Greg Derrett...Chapter 4

Contacts! So this session was always going to be interesting to find out Greg's method for his contact training. Before he started in on it he tested all of us who had working spots to see what we were doing. There were 12 of us again and most of us had a form of two on two off, some forms more precise than others. I was the only one who had the four on the floor method with Cypher (he runs through the contact and lies down with chin touching the ground). We started with the dogwalk, moved to the A Frame and finished with the seesaw. Greg put the stopwatch on all of us initially and we just ran our contacts like we would normally do in a trial. After timing us and calling the times out he then put in place several "proofing" type tests. The first one being you could only run halfway parallel with the dogwalk and your dog had to complete the contact. I think three of us managed this one, Cypher, Sage (who does two on two off) and one other, the next test was to peel off to the left of the dogwalk so laterally you were at least 12 meters away by the time the dog hit the contact. Again Cypher and Sage managed this along with 3 or 4 others this time. The next test was that you charged straight past the dog once it hit its contact position and the dog had to hold it. Next up was the A Frame and this time the last test was slightly different, you had to run past the a frame, if your dog held it's position you went back and rewarded, then you moved away again without releasing the dog, you had to face away from your dog, have your hands clasped in front of you (this is about 5 meters away) head facing forward. You had to give your release word. This was interesting as it tested how well we had taught our release words. I think only 2 of us managed to get our dogs to release on our release word. The next obstacle was the seesaw and there was no proofing tests on this one he just simply timed how long it took our dogs to complete it.

Greg then had us all move back to the whiteboard so he could go through his method in detail. He started off by stating that the two biggest mistakes people make with their contact training is that they don’t do the Foundation work properly, and that they go into competition too early. He basically said point blank that he wouldn’t be trialling with any of those dogs he saw tonight apart from one (that was Sage who does two on two off and is close to the top level times). He went through the list of things he was seeing that he would fix – dogs not understanding what the actual two on two off position was, dogs relying on body cues entirely, dogs not being reinforced properly, dogs not understanding the release word, dogs offering other behaviours, dogs not sticking to the same criteria and handlers letting them not stick to the criteria. The only comment he made about the four on the floor one that Cypher did was that he felt it was still not clear exactly where he is supposed to lie down. He was lying real close to the ends of contacts in some points, in others he was further away. I must admit I’ve never demanded that he must lie down 0.5 of a meter away from the contact every time because I believe that it depends on what speed he is going at as to what he feels comfortable doing. Generally Cy will lie down anywhere from half a meter up to 4 or 5 meters away from the contact depending on how flat out he is going and what obstacles are in front of him. Either way I’m happy with it because it means he’s missed one dogwalk contact in his entire trialling career so far. As I’ve said earlier, the system dictates the training, far more importance is placed on accuracy in our current agility climate than on speed simply due to the limited population we have competing. Will I train four on the floor again? I don’t think so. I came into four on the floor by accident really; when I was training his a frame getting that two on two off contact at full height was creating a lot of issues with impacting on his front; he tries to do the frame as fast as he can and getting his body into that two on two off position was putting a heap of visible stress on his body, he did hand stands trying to stick it and all sorts of other weird and not so wonderful things with his spine. We worked with it lower for ages moving it up inch by inch so that he learnt to rock his weight back, which worked up to a certain height (this dog is a tug-aholic so he knows how to shift his weight to his rear very well) and then at full height it just didn’t work with him running flat out over it. He was fine if we did a standing start on the upside, his momentum was slow enough for him to manage two on two off. So in the end I trained for four on the floor which kept his speed over it but didn’t tax his joints so much. I’m still not a fan of it though for all its accuracy, he will still, if hitting the frame at max speed, end up lying on the ground with his front legs sometimes tucked or folded under him because he’s done it in such a rush. It’s been known as the SPLAT! contact method as well and I also doubt that it is faster or as fast as a quick release two on two off.

Back to Greg, in his run down of the methods Greg mentioned that it doesn’t matter what you choose to train as long as it has the following four things: 1) Clear criteria 2) High Reinforcement when criteria is met 3) Must be able to be independent 4) Should use a verbal release. Obviously this last one completely eliminates the “running contact” from list of possible methods to teach! As far as Greg was concerned after travelling all over the world and competing against all types of dogs and trainers from many different countries he is still of the opinion that there is no reliable, foolproof method for training and *maintaining* a running contact. All those brilliant running contacts we see on the Worlds and other big events are more often just fast releases of 2o2o or if they are running contacts there is no discernible method that he could see when these teams were warming up or training. Sylvia Trkman’s Simply The Best is the most consistent running contact performer as far as he’d seen but he was not confident that there was any kind of logical, rational method to that contact. So that was interesting! Greg teaches the Susan Garrett nose touch method. The main reason behind his decision to use this contact method was simply because he was very impressed when travelling round North America how quick the breeds that were not your typical agility breeds were doing their contacts and inevitably they’d used the nose touch method. He saw Dobes, Mastiffs, Rotties, Bernese , Danes really large dogs doing fast dogwalk times because of this method and he was impressed by that. Another reason was because the reinforcement level was so high for this method as well. Obviously this involves target training which evolves from the simple hand touch he taught the dogs as youngsters. He uses a 1 inch square (yes it was asked 1inch?? Yes it really is that small) clear piece of plastic. There are no verbals used at all (this is where he differs to Susan) so this is where he may use the clicker. He might hold the plastic to start off with if he needs to but then it will go on the ground pretty quick. Most dogs will tend to sit when targeting this plastic, he moves 360 degrees around the dog constantly rewarding every time that nose hits that target. By hitting the target he means he wants to see that nose wrinkle as it mashes into the target. The nose touch is crucial for giving that weight shift you need at the end of the contact. Once that dog is hitting that target on the ground with its nose constantly over and over in all situations then he will transfer the target to a set of stairs. Yes stairs. Our first thoughts were – where the hell do you find stairs of the right size and shape and amount? He told us they use the wooden packing pallets in the UK. They get a bunch of them and stack them up on each other until you have a podium like effect with four stairs going up on one side and four stairs going down on the other. He places the target so that the dog has to have its front two paws on the floor and its back two paws on the first step. The dogs head should be pointing down in such a way that its nose is poking through its front two legs to hit the target on the floor. He gradually back chains the dog moving forward into position, ie starts the dog on stair two on the down side so it takes one step to get into position, then he’ll move it back to stair three and then stair four so the dog is now at the top of the pallets and so on and so forth until the dog is climbing up and over the stairs and down the stairs into the position. Once the dog is consistently charging over the stairs and hitting the target with its nose and releasing to a game of tug he will then transfer the target to a down plank. He sets the target so that the stop point for the dog is always the same, he demands of his dogs that they stop with their front feet just off, stopper pads in touch with the wood. The down plank will be worked for 6 to 7 weeks and then he moves straight to the complete dogwalk. He will play tug with the dog in position on the down plank as well as it helps give duration and weight shifting. And that is the way Greg trains his contacts. He also said that he will travel all over for the opportunity to run in trial situations and just reward the contact behaviour (ie dog does perfect contact position in middle of run Greg says thanks very much and runs out to play tug with dog) and that the only quick releases he does are at the two or three big events he does each year. This he did admit would be quite demotivating for your average trialler, even for many competitive triallers; to drive all that way, to enter a trial and simply go in the ring to reward that contact behaviour, he claims that it is what you have to do if you want to be the best in the world. Who knows? This could be quite true, I can’t say I’ve interviewed enough gold or silver world championship medallists to find out if this what they do all year round. It would be pretty darn disappointing for me I think if this is what I had to do all year round. It is hard enough for me to stick to my one criteria of a bar being knocked we leave, and at least that means I can’t qualify anyway! For me to pull Raven (the 7 yr old who does running contacts in trials; 2on2off in training) out of a run just because she doesn’t hold a two on two off would be just too against the grain for me, especially if she has just executed an amazing running contact. Usually if she misses it in a trial I’ll just stop her and put her back on and ask her to hold the position for a few seconds. I say usually because I do it based on the judges call, if she gets called for it I’ll put her back, if she doesn’t and I still think she may have missed it I don’t say anything funnily enough! This is all incredibly inconsistent I know but as a general rule it works for me. As long as I maintain the two on two off criteria in training and make sure I do enough repetitions during the weeks between trials and highly reward that position (and I mean highly…I don’t just stuff one or two treats down her, she will get rewarded with up to ten or twelve small treats for one great two on two off in training…it keeps her in the spot for quite a while and always with her thinking this is the greatest spot in the world to get to!) I tend to find they hold up. It’s probably just this sort of thing Greg was talking about when he says he doesn’t believe there is a real, reliable and consistent method for teaching running contacts. I’m inclined at this stage to agree but that doesn’t mean I still can’t have them at trials!

