Agility intermediate. Getting harder. Advice.

We are now on week two of our intermediate agility course. We are spending a lot of time changing the side the dog is on so that we can direct our dogs efficiently round the course.I understand that it is all about placement of us as handlers and that this should come with practise. How do you move on from running with your dog to being able to send them on to an obstacle. Fudge is much faster then me and she can only do the course as fast as i can run at the moment. Any tips greatly received. i hope you have followed this post!!

Sorry I have no tips, but believe me you will get the hang of things, it's just a case of practice practice practise, I took a video of my son & Jack last week which followed on from one I took a few months ago, and although it seemed they hadn't improved, watching the video, well it was just like WOW, how they've both come on soooo much
There's a chap in a more advanced group than ours whos dog actually knows which way to turn just on the command right or left, it's great to watch them, sorry I can't be of more help just be patient

Do you use toys or treats for training ?
If yes, try throwing the item ahead over a jump but not praising until she had gone ahead for it - don`t distract her until she`s completed the `task`.

Its not just about throwing something for the dog though, its more to do with the arm and body action it illicits from the handler, [ the movement involved of hand, arm, shoulder, upper body positions ], and the reward aspect of getting a toy or treat helps with giving the dog the confidence to know its ok to go ahead on cue [ the cue developing from the throwing action which guides the dog ].

Once you and Fudge get the hang of that you should find yourself being able to send on in different directions and phasing out an item quite naturally by imagining you are throwing an item toward the relevant obsacles.

Its something you can practise at home with or without equipment
Any probs let us know and we can offer `tweaks`.

If you can get someone to video yourself and Fudge, whether at the club or not, you`ll find vid clips of yourself really useful to watch as you can then see what Fudge is or isn`t responding to from your verbal cues and physical movements :smt001

Thanks Patch. I get the idea of throwing for her to follow. We use treats but she seems a bit bored so today I introduced a tennis ball. She perked up straight away. I was running to keep up with her over a run of jumps and did my swan dive all over again!!It was me getting my feet muddled up with the tennis ball. I forgot to swop hands when she swopped sides!!

I will have a go at setting up a jump in the garden and practising.

Hi - we too have moved up and the courses are much more challenging! Require alot of my brain power - what we learnt on Monday is that its about what works for you and your dog and trying to get to know that!

Sometimes there is more than one option but not all of them will work for you and your dog!!! Learnt by trial and error too - boy I get so confused though!

Regarding the running on I think it just comes with time and practice - Max is much more confident with a straight line but still waits for instruction on a tight turn or when two options face him - unless its a contact obstacle which wins every time!! LOL

But he is starting to go in tunnels etc without being shown in - just the voice command - three weeks ago he was being shown in.

Max and I started in January - I think you and Fudge haven't been doing this very long so you are doing fab and coming on much quicker than we did

Sorry you fell over - the number of times I get in a tangle are too many to mention!

Well done you and Fudge are doing great with it

One of mine is the same - LOVES the A-frame and dog walk and has on occasion done those off her own back

I agree that it comes with time and practice - as the dog gets more confident over the equipment and familiar with the commands/signals you use then they will be more inclined to go ahead. It is also about finding what works with the individual dog - I have two that I currently do agility with and find that they both respond better to slightly different techniques. One is very good to voice (to the extent that when someone else ran her last week she wouldn't do a piece of equipment until the woman used the 'right' cue word ). However I had to do a silent round with them last week as I will admit I have been getting a little slack with the cues and she did very well that round and was incredibly focused on myself. My other one works very well to hand signals .

Fudgeley - I think you are both doing great and have achieved a huge amount. Sending them on will come with practice.

Glad I'm not alone - Max too seems to seek them out to do them wherever on the course they are and the table well - he never ever needs a command to get on that - maybe cos he gets to lie down on it and have a break!

Throwing a ball on over the last jump in a line of jumps is a great way to get your dog to go on, just make sure that a) the dog doesn't become too focused on the ball and so keeps looking back at you because you've got the ball and b) you're timing has to be really good, if you throw the ball too early the dog might run under the last jump, if you throw it too late it might already be turning back to you, a great way to get over both of these problems is for someone else to have the ball. Also you can practise a sendaway away from the agility equipment.

We have never done a send away...what does it entail?

With Skye I back-chained it to a mat, so to begin with I was right next to the mat, when she went to sniff the mat, I clicked and threw the treat on the mat (if they don't show any interest in the mat to begin with you can put a piece of food on it), then clicked and threw the treat on the mat a few more times while she was still on the mat. Then I clicked and threw the treat off of the mat and the idea is they go back to the mat to get clicked and treated again. When they are doing that with you standing right near the mat, you then back off a step at a time until they're going a little way, then you can add your sendaway command (I use 'go on'). When they're going quite a distance you can make the mat smaller, but you might need to go back closer to the mat and eventually you can send them on without a mat there.