Clean Run Magazine - February 2008 - 33

© DIANELEWISPHOTOGRAPHY.COM Distance is Not a Dirty Word Inspired by watching J.C. and Hazel Thompson compete years ago, I also began to do distance training with my fast dog. I remember receiving some less-thanpositive feedback about using distance and layering at a seminar one time. I might have received that criticism because I don’t have any physical limitations that prevent my running with my dog; using distance must have made me appear lazy. I do believe that most agility handlers would agree it makes sense to let the creature with four legs do most of the running. Also, it’s a well-accepted fact that many working breeds have a natural instinct to work at a distance. Philosophically speaking, if you spend your dog’s training life fighting natural instincts, you will always be battling the dog. As with many other hard-wired behaviors, it is better to channel the instinctive behaviors and strive to have them under stimulus control. The important thing to realize is that working at a distance for many dogs is, in itself, self-reinforcing. This simply means that working close by needs to have a higher reinforcement rate and needs to be worked more frequently. My dog and I embraced distance, and put it to work for us as a team. “nip that behavior in the bud” and stop it before it becomes an obsession. This advice struck me as contrary to the ideas from behavior learning theory. Instead, I used an obsessive behavior—chasing a laser light—as a reward for doing contacts. What I discovered was the added benefit of what I call “adrenaline training. That is, ” once my dog loved the laser light so much that he bounced with glee at the sight of it, I could now induce an adrenaline rush, much like the adrenaline rush of a trial. This is a very important concept in training a high-drive dog for agility: can your dog think while his pupils are fully dilated? If you can get reliable contacts in the presence of a reward that gets your dog frenzied, you should have control in the presence of a crowd of people and the rush of your own adrenaline. Be Picky About Your Dog’s Path Another concept I hold dear is the idea of “thirds of the jump bar. If you control ” which third of the jump bar your dog crosses over, you have a better chance of controlling what happens next. When I first walk any agility course, I walk the dog’s natural path, noting the scenery. The complexity of course design never ceases to amaze me—off-course possibilities are usually plentiful! On the next pass, I walk the path I want my dog to take. When you do this, you will see the opportunities for creating a better line to the correct obstacle. In other words, do you want your dog on the left third, the middle, or the right third of the jump bar? Most fast dogs—even very large dogs—can take a jump in thirds. Only on the third walk-through of a course do I walk my path to decide where I need to put my crosses to get those specific paths. Figure 2 shows a front-cross figure eight and how to put your dog on the end third of the bar. Figure 3 shows a rear-cross figure eight so that you can set up your COURTESY GREG GODLEVSKI rear crosses to achieve the same effect. 2 Breakdown of front-cross figure-eight exercise Make sure that you keep your dog on the end third of the bar. Seize Those Natural Urges One of the concepts that hit home from all my theoretical training was the Premack principle. That is, you can reinforce and strengthen a weak behavior by rewarding it with the opportunity to do a behavior that is inherently reinforcing. Since high-drive dogs often have many selfreinforcing behaviors, this is very easy to do. For instance, many dogs have obsessive behaviors like chasing light reflections. Skeptics might tell you to February 08 | Clean Run 3 Breakdown of rear-cross figure-eight exercise Make sure that you keep your dog on the end third of the bar. 33
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Clean Run Magazine - February 2008

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