Clean Run - October 2016 - 15

ing time. If your dog is insecure or not so fast, the independent performance skill may not be as important to you. * I want to be able to do advanced proofing: I want to be able to throw cookies and toys before, during, and after my dog reaches his 2-on/2-off position. I'm talking about a glorified stay at the end of the day. If you proof your stand-stay away from the obstacles with toys, food, other dogs, and beloved people, you will get that behavior on the contacts much faster and easier. To me this is basic training. I do not see dogs for a "missed my contacts" lesson that have a rock solid, proofed stand-stay off the contact obstacles. This is your big tip for contact training from me. * I want my dog's release command to be as strong as the contact command. I want my dog to spring into action on a single release command without thinking twice about it. This one thing is so very critical to solid contact performances, yet it is often overlooked. Are You Losing It? At this point you are either thinking one of two things: 1) you really do have some more training and proofing work to do; or 2) you actually did have strong skills, but they have deteriorated over time sometimes a very short time). Like I said before, I believe that through everyday handling and sequence work our contact behavior can and will erode away all the hard work we put in when we were focusing on a single obstacles during initial training. While working on handling skills, we only really use a limited number of positions for working the contacts and releasing our dogs. We also always release our dogs off the contact in a certain amount of time. I know, I know, you hold your dog for varying amounts of time, and so do I, but there is a limit on how much you really vary that. For example, we never release faster than a split second and we never hold longer than a certain amount of time as well. It also becomes easier to release the dog without fully getting criteria. I believe that releasing the dog before his second front foot has hit the ground is the single biggest mistake a handler can make when handling 2-on/2-off contacts. I see the dogs get terribly confused when handlers release with one foot or both front feet still on the board. These dogs all start to experiment with their feet, slowing down to do so. They will stop early; they will even hold one foot up trying hard to figure out what they can do to get their beloved release word. Be careful and be aware! All this means is that any smart dog will eventually start to combine something with the release word. That something (amount of time, position of handler, etc.) will become the release just as much as the word and that something will likely morph into something else in the future. You have to watch for it; it happens naturally and it is not about your dog being bad, he is being very smart actually! You must be ready to answer his questions! For example, your dog may ask, "Excuse me, Miss Handler, but it seems to me that you always release within 4 seconds. How about I help you out, October 16 | Clean Run spare you the hassle of the entire release step, and just go after 3 seconds has passed?" It is our job, as our dogs' teachers, to always answer their questions honestly and immediately. Withholding critical answers just isn't cool. What I mean is don't keep going. Bring your dog gently back and try again. If you yell and scold, his solution may be to slow down in order to get it right and you don't want that either. It is just a little mistake. Correct and continue. Back to Kindergarten When my dogs ask me questions about what I want from them, we try again a few times to see if they just had a little brain fart on a behavior that is not rock solid yet. If the dog puts two and two together (no pun intended!), I know we are on the right track with the training. If he continues to fail, I was not as far down the training path as I thought I was. It happens, no big deal. At that point I "go back to kindergarten." I have a "back to kindergarten" move for every behavior the dog knows. Because I break down behaviors into small step in the initial training, it is easy for me to know which piece of the puzzle the dog is struggling with. Most of the behaviors we train in agility are actually quite complex and I think it is easy to forget that fact. The three big questions your dog will ask you when it comes to contacts are * Should I sometimes stop short? * Should I sometimes stop and release myself? * Should I sometimes fly through the air like a gazelle? Of course, the answer is nope and never. When these things happen I try a couple more times, as I said before, and then I will do a "short one." When I do the initial training for the nose target, foot target, or just the 2-on/2-off position, I back chain on a shorter board designed for training. I am careful to never be next to the dog's shoulder (in heel position) when he is in his stopped position at the end (I don't want to make his performance about being in heel position), so I send him ahead of me, in short increments (back chaining), to his destination. I release to reinforcement out ahead of him, teaching him not to look back at me. When I'm handling a sequence, if a question comes up, I bring the dog back to me and put him up onto the contact from the side of the board. How far back is determined by the height of the dog. When I did my original kindergarten training, I used some homemade steps or a pause table for the dog to jump on so I could get the dog higher up the board, creating more distance for him to travel. I recommend having a kindergarten move for as many behaviors as you can. Why, Oh Why? Stopping Early Stopping early on the contacts happens for several reasons: * The dog gets distracted by the handler on the way down the ramp, and then he looks at the handler and stops as a 15

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - October 2016