With the A Frame Greg teaches it after the dogwalk or around the same time (so that targeting stuff is all there already) and basically just starts the a frame at 12 inches high and gradually raises it up. Nothing too secret or mysterious there. Now the seesaw. That one shocked me I must admit. Greg’s criteria on the seesaw is that the dog must run to the end of the seesaw hang its two front paws off the end and ride it down whilst trying to nose touch. I had visions of what might happen to some of our really fast dogs if we insisted on that sort of criteria and they were scary! They start with just a normal sized seesaw at full height and then they stack up the pallets again until they sit right underneath the end of the down side of the seesaw so that it can’t move at all. They get the dogs to run to the end and nose touch onto the pallets. Slowly they remove the pallets, very gradually so the seesaw only moves a few inches initially. And that’s how they work it, eventually all the pallets are removed (this can take many weeks or months I’d imagine) and the seesaw is slamming down at full height. The dog is still offering the nose touch all the time. He did mention that it was important that all seesaws are made to the same specs, so the tipping point and weight are all the same from one to the next. We don’t have that here in Australia yet which is another reason why I would shy away from using this method. We also don’t have a clear way for the dogs to always discern if it is a seesaw or dogwalk (no slats) they’re climbing and they do rely on us using verbals. The main reason is why i wouldn’t lean towards this method; that I can see; is accidents with noses mashing into the ground too hard, toes getting stuck under the ends, wrist joints being unduly impacted upon, neck issues etc etc. As far as I can see there is no reason to go fiddling with what most fast dogs do here which is run nearly to the end, ride it down (most commonly in the dropped or half dropped position) and take off when it hits the ground. Our seesaw times are competitive so not sure I’d mess with the seesaw training just yet. So that’s about it for contacts. I should have asked about the chin touch target training, I think the biggest complaint he would’ve had about that would be that you don’t always know if the dogs’ actual chin is hitting the target. Cypher very easily placed his chin on the target and you could see it because he rested his head as opposed to his head slightly raised which you could also detect pretty quick. The nose touch to me seems quite a risky behaviour to teach especially to the high drive, really intense BCs that often do stuff without regard at all to their own self preservation, these are dogs that will run courses with toe nails ripped half off, or severe ligament injuries or even if they suffered from acute pain if we don’t stop them. It makes me think that running flat out to a spot so they can mash their nose into the ground over and over may not be the best plan…Susan Garrett had to change her tack with Buzz because he used to give himself nose bleeds in his full on bid to do as she asked. Nobody has really taught it or insisted on it here to the extent that you will be able to easily say ok that dog uses the nose touch method when you see it compete. I think some people have taught it but have lessened off the criteria to the point where you just see the head duck down repeatedly as though they are going to nose touch. I will remain open minded about this and I hope to maybe see some well trained nose touch methods at the Nationals this year. The weaves will have to wait for my next entry! Along with his jumping thoughts.

Featherweight Vs Heavyweight

So in a bid to sound the population out about their feelings on the matter I have placed a survey up at Zoomerang:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB22686NUMSVZ
that addresses some of the more pressing questions about the direction of agility trial formats in the future in this state. Please feel free to participate, particularly if you have an affinity towards seeing a more even playing ground for the non-medium sized dogs. Even if you are an owner of medium sized dogs (especially those black and white herding types) please have your say because it certainly does not preclude you from having strong opinions on the subject.
Currently 95% of our trials are run with overall awards for the classes, i.e the corgis and the paps compete against the BCs and the GSPs for places. It's a bit like the title of this entry. Doesn't mean they cannot qualify but it does tend to mean that in general most won't get a look in for a ribbon if there are many qualifiers.
How do you feel about that? There are various options presented in the survey for you to express exactly how you feel about it, be sure to add your opinion!

The Raven turns 7!

Well my girl is 7 years old today. She doesn't look a day over 4 I swear! I will post a recent photo of her later (the one above is from last year)...will she have cake? I doubt it...might she get a beefy flavoured chewy raw hide treat...definitely. Now just need to find one that lasts her jaws of death more than 10 seconds. If only I could be as agile as her at the age of 49!

