Clean Run Magazine - February 2008 - 32

ng Ki he rse T cou ffO C A S E S T U DY: the of CC PDT, ski, C v odle ele G Mich By © KAREN & IAN STEWART I had already trained three agility dogs before I got my first really fast dog.The initial dogs were very kind and forgiving teachers. Despite the fact that I played collegiate sports, my first fast dog soon left me in the dust. While he always had a good time running a course, his early scribe sheets looked like alphabet soup. Just recently, we finished our MACH and ADCH on back-to-back weekends, which caused me to reflect on our long journey from being the “King of the Off-course” to a dual agility champion. Impulse Control A confessed seminar junkie, I began by gathering advice from the agility experts who ran at the top levels. One of the most important concepts I learned was “impulse control. I knew that if I wanted to succeed ” with this dog in agility, I would need to work hard on teaching control behaviors like start-line stays and solid contacts—things most highdrive, fast dogs don’t consider a priority. So, I integrated control behaviors into our play routine. I made sure that every time I got out the tennis ball or the tug toy or the Frisbee, each toss or tug was preceded by a fulfilled request for a sit, down, spin, or longdistance stay. A “start-line rule of 65%” became a mantra for me. That is, 65% of the time, when you put your dog in a stay before an obstacle, you should reward the dog for the sit—by going back and rewarding with food while the dog is still in position or by throwing a toy back behind the dog. Most fast dogs very quickly find the agility obstacles so reinforcing that they break the sit-stay, take the jump, and therefore reward themselves for doing so. The goal is to make that sit-stay position as rewarding as possible. 32 Whoa, Horsie Most turbocharged dogs love to run at full stride and mine was no exception. The difficulty lies in teaching these dogs to put on the brakes and collect themselves. In the early days, I remember how many times I would call my dog to turn and he would blow by me with a big grin on his face. I took some time off from trialing to work fundamental collection skills, jumping chutes, and box drills. After a while doing evenly spaced jumps, I distorted those geometric boxes, expanding some distances and compressing others within the same course as seen in Figure 1. I also set up “accordion sequences” in training exercises. That is, the spacing between all obstacles (not just jumps and tunnels) purposefully varies from very tight to very open and back to tight again. In addition, I set up irregularly spaced Jumpers with Weaves style courses and Touch & Go style courses for proofing. 4 © DOUG DUKANE/SPOT SHOTS 11 5 12 3 10 1 14 2 13 9 6 8 1 Work on expanding distances between some obstacles and compressing others within the same course. 7 Clean Run | February 08

Clean Run Magazine - February 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - February 2008