Clean Run - January 2015 - 15

Agility of Yore
Janet Gauntt posted this 1989 video of her first-ever agility trial. "This is a NCDA (National Committee for Dog Agility) style agility
class that was offered as a 'Non-Regular Obedience' class at the Danville Kennel Club breed and obedience trial on Sept 23, 1989,"
she wrote. "The Committee's goal...was to get the American Kennel Club to offer an agility class within the umbrella of AKC's
Obedience program." AKC experimented with this class a few times before deciding to halt it while they explored developing a
titling program instead. (AKC agility came into being about five years later). Some of the odd obstacles-the sway bridge, hoop
tunnel, and a tunnel made of sheets over boxes-were later incorporated into UKC Agility, which never caught on in the East. Note
the "obedience-style" judge-with-clipboard following the competitor around a paved parking lot, no handling, luring through onside weaves. Since dogs were held more or less in heel position between obstacles, the "course" consisted of large clockwise loops.
Dogs had 90 seconds to complete the course, and there apparently was a familiarization period with several dog-handler teams on
course at once, practicing. Watch the "good" run that starts at 28:25 and an iffy run-did she get a do-over?-with a Dobe at 42:00.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Yuq-F9fw4
the dog sees. We learned to look for the intersections of arcs on a course (indicating
where you'd likely have to cross) and how to pick out the "handling points." Stuart
listed cross options (the blind was largely taboo at the time in America except while
the dog was in the tunnel because you were never to turn your back on the dog).
He described specific ways of using body language to push the dog out or bring him
in and was particularly interested in distance work and strategies for gamblers.
Already the front cross was spawning new maneuvers: The reverse flow pivot (RFP
or false turn) involved turning toward the dog as if executing a front cross but then
turning back in your original direction-to tighten a dog's path, for instance, over the
middle jump of a serpentine. The lead-out pivot was essentially a stationary front cross
executed at the start of a course. Handlers learned not only when and how to perform
front crosses but specifically where to place them-it was like a physics lesson.
Dave Hanson's Masters Standard course at the 1996 Boston Cluster trial presented
a dogwalk-tunnel discrimination twice, a depressed entry to the teeter, and a couple
of crossing opportunities. Typically, a single copy of the course, just like this one,
was posted for competitors to copy down themselves.

Many more handling moves followed,
in part due to reportage on agility
blogs and venue websites. It also
helped that we had reached some
critical mass of upper-level competitors keenly interested in shaving
seconds off their runs (the first ADCH
and NATCH titles were awarded in
1995). More recently, the ready availability of YouTube and Twitter and the
livestreaming of national and international trials have made the spread of
handling innovations even quicker.
Introduction of standardized course
design software-Clean Run Course
Designer appeared in 2004-made it
feasible to copy courses for competitors. No more huddling around a single
posted course in the rain trying to draw
it more or less accurately or slamming
your piece of tracing paper on it before
someone else beat you to it. Now you
could pick up the day's courses in the
morning and have all day in your EZ-Up
to strategize, moan, and worry, and,
after you ran, you had a record so you
could better analyze what went wrong.
In the end, we have redefined the handler's and the dog's roles. No longer are
we chasing after our canine partners
praying they will get those contacts and
get that weave entry. Now our goals
are to train independent performance,
working at a distance, and handling
cues, and we give our dogs the responsibility of reading our cues and doing
the obstacles. The babysitting days are
over, and we have all grown up. D

Nini Bloch became addicted to agility after a weekend workshop with Jean MacKenzie in 1992 and, in 1993, she became a founding member of the ARFF agility club in
MetroWest Boston. She supports her agility habit by writing and editing with a focus on dog training and behavior (www.blochletters.com), offers dog training classes
at the MSPCA and private coaching (www.themindfulcanine.com), and lives with an Aussie.
January 15 | Clean Run

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http://www.blochletters.com http://www.themindfulcanine.com
Clean Run - January 2015

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