Flying Poodles

Thinking About Handling Systems

There are handling systems and handling rules out there. One person says “never layer”; another says “never use the off arm.” (The off arm is the one away from the dog.)

I have a friend who keeps telling me I need to learn Greg Derrett’s handling system, that she qualifies much more often now that she’s learned his rules. It has taken me quite a while to figure out why statements like this make me feel a little, well… annoyed. I don’t want to use someone else’s “handling system.”

I finally figured out that it’s like recipes. I don’t follow recipes all that well either. I decide what I want to cook , then I read as many recipes as I have handy, then I try to replicate the core recipe, and add the flavorings and so on that I like. Even recipes from a “great chef” don’t make it through the process unscathed.

There are many things I enjoy about agility. I like the process of training; I enjoy going to trials and testing my training against different courses; I like the brain exercise of figuring out how to handle this dog through a course and then planning for contingencies, all in 6 minutes (more fun than crosswords and better brain exercise too). I love it when something I’ve trained for comes up at a trial and gives me an advantage; this happened recently when I used a rear cross at the weave entrance to maintain a nice course flow.

I really enjoy figuring out how I’m going to train something. There are things about agility that are hard to train–contact behavior, teeter, weaves–and there are things that are relatively easy to train–jumps, start-line stay, hand signals. (Yes, I know those aren’t that easy to train. I said relatively easy.)

Right now I’m trying to decide how I want to train the contact obstacles with Dancer. Yes, she’s almost 18 months old and her A-frame and dogwalk are still a work in progress (and her teeter too, of course). I thought I would train a running contact–but as she’s matured and gotten more comfortable with the contacts, she’s developed a natural stride that takes her right over the contacts. We’re using a hoop at both ends of the contacts right now, which does force her to stride through the contact zones, but if you take them away… So I’m beginning to teach a two-on-two-off position as well. But I don’t like it and I’m trying to find something better.

I spent months reading all the weave training methods before I started Dancer on weaves, and even so, I used a mixture of methods and some of my own: Susan Garrett’s 2x2s, Staci Winkler’s magic weave pole game, adding a set of 2x2s to a full set of weaves to practice entries (which I haven’t seen done elsewhere, although I’m sure I’m not alone). (Making a 14-weave-pole set helped both dogs with learning to develop a weave rhythm.)

No canned answers for me.