Clean Run - August 2018 - 9

Training Freedom:

HERE I go agaIn!
By Jo Sermon, photo courtesy of author

Summer came to the UK! For three
whole days, the sun shone! We got out
shorts and tee shirts, friends came over,
we barbecued, and then it was over.

Collection
Collection is the most important part of
teaching turns. If a dog hasn't collected
before a turn, he'll jump long and, in
many cases, land past the turn he is supposed to take. To properly effect a turn, a
dog needs to bring his hocks underneath
him and push off to the side that he is
turning towards. Once he's in the air, he
can't affect where he's going to land, no
matter how loud his handler shouts!
Shady is 24.5in. at the shoulder, 29in.
long, and 63 lbs. Dogs of his size and
mass are difficult to manage around
turns, and his path around the turns will
be very different to the one I'd expect of
a smaller, lighter dog. Factors that affect turns are the dog's ability to accelerate from a standstill, his flexibility, and
how much speed he has to "bleed off " to
achieve the shortest path. I know from
experience and many hours with a stopwatch that bigger dogs are often faster
taking the longer path through a turn
where they can maintain their momentum than they are taking the shorter path
through a turn that requires them to decelerate too much to achieve.
August 18 | Clean Run

To me, agility is a three-way discrimination: go straight, left, or right-the rest
are details. I want to be able to sit in a
chair with a cold drink in my hand and
have my dog take a jump and land it
according to direction. If the dog is going forward, he should land long. If he's
turning, I expect him to get much closer
to the jump to take off, and the landing
spot will also be close to the jump.
Shady understands how to collect; we
spent a lot of time on it in foundation
training. What he needs to be able to do
now is collect on cue.
I begin by establishing a reward history
for the behaviour I'm looking for, in this
case collection towards a jump. Speed
and excitement make collection difficult,
so the dog starts very close to the jump,
and I stand on the other side at a distance
that's just over my dog's body length. The
jump is low, and the criterion for reward
is that he jumps keeping his back end under control. For Shady, that's hard as his
back is so long! The dog should land the
jump and stop to either play or eat with
his body straight. If he swings out sideways or touches me, I quickly remove
the toy or food. The toy is a tug toy held
at mouth height and the food, if used, is
held behind my thumb bent across my
palm, again at head height to create a
clear target.

Note: If your dog finds this difficult, move
him back a little from the jump and give
him more landing room as well. If he still
finds it hard, revisit the foundation work
that teaches the basics of collection and
how to stop without touching you or the
jump. If you have to remove the reward
more than twice in a row, stop.
Shady already understands not to use me
as a crash barrier; we worked on it extensively in his early recall work. He also understands that he must not touch the bar
from the early shaping across a pole we
did. So, this exercise was easy for him, as
it is supposed to be. I set him up, stepped
to the other side of the jump, turned to
face him while holding his toy out in
front of me, and cued "get it." We had a
game when he succeeded, and then we
reset. On a couple of occasions his back
end went wide, but he had the idea. We
did this a few times and then left it.
For the next session, a couple of days
later, he started a body length from the
jump. I gradually kept moving his starting position back until he was 20 paces
away, coming to the jump at speed. By
this stage, you can see the collection as
it happens (look for the dog's back to rise
and his stride to shorten), at which point
I associate a verbal cue with it. My cue
is "steady." I've also heard "easy," "chipchip," and "dig." Keep in mind that what
you are asking your dog to do is shorten
9

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