The Willies - A Backyard Exercise

Willie's understanding of my handling has grown by leaps and bounds.  Last week, I designed a setup that would allow us to work on several different skills.

Getting the white circle ending proved very difficult for us.

Here is the video of Willie and me working on one of the sequences.  The emphasis was supposed to be on the rear cross to the tunnel, but much to my surprise it became an exercise in getting the third jump in a pinwheel.

Serpentines

I've been working on serps and threadles with Belle, so I decided to do some more work on serpentines with Willie.  We are working with jump standards instead of hoops since between us, we've broken four of the hoops.  Wish I had used 1" PVC instead of 3/4".

I couldn't remember how I taught Belle to serpentine, so I did a web search and found and this on Bud Houston's blog and this on Bad Dog Agility.  Bud's method seemed rather out-dated and the method shown on BDA was a little too advanced for young Willie (although now that we have a little serpentine training under our collars, I think I'll give it a go) .

I started searching through my library of articles but couldn't find anything.  Then I remembered Nancy Gyes had written a two-part series on serpentines in Clean Run (06 & 07/2013).  We worked on the foundation exercises in the first article and then last week, I built a setup very similar to this for Belle, so I decided to work Willie on it.  (The distances between obstacles are a little wider than I'd really like, but I figured what the heck I'll expose him to speed and distance right off the bat.)

Since the tunnel on the left was actually a set of weaves, my goal was to do 1-6.  I quickly discovered this exercise depended upon a number of skills:

• Willie has to send to the tunnel in order for me to get into position at 4.
• He has to learn to take 4 even if I'm at the far wing/standard or entering the gap between 4 and 5.
• Then he has to take the middle jump moving away from me and the direction I'm headed.
• Finally, he has to come back over the third jump in the serp, which also requires him to ignore the direction I'm moving in.  (If he doesn't he will run by the jump on the backside.)

 

 

The Lead Out Edge

There are some courses that I never could begin to tackle without a lead out.  Then there are times when having the ability to lead out isn't really necessary, but it does give me an edge.  This course is one of those.
 
I was really struck by how widely spaced the jumps in the 3,4,5 serpentine are, and the awkwardness of the approach to #6.  I tried running on the right side of the serpentine, but that made for some very clunky rear crosses.  Additionally, I discovered that for Dusty, I couldn't slow down and send him to #6 very easily.  He just has too much handler focus and it made for a very crummy approach to #6.  Additionally, if I showed the rear cross too soon, Dusty missed #6 entirely.

I finally decided to try handling the serpentine from the left.  On my first attempt, I only lead out to about (45,60) and when I turned to do my front cross, I discovered I was in the gap between 3 and 4 and Dusty went sailing by me.  The next time, I lead out to about (50,55) so that I could more easily get to my spot on the takeoff side of #4.  It worked like a charm.  Plus, without any conscious thought on my part, I kept moving with Dusty toward #6 and didn't do my rear cross until he was committed to the jump.

Belle and I spent most of our time working on the bonus line, which didn't go all that well for us.  Since I wanted to end on a successful note with her, I decided to run with her.  Since she was tired from all her running, I decided to more or less start with her, which meant I had to handle the serpentine from the right side.  In the video, you can see that Belle loses ground to Dusty in the serpentine and doesn't quite manage to make it up by the end of the course.  (Since she doesn't suffer from excessive handler focus, the rear cross at #6 was basically a non-factor for her.)

Ad Libbing

I had my DH set this practice course up last week.

The layout provides a lot of opportunities to work on a little doggy NASCAR, tight turns and wraps, and turning at a distance.  Yesterday I finally had enough energy to get the tripod out and film my practice with Belle.  I also brought out Dusty for the first time in seven weeks.  Normally, Dusty is like a red tornado on the course.  But he seemed to be really inhibited by my lack of motion.  Unfortunately, I forgot to start the camera rolling again for his workout.

Here's the video of Belle from yesterday:

Turning vs. Straight Ahead

I originally wrote this article in 2005, and I am choosing to leave it written in the present tense.  I deleted much of the description of my handling of the different sequences and made a few minor editing changes from the original. RK

My second agility dog is a small (18.5 inch) Australian Shepherd who made her trial debut in October, 2004.  I quickly discovered that a straight line of obstacles builds enough speed in my young girl that is difficult to get her to turn if there is an off-course obstacle that will allow her to continue on that straight line.

My agility area is somewhat limited (60 x 70) and it is impossible to set up a complete NADAC course with enough distance between obstacles to encourage Libby to develop the speed she runs with in a trial setting.  I came up with the course below which employs only six jumps and two tunnels and utilizes as little as 30 x 50 feet.

My goals were:

1. Teach Libby the obvious obstacle is not the next obstacle when Mom is indicating a change of direction.

2. Make a course that could be simplified enough and interesting enough that we could do a little doggy NASCAR to build speed which would enable us to work on communication at trial speeds.

3. To sharpen my ability to communicate change of direction so that Libby would have sufficient information in time to take the next obstacle in a sequence.  This course turned out to be really good for this because I could position myself  as Libby went into a tunnel and concentrate on where she ended up when she failed to pick up my signal.  (See Course 4.)

4. To increase the distance from which Libby can read my signals – This entails both improving my timing and her awareness of increasingly subtle signals.

I first pattern trained Libby to run the outside loop in both directions at top speed as shown at the side.  This helped us work on increasing speed and having a good time.  To us humans, this looks like a circle, for the dog it is basically a straight line since the curves come in at the tunnels and there are no changes of direction.  To keep this a game, I would call Libby randomly to play tug or chase her favorite toy, a soccer ball.

Then I introduced the pinwheel and serpentine options:

I used a curved tunnel to build speed before hitting the pinwheel.  If your partner is new to pinwheels and has tendency to build up to warp drive, you could start at 4 or 5 instead and move back your start back to 3, then 2, then 1, as your dog gets the idea of a pinwheel.

In working this pattern, I had to go into the pocket of the pinwheel at first, but my aim was to be able to stay on the tunnel side of the first and third jumps of the pinwheel for both the pinwheel and the 11 thru 13 progression.

After doing the pinwheel in both directions, there are a multitude of options, two of which are shown.  After taking tunnel 11, either of the jumps labeled 12 could be selected to vary the course. 

Try working the serpentine from both sides.  Strive to get from the serpentine to #12 as efficiently and quickly as you can.

Here is another variation that allows you to test your team's skills on a fast serpentine.

Here are a few more sequences that I used with this set-up. 

In this sequence, the dog/handler team has the opportunity to run a three-jump slice sequence and a tunnel-jump-tunnel slice, as well as the pinwheel.

How many ways can you think of to handle the change of sides called for between 7 thru 9?  You can spice this one up by picking a different jump 13 each time you run.

In this exercise, we use the pinwheel at 8, 9, 10.  Coming out of tunnel 11, there is an option of the three-jump slice (12 thru 14) or a quick run thru another tunnel (the black 13).

A 13-obstacle that offers the chance to build some speed before doing a serpentine followed by a pinwheel and a 180.  As your team’s speed increases on this course, you’ll know that your dog truly understands that the next obstacle is not always the obvious one.

Here are two final variations for you to play with.