Obstacle colors on agility equipment

Warning...short rant

I was at a USDAA trial this weekend.  The club had a break away tire--good for them.  However, the tire was striped, dark red and dark blue, with a dark red frame. 

The design of the tire started to get my attention when I noticed a large number of dogs faulting the tire.  So, I watched the ring that had the tire in it.  Depending on where the tire was placed, the faults would rise.  When the dogs were jumping through the tire and the tire blended with the background colors, the faults were even higher.

From a dog's point of view red is seen as brown'ish, blue can be seen in a truer form. So, next to the indoor arena dirt, is this tire really standing out enough for dogs to be able to judge what they need to judge?

Now, I am not a trouble maker if I can avoid it, nor do I want to get involved in political battles, but this became very important to me when one of my dogs head planted into the bottom of the tire (when it was against a non-contrasting background).  He saw it too late!!  He has never crashed a tire in his life.

I do believe that it is the handlers job to train the tire, and I have done that with all my dogs.  None of my dogs typically fault the tire and I tend to handle very conservatively around the tire.  That is to say, no blind crosses, no front crosses if I can avoid it.  So, this commentary isn't about handling the tire.

I am trying to bring this issue to the club's attention!  Put contrasting colors on your tire!

In researching (to make sure my facts were straight) dog's vision I came across several articles which you may find interesting. 

Interesting articles on what dogs see…
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200810/can-dogs-see-colors
http://www.vetinfo.com/dogsee.html
Several articles in Clean Run, Jan 2009 and Feb 2009 on dogs and their vision.

What I also discovered and found a little disturbing is that at least in the "bigger" venues (USDAA and AKC), none of them have color or contrasting color requirements on the tire (or any other obstacle).  Really?  Interesting and to their credit, DOCNA did

 Now most clubs and tires that I have seen tend to be contrasting colors, but there is no regulation to govern contrasting color hence making this tire illegal.  Are we confortable with dangerous?

"It should be wrapped in several contrasting colors to make it very visible to the dog"

Backsides and Serps

I ran this course last night with Tip and Tangle. Really interesting course with several challenges .

Obstacles 1 - 7 were fairly straight forward, ran as you would expect.  In my first attempt I wanted to handle 7-8-9-10, from the landing side of #8.  I was thinking that this would put me further ahead to get the backside of #11.  In order to run from that side you MUST have an independent teeter.  Tangle did OK (but did give me the baby dog, what are we doing mom?).  Tip however, wanted to come off the side of the teeter to my surprise.  I ended up running it from the take off side of #8 as both dogs really wanted the added support.  To my surprise, I was still able to get ahead of them so that I could cue the backside of #11.  There would be no way to get that if you were behind.  It was amazingly hard for the dogs to jump the backside of #11 and go right into the serp.  The physical skills are fairly impressive. 

The next challenge on the serp (11-12-13) was to handle #13 and get the dog turned to #14.  First I tried wrapping Tangle.  He read it fine, but wasn't it wasn't fast.  I felt like I would loose a ton of time and it is boring for the dog.  It took me a couple of tries but I eventually got the rear-cross, wrap to the outside.  That was a new skill for Tangle.  Once we got it fluid it ran really nicely.  Tip is the Queen of the rear cross/wrap to the outside!

14-15-16, the tunnel was not a given, you had to support it and push to it a little.  So, depending on how soon the dog committed to the tunnel determined how you were going to handle 17-18-19.

That was a fun little sequence, there were several ways to handle it well.  I tried the serp from 16 to 17.  The only trick there is you had to be patient until your dog was committed to #17.

Also, with Tangle I was on the take off side of #17, facing him in the tunnel.  Then I did the "backy uppy" to get him over #17.  He read that like a champ as well.

In all a great little course.  I am always going to favor the handling choice that creates the most chase generally speaking.  It is fun for me and the dogs.

Directionals and Proofing Weaves

Happy New Year!

My two black and white BCs are now off of vacation and working themselves back into agility.  I truly believe that the rest that they get every year helps them heal, and renew mentally.  I feel like I get a break from being  their coach and I use the time to just love on them and spoil them (not that they aren't spoiled the rest of the year). 

Directionals:
I hit the new year trying to teach all three dogs directionals.  I have avoided it up until now mostly because I suck at my own right/left.  Also, I guess I hadn't seen a method of teaching it that floated my boat.  When I took Tangle to a puppy seminar in 2010 with Tracy Sklenar she showed us how to teach it and for those of you who know how Susan Garrett does it--basically same method.

