Clean Run - March 2012 - 61

give up on him because you have forgotten the sequence or the dog has gone the wrong way. Carry on as though nothing has gone wrong and reward your dog in the same way. Your dog doesn’t need to know about your handling mistakes. In training though, once taught and proficient, I don’t reward incorrect contact behavior, broken start-line waits, or inaccurate weave performances. However, all off-courses will be my fault.

So don’t let anyone tell you that your dog has to tug to do agility because this simply isn’t true. In fact a good trainer should have other options to try, and be imaginative in her approach to each and every dog. People are all different, some preferring a bar of chocolate over and above watching TV, and our dogs are the same. What is a great reward for one dog won’t get even a ﬂicker of interest from another. Use of Rewards
If you run a sequence with your dog and he runs to you when he finishes it and you reward him with a treat or toy, then what exactly have you rewarded? You have rewarded him for coming to you, not for doing the agility equipment. To transfer the value of his reward to the equipment the dog needs to see the reward arriving while he is still on his way to the last jump in the sequence. If the last obstacle is a tunnel, contact, or the weaves, then the reward should be the first thing he sees as he approaches the exit of the obstacle. In other words I cue the last obstacle in the sequence, my dog drives toward it and, low and behold, a reward arrives after that obstacle. In that way I am transferring the value of his reward to the equipment; my dog will continue around the course confidently driving at obstacles and expecting that his reward will arrive after one of them. The reward must be more important than any obstacle on that course. Handlers often tell me that there is no point in trying to reward their dog for doing contacts, for example, because he doesn’t like food or toys and his reward is carrying on with the course. But it is these dogs that don’t have contacts in the competition ring or won’t wait on the start-line or won’t complete the weaves. There is no need for them to be accurate if the next obstacle is more important than any expected reward. In training these dogs know that the handler will return them to the contact or start-line before letting them continue, but this often doesn’t happen in the ring so the accuracy level drops considerably in a competition environment.

What's holding you back?

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�� Success from the Inside

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Does Your Dog Have to Tug?
There is a lot of pressure on handlers these days to get their dog to tug. Apparently if you can’t do so then you aren’t a good trainer and your dog will never be good at agility. Really? Tell my poodle Chelsea that—she has won more championship agility tickets than any other dog in Great Britain and I could never get her to tug! She has won every major final in the country and has won multiple medals for her country abroad. She is an extremely low-drive dog but I am a great believer that every dog wants something. It did take me a long time to find Chelsea’s “on” switch but she has taught me so much about motivation. She really didn’t want to tug or play with toys. Her play was only for very short periods and then she would quickly switch off; her interest in agility was exactly the same. I knew I had to find something better. I tried using a food tube but she quickly learned that she still had to wait for me to get there to open the tube for her so what was the point in getting there quickly? So I needed something that would deliver a treat but would also have the same chase aspect and remoteness from me that a thrown toy produces. Feeding from your hand will never produce drive because you can’t transfer the value of it onto the equipment as discussed previously. I tried a soft toy with a pocket that closed with a Velcro strip. I not only filled it with treats, but I trapped one in the Velcro strip so that she could get it on her own.Aha, that
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Clean Run - March 2012

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