Clean Run - November 2017 - 5

Understanding How Vision Problems
Affect Our Agility Dogs
By Nancy Gyes

Early Take Off (ETO): Dog lifting to jump from a point
that is too far from the obstacle.
There is nothing more devastating than to find out your agility
dog has a possible career-changing injury, illness, or physical
ailment. Although first and foremost we have dogs primarily as
treasured companions, we have embraced sharing the sport of
agility with them, and the time we spend training and competing together develops a really strong and special relationship.
While ETOs do not affect our life outside of agility, they can
change what we do with our dog in our sport. ETOs are a symptom of eye disease or vision malfunction, so by their nature they
are not a behavioral problem, but rather a physical problem.
Handlers whose dogs have ETOs can be just as affected or saddened by their dog's visual weakness as others might be by a
dog's injury or illness that precludes them from being able to
participate in agility together.
It is not the fault of the handler or the dog that ETOs occur.
No dog has ever been completely cured of ETOs. If ETOs were
caused by poor training then they would be curable with training and we would see many dogs get better-but we don't. If
ETOs were caused by discomfort or injury then when the dog
recovered from the physical problem, the ETOs would no longer happen-but that's not the case.
Sometimes dogs with ETOs will seem to jump better for a period
of time, depending on their level of confidence or possibly environmental factors which are affecting the dog. For example, a
dog that competes for months in an environment favorable to his
vision might display fewer ETOs. Or, a dog might jump most of a
course without noticeable ETOs and then, after knocking one bar,
revert to measuring the final jumps on that course.
ETOs are not caused by a lack of confidence, but certainly our
dogs' confidence can be greatly challenged if they are worried
about jumping. Crashing through too many jumps, hitting tables hard, or experiencing a slight injury from jumping poorly,
can make ETO symptoms worse. You may see these dogs refusing or running around certain jumps or obstacles or moving
around at the start line to get a different view of the first jump.
As confidence deteriorates, you may see their measuring tendency look more extreme.
I get very frustrated when a handler tells me that someone has
told them their dog with ETOs "just lacks confidence" and that
is why he jumps early or stutter steps. A lack of confidence is a
symptom of ETOs, not the cause.

There are not nearly enough handlers, or even agility instructors, who truly recognize ETOs or know how to counsel handlers who run dogs with ETOs. Hopefully after this issue of
Clean Run that will change and we can start building more support in the agility community for dogs that struggle with ETOs
and the handlers who run them. Over recent years, handlers
and instructors have become much more attuned to physical
problems that commonly occur in agility dogs, and it's time now
to increase awareness about ETOs.
I started researching vision problems in dogs before I recognized that my own dog, 8-year-old Border Collie Scoop, was
affected, so I have personally been affected by ETOs as well as
understanding them from a research and instructor's viewpoint.
Scoop takes off slightly early for jumps but does not have pronounced stutter stepping. I have been immediately brought to
tears or felt like I was gut punched after watching my dog crash
a jump or table. Luckily for my dog those crashes have been few
and far between so far.
Handlers runnings dogs with ETOs have to continually evaluate if our dogs are handling the challenges of agility safely and
well, and if ETOs are interfering with our dogs' or our happiness
while participating in this sport. We have to be ready to make
important decisions for our dogs at different points in their career. We may need to change the dog's jump height, competition environments, or organizations and classes in which we
compete. Because each dog with ETOs is different, you must
experiment to see what improves your dog's performance and
maintains his confidence. Some dogs with ETOs can stay at
Championship height and have fun and compete safely while
other dogs are better moving to the lower jump heights in Performance or Preferred. And still other dogs crash just as many
jumps at lower heights as at Championship heights. So we need
to decide what's right for our particular dog at any point in time.
Normally these decisions are easy to make. If we see our dogs
losing confidence or being at risk of injury because of jumping
challenges then it is time to re-evaluate what we do with them in
our sport. No handler should ever be questioned about moving
to a lower jump height or be made to feel guilty because they
choose Performance or Preferred classes over Championship.
With some dogs, their ETO symptoms can remain stable for
many years of competition rather than progressing. I believe
that my dog Scoop, who has slightly crossed eyes (strabismus or
misalignment of the eyes), has not changed his jumping style for
years. I think this is because his eye alignment has not changed
and he has adapted to it. He jumps early but is still quite comcontinued on next page

November 17 | Clean Run

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - November 2017