Written by Lorrie Reynolds
MAKING THE MOST OF A DOG AGILITY SEMINAR OPPORTUNITY
Many, many years ago, I ended up at a dog agility seminar presented by a well-known European competitor. The opportunity fell into my lap – someone had to cancel and was selling her spot for 1/2 price. Since one of my close friends was going, I decided to join her.
The instructor wasn’t someone who played “my” kind of agility. Back then, international-style courses were just starting to trickle into the US. Pixie was young, hadn’t been training that long, and I didn’t think we would do very well, but any chance to play is a chance to play!
WORKING THROUGH CHALLENGES WITH YOUR AGILITY DOG AT A SEMINAR
I won’t lie – we struggled at first. Pixie was not used to tight courses, backside jumps, or odd angles, and we hadn’t trained any international skills. After she went off course for the umpteenth time due to her distance training, I heard someone making snide comments about “NADAC dogs”.
I’m a little stubborn though. That comment just made me work harder and take advantage of the learning opportunity in front of me. I soaked up the instruction, watched everyone else, and figured out how my handling had to change, determined to show that “NADAC dogs” could perform just as well as agility dogs who were trained differently.
Some of the most valuable breakthroughs happen when we learn from mistakes in agility training rather than avoiding them.
The last sequence (yes, I remember it) was the near end of a curved tunnel, jump, 90 degree turn to a jump, backside of a jump that was obviously right in line, jump, and then over the A-Frame on the other side of the dogwalk, into a tunnel under the dogwalk, and a complicated little 3-jump sequence at the end.
I used my distance to get into position for the backside, sent her to the A-Frame while I layered the dogwalk, and called her through the tunnel where I was waiting in a good position to finish the 3-jump series. When we finished, the instructor said one word. “Wow.” There were no more comments about NADAC dogs.
I used our CLAWS skills to succeed on a course that was too spread out for me to run. It’s just one example of how developing distance handling skills for agility can give you more options when working through complex seminar sequences.
5 LESSONS TO TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR NEXT DOG AGILITY SEMINAR
- Never pass up a learning opportunity, even if it’s out of your comfort zone
- Keep an open mind – training is for experimentation
- You learn just as much from watching other students as you do participating (although you can learn even more when you also video your dog training sessions to review later)
- You can treat failure as a reason to give up, or motivation to try harder
- There is always something new to learn, even if it’s not your “style”
Are you attending a seminar in the near future? Learning how to find a good dog agility seminar can make a huge difference in your training experience and help you put these tips to good use!
If your group is interested in scheduling a seminar with me, please use the Contact form to start the process.
This episode is available as a PODCAST! Listen to the episode HERE.
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