Clean Run Magazine - October 2008 - 56

A Penny Saved: Training Economies As I cheerfully inform hopeful Bull Terrier owners who want to take a stab at agility, “It takes 15 minutes to teach the dogs the equipment and two years to get their attention. The first nine years are the hardest.” These statements could easily describe the fundamental challenges facing most Pigs Fly agility dog owners. It is not that your dog is less intelligent or learns less quickly than other breeds, it’s that you have a lot more to teach him. After six months, other teams may have perfected all their flatwork skills and moved on to teaching verbal directional cues and distance skills. After six months you might not have even started teaching those things because you are still shaping your dog to run, pay attention to you, and stay in the ring during small sequences instead of bounding off to cavort with the interesting dogs on the sidelines. Given infinite time, you could teach your dog anything. The reality is, however, that your dog only has a certain amount of agility years in him, and I hope you have one or two other commitments in life besides training one dog full time. You have to prioritize your training hours and first teach only what is absolutely necessary. Another important fact to consider when choosing a handling system for your dog is that all dogs, not just Pigs Fly dogs, will naturally take a body cue over a verbal cue. Every handler has to train her dog to overcome this natural bias, but some breeds or types of dogs will be more receptive to this idea than others. Herding dogs, for instance, have been bred to be more easily trained to accept a verbal cue that overrides a physical cue, or a physical cue that is counterintuitive to the handler’s body position or motion, because, among other things, that is the way a shepherd controls the dogs over great distances. What this all means is that it will take you a lot longer to teach your dog some of the awe-inspiring verbal and body cues that the top competitors and trainers use. Furthermore, you will have less time to train those cues because you will be busy working on more core concepts, such as your dog actually staying in the ring to complete the course. If you have a Pigs Fly dog, my suggestion is to design your handling system so you can use mostly intuitive body and motion cues that your dog will naturally understand with the least amount of training, along with a few select verbal cues. If you can handle a sequence using a skill or cue that you both already know, don’t use a handling move that would require you to teach something new. Because your dog probably is not running that fast or you are probably not looking to win the class, you really don’t need a lot of cues and behaviors. Why do you need to teach a verbal directional cue when your dog will never be more than a few feet away from you? (I mean, unless he is running away from you, in which case your directional cues will not be particularly helpful.) Why do you need a massive lateral lead-out when you can easily outrun your dog to a front cross or just do a rear cross instead? Behaviors such as these, which take a significant amount of time and effort to train and yield marginal benefits, are what I call “poor training economies.” Over the next few articles, we will discuss some key elements of a Piggy handling system and how to execute them. This month we will begin with the most basic concept: working space. Piggy Pointer: What is a poor training economy for one team may be an excellent value for another. Handlers have to take into account their individual dog’s characteristics and learning ability, together with the team’s physical and mental skills, and then make decisions about what to train based on those factors. Missing a Clean Run can be painful. Make sure it doesn’t happen to you–check your mailing label. Months Left the number of issues, including Bonus Months, remaining in your subscription AUTO**3-DIGIT 802 BONUSMTHS 3 MTHSLEFT 8 P 245 CECILIA SNAPDRAGON S 99 17 INDUSTRIAL DRIVE SOUTH HADLEY MA 01075 PHOTO BY DOUG DUKANE/SPOT SHOTS |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||| || Bonus Months issues we’ve added to your subscription because you referred a new subscriber ® Renew online at www.cleanrun.com Or call 800.311.6503, Outside the US 413.532.1590 Clean Run | October 08 56
http://www.cleanrun.com
Clean Run Magazine - October 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - October 2008
