Think I get what your saying - like running a pony vs a horse ???

Know what you mean re: same breed - I have to alter my stride with Connor and Angus!

It's the same at training, the Collie x Belgium Shepherd looks stunningly quick, she's smaller that Jack, but like lightning, in comparison Jack looks quite pedestrian next to her, but at the show, they were in the same class and Jack went 0.27 seconds faster than her, so I guess that while her legs are moving 19 to the dozen Jack takes a couple of strides and covers the ground just as fast, but I would have bet my last penny on her being much, much faster than Jack.

yup, I guess no two dogs work in the same fashion, just another way to keep us peeps on our toes, lol

spot on,

I gave up smoking 3yrs 3 months for the very reason that my BC was very fast around an agility course.
I could hardly breath!!!
I can keep up now .....just!

I have my guys swap dogs from time to time, it keeps them on their toes they can pick up so much from handling a different sized and paced dog to their own and they do as you have found gain a better appreciation of why others sometimes handle a course a very different way - and gives them idea`s/ confidence for trying other things for their own dog as a result
Pretty much all of them have handled my Defa who is the best teacher I know, with him being deaf and knowing what he`s doing anyway he helps them work more on their visual skills, and now that Defa is retired except for veteran heights they are getting to do some training with my Lurcher Fluke who is a whole different ball game - ridiculously fast and long striding yet can turn on a sixpence and is as visually responsive as Defa as he has had almost all his training done silent, [ because I did`nt even realise I was training him as though he were deaf but he learns best that way anyway because it`s second nature to me so translates very naturally for him to `read` ].

I admit it, it`s always funny, [ in a good way of course ! ], seeing the expression on the face of a steady or Small dog handler when they first take a turn with Fluke

I certainly found it enlightening - you get to know what works for your dog and don't try new ways so I can see the benefits Body language plays such a part and I think more so with the quicker dogs for sure!!

I admire 'quiet' handlers - my trainer is very quiet when she runs her dog and her body language is amazingly accurate

I bet you smile watching them for sure - you trainers sure are wicked to us you know

lol, I give people at training a go of vinnie for healwork, hes not really trained well but goes through the motions, the first thing they say is Bleauuuuggghhhh hes slavered all over my leg,,,lol but they do get the idea of what its like to work a dog in at heal, close to the leg,,

yeah I think running with as little words as possible is cool
the dogs dont need it
The puppy trainer had a handout of foundation stuff for agility and it went on about figuring out commands for every obsticle
Then there was teaching all the derectonal comands

But where we are now we pretty much point the dog in the right direction, all we say is 'GO' 'DOWN' (for contacts) and 'weave' to warn them that the weave is comming
left and right and in and out are something to work on if we really need it - but at the moment the dog dosent need them

THe one comp I went to it was so interesting seeing all the different methods
What I did notice is some of the people feel they have to shout directions all the time and end up too puffed out to run to the right place
When if you dont say much it gives the dog time to thing
and they aint daft - if you have lined them up for a jump they will jump it - you dont have to tell them

LOL at shona - heelwork with slevers

i have my 2 dogs a medium and a large and sometimes at competitions both classes will be the same course so i think a i dont need to walk to it agen but ive learnt that my dogs are so different i do have to walk the course for each dog!! my border collie was steady and accurate and hes now learnt to be accurate with speed wow what a shock to my system i have to run lol with my lil medium im always a jump ahead of her trying to encourage her to run faster think my bc is doing that with me! its help me having patch train me cos she always makes me run other ppls dogs this has taught me so much!! i was thinking bout gettin my 2nd bc so 3rd dog but rethinking that now cos haveing to think for 3 dogs would be hard my lil brain lol xxx