Clean Run Magazine - December 2007 - 17

SNAPSHOT Handlers: Webb and Leslie Anderson Home: Birmingham, Alabama Training Facility or Agility Club: Performance Plus K9s Dogs: MACH6 Gala First Class Event, P3, a.k.a. Nigel, 9-year-old Miniature Schnauzer Bravo’s All System’s Go, AX, MXJ, a.k.a. Zoom, 4-year-old Miniature Schnauzer Ch. Gala High Calibre Event AX, AXJ, a.k.a. Calibre, 6-year-old Miniature Schnauzer Ivybrook’s Rising Starr, OA, OAJ, a.k.a. Shine, 4-year-old Shetland Sheepdog Cloverrun Kickit In Gear, NAP, NJP, a.k.a. Kickit, 7-year-old Miniature Schnauzer, retired Gala Tribute, a.k.a. Phineas, 10-month-old Miniature Schnauzer Puppy Monster At the Rainbow Bridge: Mr. Beau Jangles, MX, MXJ, AAD, a.k.a. Beau, Miniature Schnauzer Longleaf Summer Wind, MX, MXJ, AD, a.k.a. Elvis, Flat Coated Retriever Hunt’s Delta Katy, MX, MXJ, AAD, a.k.a. Katy, Miniature Schnauzer How long have you been competing: Since 1994 First Agility Show: DAWG USDAA in Dallas, Texas Favorite Agility Event or Venue: AKC World Team Tryouts © IN MOTION PHOTOS - GARY DEPP © MOMENTS + MOVEMENTS Current Agility Vehicle: Monaco LaPalma Motorhome Most Memorable Agility Moment: For both of us, that would have to be competing in the European Open in Italy in July 2007. It was an amazing experience. Most Forgettable Agility Moment: Webb getting lost on course when running our ﬁrst Schnauzer, Beau, at Astrohall in 1998 as the ESPN cameras were rolling to capture the whole thing! Describe Your Attitude: Dogs differ dramatically not only between breeds but also within breeds. There is no “one size ﬁts all” approach that can be successful in agility. Favorite Rituals to Calm Nerves: Webb: Focusing on the ﬁrst ﬁve obstacles and tuning out all the “noise.” Leslie: Tugging with my dog right before we enter the ring. Best Agility Advice: Our good friend Carol Burt gave us a great piece of advice when Webb started running our young Sheltie, Shine. She said, “Handle your dog the way he wants to be handled.”What that means to me is that you can’t force a handling style that may work for your other dogs or other people’s dogs. Learn to be ﬂexible and handle each dog the way that works for him. Worst Agility Advice: Someone once told us to put squirt cheese on the end of the teeter board to speed up Nigel’s teeter performance. The result was Nigel’s slowing down even more because he got smacked in the nose by the board when it hit the ground! © TIEN TRAN PHOTOGRAPHY Shine Zoom Nigel RW: That advice could likely apply to any of the more headstrong breeds. What other advice do you have for handlers with willful or challenging breeds? Andersons: It’s important to remember that you can’t force a willful breed to be fast and focused in agility. In fact, you will get the opposite result if you try to force the issue. The most important thing you can do is focus on the relationship. Separate your dog from other dogs and make sure that all good things in his life (food, fun, play, and so on) come directly from you. Find out what he is crazy about—it may be a certain treat or toy. Then use that one thing to help build your dog’s focus on you. That motivator can be translated to the agility ring once you’ve used it to bring your dog’s attention back to you. RW: Shelties and Schnauzers have very different attitudes. How do you maintain drive and motivation with such different dogs? particular toy. He is totally and completely obsessed with the toy. He lives and dies by the toy. We don’t allow him to have that certain toy for any other reason than when he is training or showing, so the intensity over the toy has translated to agility. Calibre is not so much toy motivated as he is food motivated, so we use food to get him excited. For Shine, it’s the sheer joy of working. He loves to run fast and that is his reward. Each of our dogs is so different in that regard. But, learning what makes them nuts and then using that to build the relationship with the dogs is the key. RW: You focus on intuitive training. What is the one thing handlers can do that will make their handling more intuitive? Andersons: You have to ﬁnd the one thing that drives your dog nuts. For Nigel, it is chasing me. We played lots of running games when he was a puppy, so he loves nothing more than to run with me around the ring. This means I have to run very fast and try to be ahead of him whenever possible. For Zoom, the motivator is a December 07 | Clean Run Andersons: Learn how to read your dog. Just because a handling or training technique works well for your other dogs or for other people, that doesn’t mean it’s right for your dog. Learn to read what he is telling you with his body language. Is he breaking or shortening his stride? Does he turn more tightly in one direction than the other? Is he becoming less willing to offer behaviors without being asked? Is there a change in his yards per second average or do you see an increased trend in your dog’s making a speciﬁc error on course? All these things should be early warning signals to tell you that something 17

Clean Run Magazine - December 2007

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