Cypher's Health Stats Update

Good news received today, Cypher’s TNS test results came through on the email. Turns out he’s clear and not a carrier, so that’s good to know. TNS stands for Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome and it is a fatal disease for those affected. Now the test is available breeders will be able to start to eliminate the disease from their lines as it can cause much heartbreak. The following is an extract taken from the Border Collie Health website
"TNS stands for Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome, an hereditary disease where the bone marrow produces neutrophils (white cells) but is unable to effectively release them into the bloodstream. Affected puppies have an impaired immune system and will eventually die from infections they cannot fight. Once thought to be rare, it is now believed that the disease goes undiagnosed for several reasons. First, not very many veterinarians know about the disease to look for it. Second, even when looking, blood counts do not always show lower than normal neutrophil (white blood cell) counts. Finally, because it is an autoimmune-deficiency disease, young puppies present a variety of symptoms depending upon what infections they fall prone to. Thus many cases are not properly diagnosed and have just been thought to be "fading puppies". Making the diagnosis even more difficult is the fact that age of onset varies depending on which infection is involved at the time. Most puppies become ill before leaving the breeder but some do not have symptoms until later. The oldest known survivor was 2 years 8 months. Most affected puppies die or are euthanized by about 4 months of age. TNS cases have been identified in New Zealand, Australia, United States and Great Britain. The most recent case positively diagnosed as TNS was born in the US, but the pedigree contained lines from the US, NZ, Australia and Great Britain. Research now suggests that the gene is widespread throughout the Border Collie breed. It is autosomal recessive, which means that both parents have to be carriers to produce an affected puppy. "
To read more about TNS click on this link.
So it was good news to read his results...so far his health tests have all come back positively: Hips 1:4 - Elbows 0:0, DNA CEA/CH - Clear/Normal, CL - Clear/Normal and now TNS - Clear/Normal. This is good to know for any future puppy plans!

Western Classic Wrap Up

Well it was a mixed bag for my two furballs this weekend. This is Cypher’s first ever Western Classic and I am really pleased and satisfied with how he ran, his runs have been improving every time we stepped into the ring. He went clear in Masters Agility for his 5th pass and he just had a couple of unlucky bars down one in Open Agility and one in Masters Jumping. In Open Jumping I *think* (I didn’t actually see him move) he may have got up at the start and moved closer to the first bar and then sat down again because he knocked the first bar. C’est la vie as they say. He ran very well for me apart from that and I was pleased with his focus which is definitely increasing each time.

Raven did not manage a single clean run the whole two nights apart from her Strategic Pairs run which we did with usual partners Sue and Nifty. That said though I have still been extremely proud of how she worked for me this weekend. Open Agility was a tough one (see post below) and for some unknown reason she ducked behind me on a relatively simple lead out and headed off for the aframe. She didn’t do it but she caused a refusal call on the 3rd jump. We then had an off course after the aframe (I realised afterwards I should have taken the cross behind on the aframe option) and her striding took her over the down dogwalk contact. Then in Masters Agility she was brilliant absolutely flying, did the most spectacular running dogwalk contact I have ever seen her do had to then do a sharp right turn which I cued a bit late for her she still dug in and really fought to do the next jump, amazingly cleared it but by the time I realised what an impossible angle it put her on for the next jump it was too late and she took it from the wrong side. Not her fault at all and I was extremely pleased with what she had done. Masters Jumping I just wasn’t quite in the right mindset with her, she also became extremely hypersensitive to my body position and pulled off the #4 jump probably due to the fact that I had my mind on the next tunnel move and didn’t really give her the usual commitment position to go do a jump. We had a few those hiccups on the Masters Jumping course. It was a nice course though and Cypher ran it very well we just took one bar down on the way home. In Open Jumping we were going great guns till on a slightly pinwheel type turn she face planted on landing from one jump and just didn’t have enough room or time to get up over the next jump though she tried as hard as she could. I couldn’t fault her for that so we kept going and finished the course. Again a lovely flowing course that we just had some bad luck on.

Sunday night was the teams event and I ran 3 out of the 4 dogs on our team, my two plus Rumour the Sheltie. The conditions were not the best in terms of the sun hitting the course badly, if you looked back at your dog on the lead out all you saw was them squinting their eyes badly and trying to sight you. I ran Rumour first and she didn’t want to go near the judge on course which caused a few distractions issues, she popped the 2nd last weaver and also had a couple of off courses. Cypher ran next and did a nice solid clear round, Tag was after him and Robyn ran him for a steady but one bar down (handler error of course! *g*) and then Raven came out. Well she was feeling a bit frisky and feral at this point, so for the second time this year she broke her start, flew by me and then I had to use seat of pants handling which caused her to drop a bar. But other than that she ran a rather uncontrolled but clear course. Onto jumping and Rumour was a bit more improved although again her start was slow due to us running towards the judge, but when I took off on her she came with me!! She ran pretty well after that apart from one off course where I just took my eyes off her for a split second to sight the line home and she was off over another jump! I was happier with her this time though. Cypher again was the team anchor putting in another solid clear round no hiccups, then Raven came out and she was listening well I just didn’t get my line exactly right on the way home and she copped a refusal. Robyn had to run from the showring to the agility ring last night and was the last person to run with Tag. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be a repeat of his clear round in Open Jumping the night before and Robyn got a bit lost! He had a good time anyway finishing off with her. It does suck majorly though when these events clash all the time, you’d think the organisers might think about the fact that Border Collies (the most prominent breed in agility) might be involved with both disciplines and perhaps it would be a good idea to schedule them on different nights! I know I would have entered the show with Cypher and Spryte had they not been on the same night!

Next it was Novice Strategic Pairs and I ran Rumour again for Andrea while she ran Rosie. We had a very smooth run but unfortunately rumour ran under her first jump on her first sequence which cost us a few seconds, we still ended up with 2nd place so that was nice. Then onto Excellent, I ran the gorgeous GSP Emmy for Lisa, who ran Sabra, again it was a nice round; we got an unlucky call on the dogwalk contact so Sabra had to come over and do it however the girls were still fast enough to make the time and there were no other hiccups. Then it was Raven and Nifty’s turn, Raven was more than just feral by now it was like trying to control a severely ADHD/ADD child with high levels of caffeine consumption!! We’d considered this in our strategy I believe which is why Nifty did most of the course and I just tried to hold on to Raven who was dancing around like a jack in the box waiting for our 2nd part! I think Nifty may have had a couple of spins round jumps and Raven was trying to do much more than her share however for the most part it was pretty smooth and we went clear but oddly not in the top three placings which is very unusual for those two to say the least. Nevermind a pass is a pass!! Cypher and Sage were next up and despite me having a blank and not remembering my team mate was the one who started we flew around that course and went clear for third place and our third pass so that was cool. Strategic Pairs is great fun and probably one of the best spectator events there are!

