What every puppy needs to know :-)

As I sit in Starbucks waiting for my heated seats to be installed in my "almost" new Suburban I got to thinking about puppy stuff...

What does every puppy need to know? LOTS of things, but, what are the most important things? I guess that depends primarily on what your goals are :-)

My goals are to be the very best teammate that I can possibly be for my dog, to be competitive while having the time of my life running with my best friend, to know that I can count on my dog to take direction and respond to every cue as if every forthcoming cue is the one he has been waiting for his whole life. 

It is my goal to be the very best trainer that I can be to insure the former will come to fruition. It is my goal to be fair and consistent, to expect no more from my dog than I am willing to give and to never blame my dog for my mistakes, understanding the whole while that any and all information that my dog gets comes from me and that I am ultimately responsible for the outcome of any run, training or trialing, one obstacle or 21.

It is true that dogs are capable of making decisions and choosing what behaviors they will or will not offer at any given moment, however, the better I train my dog and the more consistent I am in that training, as well as how consistent I am in usage of cues, signals, etc.. the more likely the dog will make the correct choice. 

It is also my job to define correct and incorrect choices made by my dog in order to help them WANT to choose correctly. 

I think it is very hard for people to truly understand just how important a role we play in creating the dog we run is. Sure, on a base level it is understood but human nature has a tendency to overtake common sense very early on and the thought process changes to one of rationalization and excuse making as well as gray area infiltrated training ideas.

You cannot read the rule book of any given organization, learn the criteria for a qualifying score and infer it to your dog through osmosis. 

Since dogs are incapable of reading the rule book, and we are not able to translate the rules in dogspeak we must become dog trainers and figure out the myriad of ways that we can translate the rules into behaviors that the dog can offer which fit the standard of perfection we are all looking for.

Ask yourself what is your expected criteria of the dog  for  the performance of any of the individual obstacles to be performed on any given agility course, if you begin your answer with Ummm, well, Ahhh, you have no canine understandable criteria. If you have to explain your criteria the dog cannot understand it. The answer should be simple, concise and to the point. You have a responsibility to teach the dog what they need to know to be able to offer correct behaviors immediately when asked.

This does not even scratch the surface of what is the really difficult part of running agility and that is controlling what happens between the obstacles :-)

Truly, in my list of what every puppy needs to know it is the flat area cues that make up the bulk of the list.

So, let's get to it... first and foremost is of course attention. I think I spend more time talking about attention, it's value and necessity than almost anything else, the problem is, it is very hard to explain what to do to earn the level of attention that I am talking about.

Dogs do not come understanding that you are to be adored, this must be taught. I have been going through this process with puppies of my own for so many years I find it hard to even break down exactly what I do, I just know that on average by the time my pups are 4 months old they already understand where their bread is buttered and although they are allowed tremendous freedom they are already far more interested in me than anything else that may present itself. When I take pups to seminars they are awesome demo dogs of what attention looks like. they are not interested in attendees, they are interested in ME! 

That is the point, right? I earn this by being the most important and rewarding experience in y pups life.

Another list topper is hand signal awareness, my hand signals out on course are ultimately going to dictate to my dogs where they are heading, what obstacles to take and also what not to take. My hand signals, arms included are like gates on course that open and close to allow or deny access.

I do not name this behavior I just teach the pup to offer a nose touch on an open hand for reward, it takes very little time to convince them of the merits of this behavior.

I have no idea how I have been able to get so many dogs around so many courses before I discovered just how ridiculously important parallel path work is???

My job as a handler is to direct the dog around or through a course, how incredibly helpful is it to know that my dog will seek out and maintain a path parallel to me while I drive? 

A dog's understanding of parallel path as well as hand signal awareness and unwavering attention allows the handler to actually HANDLE assuming responsibility to the dog for following said path and honoring all offered cues and directions.

This does put a formidable responsibility on the handler to offer the correct information but if you have properly trained the dog and you trust what you've trained all will be well.  

I must teach individual obstacle skills which of course vary in degree of difficulty depending on the nature of the obstacle.

Every puppy needs to be taught basic obedience commands at an early age, including but not limited to STAY. People wait far too long to incorporate stay into their set of skills and thus we have a huge start line problem in the sport of agility. Waiting until you have awakened the dogs complete lust for the equipment and then trying to incorporate the stay is definitely an exercise in frustration.

