Chances Analysis - New Year's Day, 2012

First, a little disclaimer:  I do my best to be accurate in my commentary on the video.  However, it is easy to misspeak and not catch the error.  I may also miss seeing something while commenting on the video.  If you spot an error or omission, let me know, and I can insert a caption into the video.  Now for the good stuff.

 This Chances course involves the dogwalk so the very first challenge at every level is the dogwalk contact.  For the majority of dogs that missed the contact, it was basically a training issue and not a handling issue.

In Elite, the first handler line parallels the dog's path from the hoop 1 to jump 3, so a lateral lead out is not really necessary, and many, if not most, of the handlers did not take one.  In Open, the line parallels the dog's path even more closely due to the change in angle.  However, in Novice, if the handler starts out running along the line, she is forced away from the contact zone much more sharply and may either pull the dog off the side of the dogwalk or off of his line from the dogwalk to jump 3.

At all levels, it is important that the handler not get ahead of her dog while he is on the dogwalk.  If she does, there is an excellent chance she will arrive at the back handler line and have no room to move forward and support her dog's path out to jump 3.  Also, notice that on the Novice course, once the handler is up against that line, she can only move away from #4.  The Elite and Open courses allow the handler a little bit of movement toward #4 even if the handler is up against the line.

In Elite, the hardest challenge was sending the dog out to hoop 7.  There were two main ways to accomplish this:  1. Call your dog over #5 and run him over your feet to #6 and then send to the hoop.  2.  Do a front cross on the landing side of #5 and turn and send over #6 to the hoop.  Running the dog over your feet seemed to work a little better, but both got the job done.  A bigger consideration was to make sure you moved far enough away from the line between #5 and #6 so that you didn't have to come to an abrupt halt before your dog was committed to the hoop.  For those of us who failed to move back far enough in anticipation of the send, training came to the rescue, and we were able to successfully redirect our dogs with verbals and/or arm signals.

Theoretically, the send to hoop #7 should be much of a problem on the Open course.  However, the handler still had to make a decision on how to handle the 180° turn, and not run up against the line before her dog is committed to the hoop.

In Novice, four dogs missed the #5 jump.  Three of the handlers were late in indicating the turn; the fourth dog was momentarily distracted by something and lost focus just long enough to end up in the gap between the two jumps.

I don't recall any of the Novice teams having a problem carrying out to hoop 8 if they made it through 7, but at least one Novice team had a problem making it to #7 due to handler anticipation of the send to the #8 hoop.

Here's the video.  My thanks to all who ran.

Chances Analysis - 08/28/11

These are the Chances courses from Sunday's trial at the QCDC.

As in Saturday's Chances course, the first challenge is the tunnel/contact discrimination.  If the handler does not lead out far enough to the right, or if she moves too quickly toward the line, the line will force her to move away from the tunnel and pull her dog to the A-frame.

Additionally, the first two jumps were more in line with the A-frame than is indicated on the course maps.  Therefore, setting your dog up on an angle at the right end of the bar gives him a better view of the tunnel.  Setting him up in the middle, gives him a nice long look at the off-course A-frame while you are leading out.

 
The next challenge is sending your dog through the box from 4 to 5.  Although the line running right and left is moved closer to #5 in open and novice, this was very difficult for most of the open and novice teams.  Planning your path so that you don't run out of space is helpful, but if you've never practiced sending your dog through a box, there's a good chance that even perfect handling isn't going to get the job done.


Many of the novice and open handlers ran out of running room as their dogs went through the #4 hoop and their dogs ended up turning toward the off-course #7 jump.  A few handlers were able to re-direct their dogs through the box with a verbal.  However, when they ran out of running room going through the box the second time, most of the dogs turned right toward the #5 jump.  One dog managed to make it from 7 to 8 on a verbal, but with no handler movement to support his path, he was unable to carry out to the #9 hoop.  

Planning your path so that you could continue to move left until your dog went through the box the second time and is committed to #9 offers him the maximum amount of support.  In executing the plan, you have to remember to walk, not run--your dog is covering much more ground than you are.  If you move too quickly, you will run into the line.

Q Results

Elite Chances 15 runs/4 Q's

Open Chances 14 runs/0 Q's

Novice Chances 14 runs/0 Q's

Here is the video of our Chances run.  Be sure to notice:

• Where I place Belle at the start line.
• The lateral lead out.
• My efforts to conserve running room along the back line.

Chances Analysis - 08/27/2011

Belle, Dusty and I traveled to the Quad Cities for a NADAC trial this weekend.  Here is an analysis of Saturday's Chances courses. 

In Elite and Open the challenges are basically the same, the only difference is the distance from which they have to be performed.

Right off the bat, the handler is faced with a tunnel/A-frame discrimination.  The correct obstacle is further from the line.  In Novice, this challenge is minimized, but it definitely still exists.  If the handler is forced to move to the left before her dog is committed to the A-frame, it is almost certain her dog will take the tunnel.

One way to decide on how you would like to handle a discrimination, is to decide what you would do to direct your dog to the obstacle you don't want him to take.  If I wanted the tunnel and not the A-frame, I would be pulling away from the line and calling my dog's name.  If possible, I would also try to angle my dog at the start line so that he is looking through the hoop at the tunnel.

But the obstacle of choice is the A-frame, so I don't want to do any of the above.  If possible, I want to angle my dog at the start line so that he is looking at the A-frame.  I want to lead out to a position that will allow me to put pressure on my dog's line when I release him from the start line.  For some dogs, just being far enough to the side so that the line doesn't force you to move to the left as you move forward and a verbal "A-frame" with an outstretched arm may be enough.  For others, you may have to make certain you're far enough to the left that you can move toward the tunnel and A-frame as you move forward.

This is a very common challenge in NADAC.  However, tunnel/A-frame and tunnel/dogwalk discriminations exist in every venue.  If you can handle them with a little distance, it frees you up to get where you have to be in order to handle whatever may be coming up next.

The second challenge is sending your dog out to #4.  If you fail to slow your pace as your dog is performing the A-frame, you may reach the handler's line before your dog is committed to #4 and your dog will stop and/or spin as you come to a halt.  There were a couple of handlers who are able to successfully redirect their dogs after being forced to stop at the line.  This takes training--training which I think is worth the effort since miscalculations do occur and you may find yourself hugging the line.  However, although a verbal redirect may work here, if you're still up against the line and forced to rely on another verbal to turn your dog to the tunnel after #5, there is a very high probability of failure.

As I just mentioned, the next challenge is turning your dog away from you to the tunnel.  If you're up against the line, this is almost impossible to do.  And the more you use your arms to try and accomplish the turn away, the more your dog will look at you and not the tunnel.  At this point, most of the dogs whose handlers were stuck at the line decided the weaves must be the correct choice.

The final challenge is the off-course jump after the tunnel.  It was a real Q-killer in Elite.  The jump is very close to the tunnel.  I positioned myself even with the first pole of the weaves, but Belle was half way to the off-course jump before I called her.  The lone successful Elite handler positioned herself much further to the right and caught her dog's attention as she exited the tunnel.  As I was editing the clips for the video, I noticed that all the handlers who were successful did the same thing.  They moved to the right while their dogs were in the tunnel so that they could see them exiting and move toward the weaves, taking the off-course jump out of the picture for their dogs.

Here are the Q results:

15 Elite runs - 1 Q

17 Open Runs - 2 Q's

21 Novice Runs - 2 Q's