So the last night (Monday night) is the Obedience and I had Cypher in his first Novice trial ever! Raven was also in UD for about her 5th or 6th attempt. As I have been working Cypher's heelwork over the last few weeks I have noticed that he heels well when first grabbed out of the car and straight into work. I went with this strategy at the obedience trial....let's just say the "No Warm Up" approach is not for him! He was happy and up and doing heelwork in some parts but in others he was just away with the fairies. So I just asked to finish with the recall which he did very nicely and we left. We shall aim to be ready for the Novice Obedience at the Royal I think instead! Raven worked very well for me last night and passed most of her UD exercises. Seek back was good (apart from the dropping of the seek back article which she promptly picked up), directed jumping was nice and very enthusiastic as the judge noted, passed her scent discrimination without dropping a single article and we then went into the signals exercise. She actually passed the signals part but failed the heelwork as I had to call her back to heel when we heeled off and she trotted off to the box (for some reason she thought we were working on her box!). She also passed the directed retrieve with the gloves. So all in all she didn't do too badly and that is the furthest we have gotten with the UD round. So there is still hope we may get there one day! So that was it for another Western Classic, not a huge success but some very nice performances by Cy and Rave. We now have to wait till the 24th for our next trial which I have to say is not good!!! We only have about 5 trials left before we head over to Adelaide! ARGH!!!! So much to do and so little time....damn this thing called work!

Western Classic Open Agility

This course ran quite well, amazingly enough out of 42 dogs that ran it only 1 went clear! I had a badly timed bar come down when I ran Cypher (handler needed sock for mouth) and Raven.....well you'd have thought I did frequent blind cross moves on her because she copped a refusal at #3 due to heading straight for the a frame....weird!
Other faults included pushing dog's off the a frame, forgetting the course, bars down after the weaves, off courses after the weaves,broad jump refusals/faults and various other things. I thought it noticeable because when I actually ran it it didn't feel like a very hard course, just one that needed very precise handling.

Greg Derrett...Chapter 3

Ok onto the next part. Finishing off the Thursday night seminar Greg showed us a basic jumping sequence that illustrated one of the strongest proofs for testing your dog’s understanding of front cross cues. Below is the sequence; (Again don't forget that all these diagrams below can be enlarged by clicking on them)

If you can lead out to where the asterisk is and guide the dog’s path to you simply by raising and changing your arms your dog has a solid understanding of the front cross cue. We didn’t put it up but it is definitely one I will try in the future. Oh and by the way Greg doesn’t walk the line around the jumps he wants the dog to take when he leads out he just takes the shortest, straightest path to his lead out position, because (as he said) he is confident his dog understands his body cues well enough that when he gets out there the dog is going to be responding to his signals not trying to take his path that he just walked out with. Next was the discussion of pull throughs. He drew a diagram for us like the one below;

This sequence could work either as a 270 or as a pull through. I had never even conceived of there being a 270 like manoeuvre in this one yet when the path was drawn and you imagined the typical 270 but just flatter it most certainly does use the 270 cues. The pull through enters the picture when the 3 is on the bottom side of that jump. This is where you become aware of that blind cross line you carry with you, can visualise the refusal plane of the obstacle and can see your active line rotating with your own body positional cues. The three key aspects of the pull through are that 1) It is more static than a serpentine (ie you will plant yourself or stand still at one point even if just for a millisecond) 2) You turn your feet 3) The picture you see through the uprights is different from that of a Serpentine situation. For 270’s Greg would use his verbals to get the nice tight turn and he said he’s seen it work equally well when handlers teach their dog to ‘dig in’ on the turn (ie take more shorter strides and fight to get in close on the turn). I think this ‘dig in’ cue is well worth some attention even if like me, you may have to cop some refusals due to your body positioning not being absolutely perfect, I use the verbals of “get in, get in, get in” when I want Raven to get close to me on a turn, the issue I’ve had with it is if I am not right next to the upright she ‘gets in’ brilliantly to the point where if she sees a gap between me and the jump upright she’ll get in on my leg beautifully without doing the jump! Can’t not reward because she did as I asked too perfectly!

A nice quick drill for working the pull through is shown below;

It is interesting when Greg talks about his most basic foundation drills for handling, most of the skills you are working on are only performed once in the short sequence. I think this comes from having the goal of perfecting such a move at flat out speed first before trying to combine more than one skill or one repetition of the skill into the one sequence. It is perfected by endless repetitions. I get the impression that this box work really is like having to practice your scales for piano, having your dog’s full attention for duration on heelwork patterns for obedience, or knowing your times table for maths; they are basic skills that need to be perfected at the simplest level before you try to test those skills under more complex situations. This is discipline I have a healthy respect for and certainly aspire to but by the same token I don’t know a single competitor in Australia who enters their dog in its very first trial and has these basic cues perfected to the highest degree. This would also seem to correlate with Greg’s summation that agility dogs (particularly high drive ones) don’t really peak until 4 or 5 and sometimes later. It is also not so much as just the dog’s peaking at this age but a combination of dog and handler finally coming into their own in terms of their timing and strength of partnership.

Finally for that Thursday night workshop Greg spoke about rear crosses and how you must have them well trained if you are to be successful in agility. He mentioned how so often evil arms come into play and verbals interfere with the smooth, good performances of the rear cross. If your dog has been trained well in the rear cross then all it should require of you as a handler is just to step across the dog’s path as you run behind it. That in itself, should be enough to let the dog know we are turning. He trains the recognition of this positional cue from a very early age by simply having the dog sit in front of you. You have the maximum amount of treats in both hands, as you step across the dogs line behind it the dogs head will turn to follow you, you feed as soon as you see that response with the hand nearest to the dogs head. Then go the other way. Repeat that for two 5 minute sessions each day and you will have put a strong foundation down for the understanding of the rear cross. A very simple, basic exercise that relies only on the dog being able to sit and being food motivated. Before the night ended someone asked about his directional verbal cues for left and right. He placed the following diagram on the board very quickly;

Greg said if the handler can stay in one spot to the right side of jump 1 and turn in a full circle three times in a row yet on the third time give the verbal cue for the dog to go left and the dog does it then your dog is fully proofed on his directionals. As far as Greg is concerned directionals are only there to get him out of a ‘deep shit’ situation on course where he has been unable to get to where he needs to be and they should be so well trained that they over ride the physical body cues for the dog (why else would he use them if they are only there to get him out of trouble). In other words the dog should on a verbal direction cue, follow it regardless of what your body cue is telling it to do. Can’t say I’ve seen too many of those dogs! So that, in as big a nutshell as you’ll ever find, is that for the Thursday workshop one. My only criticism so far was that for the working spot owners, you felt like you wanted some more individual feedback on your performance and what you needed to do to fix up your particular issues, most of us had footwork, timing and poor diagonals on the front crosses.

