Clean Run - December 2017 - 64

BC
RC

8
2

RC
BC

1
6

Handler and dog paths with rear and blind crosses before
and after the A-frame on the first pass. Green shows
approximate locations for rear crosses and blue shows
approximate locations for blind crosses.

soon, pulling their dog off of jump #3.
Those handlers with dogs with strong
start-line stays could manage the acceleration from the #2 tunnel by decelerating, then once the dog was committed to jump #3, showing the turn
from #3 to #4 with a shoulder pull or a
reverse spin.
With the restriction created by the Aframe and the tunnel under it, getting
to the weaves was not easy. This was
further compounded by the fact that
handlers running with the A-frame on
their left had to move laterally away
from the obstacle, which could pull the
dog to the right, making the backside
of jump #7 very obvious in the dog's
line of sight.
There were several options once the
dog was on the A-frame. Remaining
on the inside of the loop worked well if
the handler could get to the bottom of
the A-frame before the dog in order to
push the dog to the weaves. This was a
good choice by those whose dogs had
a reliable stop at the bottom of the Aframe or those with slower dogs. If the
64

The handler sends the dog to the tunnel, then moves
laterally away from the dog, performing a blind cross after
the exit of the tunnel on the way to the double.

dog got ahead of the handler at this
point, there was a high potential for an
off-course over the back of jump #7 or a
collision at the bottom of the A-frame.
Some intrepid handlers executed a side
change as the dog was on the way up
the A-frame, met the dog at the other
end of the obstacle, and then crossed
again before or after the weaves. Blind
crosses worked well before the Aframe, although some did a rear cross
with no problems. Both blind and rear
crosses were efficient on the way to
the weaves. This was a broadly effective strategy, working for slow dogs
with running contacts, fast dogs with
2-on/2-off contacts, or very fast handlers. This approach also provided the
handler with the ability to help shape
the dog's approach to the A-frame
while keeping him away from the offcourse jump. See Figure 2.
The tunnel/A-frame discrimination
proved more difficult than I had expected. The most successful and efficient
teams were those where the dog could
be pushed out to the tunnel while the

handler moved laterally around the Aframe and past the exit of the tunnel
before the dog reached it. This resulted
in the tightest path to the double, while
avoiding a potential collision between
handler and dog, and the handler could
execute a blind cross on the way to the
first pass over the double as shown in
Figure 3. That said, for fast dogs or slow
handlers, it was not a given that the handler would reach the end of the tunnel
before the dog. In that case, handlers
who ran perpendicular to the A-frame
could reconnect with their dog, reset
the dog's path, and send him over the
double with a rear cross as shown in
Figure 4. This was generally the smoothest and most effective of all the options
I saw; plus, it also worked well after the
flip to the tunnel after the second pass
on the A-frame.
If the dog's discrimination skills were
not reliable, handlers tried to manage
the approach. In some cases, the handler had to run up to the A-frame with
the dog on their left to guide the dog
into the tunnel. This put the handler
Clean Run | December 17

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - December 2017