BusyDog

Running the dog

Years ago I read a Clean Run editorial written by Linda Mecklenburg. She was discussing the difference between running the course and running the dog. She had mentioned that Europeans were much better at running the dog than Americans were. She suggested that we could learn a lot about handling by changing our perspective from course focused to dog focused.

At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. I had been running a sheltie for a couple years who never went more than a few feet from me. I assumed that you ran the course going from one obstacle to the next. When I started running my aussies (who were faster with bigger strides), I had trouble with off courses, barking and a general lack of teamwork. When I was taking a dressage lesson on my horse, my riding teacher said something that finally clicked with what Linda was talking about. I finally understood what Linda meant and how I could apply it to my Aussies.

My riding teacher said “You do not cue your horse only at the particular letter. You must influence your horse throughout the entire test. You must constantly give and take feedback each and every step so the horse is prepared and ready to receive your cue at the particular letter and response precisely.”

When you are on a horse, it’s much easier to tell when you are ‘connected’ to him. It’s much easier to tell if you and the horse are one, working together as a team. Even so, the same philosophy applies to running a dog. If you are ‘connected’ to your dog through the entire course, the course should flow easily and calmly. You should feel like you are having a dialog with your dog, even if he is working 20 feet from you. If you are not connected with your dog and instead rely on occasional cues, often the course looks ‘herky-jerky’. It is common to resort to emergency call offs or other heroics to get the dog going in the right direction at the last second when you are not ‘connected’.

Part of ‘running the dog’ relies on setting a path that makes the next sequence of obstacles logical to the dog. If the dog understands where he is going several obstacles in advance, he can power forward to attack those obstacles. If the dog’s path sets him up heading towards the wrong obstacles, then the handler has to interfere a lot to keep the dog from going off-course. This causes confusion (barking) and slows the dog down because he has to rely too much on the handler to indicate every obstacle.

When you ‘run the dog’ the path the dog takes is much more important than the obstacles themselves. This seems counter-intuitive. However, if you can influence your dog to run a certain path, the agility obstacles end up being in his ‘way’ and he automatically does them. If you can set a nice path that makes four obstacles obvious to the dog, you can accomplish four obstacles with one well-set path. This is much more reliable than having to cue each and every obstacle.

When you focus on running the dog and influencing the dog’s path, you will need to work more in between the obstacles. By using your body position, speed and other commands to influence the dog you can set a path that makes the next sequence of obstacles seem ‘obvious’ to your dog. Where you stand and the direction you run are just as important as what command that comes out of your mouth.

Let’s look at two course sections that I ran recently at a trial. Diagram 1 and 2 are of the same course. They show two different ways handlers chose to run this section. Diagram 1 is how most people ran the course. They put their dog in a sit at the start line and lead out to jump #2. Since the tunnel was a mere 20 feet away, almost all the dogs handled with a lead out locked in on it. A lot went off course into the tunnel. Some had a decent recall command but still made a very wide turn for jump #3. Was it beneficial to lead out for this opening sequence? What information, good or bad, did the handler’s ‘lead out’ position tell the dog?

Compare Diagram 1 to Diagram 2. In Diagram 2 the handler starts right next to the dog. As the dog accelerates from jump 1 to 2, the handler is already fading right to go to jump 3. This almost immediate lateral movement to the right indicates early on to the dog that they will not be going into that tunnel. It indicates that he will be turning right after jump 2.

In Diagram 1, the handler is standing still giving no indication where to go after jump 2. Some handlers did a tight ‘shoulder roll’ as the dog was in the air over jump 2. Some handlers took a step or two towards the tunnel and did a front cross. Both signals were way too late. Most dogs guessed that the tunnel was the next obstacle before they took off for jump 2. They were wrong. However, it was not the dog’s fault. The handler was giving the dog no information about where to go next until after the dog had made his own decision.

In Diagram 2, the handler starts moving towards the right while the dog is moving towards jump 2. More importantly, the handler is not in the vicinity of the tunnel (like Diagram 1). This gives the dog plenty of time to realize before taking off at jump 2 that he is turning right and NOT taking the tunnel. In addition, it gives the handler some time to realize if he and the dog are ‘connected’. If you start moving right and you see your dog’s head tip towards you when taking off for jump 2, you know your dog got the signal.

If you start moving right and your see your dog’s head pointed straight towards the tunnel as he clears jumps 2, you have time to realize, he isn’t connected, he’s freelancing!

Diagram 3 and 4 shows the end of the course. It seemed like an easy pinwheel at the end of a course. However, it was surprising how many people had trouble with this ‘innocent’ finish. The two sources of problems were setting up the dog to point towards the wrong jump and then people taking their eye off their dog thereby losing their ‘connection’. When the handler set the dog up to point towards jump 12, they got in even more trouble when they weren’t watching their dog (ie. They lost their connection with their dog.)

Most handlers ran their dog as illustrated in Diagram 3. They only ran as deep as jump 13 and then moved laterally towards jump 16. The dog’s momentum carried them around 14 and 15. However, it set them up on a perfect line from 15 to 16 and then off course to the 12 jump. Many dogs took this off course. Many handlers didn’t notice it until it was too late. The handler kept their ‘connection’ with their dog until the dog cleared the 16 jump. And then many handlers took their eye off their dog and made a mad dash for the finish line. Unfortunately, the dog had already locked in on jump 12 and the handler never noticed.

Diagram 4 shows a better way to handle the pinwheel to remove jump 12 as an off course opportunity. As the dog goes around the pinwheel, the handler moves with him (stays connected). When the dog clears jump 15, the handler steps into the dog and pushes him out a little bit. This readjusts the dog’s path so that jump 16 and 17 appear to the dog as a straight (and logical) sequence. Once the dog has been lined up to ‘see’ the closing sequence, the handler can safely make their mad dash to the finish line.

The handling techniques shown in Diagrams 3 and 4 are similar. The only difference is the handler moves 10 extra feet to the left between jump 15 and 16 in Diagram 4. This movement makes a big difference in presenting the correct closing sequence to the dog. It allows the handler to use his positioning to influence the path of the dog and makes the closing sequence more logical.

So next time you walk a course, don’t just memorize the sequence of obstacles. Look for ways to influence your dog to run a path that makes the course obvious to him. It can make the difference between a qualifying score and one tiny little off course!