Seminar 2 – Friday morning Advanced masters handling, again we had 12 working spots with just about all dogs there having their Masters titles or nearly there. Greg started us off this morning with a quick assessment of our serpentine handling which he didn’t think was too bad although there was definite room for improvement with just about all of us. See the diagram below;

Greg defined serpentine handling as needed whenever you had to perform two theoretical front crosses on both sides of the obstacle eg Fx – Obstacle – Fx. Our biggest issues in our serpentine handling was that we turned our feet too much in our footwork (you should be running a very smooth straight forward line), we’d bring our opposite arm up too early causing the dog to pull through or we’d bring it up too late causing the dog to go very wide or to go past the jump altogether. Also our motion needed to be sped up yet still maintain a nice smooth flow. Key aspect of good serpentine performance is keeping that movement flowing. Again (this has come up for me on other seminars I’ve done) for me serpentine handling brought up the issue of having the dog comfortable with jumping almost into you at speed to get the tightest line. Of course you should always be moving so the dog never does make contact with you but if you want the tightest line you need to be very close to those jumps when you’re handling and it was evident that not many of our dogs are too comfortable with this and also not many of us as handlers feel too comfortable about getting so close into the jump uprights, we see just about every trial some poor handler come a cropper on jump equipment so I think most of us have this inbuilt aversion towards getting too close to the jump equipment, I know I’m often concerned I’ll bump into it!! This is definitely an art that should be practiced! The below exercise had us all really thinking about what a serpentine consists of and where on the course serpentine handling might help our times on course.

The red dashed line is the handlers’ path and the red asterisks represents where we needed to bring up our serpentine arm signals. There are two serpentines in the above diagram – jumps 3 to 5 and then jumps 6 to 8. It was good to work these skills as done well; the line for the dog was significantly smoother and shorter.

Here are some further drills;

The following one is actually a pullthrough drill;

Greg also introduced us to his method of course walking very briefly stating that he would elaborate further on. To work out the fastest way around a course Greg asks himself 3 questions (well not anymore since he has been walking courses since he was 12 years old it’s kind of like breathing to him now….if only I had started back then!). 1) Where are we coming from? 2) What is the distance to the next obstacle? 3) Where are we going to? More on this one later.

Referring back to the ‘dig in’ stride he asks dogs to do on tight turns Greg demonstrated it on the board what it should look like.

To train the dog to understand this cue they need to recognise your deceleration plus the verbals you give them. This little exercise is one Greg does to help with this;

Greg patterns the dog on both sides to extension first indicated by the blue handler path and it shows him running straight on. Then to work on recognition of the body cue of decelerating he works the three jumps again obviously slowing down and turning tightly on the spot. Again he does this both sides. Obviously there is huge reward and tug play in the reinforcement zone when the dog adds that extra stride in which they must do if they are to turn tight. It can also be practiced (and perhaps you’d do this drill first for dogs unfamiliar to the placing in an extra stride) with a static lead out situation (for example if there was an obstacle #4 right in line with #2 on either side of #2) Your body position which should be turned facing the upright should also cue the dog to put that extra stride in. It is a skill that the majority of dogs can certainly improve on given plenty of repetitions.

To finish the morning off Greg gave us a couple of front cross drills that really tested our footwork and the dogs understanding of our positional cues.

By far the one above was the most challenging as how well you performed it depended on a number of factors. First if a handler had to really babysit the 270 from 4 to 5 you were in trouble. This really showed how good your dog’s 270 training was….turns out all of us can afford to work on them! Secondly if you were able to get the smooth FC in from 6 to 7 and thus made the dog’s turn over 6 very tight you needed to really move to get in the Fx from 7 to 8. Many handlers obviously had their mind on this Fx and their dogs refused 7 coming with them as they had not ensured the dog had committed to 7 before moving into the Fx position. Everyone got there in the end with some advice from Greg. A great exercise though, thoroughly recommend everyone try it. You could do a before and after drill….before refreshing 270s and after you’ve refreshed 270s!

Phew! Ok that’s it for Chapter 3…this session I found to be the most challenging in terms of handling as a working spot owner and the best in terms of feedback for individuals. Next chapter Contacts and Weaves!

Wednesday Night Training

Keeping in mind most of our heads were swimming with the Greg Derrett seminar yet still needing to do some skills work for the upcoming major event of the Western Classic I pulled this course straight out of the top of my (some say *evil* but they're just jealous *g*) head. I wanted to work the serpentine cue, FCI tunnel sucking demons, independent weave entries and unusual starting positions. Nobody whinged too much and there was a challenge on to try and avoid the off course weave poles on the way home. If you click on the pic it should enlarge in a new window.

Greg Derrett Chapter 2

The first seminar was held on Thursday and it ran for 5 hours and was for the dogs about to start trialling or in their first 12 months of trialling. The first drill and many subsequent drills he put up for us were from the double box work Greg is so well known for.

Greg got us all to do this drill first up. He then sat us down to talk about some of his handling theory. Amongst many things he mentioned the points that stood out the most were (and like all these things they seem so simple you ask yourself ‘Did I just have a total mental blank here or why didn’t I see this?’) that wide turns are a very strong indicator of the dog not being properly reinforced in the reinforcement zone. That zone being that semi circle shaped area in front of your body and to the sides of your body. I never really thought about defining that reinforcement area as so cut and dried, however the way Greg talked about the zone made it clear that for him the place the dog should always wants to get to and is trying to get to is that reinforcement zone (if of course you have reinforced enough!). This placed quite a new slant on things for me and showed that I have been a very much obstacle reinforcing type trainer when I think back to how I trained Raven. Sure she gets food when she finishes her run, however whilst running sequences, training drills etc I have never really asked her to come right into me and be full on rewarded for it….I multiple treat on contacts, I go in and treat nailed complex weave entries, I have on a few occasions rewarded her for pulling off something when asked, but I have been made wary of this because she has become hyper responsive to it on some occasions pulling off at just the slightest movement (which is where Greg’s talk about consistency revealed a few problems). Cypher is different in a good way if you look at him according to Greg’s theory however I know that his highest reinforcement zone is around the tug toy instead of me but at least he’s not obstacle reinforced….I just have to transfer that toy fixation to me! He always brings me his toy to play at the end but his mission is – finish obstacles> must get toy!! So by rethinking where the highest reinforcement should be you end up having some very different goals in training that’s for sure!! He explained that the front cross for all of us needs to become more ingrained and natural, it is three simple steps but we should be practicing by ourselves out on a field somewhere till we can do them with our eyes shut, running flat out. He noticed our front crosses were happening way too early and this also resulted in us using pre-cueing techniques which he flatly told us were a waste of time and confusing ultimately for our dogs. We were good at rewarding our dogs at the finish but we needed to look at where we were rewarding them (ie there should be no throwing of toys as the reward should come from you and be around you), he was also happy for us to use the next three days to go back and reward the startline waits we got from time to time. Going back to the early front crosses he talked about knowing your dog’s commitment point to a jump and how it can vary throughout a career and that this is something that is quite naturally occurring so therefore he hasn’t seen it been altered too successfully by any special training methods. The ideal commitment point for Greg was at the takeoff point for the dog. This I found curious as it has an impact on how fast a handler can move onto the next obstacle, the commitment point came up again in a later workshop.