Finally, off the top of my head what does a pup need to know? He must need to know the value of reward, toys and treats. Food is a wonderful training tool, but if you forego toys while you teach initial behaviors with food you will have a hard time getting the toys back into the list of most valuable and wonderful things in your pups life.

Toys are interaction, toys are stress relief and toys are awesome training aids, you must incorporate play into every training session form the get go without fail. OK, I feel that "I" must, but, this is "MY" list :-)

I am sure I will think of more things but this is a good start and my truck is done so I am going to take a mile walk to go get it, anyone want to pick me up?? Have a great day!  

'Tis the season...

To get your thoughts together, get goals figured out, and, get to work :-) I know this is the most incredibly busy time right now for most folks but I ma happy, OK... VERY happy to report that I have a short but much needed break from traveling! I returned from Houston last night and find myself without airline reservations for any upcoming travel engagements and actually do not have to sleep away from home until Jan. 1, what a treat!

Of course as I have been looking forward to this time off I have also been relishing the idea of tons and tons of dog training happening! Well, as I sit here and write this I realize that before I can head down to the building with the pups I have to get my thoughts in order and think about where everyone is at this point and what my short and long term goals are at this point for each of them :-)

I also have to realize that I am just a bit tired and also a wee bit behind on housey stuff :-) I have spent the majority of today, picking up poop, cleaning stalls, vacuuming, putting up Christmas decorations and just generally getting my house and "other life" back in order. I have not finished or really started my Christmas shopping, not at all sure when that is going to happen.

And although I am admittedly a bit burned out on agility at the moment I am constantly thinking about getting out there with "my dogs".

So, it made sense to me, although I certainly could just jump right in, that I should think through exactly how I want to spend this very precious time and get my head in the right place before I head out to train.

At this point I pretty much have all of my goals organized, now I have to implement the plan. The Wasatch USDAA trial I recently attended helped me immensely in seeing where I am with all of the pups and what needs to be done.

First, what do they know? Wally and Maze pretty much know it all :-) They are definitely at the stay tuned up, a little practice keeps us perfect place in their agility careers with the exception of a few things that I would definitely like to improve, Maze needs a faster teeter performance and more proofing of his independent weave pole performance, I also want to really work on advanced handling drills to get him tuned up for the AKC Nationals and the FCI try-outs.

Wally certainly can always benefit from dog walk practice as his "moving" contact performance is getting very close to exactly what I want :-) He also will benefit from more advanced drills to keep us sharp for AKC Nationals.

The youngsters certainly need the most work but that is the way it goes, right? SoBe gets to play on the same drills as the big boys with an emphasis on independent contact and weave pole performance. Merger is going to be out of competition for a while because I need to get his contacts to a point that we are both happy. He will get to play in jumpers for ring experience as I truly believe that too be one of the most important things for him right now.

Merger is so at that confidence building stage right now and I think the best way to improve his confidence is through training and making sure that he truly understands his job.

I am also going to be spending a fair bit of time working on my mental game, I do not feel that I am having any specific problems in that area but it never hurts to take another shot of Lanny Basham just to stay sharp.

So, I will let you know how the training goes...

What a weekend!