With all three dogs I had sessions that I really wish I had taped.  It had me rolling on the floor laughing at my dogs.  My logistics in teaching them just sucked :)  The dogs were frantically offering behaviors, over stimulated, and just completely crazy!  Not much in terms of directional got taught, but by the end I did have all three of them going screamingly fast into a kennel (you had to be there to see how we made the leap from directionals to crate games).

Weaves:
This morning I started Tangle on some harder sequences, and harder weave entries.  He had a couple of weave entries in a sequence that I thought were brilliant!  In reviewing the tape, he skipped poles and I didn't catch it.  A good justification for always filming your sessions!

So, we went out a little later and just worked a bit on weaves.  In this video the first two takes are from the earlier session.  Although his weaves were nice, I felt like they were a bit too mechanical.  He was thinking too hard.  He needs to begin to feel the passion and rely more on muscle memory to get the job done.

To put more drive and energy into the session, I brought out his most favorite toy on the planet 'THE BALL".  He gets consumed by it, it owns him, kind of like the ring in "Lord of the Rings".

Not sure that everyone can see the difference in his energy, but I could feel it.



I am really pleased with the soft sided entries and at the end I dared drop the ball in front of him before he exited the weaves.  Good Boy!!

Automotive chocks, skateboard decking, and barrels

These are some of the items that I got for Christmas: automotive chocks, skateboard decking, and barrel  Think about it, what odd gifts!  Oddly enough, it was what I put on my Christmas list and I am happy that I got them.  It was funny opening my gifts however.  My dad was over for the festivities.  Dad knows that I do agility, but it doesn't occur to him that all of these odd gifts might actually be useful.  So, his question of "why did you get automotive chocks" is very normal!

Now to be fair, I want to give credit to AgilityNerd for giving me the ideas for my xmas list.  I have been working on the project of making a chute for about a year now.  Obviously, not working really hard at it!

Supplies and equipment:
Two heavy rubber automotive chocks, http://www.discountramps.com/
1 heavy blue barrel
4 stainless steal bolts/nuts used to secure the chocks to the barrel
1 Chute (NTI Global)
4 stripes of skateboard decking
Copper pipe insulation
Jig saw
drill
exacto knife

Heavy rubber chock

Skateboard decking (basically huge sticky back sandpaper)

The barrel

We cut the lid off of the barrel being careful to leave the lip on the barrel.  The lip will come in handy to help keep the chute on the barrel.  Then we cut the bottom off of the barrel.

Next we secured the chocks to the barrel towards the front.  We used a drill to pre-drill holes in the chocks and to drill holes in the barrel.   The head of the bolt should be inside the barrel.  We decided to put the chocks toward the front in case we need to put another set on once I let Tangle do the test run.  He is the the largest and heaviest of all of my dogs.  If the chute is going to move, Tangle will do it!

Once the chocks are secured to the barrel we applied silicon caulking to the bolt head to lessen the angle from the bolt head to the barrel.  Mostly trying to diminish the wear that the bolts will have on the skateboard deck paper.  Once the caulking is dry (we gave it 24 hours) you can sand it a little to achieve a smooth surface if you want.

Clean the inside of the barrel with acetone or denatured alcohol

Get the skateboard decking and cut it to size.  We ran the decking the length of the barrel rather than the width.  The barrel does have a narrowing shape and lengthwise made it much easier to get a better fit.

Apply the pipe insulation around the edge of the barrel that the dog will enter to protect them from the blunt edge.

Once that was done, put on the chute and away you go!

In total it took about an 1.5 hours to make the barrel.

You must be "present" to win!

Sorry, couldn't resist the play on words!

Standard run

First the good news.  Tangle got his beginning standard, gamblers, and trigility titles this weekend.  All first places.  He showed more confidence going into the ring and more confidence running the course.  Several times I was left in the dust when he spotted his path and took initiative!  I am convinced that trialing was the best step progression in his training.  He knew his job in the back yard, but there is nothing like a trial to teach the dog to LOVE agility.  I have no idea why it does, but it does.

Tangle competed in his third agility trial this weekend.  And, once again, I learned very valuable things about him, and reinforced what I already knew or suspected.

1. I, as the handler, am the weak link in the team.  Tangle knows his job and can only be as good as the information given to him.  I owe it to my dog to be "in the game" every moment like he is.
2. Tangle is the kind of dog that can be pushed.  By that I mean, he likes and does well when I drive him hard (the run linked above).  This is exciting news for me since this makes the game all the more fun!  I tried driving him a little harder this weekend and he rose to the challenge.