Greg then went on to elaborate about front crosses and why we do them, we did them in the above drill to change sides primarily and he did say this was one indicator a Fx was needed (ie that you needed a change of side). We then discussed – did you need to do one from 6 to 7 in that drill as a few people did. Greg said there wasn’t one needed there and used the reason that no change of side was required.

The second drill he got us to do was the one above. A discussion took place over how many front crosses were required. The correct answer was 1. One between 3 and 4 and that was it. We debated the merits of one between 6 and 7 since it could be argued there was a definitely right hand turn for the dog there. A suggestion came up about one between 7 and 8 and that launched into Greg’s reasons for why you do not front cross on a straight line. First though he defined our personal blind cross line (the line which if the dog crosses you no longer see them. It is the line that runs out laterally on either side of us and forms the straight line at the bottom of the semi circle which is our reinforcement zone.) See diagram below.

The handler is facing north in this diagram to help give the picture of what Greg was talking about. Basically as you run a course the dog should never cross that line and you can imagine it as this invisible line that runs out from both of your shoulders as you run….often when we get in front of the dog our dogs should be striving to get to our reinforcement zone. So it is quite possible and highly desirable that our dog is always driving in a forwards direction when we are in front to try and get there. Of course for most handlers with fast dogs we are the ones striving to keep that blind cross line moving forward from obstacle to obstacle. The 5 reasons why we shouldn’t do blind crosses on our dogs were given as follows; 1) You take your eye off your dog 2) It lowers their drive forward causing them to shut down 3) It forces them to cross your blind cross line in the wrong direction 4) It is often characterised by a late physical cue and 5) It is a major inconsistency for the dog in handling. Also on the blind cross it was brought up about how whenever Greg is interacting with his dogs he doesn’t let them do a blind cross on him, whether they’re going out for a long walk or just mucking around in the living room he will always block them from doing that blind cross and discourage it from an early age. He mentioned that this is very important with our herding breeds who often find that behaviour so reinforcing and it does show on the agility field, as Greg is a firm believer that behaviours do transfer across (hence he recommends never teaching the finish in obedience around the back of the handler). He said 7 to 10 years ago you may have found dogs in the top levels who were good across disciplines but these days in agility if your dog is a serious herding trial dog or top level obedience or top level flyball competitor you will never reach the top level in agility as well at the same time. There are too many dogs just solely agility dogs that have far better performances in agility. This was interesting….how many times on walks do my dogs cast out around me and come up from behind running at full speed for the frisbee I’m about to throw! It was definitely food for thought and probably threw the challenge down for some really driven dogs there with handlers that do compete in herding, obedience as well.

The 3rd drill we did on the double box is shown in the diagram below;

This we completed with one front cross only between 5 and 6. If the front cross was executed nicely I believe we had our medium and large dogs bounce jumping 5 to 6 smoothly. Greg spoke about our front cross moves and how the foot work needed improving (it should only be three steps; one forward, one back and one forward and should cover a decent amount of ground space – Greg’s is about 2.5m) and also reminded us that our precueing was not required if the dog understands your body cues well and that in actual fact it was the use of the evil arm. He also talked about our diagonal lines needing to be neatened up which refers to the actual placement of our feet on the cross. Dogs that were used to being handled by “Motherflicka handlers” as he so endearingly labelled them, they actually flicked off to the left over jump #2 if the handlers tried to bring up their right arms to straighten the line from 6 to 7. It did actually bring home how inconsistent our handling was by highlighting to us on the one hand when we bring our off arm up we are getting ready for the dog to turn into us, and yet when we are struggling to get to where we need to be we will bring that off arm up in the hope that the dog turns away from us to do the obstacle. I believe there are 4 front cross drills he does that are all about getting those positional cues right. They are as follows;

Drill #1
Drill #2

Drill #3
Drill #4

The drill above (#4) is not actually a front cross drill, it is a serpentine handling drill. The handler should not front cross at 4 (as in drill 2) because the line is much shorter and faster (if the serpentine cue is properly performed) to number 5. Of cours if you had obstacle number 6 located to the left of jump 5 (more in line with jump 4) then yes you would consider the front cross as an option.

The query was asked about how much verbal Greg uses on course (given that last year Jon Watts was in Perth and was trained by Greg and he told us that you have to motivate your dog through voice….turns out this is where he differs from Greg in that regard!). Greg says the only verbals he gives on course usually are the dog’s name and that is when he wants the dog to dig in on a tight turn and he’ll say the dog’s name repeatedly to get that dog to respond with a tight turn.

One of the things he went over with us also this evening was the 7 reasons why you should not do a front cross on a straight line…I managed to get 6 down I think. So here they are;

7 Reasons Why You Should Not Front Cross on a Straight Line

• 1) It is the positional cue for serpentine handling (he prefaced this one with a promise to elaborate further when we go onto serpentine handling)
• 2) It causes the dog to take extra strides nine times out of ten.
• 3) You are teaching your dog to ignore the front cross cue.
• 4) Strong possibility of the dog running into you (this is true I’ve seen it happen on at least a few occasions, plus I’m sure it’s happened to me!)
• 5) Slows the dog down
• 6) Affects the dogs jump arc (ie causes dropped bars)
• 7) Did anyone else get this one? (Cathy?)

So there you go. No more front crossing on a straight line (even if you do have to change sides!!). One rule I’m going to try and stick to as it certainly makes sense to me, not that I am a notorious straight-line front crosser or anything but I believe I have done it on at least one or two really stupid occasions! That’s enough for this chapter…although we still covered more in this first seminar including pull throughs, proofing the dog’s understanding of the front cross, proofing your verbal directional commands and examining the rear cross. Stay tuned….feedback, by the way, is very positive reinforcement for this creature of instant gratification J Hint Hint!

Waiting for his turn...

Got this soulful look at the last day of Greg Derrett's workshops.

Greg Derrett...Chapter 1

We’ve had the benefit of the teachings of Greg Derrett here this past weekend and it has certainly been an eye opener for many of us. To be honest I was surprised more Perth agility people did not take advantage of the unlimited auditing. Everyone has their own ideas I suppose. Anyway the four seminars started on Thursday evening and ran through to Saturday morning. Thursday, Friday evening and Saturday morning all dealt with the younger dogs who were just ready to start competing or had been competing not too long. Then Friday morning was for the Advanced Masters dogs.

