Clean Run - March 2012 - 45

Agility Suzuki Style
By Peggy Swingle

Part 1
The agility world has made great strides in building skills in dogs since I started out eight years ago. The beginning class I inflicted on my first agility dog consisted of everyone lining up in front of an obstacle with their dog, and then trying to get the dog over or through it. My dog hated agility and would never break out of a walk (and she was a fast little Sheltie), so I finally stopped torturing her. But I was hooked, and for my younger two dogs, we have had wonderful pre-agility classes in focus, groundwork, and other skills. Having these skills has made the transition to actual agility training fun and easy for the dog. The dogs I have moved through these foundation classes are much more confident, focused, and successful, plus they have a great time! Unfortunately the same can’t always be said of the handlers. As someone who did not come from an athletic background, I found my role as handler often frustrating and confusing. My brain understood what I was supposed to do, but getting my body to do it was quite another matter. Assumptions were made about my level of physical understanding that left me feeling, well, pretty stupid. Some people in the class just “got it” and quickly excelled. Some, like me, eventually got most of it, but only through many failure experiences. Some people just seemed to accept that they would never be very good and claimed they were just doing agility for fun anyway or never planned to compete. Although my dogs were having fun and developing skills, some damage had already been done to me. I was hesitant and lacked confidence. I was convinced that I wasn’t very good and didn’t have what it takes. I would watch some of the truly outstanding handlers in our area and think “I could never do that. How do they have such consistent success?” My mind would freeze when people started talking about lead changes and planning a course backward. Even for those who caught on quickly and had the needed physical skills, I noticed the trainer having to say the same things over and over: keep your eyes on your dog, cue with your hands down (your dog isn’t 5' tall!), keep your feet moving, take big steps if you need to get ahead, and so on.
March 12 | Clean Run

My experiences in agility have made me think about what would have helped me, the handler, on this journey. And I realized that the key lay in what I did in my “real” life, as a Suzuki piano teacher. The Suzuki method of teaching young children to play a musical instrument is one of the most successful teaching methods in the world. It has produced countless excellent players who love music and love to play. There are several similarities of the Suzuki Method to agility: A parent (handler) and child (dog) come together to a teacher to learn a wonderful but difficult skill that is enjoyable, has many levels, and takes dedication and hard work to achieve. The parent and child are not pretested for any special aptitude for music. Positive reinforcement and breakdown of skills are techniques used in teaching to insure success. Instructors in the Suzuki Method believe that any child can be successful to a high level, and that the success of the child is the responsibility of the adults—teacher and parent. What Suzuki brings to the table, which I think is useful to the agility world, is that while agility has focused on how dogs learn, the Suzuki method has spent 50 years focusing on how humans learn, the belief being that if you don’t understand how people learn, it’s hard to teach them effectively.
45

Clean Run - March 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - March 2012