Clean Run - December 2017 - 12

Stuff

You Missed in
Foundation Class
By Sarah Stremming

gility foundation training has
undergone multiple stages of
evolution. First, classes were
focused entirely on equipment execution: getting the dogs up and over the
equipment was all we knew to teach.
Later, some handling foundation was
added. Later still, body awareness and
play skills started to be involved. The
best foundation classes today probably involve all of these things to some
extent; and the quality varies as it does
with all things. The next wave of foundation evolution includes less obvious,
less visible skills. We are finding out
how many unseen skills are needed for
success, and it's time they are at the
top of the curriculum.
Waiting
If we train our dogs in a thirty-minute
private lesson or an hour-long class,
there will be a large chunk of that time
spent not training. What happens with

dogs during this inevitable downtime
matters, and actually has a long-term
effect on the downtime dogs must
cope with at trials. Waiting is a concept
that human beings learn through
trial and error as we mature into our
society. Dogs have no such concept in
their world and we would do well to
introduce them to this concept before
they require it. Teaching our dogs,
through systematic positive reinforcement, that they need to "stand by" (on
a mat, in a crate, or being held by the
collar) in between reps or turns could
easily be incorporated into early foundation groups. This is not only something that will help our dogs to cope
with class and seminar environments,
it is crucial to their comfort while waiting their turn ringside at trials.
Competitors should note that allowing a dog to bark himself out in a
crate, using aversive tools to suppress
arousal during downtime, or "forcing" a dog to wait in any other sense
is not an acceptable substitute for an
actual education in waiting. Instructors should take time away from more
sexy skills to talk about inspiring calm
standby behaviors. A dog that is sure
the action will start up soon enough,
and that he is only required to hang

out in the meantime, is one that is able
to remain calm ringside and during
classes. Instructors should emphasize
that reinforcement rates need to be
kept high enough to prevent errors
during this work.
Sample Lesson: Class is organized into
stations; three are active skills and
three are "standby" stations. A timer is
set to go off every two minutes while
instructors rotate between stations.
Students on standby are instructed to
feed their dogs on a raised dog beds;
their goal is to keep their dog from
hopping off or fidgeting by giving a
continuous stream of cookies. In following weeks the stream of cookies
will be less and less until the standby
dogs are content to wait their turns.
Transitions
Similar to the downtime our dogs
must deal with in our sport, we have
gaps in our training where handlers
have a tendency to disconnect from
their dogs. Time between repetitions,
between resets, between waiting and
working, and between sequences are
often filled with a dog that for just a
moment has no idea what is happening or what is next. In this space we
often see behaviors we deem probClean Run | December 17

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