I am up in very cold and snowy Salt Lake City. It is not supposed to be cold and snowy but you know those weather forecasters, sorry Tracy if you are reading this!
It was a great weekend though, Geoff and I got to trial Sat. and today, and, I am teaching my awesome Utah groups the next 2.5 days. It was really fun to see that at the trial 90% of the people trialing are my students, even though I only get to work with them every 2 months I am claiming them because they are fantastic!!! It was fun to see everybody showing, although Julie would have to point out that I have ADD and don't really watch anyway!
It was a very small trial and really fun! One of the things I was most looking forward to this weekend was showing Merger for the first time in USDAA, and showing SoBe again, it has been a while!
Merger first... he turned 18 months on the 31st of November so quite obviously he is far from seriously ring ready. However, since my intent was to call this a multi run fun match it was a rousing success as far as I am concerned.
Was he perfect, not even close. As a matter of fact out of 5 runs he had zero qualifying scores, but, he ran great! Even in those few runs I saw a huge improvement in his confidence and speed. He dropped two bars in his jumpers run and then did not drop another bar the rest of the weekend. He hit every weave pole entry on the first attempt and finished every set without missing a pole! He picked up my cues and tried as hard as he could to do exactly what I asked when I asked each and every time.
What did I learn? I learned where the holes are, I learned that although I have spent the majority of Mergers obstacle training time working on contacts and weave poles, his contacts are not even close to a finished product. SO, what have I been doing?? Not enough reps of what will teach the desired behavior, what is the desired behavior? Ahhhh... that is the question ,but, I do believe that I have finally figured it out.
I am going to stick with the running contacts, I just have to create a better understanding of the criteria for Merger, this means I have to sort out exactly what I want, how I want it to look, what I expect the desired performance to be, break it down, and, consistently train what I want.
My plan is to get home and lower both the dog walk and A-frame and leave them down for a significant amount of time, doing tons of reps with a hoop at the bottom just building speed, drive and stride placement, reinforcing a foot in the desired area with tons of play and reward! This is not an earth shattering new training method, this is what I believe is necessary to improve on what Merger already does fairly well and make it better. He had some very nice contact performances this weekend but not what I would call finished or even desireable. He is taking way too many strides on the dog walk and I have to address that issue before I go any further with that contact. He is starting to really get the A-frame and is driving up and over very nicely but is only about 50% successful in hitting the contact, that is not good enough.
I cannot train these behaviors in the ring so I have decided to refrain from showing him in any classes with contacts until we get it sorted out. I guess that means he is a jumpers dog for a while! That is totally OK as I am trying to look at the big picture, I will take the time on this end to train the behaviors I want rather than keep showing him and establish tons of bad habits that will never go away.
Thruthfully, the contacts are the only true "training issue" that I felt he had. He needs confidence which will increase his speed and we need experience running together so that I can more effectively handle him.
With the baby dogs you never really know what is going to happen or how they are going to run, this makes handling decisions very difficult, however, I do feel that overall he was wonderful.
He will grow mentally into his extremely large body and he will figure out that his front and rear end can work together it is just going to take time. I am happy to wait he is going to be a great agility dog and he is already a treasured member of my family, what more could you ask for?
Now SoBe, holy crap! What an amazing athlete and so much fun bundled into that feisty little package :-) SoBe is the most amazing jumper, she can maneuver herself from any angle at a ridiculous rate of speed over any jump with ease, I love that about her, one of the very many things that I love about her.
She is like driving a race car down a mountain road at top speed in a snowstorm! If you can keep control it is a huge rush and if not, well....
I learned this weekend that she must have ample warm up time before a run or she is not controlable, I learned that there are always going to be compromises that I must make along the way to keep the peace, I learned that she really is a fabulous team player I just have to be very clear in my direction, calm in my presentation, and, absolutely 100% focused and on my game at all times or she knows it and will gladly take over.
SoBe is power personified or would that be dogified? She comes off the line like a bullet and does not willingly slow down until it is all over. She pushed every start line but I pushed back and won, she pushed her dog walk performance and I am not sure that I came out on top in that battle. Her A-frames were fantastic, as a matter of fact they were the A-frames we of the running contact ilk dream of, up and over the top with just enough air not to have hang time but to put her clearly and deeply into the contact before the hasty exit. Please let them forever and always stay that good :-) You do realize that those of us with running contacts pray daily to the running contact gods :-)
Her weave poles were better than they have been in competition, she missed an entry or 2 but never popped out!!!!
It is proof that hard work pays off, and, SoBe is hard work but so very worth it. She makes me smile just to think about her how lucky am I to have such a wonderful dog in my life! Oh yea, I have many wonderful dogs, it makes me smile just thinking about them all.
In a nutshell the Sobster earned 2 advanced standard legs, a Steeplechase Q, a masters jumpers leg, and a masters snooker leg this weekend. She also went comletely nuts in advanced pairs, and, got carried off the masters gamblers course, she bit me several times every time I lined her up on the start line and barked like a crazy fool while doing it, this is why we do it, right?
Of course the older more distinguished canines in the group also rocked this weekend, Geoff did amazing with Rumor and Xtra, Wally and Maze were brilliant as always :-) Ahhhh... what a weekend!

It's a new day...

...Not a new puppy, but a puppy still in almost every sense of the word :-) I had totally forgotten what a cute puppy Merger was! I spent a fair bit of time going through some old dog photos today. There is something about losing one of the beloved family members that inspires a trip down memory lane.

It is time to move forward though, it is a new day and it is time to really get cracking with the Merge man and SoBe DoBe DoodleBug!

Off we went to the building today and what a great time we had!

First up was SoBe, she makes it very clear that she is to be first always and it is in my best interest to oblige.

I have mentioned in past posts that I have been very much on the fence about what to do with SoBe's contacts, I have decided to go with a running A-frame and she is doing fantastic! I am really a huge fan of running A-frames and I think they are very trainable, although training is a must and you definitely have to get creative at times.

