Clean Run - February 2014 - 37

Acting on

commitment
Secrets to Perfect Timing

By Kathy Keats, The Agility Coach

Acting on your dog's commitment is one of the most important skills you need as a handler to improve your timing. If
you are usually late with your timing, the only way to improve
that is to be earlier. Duh... so how can you get there earlier?
The two ways you get there earlier are to 1) run faster or 2)
leave sooner. We have genetic limitations on how much faster
we can get. Once you have a basic level of fitness, it takes a
tremendous amount of physical training to get small improvements in your speed and footwork. So unless you are being
lazy in the way you run, running faster isn't always the answer. However, learning to leave sooner is something that can
make huge improvements in your handling and requires only
minor changes in your training and your focus.
When you see your dog committing to an obstacle-remember, that means the dog is fully intending to do the obstacle,
it doesn't mean he is performing the obstacle-or you see
him commit to a gap you want him to take, that is the time for
you to move on to your next handling position. In sports, this
would be referred to as "anticipating" or reading the next play.
Great athletes such as hockey legend Wayne Gretzky made a
career out of anticipating where the puck was going to be and
where other players were going to be. He was amazing at reading the flow of the game and taking advantage of it by acting
on it. He seemed to be impossibly fast, showing up in the right
spot all the time. The truth was that although he was quick,
he seemed much faster because of his ability to anticipate. He
would already be heading to the right spot seconds before anyone else even saw what was happening.
To be a great handler, you learn to see your dog committing to
the behavior you've asked for before anyone else can see it. It
seems a bit magical in a way, but you are anticipating because
you've learned to see tiny cues from your dog that tell you he is
going to do what you've asked. This is where trust comes from.
By trusting in your dog's commitment to perform an obstacle,
you can leave early and get to handling positions much faster.

There are three main reasons handlers don't act on their dog's
commitment:
1. We see the dog committing to the obstacle but it doesn't
register either because we don't recognize what we are seeing (see last month's article) or our mind is elsewhere, not
in the present.
Example: My dog is approaching a jump. Although I am
looking at him, I am thinking about getting to a front cross.
He can sense I'm not fully committed to what we are doing.
I don't notice that he is glancing at me and is now uncertain
about taking the jump; I pull away to soon and he pulls off
the jump.
2. We see the dog committing to an obstacle but we're worried that he may make an error so we keep hanging on to
micromanage and babysit.
Example: My dog is approaching a jump with a lot of speed
and confidence. I see the dog commit, yet I stay and wait to
move until my dog is well on his way over the jump. Because my dog has pulled off a jump in the past, I am afraid
that I might pull him off again, so I end up babysitting the
jump. As a result, I don't make it to my next cross in time.
This also tends to happen when handlers have dogs that
knock bars frequently; the handler will wait to move until
she is sure the bar is staying up.
3. We see the dog committing to an obstacle but we don't
have an automatic default response that would allow us to
react appropriately to what we are seeing.
Example: I see my dog heading for the tunnel and I know
he is going in. I watch him enter the tunnel and watch the
tunnel move while he performs it. He is almost out of the
tunnel before I start to move to my next handling position.
This is an example of not having the correct automatic response to the dog committing to the tunnel.

Acting on your dog's commitment is one of the most important skills you need as a handler to improve your timing.
February 14

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Clean Run - February 2014

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