Clean Run - March 2018 - 49

In comparison Silvia Trkman's system (and others) encompass many
more verbal and physical cues.
There are cik and cap (wrap right or
left cues), threadle cues, left, right,
come to side cues, front crosses
with an early hand change, rear
crosses, serp and threadle cues,
and a variety of blind crosses. Handlers usually give a lot of verbal information to their dogs throughout
the course and each obstacle is indicated with a sound or word for the
desired path.
Susan Garrett's 360 handling system, as well as the Shape Up system developed by Justine Davenport, seem to have been inspired
by some of Silvia's ideologies and
make liberal use of verbal cues.
The Garrett system, however, uses
the most vocalizations to indicate
paths and patterns of all of today's
most popular handling systems.
The OneMind Dogs system takes a
somewhat more silent approach in
handling, relying first on the motion

of the handler and much less on
any spoken words for those cues.
The system identifies and names
many more specific skills. There
are various kinds of front and rear
crosses all of which have different monikers, and it identifies and
makes extensive use of different
kinds of blind crosses for different
jumping patterns or the combination of those crosses and partial
or complete side changes to create
a specific new handler skill. They
also use handler positional cues
as well as rhythm changes (deceleration/acceleration). The system
uses over 30 different skills and
the handler can mix and match as
needed on the course.

path to it, you may be disappointed
when your dog skips that obstacle.
If you want your dog to perform
only those obstacles which you
have verbally cued, then you need
to give those obstacle names each
and every time. The advantage of
teaching your dog not to do an obstacle if he does not hear the word
(as well as be presented with a reasonable path to that obstacle) is
the seeming reliability of hopefully
never having your dog take an obstacle without a cue. The opposite
though is also in effect. You must
remember to cue each obstacle
verbally and do so in a timely manner or the dog likely will not perform them reliably.

How does this tiny bit of knowledge
of handling systems help you decide what you might add to your
own system? For instance, if you
have a strong verbal cue for the
tunnel and want to try to run silently through the course with the
expectation that your dog should
get into the tunnel if you have set a

If you use a more minimalist handling system that does not make
liberal use of verbals, you can likely
add a few verbals without changing
your system. Adding words for a
push to the back, threadle, serpentine, left and right, and cik and cap
should not prevent you from running more silently on parts of the

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March 18 | Clean Run

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