for diminutive dogs, the teeter may not move until the dog is at the end of the board. By teaching your Yorkie to move quickly to the end and control the fall of the board by shifting his weight to lower his center of gravity, you can create a fast, worry-free teeter performance. Handling a mini dog is much different than handling a larger dog. Small dogs tend to have shorter strides but a higher turnover rate (number of strides) than a large dog. That means you have more opportunities to affect the mini dog’s path. This can be incredibly helpful on tight technical courses and an area of concern on courses with lots of long straight lines and open crossing patterns. I could go on for days about the differences in handling and training the height-challenged dog. But the important thing for you to know is that you will be most successful if you train and handle your Yorkie the way he needs to be trained and handled… which is not necessarily the way you train and handle your Shepherd. Talk to people who successfully handle small dogs, especially those who have also run large breeds. Seek out instruction that will take those differences into account. Little dogs can be so much fun to run. Enjoy your new little superstar! exciting performance criteria. Many dogs under 10 pounds have the perfect stride to reliably run a dogwalk and most can execute a running A-frame with remarkable ease and consistency. Additionally, smaller dogs need less space to turn. So, teach handling skills (like threadles and serpentines) tight to the upright to produce performances that are unbelievably efficient. Regarding the teeter, your observations are spot on! The teeter is arguably the most difficult obstacle to teach a small dog. Exceptionally driven minis frequently find the long descent an unnecessary impediment to fun. Often it is more reinforcing to launch off the teeter halfway down than to wait Clean Run | September 08 Kimberly Sisak My best advice is to train your Yorkie with the same enthusiasm, vigor, and expectation you have with a larger dog. In my opinion, one of the biggest traps people succumb to with small dogs is the temptation to coddle and cheerlead them relentlessly. If you treat your dog as dainty and diminutive, his performance will be just that. Most small dogs have big attitudes, so use that to your advantage to build drive 26 Kimberly is a World Agility Champion, eight-time National Agility Champion, and three-time U.S. World Team member (AKC/FCI and USDAA/IFCS) with her Papillons, Phoebe and Devo. Kimberly teaches agility seminars, private lessons, and offers on-line training programs and performance analysis. Contact her at maddashagility@juno.com. and motivation. Encourage your small dog to play tug and race to a toy. Do not allow him to become singularly food motivated, dictate the rules of the game, or morph into temperamental couch candy. Otherwise, it will be more dif ficult to develop an acceptable work ethic and successful partnership in the ring. Also, take advantage of your small dog’s shorter stride length to explore new and

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Clean Run Magazine - September 2008

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