Agility Class Notes

This page provides notes and resources from our agility class. We are blessed to have Moe Strenfel of Momentum Dog Sports as our instructor.

Classes

April 15, 2010

Today we did a jumpers course with an emphasis on serps and threadles.

This is the first course we did (white circles). Notes:

Leadout to #4. Turn shoulder to support #3.
Front cross at #4.
Send dog past refusal plane to send him to the back of #5.
Run into serp position at #6.
Serp 7-8.
Rear cross 9.
Serp through 10-11-12.
Threadle at 13.
We did another version of this course where we had to go from #1 to the back side of #2. We handed it as a leadout pivot. When the dog got to #2, we turned our shoulder to pull the dog across the face of the jump, and then we executed our front cross.

Second course (same map, black squares):

Leadout pivot--Set dog up at an angle at 1, looking at 2.
Front cross at 2.
From 3, send to the back of 4. You send around the long side, where the circled white 10 is.
Run to the other side of the jump to serp into the #5 tunnel.
Handling tip: when you're serping around the side of a jump (such as #4 jump to #5 tunnel), the correct handling position is at the side of the jump, standing right on the refusal line. Our challenge in the class was to get to our handling position in time.
Front cross 7-8.
I can't remember how exactly we handled 9 through 12, but I think there was some serping in there. :-)

Third course:

Leadout pivot to the back of #2. Turn shoulder as you're crossing the back of #2 to get to your FC position; turned shoulder helps the dog understand the path.
Stay on back of #3, serp. Hang back at #3 to RC #4.
Send dog across refusal plane of #5 to get the back of the jump, run to your serp position at #6.
Serp #6-#7 to keep the dog on your left side.
Send dog into #8 tunnel with your left hand.
FC to get #9. You definitely had to get the dog's attention as he came out of the tunnel to make sure he got #9.

General:

With a threadle you square up and plant. No walking backwards.
To reward a serp, feed out of the raised hand. If you want to reward out of the opposite hand afterwards, then throw the food (or toy).
When you're sending the dog to the back of a jump, it's actually sometimes better (i.e. clearer to the dog) not to be too close to the jump. Just send the dog across the refusal line and run to your next handling position.

Additional exercises using the same setup.

April 8, 2010

Giant square, 3 jumps on each side, used to practice serps and threadles.

Serp rules:
- For the sake of this discussion, each serp exercise conceptually consists of 3 side-by-side jumps: ___ ___ ___. The middle jump is where you raise your serp hand to tell the dog to jump in towards you. After the dog commits to the middle jump, you raise your opposite hand to tell the dog to turn away from you to take the final jump in the series.
- Your positional cue is at the far standard of the jump at which you are doing the serp cue:

___ ___ ___

You raise your serp hand when you see your dog's nose through the jump standards ("come in"). Put your other hand behind your back to make sure it's not in the picture.
As you raise your serp hand, you should be turning your shoulder to keep your reward zone (midsection) oriented towards the dog.
If you get too far ahead, you should fully rotate at the destination jump--otherwise, you're presenting the dog with ambiguous information re: your reward zone.
You raise your opposite hand (to turn the dog away from you over the next jump) when the dog commits to the "serp jump." If you don't raise your opposite hand to cue the third jump in the sequence, your dog should run by it. Otherwise, it's a flick.
"Commitment" is defined as the dog taking off.
Run parallel, don't step back, keep feet pointing in the direction you're going.

Threadle rules:
- Positional cue is at the near standard of the jump where you are doing the threadle cue:

___ ___ __3_

1 x 2

Plant with feet square, face the dog. Don't back up.
Raise opposite hand. Put your other hand behind your back to make sure it's not in the picture.
You do your threadle when the dog commits to (takeoff = commitment) the previous obstacle.
Have your weight on the foot away from the jump. When the dog crosses the refusal plane (i.e., no longer at risk of taking wrong side of jump), swing back with your foot that's next to the jump, and rotate towards the jump. Raise opposite hand to send dog over jump.

March 18, 2010

This week we set up a full contacts course. Here are the exercises:

Exercise #1 and #2 (2 exercises per page).
Exercise #3 (didn't have time for #4, which is the top exercise on the page).

Exercise #1 (top map):

This was a pretty straightforward, fast loop. It set the dogs up for the exercises that followed--they were patterned to do a fast loop, but the follow on exercises had more difficult technical elements.
The trickiest part of this course was getting to the AF in time for the front cross.
We were concerned that the dogs would take the broad jump backwards after #3 instead of going into the chute. Did we need a threadle? No. The key was to get ahead and do a shoulder pull to the chute. None of the dogs had a problem with this part of the course.

Exercise #2 (bottom map):

This was a more challenging course. You needed a threadle after #5 to get the dogs on the #6 dogwalk. We talked about why we needed a threadle here when we didn't need a threadle on Exercise #1 to get the dogs into the chute. Discussion:
- The dog has a lot of momentum coming over #5, and he is on a line to the off-course #10.
- If you break it down and mentally draw a dotted line to indicate the refusal plane of #10 (jump + refusal plane = "active line"), you realize that the dog crosses the refusal plance of #10 en route to the DW. This is why you need a threadle to clearly indicate the DW.
- #7 - #8 - #9 was tricky. You had to push them over #7 and then run like crazy to get them the #9 jump.