Her teeter was the best it has been today with beautiful slides fast and flying to the end of the board into her lovely "Bang" position.

Now that pesky dogwalk, which continues to be brilliant in training extremely fast and always a perfect princess sit on the end. I have seriously thought about changing to a running but will more than likely go to an early release and keep the basics that I have.

BTW, after this past weekend at the AKC trial I am an official believer in 24" weave poles. I was never opposed I just did not see the absolute necessity of 24" poles. The boys did incredibly well with them, yes they have been on 24" poles lots but it really was obvious at the trial this past weekend that they were just that much more effortless in their performance that I say why not just go with it, now we have to convince everyone :-).

Allowing myself to digress a bit after the horrible night on Thursday, I pulled myself together and double Q'd both Wally and Maze on Friday so they both get to go to AKC Nationals this year!! I am pretty excited to go as I have not been to AKC Nationals since Secret went.

Anyway, back to training, we worked some pretty difficult sequences with tough weave pole entries and SoBe was brilliant, I guess she is just brilliant all the way around :-).

Merger is really figuring out the weave poles and I believe he is actually ready for his debut this weekend in Utah at the Wasatch USDAA trial. Merger and contacts, Hmmmm.... we will call them modified running just for fun. He has adopted Wallys philosophy on the teeter and runs to the end, drops the board and moves along, I like it!

A-frame and dog walk running/moving contacts lots of reps, lots of reinforcements! His jumping is looking good too. Merger continues to be a thoughtful young man who is going to put in amazing times with minimal effort, or what will look like minimal effort. Mergers stride is immense, I am really excited about his future!

I have set some goals for next year which really helps keep my training fresh and gives me a place to go as it were. Short term goals are to get Wally and Maze all tuned up for AKC Nationals. I am also planning on taking Maze to the FCI World team tryouts in May and going to the European Open in July with Maze and Wally.

Those things along with coaching the IFCS US World team should keep me plenty busy! And, of course there are the youngsters...

Ahhh, coaching the IFCS team, I have made no secret of the fact that I was trying out this year with Maze, the good news is that he ultimately tied with 2 other dogs for the 2nd and 3rd places on the team. The bad news is that the tie breaker criteria which was a numbers issue left me in the 4th position on what will be a 3 dog 26" team. I was pretty bummed but at least I know that Maze and I did our best and that in theory we DID make the team. The other interesting factoid is that Wally, who is just about 1/8" too tall to compete in the 22" height class at Worlds ended up the top point earner of that height division! I am really proud of how well both dogs did in such amazing fields of competition. There is always 2012! For now, I am going to be very proud and happy to once again coach the US team and a great team it is!

So, for those of you who have not yet established goals for next year, what are you waiting for? Everyone needs goals, both short term and long term that is what keeps us motivated. Next post, Goals and how to achieve them! In the near future top 10 things that every trainer must teach the up and coming agility prospect, until next time...

Happy Thanksgiving, I think?

Our family did what we usually do for Thanksgiving only we did it on Tuesday instead of Thursday... You see we are not even remotely like a conventional family, my job guarantees that! OK, not always my job, sometimes what my job doubles as, which is my hobby :-) I had entered an AKC trial in California over Thanksgiving weekend which I would be flying out to on Thanksgiving night so we decided to have our Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday.

As we sat down to dinner each of us had to say what we were thankful for, it was pretty much the usual, we were thankful for each other, for our great friends, our fantastic dogs, and really just thankful for being fortunate enough to have such a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner!

The next couple of day were glorious, beautiful weather allowing for long hikes and lots of outside time with the pups.

Thanksgiving Day was no exception, as a matter of fact the weather was the nicest it has been for quite sometime! Geoff and I took the dogs for a very long walk and really got to enjoy them just being dogs. At the same time we were marveling at how Geoff's little tiny barely 10" tall sheltie could run so fast that she could keep up with the border collies. We talked about the previous night when we had taken her down to the training building and tag teamed teaching her to run across a low dog walk and A-frame and what an incredibly bright future she had in agility.

This, of course was just icing on the cake as Geoff is just so madly in love with her that it is really a non issue if she ever does agility.

We laughed at her silly antics and constant boinging straight into the air and how she had the most incredible zest for life!

These are just a few of the many things we will miss about her.

