Flying Poodles

Some thoughts from the ZAP trial, with illustrations

November 30th, 2009 Posted in training, trials

I was talking to a friend as we walked the course this weekend, explaining why I try never to say “this course is hard” but rather “this course is challenging.” It’s because what I love about agility is that every course challenges you:

First off, there’s the brain (and physical) activity of having five to ten minutes of trying to memorize the course, then figure out how you’re going to handle it to maximize your chances of success–and of course success can be defined in so many ways.

Second, there’s the physical challenge of actually running the course with your dog–less than a minute to direct your dog correctly, with the goal of doing it as quickly as possible. Success in this case creates a massive and immediate glow.

And you get to do this five or six times a day (more if you run two dogs) if you run NADAC. And each course presents its own challenges, both subtle and in-your-face.

Outside of trials, there’s a different set of challenges involved with training the dog. It’s the challenge of figuring out how best to communicate with someone who speaks a completely foreign language, and still teach them to do what you want them to do…

I spent weeks training Elly to do this:

Looks just like a nice sit, doesn’t it? But it’s a sit with people with food nearby, the excitement of a trial, a jump right in front of her, and me running away from her. I couldn’t trust her to do that until this year.

Here’s Dancer powering out of her startline stay:

And here’s something Dancer taught me this weekend. Here’s a photo of me micromanaging the weaves:

Oh yes, and she qualified in that weavers run, at a speed of 3.1 yards/second. (Make a mental note of that number.)

And, with me that close, you can tell Dancer is more than a little annoyed and distracted. After I saw that photo (thanks, Joe!), I backed off and let both dogs do what they were trained to do, and that was when I got these results:

And that was also when Dancer actually did a novice weavers course–3 sets of 6 weaves poles–157 yards of tunnels, hoops and those poles–in 33.02 seconds (4.75 yards/second):

Dancer had a truly excellent weekend. She took a first in Open Jumpers–beating all those fast border collies–running the 124-yard course faster than she did a 124-yard tunnelers course! Sadly, contacts still plague us. It’s clear to me that Dancer likes to do her job without commentary from me; I need to figure out how to train an independent a-frame performance. On the dog walk, all I have to do is check my stride, but the a-frame is a disaster right now.

Elly only Qd in one of her six runs, but ran strong and happily all weekend, clearly having a great time.