Before I launch into a blow by blow account of the four workshops I must make comment upon context. I truly believe that the type of agility competition a country has, the equipment that is used and the rules that are in place has a major impact on the training priorities of your average competitor. Australia is not a hugely populated country like the UK, the sport, whilst it is growing fast has nowhere near the numbers competing that it has in Europe. The rule that you must win in order to advance to the next level brings a whole different perspective into your approach to the sport. I can honestly say that I am glad that here in Australia you do not have to win to advance in the sport. For our sport I believe that would certainly mean we would lose motivation for many of our weekend warriors who set personal goals to progress higher and I think we would see the growth in our sport stagnate.

Should every handler expect to be able to put an Agility Champion on their dog or to win a National final? No, absolutely not. Should every handler be allowed to progress if they have trained and practiced enough to become proficient in running a course clear? Definitely. Agility, ultimately, is a way of having fun, spending time with your dogs and friends and challenging yourself to be a good trainer and handler. Do I want to win? Absolutely, not many people out there who have competitive dogs would say no to that question no matter how much it is not openly talked about! The question becomes then how far am I prepared to go to win? Do I want to go into 98% of my trials in a year and train my contacts so for those 2% of trials of big events I know that I have trained everything to the nth degree and have a much better chance of winning. Let’s face it no matter how much you train (even if I reinforced my contacts for 54 out of 55 trials in the year and do a quick release on that all important big event at the 55th trial) there can only be one winner and we are talking about dogs here, they may just take an extra unnecessary stride somewhere, they might tip a bar etc. I think it would be incredibly demotivating for the handler to approach their trialling career in this way. What makes running agility so much fun and addictive? That feeling you get when you have run a course in the smoothest way possible and you go clear. It doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s like a tonic that keeps you aspiring for more.

99% of most errors on course are handler caused; a simple fact that will hold up under strenuous analysis I’m sure, not forgetting that not only mistakes whilst running the course are handlers’ fault but if their dog is unable to perform a particular skill then there is a gap in the dog’s training therefore handler caused! There are times here when long term, committed handlers go into the ring and have a very specific goal in mind for that run that has nothing to do with running clear and more to do with a specific issue they’ve had in training or trialling. I admit to doing it myself on several occasions when something has become enough of a torture for me to blow off the entry fee and chance of a card and/or win and purely concentrate on reaching that goal of a reinforcing the rock solid start, or that goal of holding contact position, or that goal of independent weaves etc etc. Would I enjoy doing that almost all year round just so I improved my odds when it came to Nationals time? Would that one win in a National final be enough of a reward for me to keep my motivation and enthusiasm in tact for the rest of the year till the next National? The answer is of course a resounding no.

Our Nationals have been running since 2001 and whilst it certainly is the most prestigious event on the agility calendar year in terms of the best dogs in the country run there, it doesn’t determine who goes to a World Championships, it doesn’t lead to a chance to compete at Crufts or at the IFCS Nationals or even the USDAA Worlds Grand Prix. The following weekend or two weekends later you’ll still be back at your local grounds competing with the same dogs and same handlers weekend in and weekend out….and you will still be striving for that nice smooth clean run. So why lessen your overall enjoyment of your chosen sport just to ensure that you have the best possible chance to win a National. It would seem somewhat self defeating to have this attitude. I try and make sure that I budget so that I can enter as many runs as possible at each trial, then if I think I need to, I can use a couple of runs to focus on a particular skill. The rest of my runs I try for that rare, smooth, clean run. I have tried using an entire trial as training runs, and whilst I felt some satisfaction by the end of the night that the skill I was working on is more proficient because of it I still felt somewhat hollowed by it all, like I was depriving myself (and therefore no doubt, my dogs, who always are a reflection of their handler, felt something similar).

What has all this got to do with Greg Derrett you may be wondering if you have hung on this far. Well I think like all presenters you must examine the context they come from and make careful decisions about what aspects of that context apply to you. If speed is the number 1 priority because you have to ‘win out’ of a class, everything you do from day 1 of bringing that puppy home is geared towards that. If you have non-typical agility breed and you don’t have to win out but you would still like to progress through the ranks then maybe speed is an equal priority to other things like teaching weaves or contacts, you might be teaching obstacles in that case a little earlier than the trainer who has a dog who is likely to have the drive and intensity to work plus the structure to be a top world competitor. Maybe you have spent 18 months training your dog and whilst they are not at their maximum speed yet or perhaps not got the perfect contact behaviour happening yet you know they are proficient enough to get round a course with you without any problems. I don’t see any harm in competing in Novice even though your dog is not trained up to a Masters level. It becomes an issue if you do more trial runs than training runs and so therefore you are not reinforcing behaviours on the ring since you are trying to run clear (no tug toy or food). That is when your behaviours will start to fall apart. As long as your non-reinforced runs are severely outweighed by the reinforced runs there should not be a problem with competing early. This of course means more than a one night a week commitment to training then and that’s where the pet dog (ie they had a pet dog and decided to take up agility with it) weekend warriors may come unstuck in the higher levels.

Well this post has turned into a lengthy one. I will write more on the content of his workshops in the next post.

Albany

Well from now on Cypher is going to come to every country trial. We went to Albany on the weekend – an 800km round trip. Yes, quite simply agility addicts are insane but quite frankly we like our insanity and we nurture it with great aplomb. We had 8 runs – four for Raven and four for Cypher. Initially I made the decision to do country trials this year because I am aiming for Agility Champ cards for Raven, I decided to bring Cypher mainly to get more runs in for that length of travel I need to do. Cypher did me proud again gaining 3rd place in Masters Jumping and 3rd place in Open Agility. In Masters Agility he had a moment of temporary deafness closely followed by a dash of tunnel suck, and in Open Jumping it was down to good old frustratingly consistent handler error. Said handler for once unable to get the verbals out quick enough….usually my problem is the other way around (ie not knowing when to shut up!). I was really pleased with our two clear runs as not once did he lose focus for a second. Raven well…what can I say she was having a bad bar day and my handling wasn’t helping. In Masters Agility we were great up until the table when I let her pressure me and said the wrong thing, she then went off course by placing some paws on the dogwalk, sucked into the obvious tunnel entry. But she kept her bars up in that run at least. In Open Agility she had two not very difficult bars down one after the other so we stopped and left. In Open Jumping the same thing occurred and in Masters Jumping we were going great guns until I thought I should try for that front cross into a serpentine which was a very stupid idea as she brought the bar down in her rush to try and catch up with me. When I thought about it afterwards I didn’t actually need that front cross as she would have handled that serpentine quite nicely if I had just stayed on the nearest side of it. Grrrrrr….stoopid handler!!
Oh well two weeks till the Classic! Lots to train as usual…and Greg Derrett to look forward to next week!