Exercise #3 (bottom map--we didn't have time to do the top map):

The AF to the weaves was challenging. We were supposed to rear cross the AF and then run laterally over to the weaves. We had someone throw our dog's toy to get them driving forward down the AF before turning off to the weaves. My challenge was that Trevor wasn't reading my rear cross of the AF--he kept turning to the right. Moe pointed out to me that I wasn't driving on my diagonal for the rear cross. I was running straight up to the AF (right back corner) and then cutting over, instead of running the diagonal to the left rear corner.
Again, the key to handling #9 - #10 (broad jump -> chute) was getting ahead and giving a shoulder pull. No threadle required. Trevor touched a paw on the broad jump initially--we need to putting that in our practice more.

March 11, 2010

In this class we did the second half of the exercises from the Advanced Boxwork workshop Angela and I attended on 2-27-10.

First we did Exercise 4. Notes:

Some of the dogs went off-course on the jump between #2 and #3. Need to reward this front cross to reinforce correct behavior.
Important not to rotate too early. Tag line from today's class [from handler to dog]: WHEN I TURN, YOU TURN.

Then we did Exercise 5. Notes:

The proper leadout position was to stand right before #3--maybe 4-6" before the jump. You didn't want to lead out too far (i.e., right to the jump standard or beyond), because that would cue the dog to drive forward instead of cuing the turn.
The leadout position also gave the dog a strong decel cue.
The first time through, we were supposed to hold still in our leadout position. The dog should turn left over the jump and come to the front of our body, where we would reward them. All of our dogs were pretty good at this.
The second time through, we executed the front cross between #3 and #4 and finished the course.
- It was important to have exactly the same leadout position and body language the second time that we had the first time. Some of us didn't:
  - Some dogs (including Trevor) stopped short of #3 on our second leadout. We were standing a little too far back from the jump--we thought we were doing exactly the same behavior as the first time, but we weren't.
  - Some of us were starting our rotation for the #3 - #4 front cross a little early and generally acting twitchy, which pulled the dogs off #3.
  - If the dogs refused #3 and pulled off, we were supposed to hold our ground and tell the dog to jump. We should NOT allow the refusal and go back to #1 to start over. Never let a refusal stand in training without fixing it.
We handled #8- #9 with a serp. To get into position, you had to send the dog out over #7 and get ahead.
- The correct serp position was NOT at the side of the jump (i.e., this is wrong: x -----, where x is the handler). That would make it unclear which side of the jump the dog was supposed to take. You need to be slightly behind the wing:

--------

You raise your hand to give the dog the serp cue when you see him through the standards of #7.
Some people dropped their serp hand and raised their opposite hand prematurely. Bad! This gives the dog an ambiguous cue, and puts your blind cross body line in play.
Moe noted that instead of standing my ground at #8 when doing the serp, I was stepping back on my opposite foot at the same time I raised my arm to cue the serp. Once again, it's a challenge for me not to step back on my serps. Note to self: when I raise my serp hand, DO NOT STEP BACK WITH OPPOSITE FOOT.

After we did Exercise 5, we did the mirror image of the course (Exercise 6). We experienced the same challenges doing the opposite course.

Next up: Exercise 7. Notes:

This was the exercise where you led out to serp position.
#7-#8 was another serp.
Some of us were a little too far off the jump in our serps. To get a tight serp, reward the dog from your serp hand--that is the hand you want the dog driving in to, so that is the hand you reward them from.

Finally, Exercise 8. Notes:

There were 2 front crosses on this course:
- #6 - #7.
- #7 - #8.
We turned these 2 FCs into a serp. This entailed serping your dog around the outside of the #8 jump.
- Ultimately, our dogs did surprisingly well on this exercise. But the key was to keep moving and driving ahead of the dog.

March 4, 2010

In this class we set up some of the exercises from the Advanced Boxwork workshop Angela and I attended. I believe we did the first 3 exercises.

At the end of class Moe set up an exercise that Laura showed them in their Monday night workshop. You put a jump right next to a tunnel opening. Then you send the dog over the jump while you stand still alongside the jump. The dog should read your decel cue and come into you rather than go in the tunnel. You alternate this exercise with actually sending the dog into the tunnel. If your dog has problems staying off the tunnel you can start with the jump a little further away. Our dogs did surprisingly well on this exercise.

February 25, 2010

Here are the courses we practiced. Notes:

Top map
- First time through: when you serp 4-6, be sure to support the correct side of the 5 jump with your right hand as the dog comes out of the tunnel. Only once he is committed to the correct side of the jump do you lift your opposite serp hand (i.e., left hand) to cue the turn away to 6.
- Second time through: rear-cross 5 and 6. This time you run in to pick the dog up at the tunnel. You shape his path slightly on tunnel exit to set his line to the jump. Once he drives ahead and commits to the jump, it's important to cut behind him to cue the turn. To proof this, we did the exact same behavior up through sending them over the #5 jump. But instead of following through and cutting behind them, we just stopped. Instead of turning right over the jump, the dogs should have turned left and come back into us. If they didn't automatically do this, it was a sign that they didn't understand--we need to do more practicing/proofing.
- 9-10: had to front cross. Because of where 9 was, it was impossible to run to our front cross position at 10 before rotating. So we had to get them over 9 and then execute our FC en route to 10.
Bottom map
- 8-9 is a straight line, no special handling required.
- Since 3 is recessed, you can't start your leadout pivot all the way out at 3. So you do your leadout somewhere on the diagonal between 2 and 3.
Bonus exercises based on same setup. We didn't have time to practice these in class.
Rear cross foundation work. We all got our dogs out and practiced the foundation work shown in this video.

Feb. 18, 2010

Here are the courses we practiced.