Boing passed away on Thursday night just before midnight at just barely 6 months of age... After such a wonderful morning and afternoon without warning Boing was struck by a neurological episode of undetermined reason that left her essentially paralyzed and Unresponsive.

Unfortunately, Geoff and Nick were here alone as I had already left for CA. and so he was essentially faced with this catastrophe on his own. Geoff rushed Boing to the Animal Emergency Clinic where it was determined that the anurysm or whatever it was caused her to bleed from the brain and ultimately go into cardiac arrest.

Boing was with us for a very short time but she will live on in our hearts and memories forever!

It was during this short time that we got to know her incredible howl that was her plea to Geoff to get up and get going, her insatiable desire to tug that was sometimes diverted to border collie tails when there were no toys or when they were just a better option. She had to attack all closing doors including her crate door when she was sure she did not need to be in a crate. There were so many things to be Thankful for with our little girl Boing, and so many things to be thankful for in general, but this Thanksgiving not so happy.

Hugs to all your dogs!

Long time no posting :-)

Hi All!

OK, I know it has been beyond a ridiculous amount of time since I have posted anything to the blog... I do not have a very good excuse other than the pat, WOW, have I been busy! I have not had loads of time to train the baby dogs as I have been concentrating on the "older" dogs, getting ready for Nationals, etc...

So, what has been going on, Ummmm, let's see, I have been doing lots of seminars, I think I have become an honorary Canadian citizen as I have been up north so many times the past couple of months! What a wonderful bunch of people those Canadians :-) I have to say I am never disappointed when I head up to the frozen tundra to teach, OK, it is really not always frozen, and, a good time is always had by me, if not all!!!

I do have to give a huge shout out to my friends Phil and Mary Zacharatos as they can put on a party and boy can Phil cook!!

I have also had opportunity to show my dogs a bit :-) Actually it has been a very good year for me in the agility arena, Wally and Maze have been tearing up the courses and SoBe although still pushy, mouthy and just plain naughty has already qualified for team at the 2010 USDAA Nationals and just 2 weeks ago proved that she "can" weave in a trial where she laid down a 21 second open jumpers with weaves course including starting and completing a set of 12 weave poles on the first try!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love that little dog? Oh yea, I have been missing in action so I have not really mentioned anything!

Besides having a great year in agility in general I just returned from USDAA National Championships where Wally got to play in the Steeplechase Finals and Maze got to play in both Team and GP Finals! The boys had fabulous clean runs and other than a slight face plant by Wally and the small collision between Maze and myself in GP Finals we ended up 4th in Steeple, 5th in team out of 180 some teams and, 6th in GP. Not bad I say!

The very best thing of all was the completely and totally unexpected perfectly clean and ultimately fast enough PGP semi final run that landed Able in the PGP Finals on Friday night. Ask anyone and they will tell you the most fun of all at USDAA Championships is running at night under the lights, Able will second that. He absolutely loves the big ring at night! I admit I had to tear up a bit when I was walking the course because this was the perfect way to retire Able from the Championships, thank you Able for the great runs and great memories! Don't worry he is not dead or dying, he is just too old and arthritic to jump 22" very much longer. We really need to live for the moment as the time goes all to fast and the ride ends way too soon.

What a great Nationals it was from a spectator standpoint as well. Every year the competition get stiffer and I come home with all sorts of things that I "need" to train. The sport continues to evolve and just gets more impressive every year.

Hey, I am actually going to AKC Nationals this year! I have not been to Nationals since I took Secret and I am truly excited about going. Maze is fully qualified and Wally is sitting on 5 double Q's with a 3 day trial after Thanksgiving to hopefully procure that 6th double Q. Next year I may actually have to commit a bit more time to AKC as I do love the Nationals and the pups are really doing quite well in the AKC venue.

I realize my foray back to blogging is primarily shameless bragging which I really try not to do but I just needed to :-) I promise now that I have gotten back to it there will be actual training talk forthcoming!

Geoff and I returned from Nationals last night and although I have several lessons today and am of course exhausted I did manage to get a little training in with the Merger man.

After watching all of the incredible running contacts at this years nationals I am determined to get Merger running his contacts, so off we trudged to the building today ready to do a bit of analysis trying to figure out exactly how I am to accomplish this very daunting task with Merger the giant! Well, although I have been working on a stride collection cue on the dog walk for a short time I certainly did not believe that he has yet developed a behavior on the walk that would have anything to do with the steady command I have been incorporating. I was absolutely dumbfounded when he ran the dog walk at speed with a voluntary stride collection at the bottom, both directions :-)

His teeter has evolved into a thing of beauty and the A-frame is most certainly coming along. Weaves are nice and getting better all the time, and his jumping is really awesome!

