Clean Run - February 2016 - 52

Successful Agility
Starts with Workin'
K9 to 5-Or Does It?
By Andrea Davis, photos by Joanne Bridges

The sky is blue, there's a cool
breeze and you have a dog at your
feet that is eager and willing to
learn. This is the perfect recipe for
a productive training session, unless there is another ingredient in
this mix-a lazy trainer. It's been a
long day at work. You're tired. I get
it. As past USA World Team Member Karen Holik so eloquently puts
it, "Sometimes life gets in the way."
As a self-proclaimed lazy trainer,
I was always rewarded with super
smart dogs that still managed agility
championships even if I just trained
the day before a trial weekend. Apparently I'm not alone in the draining training ritual, or lack thereof. In
Googling "lazy dog trainers," there's
a great YouTube video titled "Running Contacts for the Lazy Trainer."
It's a funny video of a dog walking
to the top of the dogwalk, dropping
his own ball down the dogwalk, and
running down the plank to retrieve
his ball. That would be something I
would be interested in, but it would
require way too much training.

If you answered yes to any of the
above questions, then you might be
a lazy trainer. But don't worry, there's
still hope for you. Training the dog
often drops way down on the daily
priority list. But identifying your issues and ﬁnding the best way to
work through them isn't that difﬁcult.
in the ring having the time of his life
running laps around the course and
launching off contacts, it's mortifying to the person in the ring. I never
wanted to be one of those handlers.
I used to laugh at those people, until
I was one of them. My friend so delicately told me that I can't train my
dog by sitting on the couch eating
pizza. Really? More on that later.

* Do you start your training the
week of a competition?
* Do you have commitment issues-can't commit to a weekly
class?
* Do you ﬁnd yourself skipping agility classes?

Once I welcomed a bouncing,
pre-teen canine boy into my life, I
learned that in his world, contacts
were optional and running a course
in the order of his choosing was way
more fun than following my lead.
While it is so fun to watch the dog
52

* Do you trial more than you train?
* Do you train just enough to make
it through a course?
* Have you ever thought about
training the dog while lying on the
couch eating pizza?

I'm not here to discount the value of
hard work. There are those people
who live and breathe training and
they show it in their handling and
the ribbons on their walls. Bravo to
them, but for the rebels in the pack,
it's about training smarter, not harder.
Self-proclaimed lazy trainer, agility
instructor and 2013 and 2014 Purina
Incredible Dog Challenge winner
Sarah Duke has her own recipe
for successful training: "A lot of my
training is sitting on the ground next
to the obstacle with a beer, waiting
for my dog to offer me the behavior
I'm looking for. I also do a do a lot
of basic training during commercials
with a handful of treats while I'm sitting on the couch watching TV." Wait!
What? You can train while sitting on
the couch eating pizza? Well, not for
all of your training, but it is good to
know there are some couch options,
contrary to my friends' beliefs.
The dog ate my homework excuse
doesn't work well in agility training.
Clean Run | February 16

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - February 2016