You must be "present" to win!  On several of Tangle's runs this weekend my foot was hurting more than usual.  The surface was very irregular, which is the worse possible thing for my foot right now.  I was worried when I was leading out, fearing that I might really tweak my foot and have to abandon the run in the middle.  This worry caused me to not be aggressive about getting a front cross in a couple of places.  One caused an off course, which is not a big deal at this stage to me or the dog.  BUT, the other was timed poorly and caused Tangle to not time his take off correctly and he hit the bar.  This was unfair of me!

So, if I am going to run the course I must be in the moment (present) and focusing on the job at hand.  I need to make the decision before I get a dog out of his kennel that I am going to run that run, give him/her my full attention, and not worry about anything.  I owe it to my dogs who give it their all, ARE present in the moment, and love to run with me.

Natural Take-Off Point

I find that when I attend seminars there is almost always one big point that you take away from your experience. Might not be the point of the seminar, but it is something you were ready to hear. I took one day of a Tracy Sklenar seminar last weekend. I have taken a seminar before from Tracy and I always find her funny, engaging, accurate with her comments/suggestions. She is one of the people that I always try to take a class from when she comes to town.

The big point that I took away from her seminar this weekend was Natural Take-off Point and how critical this piece of knowledge is in how you run and cue your dog. The NTP is determined by the following: Run your dog in full extension on a straight line of jumps (18 feet apart to mimic what you would normally see in a trial). The point at which they choose to take off is there Natural Take-off Point or NTP. The NTP really depends of many factors like structure of the dog, or if they are facing a tunnel (will be a little sooner). Tangle's NTP was about 5 feet before a jump, and 7 feet before a tunnel. So now that you know this magic number, you need to cue your dog right before their NTP. That magic distance is determined by NTP + time for the human to process the cue and get it out of their mouth + time for the dog to process. So, in Tangle's and my case it is about 7 feet or so.

What I really loved about this concept is some of the discussion that came along with this information. The biggest point is you don't want to cue your dog too early. Why? If you cue the dog too early, they throw in a bunch of collection strides, more than is needed. Yes, you will have a beautiful turn, but you will also have a slower course time.

NTP goes along with the premise that you want your dog to run the whole course in as much extension as possible. You only want the dog to put in as many collection strides as they need to execute the required turn (gentle turn, tight turn) and no more. Keep them powering through the course.

Dawn Weaver Seminar

Tangle and I did a half day seminar with Dawn Weaver. For those of you who aren't familiar, she is one of the top handlers over in the UK.

The seminar we took was Intermediate/Advanced Handling. Dawn has developed her handling methods based on what her dogs have responded to over the years. It does include motion, and verbals. Since European agility is a win based system. That is, you must win to progress, their focus for training and running is much different from ours. They train the dogs to drive and be obstacle focused. In the absence of a cue, Dawn wants her dog to continue to drive through the course and their line. She focuses on cuing in a fashion that never leaves the dog second guessing (therefor slowing down). Not a bad goal really. They never reward their dogs "on them", that is they always reward in a way that promotes drive like throwing the toy.

Dawn is very firm about positive training. She believes that dogs are basically honest and don't try to do the wrong thing. If they took a wrong course in a trial, it is because you cued it. You better figure out what you did to cue it.

Rather than focusing on exclusively jumping, we spent quite a bit of time working on handling and trying in a short session to understand how she handles her dogs. When Dawn handles she has the concept of the accelerator arm and the break hand. The accelerator arm is the arm closest to the dog and must support the dogs path and obstacles. The break hand (arm extended out with a flat hand) tells the dog that they must collect (probably a turn is coming up). She also uses the outside arm much like Greg Derrett would do as a cue for the dog to come into you. The middle jump on a serp (or snake as she calls it) is a great example of this.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time, I took away a few ideas, but I wouldn't say that the seminar was stellar. I was wanting more feedback on jumping and speed specifically.

A couple of tid bits that we took away. Hopefully they make sense out of context:

• Every front cross should be proceeded with the break hand


• You must run (draw with your path) the line that you want the dog to take


• Always be even (parallel) with the dog when layering, otherwise they will come into you


• Reward away from you--throw the toy


• Inside arm should never drop until the dog clears the bar (otherwise the bar will come down)


• Always reward after a rear cross with a baby dog