As a matter fact I entered him in his very first AKC trial in JWW only as a test run and he was brilliant! He Q'd in both runs and the courses were vastly different a really great test of where he is at. The course on Sat. was very open and flowing and the course on Sunday was practically a grid exercise for Merger with a 4 jump pinwheel taken twice. He judged his jumps perfectly and adjusted accordingly.

He had a perfect stay on the start line and was completely at home in the trial environment, playing and acting as if there were not tons of people and dogs all over the place. I was very proud of him!

OK folks next time we talk training!

The secrets of success in agility

HA! If only it was a simple formula that could be written on this blog and magically create success in agility beyond your wildest dreams :-) It is!!!!
There are several foundational basics as I call them and they are Attention, Hand Signal Awareness, and, the understanding of Parallel Positioning. That would be the AHSAPP Principle :-) OK, just kidding, I just thought maybe assigning a fancy acronym would give it more creedence :-)
There is an inability of most handlers to communicate a start line position, maintain connection with their dog for any length of time, cue a turn over a single jump, etc... this got me thinking about how Merger, one of my young dogs (14 months old), who at this point was unable to weave a straight set of poles, did not have a full teeter or dog walk performance, is just now learning to judge proper take-offs in a jump sequence, and, has yet to do a sequence of more than 4 jumps at full height, can line up on the start line in a near perfect parallel position to me on a verbal cue, can stay for whatever duration of time necessary, understands how to target to my hand, seek out the parallel path, collect before a jump, wrap an upright with beautiful full body flexion, and, in essence is prepared to be "handled" through a masters course.
It was because of these things that I had an epiphany! The most difficult part of agility is handling the dog between the obstacles, not the obstacles themselves, therefore, I have subconsciously taught all of the between the obstacle behaviors before even completing most of the actual obstacle behaviors, making it impossible to show the dog before we are truly ready! You can fake the handling stuff and although probably not pretty, get the dog around the course but you cannot fake a set of weave poles if your dog has never seen them in a straight line!
Do you get it, I have successfully found a way to insure, (as well as we can insure anything), that my dog is truly ready to compete before I "can" compete!
I know I beat this foundation stuff to death but is there any substitute for proper foundation training? I think not!
By the time Merger has all of the obstacles figured out his flat area behaviors will be all worked out and I will be able to enter the ring with a level of confidence that allows me to handle even the greenest of dogs without spectating and micromanaging the things I have not yet trained. This ends the vicious cycle of no trust, spectate, lack of information to dog, wrong behavior, no trust, more spectating, even later and less information to dog, worse behavior, and it goes on and on.
I will go into the ring with a well trained, even if inexperienced dog who I will direct with confidence who will in return offer me the behaviors that I am asking for in a timely manner as correctly as possible for a baby dog embarking on a new journey. It must also be noted that there will be growing pains in any new partnership and it will take time for it to become the well oiled machine it may be with the older dogs I am running.
It was really awesome to know that I could use Merger to demo all of the bits that needed to be available in order to get the dogs from point A to point Z, even if he couldn't do straight line weave poles.
This epeiphany was a direct result of the secrets of success I know to be true in my experience as and agility/dog trainer.
The AHSAPP Principle :-) I feel that if my dog understands how to pay attention, has hand signal awareness and knows that it is his/her job to always be looking for a path parallel to me there is absolutely no configuration of obstacles I cannot get the dog thorugh. All of this is of course in reference to the between the obstacle performance, the obstacles do indeed have to be taught but that is a seperate issue.
It is also necessary to teach the value of the various hand signals and maintain clarity and consistency in their usage.
I do not need to practice a "serpentine," I need to know what cues to offer my dog to correctly negotiate the 3 obstacles in this particular order or configuration. My very attentive dog will read the hand signal and will accomodate what I am asking by reading dirction by way of seeking out a path parallel to me. It is of course important that the path that I am indicating is correct and that I am moving in the direction of the course :-)
You see the secret of success in agility is teaching the dog the to read and understand your cues , and, the various behaviors you will need on course and then trusting what you have taught so that you can walk a course for the most efficient path, share the necessary information with your dog expecting them to respond accordingly. It is your job to plan your run and run your plan.
Well, it is off to bed for me as I have another big day of teaching ahead of me tomorrow :-)