Commands when not doing agility

My golden and I have just come back from doing our agility class and we're loving it, so much in fact he's taken upon himself when I'm not looking to go and do the A frame, stop on the top looking at the whole class. Cheeky monkey.

Our weaves are coming along quite nicely, he'll do upto 5 or 6 now without any guidance and he get's clicked and rewarded every 5.

I'm thinking of what commands I could practise with him during the week (that dont involve jumps) that would help in my agility classes, can anyone suggest anything ? How about some directional commands would they be worth practising ? If so how would I do it ?

Thanks for any ideas

So pleased you are both enjoying agility

Yes definately directional cues are always worth working on, they can get you out of tricky situations [ traps ] and are soooo useful when a dog is at a distance to send on the right way.

Its something you can work on as an exercise but `subliminal` training helps a lot too.

For subliminal, every time doglet wanders one way or the other naturally, say your cues as he turns and praise. That way, he can learn to associate a direction change that he is doing anyway with a verbal cue which you want him to work to. As you will be watching him at the time, without realising it you will turn too, particularly head, neck, shoulder and upper body [ in that order ], so the beginnings of visual cuing will start for you as well.

For deliberate training, use head and upper arm, [ shoulder mostly ], followed by elbow, wrist and hand [ think ballerina arm action if that makes sense ! ], to guide him visually, with him one or off lead depending on how he is at heelwork, while giving the verbal cue as well and praise, [ when he starts turning correctly ].

A little hint - at least 80% of canine communication is visual so thats where most agility cueing comes in to its own.
Dont over exaggerate movements though, the more natural they are for you to do, the more natural they are for a dog to read - he lives with you and is therefore used to seeing natural movement from you all the time so if you overdo it, it would be like suddenly giving him verbal cues that he knows but in a foreign language if you see what I mean

If you can set up makeshift `jump wings` to send him through from different directions on cue, [ plant pots would do for this ], once he is getting the idea but dont jump the gun on this, that will help too.

As with all training, keep sessions short and sweet, set him up to succeed, dont hold back with the praise, and if he is`nt getting it dont keep going as you will get frustrated - stop, do something else, then have another go later on. This is where the subliminal training really helps a lot as its not a `task` as such but something he does naturally, [ changing direction to sniff or whatever ], with you just acknowledging what he`s doing and giving it a name.

Hope thats all understandable - its much easier to demonstrate than to write

I taught my 2 girls directions by teaching them to twist, twisting anti-clockwise is 'back' so if I tell them back on an agility course they turn left and twisting clockwise is 'close'. Bertie I taught saying the direction as he turned, but it took him alot longer to learn them.

Yeah I taught Chance to 'spin' and 'turn' (as I call them). He does it on his own now. We havent gone on too much equipment yet, still doing ground work but we are also enjoying it. Another thing that migt help is teaching 'wait' (unless you know it already, LOL. Im not sure what you know.) By wait I mean to stay where he is till you tell him to move. It will help at the start line and the stay table. And Im sure you know the target command. Im new in the sport so I cant be of much more help. Good Luck!!