Clean Run - February 2018 - 11

collection (turning tightly around a
jump stanchion while keeping a bar
up) are physical skills that can be
taught and practiced outside of sequence and course work.
I personally do not believe that punishing a dog when a bar falls will teach
that dog how to jump. You are correcting landing and his takeoff is the
issue; if the dog takes off correctly the
bar will stay up. That is, of course, if the
dog is fit enough to do it. There are far
too many dogs that are not in tip-top
physical condition and are being asked
to do the work of a conditioned athlete. I do not understand why so many
folks don't just drop down to the Performance and Preferred levels if they
do not have the time it takes to keep
their dogs fit.
Then there is the handling. Even the
fit dog with the best jumping skills
on earth will have difficulties if their
handler has bad timing or inconsistent
turning cues.
Lastly, I want to address fatigue. A
while back I did some filming of myself; my dog had knocked a few bars
during the session. I counted the number of jumps I had asked the dog to do
from the time I started until I ended
the session (FYI: it was a much higher
number than I had guessed) and I took
note of when the bars fell. I'm referring
to a well-trained, athletic dog, here.
One hundred percent of the knocked
bars happened in the last third of the
training session. He was tired, even
though he did not show it to me.
Some dogs burn their available energy
really quickly!
Moral of the story: It would be best to
have a dog that: 1) has trained jumping skills; 2) is fit; 3) is receiving welltimed, consistent cues for jumping in
extension and collection; and 4) is not
too fatigued to work hard.

Here are my seven key turn cues:
1. Lack of motion
2. Pull
3. Front cross
4. Rear cross
5. Push-through (backside send)
6. Lateral motion
7. Verbal "Left" and "Right"

If you don't have this dog, you are not
alone; you are in a big club. In fact,
very few of us have all of those elements at every point in any dog's career. It is a goal. Because of that, I feel it
is every handler's obligation to be kind
and gentle when bars fall and to be
respectful of all that we are asking of
the dogs' bodies and minds.

My Seven Key Turn Cues
If you are currently struggling with
teaching your dog solid cues for turning, I invite you to explore these seven
cues with me over the next several
months. Maybe you will find a critical missing link or two. Or maybe you
will discover that some of these more
basic cues used to be strong, but have
weakened over time. Remember, it
is one thing to train a cue, it is quite
another to maintain that training. All
of these cues must be tested on their
own merit from time to time and all of
them can be strengthened (serve as a
"back to kindergarten" training steps,
for those who follow my work) to create more advanced turn cuing options
down the road.

Within the last year I have written new
articles on both the front cross and
the rear cross so we won't be repeating them. Both articles go into great
deal (who me?) and I want you to refer
to them to review both of those turn
cues. The rear cross was covered in a
two-part article in CR November and
December 2016. "Where to Put a Front
Cross" ran in the February 2017 issue.
The article is more than just where
to put the cross; it includes how to
execute them as well. If you find you
are having trouble consistently cueing
front crosses, it is likely because of inconsistent footwork, meaning inconsistent cueing. In August 2015, I wrote an
article on footwork for agility and how
to do the front cross footwork is clearly
illustrated there. If you would like to
learn more about footwork to cue turns
and set clear lines check out my Feet
First DVD sold through Clean Run.
Your homework this month is to look
at my material on front crosses and
rear crosses, then next month we will
dive into the lack of motion cue, also
known as the decel cue. Did you know
that deceleration is a turn cue? Yup.
See you next month! D

Sandy Rogers has been teaching obedience and agility since 1991, and founded ACE Dog Sports in San Francisco, California in 1999. Her dogs have competed in the
USDAA and AKC national championship finals multiple times in four jump heights. Sandy and Jack Russell Terrier Quill competed on Team USA at the World Agility Open
in 2011-2013, winning individual gold and silver in 2012 and bronze in 2013. Quill won the 2013 USDAA Grand Prix Finals, and placed second at the 2012 and 2014 AKC
Nationals. Sandy has two DVDs available: One Jump Two Jump and Feet First. To contact Sandy, email sandyrogers@acedogsports.com.

February 18 | Clean Run

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - February 2018