Training Bits N Pieces

Our Agility Club started back for the year a couple of weeks ago now. I put this jumping course up after making it up off the top of my head. When I create things like this I tend to have an issue in mind that I want to train for. In this case it’s transitioning for the dog from extension to collection in their striding and working a semi-difficult weaver entry. I always have to keep in mind this level of class is aimed at Novice trialling dogs so I can’t make it too challenging although our goal in the club is of course to have our dogs trained up to the highest level possible even if they are only competing in Novice. Also applied to this course is the ability to send your dog out to go and do the jumps without you having to be by their side. It was a good little sequence that blended nicely into the contact sequence later on to make one big course.
Another issue that I mentioned in my last post was getting me up to speed with my handling of Raven. There have been several suggestions and so far they sound good and I will be trying them out over the next few weeks. It will be absolutely awesome to be able to ask Greg Derrett in a couple of weeks time what to do about it. I know what I should do (and lets be honest I know how to do it if I really put my mind to it) physically and that is lose some weight and get fitter myself so I can give her faster directions with my body cues. However I think mentally there is a lot more I can do too. I am going to give more time and effort to really thoroughly memorise every miniscule move I need to make on the course. As in I should remember, without any glitches or pauses, with my back to the course and in my minds eye exactly what moves/cues I am giving and where. Also I need to work on her one bar exercises again and quickly move it up to two bars with a tunnel to generate the speed so I can then practice my cues more. I remember when we retrained her jumping that I had to really focus on my own body and verbal cues so that I was truly proofing her jumping skills. So I will be going back to that and refreshing her on those skills whilst at the same time getting in some valuable timing practice for me. With Cypher I have been working hard on his Obedience - his first novice obedience trial is coming up fast, I am happy with everything apart from his Stand stay for exam and his 1 minute sit stay. At the moment he is still fidgeting in the stand, he'll move one foot slightly as I walk away or he'll move a foot as I return around him, so we are working on this, and in the 1 minute sit stay we are simply combating his tendency to lie down. However there are still things I want to perfect in our agility runs. He still can tend to not read my body cues and go wide around my front crosses, and I am working him every week to try and improve his weaver trialling speed. He does them nice and fast in training I am just aiming to get that in the trial ring. It's hard though when he hits them so fast he gets hung up in them and then understandably slows down. We are still proofing his distraction training with his tug toy though, he's not always convinced that we haven't finished a course sometimes and that he should continue to run rather than gaze hopefully in what he thinks is the direction of his tug toy. We'll get over that one day I'm sure!

A Spot of Geraldton

Raven, Cypher and I did a spot of Geraldton on the weekend, popped up there for an agility and jumping trial. It is a fairly long 5 hour drive but it was worthwhile in the end. Cypher is one card closer to his ADM title now and Raven is one card closer to her Agility Champion title, the fur kids did good. Cypher did really well with his only two faults being completely and utterly handler error. This is becoming disturbingly common and whilst I know one is not supposed to beat oneself up about these things it is becoming more and more annoying and frustrating. Anyway I was really impressed with his first run of the night in Open Agility, he was flying and actually felt really fast. It was all good till I had brain blank on the course and left him wondering what the hell he was supposed to be doing. He didn’t think anything of it though by the time we ran out and had a great game of tug. Raven was next up and was caught out by the heavier seesaw and then dropped a bar so we withdrew. Masters Agility up next, determined not to confuse the boy again I ran Cypher exactly according to plan, he momentarily thought he had a better plan in the middle of a three jump pinwheel but I was able to convince him it was a bad plan! He ran clear for 3rd place and his fourth leg of ADM. I helped out with stewarding for a while till Open Jumping came up. I ran Cypher again and he was great and this was despite getting really stuck and hung up in the weavers, he still gave me his best and I was so proud of him, he went clear for 3rd place out of 6 qualifiers. Raven decided that my lead out was just a bit too far and broke it which ended up with me having do a spectacular vault over the top of her which in turn led to us getting a refusal or a DQ on the distance challenge. She then also got hung up in the weavers as well (most unlike her, I think they were quite a lot less flexible than the weavers we use in Perth) which caused her to miss one. We carried on and she knocked, I think the second last bar so we withdrew. Masters Jumping up next and despite me getting my act together for Cypher for the previous two runs I managed to cause a refusal on the last run home by completing a very poor front cross on him. He didn’t notice though and we carried on and had a good game of tug at the end. I decided for Raven to keep quiet most of the time and to make a deliberate conscious effort to be extremely clear and purposeful about my commands and cues. It worked! We had a slight wobble on a 180 degree two jump sequence which cost us some time but we still ended up in 3rd place less than one second behind first place. That card got us one closer to her Agility Champion title. To be honest I don’t know if we will achieve this title but with her speed at the current time I figure there is no harm in setting such a high goal. I figure if we just aim to go clear then her speed will take care of the rest; my only issue at the moment is my lack of consistency with giving her direction fast enough. We have been competing for nearly 5 years now and she has never been as fast as she is right now, I just feel like I am so behind her on course in reacting and directing her and I am not sure how I can work on this to improve it as I never see this speed from her in training. I need one of those Matrix upload programs that I just plug in and automatically then have the ability to keep up with her speed. Any suggestions anyone???

Only the Good...

It’s taken me a while to get this entry written and there is a reason for this. On the Thursday following young Mo’s death the WA agility world was dealt another cruel blow with the death of another even younger, up and coming agility boy. Pam Scurlock tragically lost her young Dash at 18 months old – an energetic and switched on young smoothcoat working bred Border Collie. Even now there is still mystery about the cause of his death and results are still being waited upon and whilst these results will not heal the pain caused by his loss there is an element of importance about it due to Dash being one of three siblings here in our Agility Club.

Pam had Dash from around 4 months of age and his complete and utter enthusiasm for life always left her with a smile on her face and the motivation to be for Dash the best trainer she could be. Undergoing knee surgeries and treatments, not so she could keep up with him (not even an Olympic sprinter could keep up with the Dash) but just so that she could enjoy her chosen sport with this young boy seemed a minor inconvenience in anticipation of the fun ahead. I took my time writing the entry because it was so hard to accept such another tragic loss so close to Mo’s and also because it took time as we searched through many of Tim’s galleries to try and find a photo of him (Dash wasn’t at competition level yet so this meant there are no photos of him trialling). We at last found 2 and here they are. Dash went through a lot in his final days and whilst Pam is still finding her way through this tragedy there is a small solace to be taken in the thought that he is at peace now. Rest in peace Dash, gone much too soon, you shall not be forgotten.