Clean Run - January 2014 - 37

had a clue where to go after the obstacle she was performing, so she couldn't
concentrate on jumping. My main goal
for the last 10 years has been to teach
handlers to understand agility from
the dog's point of view. I don't want any
dog to suffer from illogical handling
like Visse did.
Beginning of a New Era in Finland
My first radical turning point in agility
was in 2003, when my second Border
Collie Tekla became deaf at six years
old. My "ensure single obstacle and
save the situation" reactive handling
didn't work anymore. She performed
all the obstacles that she could see in
front of her, but obviously I couldn't
handle her with voice commands any
more to approach obstacles that were
out of her sight. I had two choices: to either stop doing agility with her or try to
figure out a new way to communicate.
The period of trial and error started. I
have always believed that everything
happens in life for a reason. I can't even
imagine the state agility would be in Finland right now, without Tekla's deafness.
It launched major changes in agility
handling and training, which over the
years has proven to have a huge impact
on Finnish agility. I'm grateful that I had
the privilege to own a dog like Tekla.

Tekla, the instigator of a new agility era in Finland.

Natural Techniques for Dogs
It took years for me to deeply understand the dog's perspective in agility. The OMD methodology has more
than 30 different handling techniques
and the first 20 are purely natural reactions by the dog to the handler's
cues. The best demonstration of dogs'
natural ability to read the handler's
correctly-used body language is when
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OMD trainers randomly select students'
dogs and demonstrate the techniques
with little or no training. The common
response of students is, "How on earth
can my dog do that?"
My deaf dog taught me to understand
and to apply these natural techniques
to agility. Our determination and love
for each other stopped us from giving up-and our efforts evolved into
the OMD methodology. We actually
achieved better results in competitions
after Tekla became deaf. She won several agility triumphs and had a higher
percentage of clear rounds than when
she could hear! Amongst her greatest
achievements was a silver medal in
the Finnish Championships and a gold
medal in an agility competition against
70 other dogs when she was a 10-yearold deaf grandmother. I started to use
that new knowledge and proactive
handling with my other Border Collie,
Cosmo, who didn't have any hearing
problems. It helped us to shave up to 3
seconds off our course times.
New Beginning for Basic Training
The second epiphany in my agility
career was during a visit to Scotland
in 2004. During my trip I noticed that
large dogs were jumping 29.5" jumps
and hardly any were dropping bars.
When observing their training, I noticed that if the dog couldn't perform
a sequence, the handler took the bars
down. First they concentrated only
on training the actual handling technique with the dog, without jumping. Once the dog understood the
handling, they put the bar back up
again and repeated the sequence. In
Scotland, I got the idea to start agility
training for puppies and beginners
with the help of this method. At that
time the age limit for agility lessons
in Finland was 10 months, but nowadays through this new safe method
it's popular to teach even younger
puppies in agility classes.
Fast and Easy Way to Success
Four months after my visit to Scotland,
I bred a litter from my Border Collie and
asked two of the puppy buyers to be
my "guinea pigs" for an experiment in
a totally new way of teaching agility to
dogs. Both agreed, and two years later

they both were on the Finnish FCI agility team. I was the third team member
of the team and our team won the Team
Jumping course at the FCI Agility World
Championships by over 4 seconds! The
roots of OMD had been created.
Two years later I decided to repeat
the experiment with my dog Hitti and
one of my students Elina Jänesniemi
and her dog Omie. Incredibly enough,
both of these Border Collies were also
on the Finnish agility team at just two
years of age. The results spoke for
themselves as Omie was placed 4th in
the FCI Agility World Championships
and Hitti won the Nordic Championships! I had found a way not only to
create successful handlers, but also
champion level dogs with a minimum
amount of training.
Ingenuity and Imagination
The methodology is under constant
development and over the years all the
ideas have been refined. One important person who has given great input
into developing the methodology further is OMD coach Jaakko Suoknuuti.
He has been instrumental in innovating
several techniques, and he was another
one of my guinea pigs, with his Border
Collie Zen.

Jaakko Suoknuuti and Zen: "Guinea pigs" and starters
for agility puppy training in Finland.

From the beginning, Jaakko understood the concepts and has been keen
on improving and developing them
further. He is one of the leading OMD
coaches and is known for his wild imagination in course design and creating
challenges for handlers and dogs.
Jaakko is talented at interpreting dogs
and noticing even small details in their
behavior, which we can use to enhance
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Clean Run - January 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - January 2014