Clean Run Magazine - November 2009 - 26

The Circulator™ is a state-of-the-art, breakthrough in portable convection drying. The open frame design with the large aluminum heat sink brings new speed and energy efﬁciency to convection drying. Sandwiching an advanced technology silicone rubber coated heating element between two custom ﬁtted aluminum plates allows the use of increased wattages with no increase of apparent heat or footwear damaging hot spots. The Circulator™ delivers light, portable, efﬁcient drying for a wide variety of footwear, eliminating odor and increasing comfort. Features: • Compact, portable, lightweight size • Packs easily in shoes or boots • Silently warms in minutes and dries in hours • Will not damage footwear, liner, or foot bed Speciﬁcations: • Dry time - approximately 2 - 5 hours • Power - 120V AC household outlet • Size - 2 units at 2” x 1.5” x 6” • Weight - 7 oz. • Material high-quality thermoset plastics • Warranty one-year-warranty can start us with a plank a couple inches off the ground. When we master walking across it consistently without falling off, what’s the next step? Often it is raising the plank instead of making speed an important criterion as well. It is better to make speed the new criterion. If it takes us an average 5 seconds to cross the plank, reward for times less than 5 seconds, then four, and so on. It is better to reward motion with motion. Do not reward us for speed by stopping us. It is confusing. Are you rewarding us for speed or stopping after a speedy response? If the reward is delivered while we are still moving fast there is no confusion. This is where a toy or thrown food is better than rewarding us after the fact from your hand. Another area of training often overlooked is teaching us to extend or compress our stride length where appropriate. Two strides that cover the same length over the ground are slower than a single stride. A well-placed, collected stride can save us two or more strides on a tight turn, because we can make a much tighter turn. Handling is another often overlooked aspect of speeding us up. Another reason we are cautious on course is because our handler is unpredictable; our handler may be late with signals, not have a consistent handling system, or have a handling system that relies on context or multiple cues. The only way for us to sort through the confusion created by being unable to trust the handler’s signal (cue) at a given moment is to create a longer frame of reference to confirm what the handler wants. How many handlers when walking a course actually consider the dogs’ path? What type of handling or path on a particular challenge results in fewer strides for the dog? Often the choice of how to handle a sequence is not what is fastest but what is easiest or takes the least effort on the handler’s part. The difference between first place and a non-placing qualifier is often one wide turn. This is not our fault; our handlers are simply not where they needed to be or not giving us appropriate cues. Heck, sometimes we are not even taught a proper cue in the first place. We are often left to set the pace on course and our handler follows. How smart is that? We don’t know where we are going; only our partners do. They know where it is safe to make an all-out run and where to slow for an upcoming turn. In this case, all that is needed to speed us up is for our handler to get out of their comfort level and go for it. Hey, I was bred to hunt. I love to chase. If you want to see me run all out, then give me something to chase. But don’t ever try to fake it. You know what I mean: taking lots of baby steps and trying to make it look like you’re running fast when you’re not. Dogs see right through that ploy. If running faster means you have to take a longer path, then do it, even if it means running the outside lap of the course. There is a reason most of the top handlers are fit, trim, and fast. It is because running fast is one of the easiest ways to speed us up. The potential for actually speeding up the top speed of average agility dogs is minimal because we are relatively fit. Often, this is not the case with handlers. Taking the time to improve your fitness and speed can translate into faster times on course as well. There is not a single magic formula that can speed up all dogs If you take an honest look at all areas mentioned above and honestly assess how we stack up versus the competition, you are well on the way to determining the areas to concentrate on to get the biggest bang from our limited training time. D s ur Shoe Keep Yo m & Dry, War le ab Comfort www.cleanrun.com Available at Toughynutter, a.k.a World’s Slowest Agility Dog, was a Basset Hound whose slow-footedness was legendary in New England. In spite of it, he was the first Basset to earn a PIII title in USDAA and the only one to qualify for the Steeplechase Tournament. His agility partner Michael Tefts graciously translated this transcript. Clean Run | November 09

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Clean Run Magazine - November 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - November 2009