This month's exercises focus on tunnel training. The tunnel is one of the first obstacles we train and our dogs all love it. Perhaps we sometimes take it for granted that our dogs will always find the entry of the tunnel independently and that they can enter it from any angle. This past week at a USDAA trial, judge Pat Corl presented us with the sequence shown in Figure 1. Many of the handlers that went past jump #15 to signal the entry of the tunnel, as shown in Figure 1, caused their dogs to go off course to the table or to knock a bar at jump #17 because they got stuck behind the A-frame and lost sight of their dogs. At the least, dogs that were handled this way took a wide turn to the tunnel entry because the handler couldn't get into position soon enough to signal the turn. The handlers that stayed on the takeoff side of jump #15, as shown in Figure 2, could recall the dog through the tunnel and either do a front or blind cross at the exit. These handlers had a very tight and efficient turn to jump #17. I have seen this handler advantage many times on course with both the chute and the open tunnel. This month we will work on some exercises that you can do in a small area to ensure your dog really knows his tunnel entrances. 1 2 13 13 T T 14 14 17 17 15 15 16 16 18 18 | 36 Clean Run December 06