Justine & Jessica Agility Seminar

                                  Snap                       Spryte                            Cricket


Wow what a weekend! This past weekend I hosted an agility seminar with Justine Davenport and Jessica Patterson. We had two groups going at a time, Jessica taught the beginners and Justine had the advanced group.  Spryte and I had a working spot in the advanced group and I audited the beginner group.  Both instructors were incredible.  The explanations were very clear, their comments very helpful, they are both patient and supportive, and give an equal amount of time to each student.  I highly recommend their seminars if you have a chance to attend.

I will start with the beginner sessions.  The students were taught the four main skills used in Justine and Jessica's handling system.  Tight Turns (wraps), Backsides, Threadles and Flappy Tappy's (come to side).  The main emphasis with all the skills is to teach independence and strong verbal cues.  The dog should understand the cue and stay committed to the job even if the handler is leaving in the other direction.  The students were given lots of short drills using up to two jumps and a tunnel.  Stuff that is easy to work on at home. I too will be going home and revisiting a lot of these drills.  Our advanced session revealed some weaknesses in our foundation work.  Especially with Flappy Tappy's past tunnel mouths and Backsides with me running past on the same side.

The advanced sessions were intense!  Each drill incorporated one or two of the skills listed above in a longer sequence of up to 14 obstacles of jumps and tunnels.  They were challenging and really pushed us outside our comfort zone. We had some great runs and we had some that completely fell apart.  Some skills that I thought were stronger, broke down when combined with speed and a larger number of obstacles.  Here are some things that I learnt from the weekend:

1. Stay off the dogs most direct line.  Seems like common sense, but if you don't know the dog's most direct path you are likely to be in the way.  It helps to draw the line in the dirt so you can practise staying off it.
2. For Spryte I need to give her only as much space as she needs.  She likes to jump long and run out on turns. I need to make sure I don't drift during crosses and give her too much room to land.  I need to force her to have tighter turns.
3. Hold my arm back behind my body when running.  Turns out I am often very square to my dog.  Justine says its harder for Spryte to see what side she should be coming up on. So I need to hold my arm back and almost behind my body when running ahead of my dog.
4. When doing front crosses, send your dog across your body.  You want to be turning and heading back in the new direction as soon as possible. So use the arm closest to the dog and send the dog while rotating early and giving the tight turn cue.
5. Be really obvious with Flappy Tappys. I need to really slap my side while calling.
6. When teaching threadles, you no long feed the dog for coming in! This is huge!  This is how we used to teach it, this was the accepted way. But turns out, it teaches the dog to look to you instead of where he should be going.  Then your timing must be bang on to send them back to the appropriate side of the jump/tunnel. If you turn too soon the dog takes the wrong side. Yup this is exactly the problem I am having with Spryte!!!  So now when teaching threadles, you bring the dog in and send them out to the jump and only reward after completing the jump (or tunnel). The whole thing is a chain and the end behaviour is what pays.  This teaches the dog to anticipate the flick and look for the new side immediately, with no extra help from the handler.  I will be making this change immediately in my lesson plans.

Ok enough blabbing.  The pictures are of the Ace/Spryte litter who are now all 1.5 yrs old. All four attended the seminar. It was so much fun to see them all in one place and watch all four dogs working. Their owners have done a fantastic job with each and every one of them. I'm excited to see how their first agility trials go next month!

                   Izzy                                    Quinn                                  Cricket


The videos are of Spryte and I at the seminar.  Some are good and some show us working through some issues. Enjoy :)