Clean Run Magazine - June 2008 - 24

Trainer’s Forum By Brenna Fender Webb Anderson Webb is an AKC agility judge and he currently competes with Nigel, an AKC top-ranked Miniature Schnauzer. Webb is a full-time agility trainer and coach. For seminars or lessons, contact him through his website at www. performanceplusk9s.com. It seems like I’m not making much progress in my training so I’ve been thinking about keeping a training log. What information do I need to include? Do I really need to fill out a log after each training session? I’d be interested in knowing if people have different approaches to record keeping. I believe that creating and using a journal or log is very important and can lead to the next step of training and handling that you are looking for. Record keeping can get a bit tedious at times and it is much more fun to spend your down time at shows doing other things than writing in your record book. But I can attest to the benefits of record keeping, not only to analyze my performance, but for my dog’s health. My older dog, Nigel, went through a period when his yards per second dropped off slightly. It wasn’t enough that I would have noticed had I not been keeping records. But when I realized there was a downward trend, I had him checked out by my physical therapy vet who found an injury. He’s such a stoic dog that I would not have known of the injury until it had gotten worse and caused us even more problems. So, don’t look at your record keeping as a way of measuring performance and nothing else. It can also be a good indicator of the overall health and condition of your dog. What’s the best way to keep records? I prefer a log to a journal because you get well-defined, consistent information that you can compare from trial to trial. I also like to log my training sessions, especially when I am preparing for a big event. Keeping a journal tends to be a more free-flowing, narrative way of tracking results, while keeping a log is more data driven. For a trial, the kinds of information I track might include: running surface, temperature and weather conditions, yards per second, mistakes I made on course, mistakes my dog made on course, course time, and yardage. I also like to use my course maps for record keeping. I make notations about my mistakes and my dog’s mistakes on the course map in the actual location where those mistakes occurred. For training, I track other kinds of information. I have a baseline that tells me how long it takes my dog to complete each of the contact obstacles and the weaves. I record his times on these obstacles periodically during my training sessions as well. This way, I can spot a problem early. For example, if he is slowing down on the teeter or in the weaves, I want to know that information before the problem becomes so bad that it is visible to the human eye. Record keeping may seem like an insurmountable task. But, like anything else, once it becomes a habit you will hardly even notice it. The results, on the other hand, will be very noticeable. Bonnie Calhoun McDonald Bonnie judges AKC, USDAA, and UKC agility, WWKC obedience, and WWKC rally. She owns and is the chief trainer at Bonjon Training School LLC, operating in Tampa, Florida, since 1992. Bonnie has earned MACHs, UDs, HXs, Schutzhund titles, and more with GSDs, Mals, and Shelties. Visit Bonnie’s website at www. BonjonTrainingSchool.com. In the second week of my “Intro to Agility” classes, I start my students out on the right track by encouraging them to keep a training journal. Keeping a training log or journal is a secret to success in many endeavors, even outside the agility front. It serves many purposes. In the beginning you are mostly just recording what you did, for how long, and what the results were. As my beginning students learn (and advanced ones who join our training program later discover), keeping a journal can be the most powerful tool for overcoming problems and becoming the team they wish to become. In addition, they learn to “dissect” training various obstacles or skills, breaking behaviors down into small 24 steps until they can accomplish the whole. The small steps are “wins.” The dog is happy and his human is happy! Here are the guidelines I give my students and the reasons for these guidelines (understanding the “why” helps follow-through): 1. Use a regular notebook. You can use a computer, but I’ve found that students who wait to have access to a computer sometimes miss key details and even skip logging in if they get busy. You can easily stick your notebook in your training bag or car so you can jot down notes as you need to. I also believe that the act of actually writing down the information helps students remember more details that could be pertinent. There are now some fancy premade training logs out there, too, if you need that sort of thing. 2. Write what you did and how long you did it. What were the results? 3. Write any problems in the form of a solution. Find a way to give your entry a positive slant rather then a negative one. An example of an improper entry would be: “Spot hit the bars every time I added more than two jumps in a row.” An example of a good journal entry in the solution form would be: “Spot can jump two jumps keeping the bars up. I need to review my jumping skills book and find a way to work up to additional jumps.” Clean Run | June 08

http://www.performanceplusk9s.com http://www.performanceplusk9s.com http://www.bonjontrainingschool.com http://www.bonjontrainingschool.com

Clean Run Magazine - June 2008

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