Clean Run - September 2014 - 42

Your dog is the best judge to tell you if everything is okay with your method
and how you are using it.

Don't Fool Me
Judges have a great responsibility to design safe courses and to understand the
dogs' perspective on agility. In one trial,
the teeter and the A-frame were aligned
with each other about 15' apart. Over
half of the dogs in the Large class flew
off the teeter without it moving down
even an inch. One of the fastest dogs
practically landed on the A-frame. Luckily all the dogs escaped the teeter without injuries despite several dangerous
looking situations.

ly offer the behavior of going to the end
of the contact to their 2-on/2-off position and waiting for release with a verbal command. But when you test what
the dog actually has learned to do, you
see that when the handler is asked to
run ahead of the dog as the dog enters
the dogwalk and stop halfway along the
middle part before the dog catches up,
the dogs most often also stop before
the contact zone instead of going down
to 2-on/2-off. It is rarer to see the dog
continuing and doing a perfect 2-on/
2-off despite what the handler is doing.

The teeter and A-frame aligned from
the dog's point of view.

If the dog is conditioned to the handler's motion, he will stop
in the middle of the contact obstacle if the handler stops

Sometimes judges may accidently "guide"
dogs into tunnels. The judge passes or
stands near the exit of the tunnel. From
inside the tunnel, the dog is unable to
distinguish who he can see outside and
starts to turn the "wrong" way, toward
the judge's legs instead of to his handler.

To begin with, it is natural for dogs to react to motion. Most dogs have unintentionally in every training session and trial
had reinforcement to base their contact
behavior on the handler's motion instead of ignoring it. Handler stops, dog
stops. If the handler decelerates, the dog
also decelerates. And, if the handler runs
with full speed past the contact zone
without watching the dog, he follows
the handler motion and runs through
the contact zone without stopping to
perform a 2-on/2-off. When giving a verbal release, the handlers have uninten-

Know What You Teach
Handlers are often oblivious to what
they have actually taught their dogs.
The most typical example is seen in
2-on/2-off contacts. Handlers think they
have taught their dogs to independent-

tionally taught their dogs to follow the
body cue instead of a verbal. If a handler
gives a "wrong" verbal and continues
handling by starting to move or executing a handling move, the dog releases,
despite the handler not giving the dog
the correct verbal release the dog is supposed to wait for. These are partly the
reason behind the problems at contacts
in trials. Dogs have conditioned their
contact performances to different cues
than those intended by the handlers.

Live to Learn
Over the 20 years we have been involved
with agility, we have seen many similar
examples and learned a lot from them.
The purpose of these examples is to
help handlers start thinking outside the
box when they encounter training problems. When you are trying to teach your
dog a certain behavior, and it feels like
the dog is not learning as expected with
the method you are using, try to condition the dog to something else than you
originally intended. In the right conditions, with suitable properly used teaching methods, the dogs learn extremely
fast. If you have to use multiple repetitions to teach something and there is
no progress, your dog's perception of
the behavior you are trying to teach
differs from yours. Different individuals
learn differently. And, sometimes even
with the same method, different dogs
condition themselves to completely different things. Your dog is the best judge
to tell you if everything is okay with your
method and how you are using it. D

Janita Leinonen has been working as a professional dog trainer since 2000. She has coached handlers competing in all heights to be FCI Agility World Championship (WC) medalists. Many of her students are now teaching agility for their living. Janita won the European Open Individual in 2013 and the EO Team
in 2010 and 2011 with teams formed only with dogs from her kennel Decathlete's. She has been among the top ten in the FCI Agility WC twice with different dogs and won the Nordic Championships three times in a row. Her clean run percentage in competition has been over 80% with four different dogs.
Jaakko Suoknuuti has been working as a professional dog trainer since 2006. He has coached several people to the international top level in all
height categories. Jaakko was the first person in Finland who got results for a Havanese to compete in Finnish Championships. He has spent seven
years on the FCI Finnish Agility Team. He won the EO Team in 2010 and 2011. Jaakko also won the FCI Agility WC Jumping course in 2008. He has several championships and medals from Finnish and Nordic Championships. He has earned four top ten placements in EO and WC individual competitions.
Contact them via their website at www.oneminddogs.com.
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http://www.oneminddogs.com

Clean Run - September 2014

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