Twist on distance debate

So, I have been chatting with a friend about handling at a distance. She handled a certain part of the course in a way that had her easily 15 feet or more away from her dog. Someone commented “nice distance” which started the conversation. Since she does not do distance (as in the nasty ‘distance’ word)…

I asked her what she thought of as distance…

I think of distance as cueing direction/obstacles from a distance (meaning you cue the dog when he is far away, to take an obstacle or to turn). I cued my dog when he was very close to me, to take the jump that was right in front of him, in his path, and then turn back to me. Yes, he ended up a fair distance away from me, but the cueing happened in close (one jump away). I think of it as a boomerang.... that FS (forward send). In my mind, they are very different things. The FS is cued by forward cues (inside arm, verbal jump) in conjunction with deceleration. Very different cue combination than what I consider "distance" cues. I don't ever do distance with my dog, that is why we suck at Gamblers....

Makes sense right? So the next question was “what kind of distance do you consider distance? 10, 20 feet?”

at this point, I think of distance more in terms of how cues are delivered rather than absolute distance away from dog. Distance to me is when I can't

really set a line of motion for the dog but rather have to use verbal cues or shoulders/arms instead... so the verbal (right, left, get out) or the hands override the motion cue (which might be no motion at all)...

so standing at a gamble line "sending" the dog to the A frame.... distance

i think it is possible to set a line of motion for the dog from a distance.... but there is still the same "connection" to the dog. What I think of as "real" distance is when the cues change because that "connection" isn't possible.

I thought this conversation was worthy of a post. Very good content. We both agreed it is no longer the “distance” bebate, but rather needs a new title.