Clean Run Magazine - December 2007 - 29

set up an easier entry angle. If the obstacle before the weaves is a jump I might tell Cider to jump left, away from the weaves. Having been properly misdirected, I can call her back to hit the poles straight on. If there is a contact obstacle before the weaves, I can hold her on the contact while I walk away from both obstacles, setting a deep V. I call her to me. When I feel confident she can negotiate the entry, I turn and let her face the weaves. This does spend precious seconds of course time, but gets the job done. Our personal best in the ugly category included layering a dogwalk. A tunnel was set under a dogwalk with the tunnel entry adjacent to the down contact for a quick flip into the tunnel. A very slight curve in the tunnel ensured a speedy exit. Multiple off-course options faced the exiting dog. Because I could neither push Cider into the tunnel from a distance nor beat her in a foot race to the end of the tunnel, I opted for ugly. I pulled Cider into the tunnel and then sprinted to the far end of the dogwalk, calling her as I ran. My intention was to be so far off course and so far away, Cider could not possibly think any of the off-course challenges were the next correct obstacle. It worked. Wondering why I was so far away from her, Cider put the brakes on at the offcourse tire. As she turned to look at me, the line between us included the correct jump. I do not recommend it nor do I practice it, but once in a while, ugly handling seems like the only option. execute future Excellent class runs. Even while you are still focused on getting through Novice and Open classes, think about how you would like to handle your courses if you and your teammate were a veteran and accomplished team competing in Excellent. Close your eyes, exorcise the downright ugly thoughts, and think about how you would ideally like to complete the course facing you. The course you are about to run may go differently from how you would ideally like it to go if you were a veteran team. And you should run it differently because you know your dog and you know your skill level. In Cider, I knew the potential was there to run any Novice and Open course like we had been competing in Excellent for years. Every dog and every team has this potential. But it takes time, training, and trial experience to fulfill this potential. Then, trusting yourself to be consistent will produce good runs and eliminate the bad and the downright ugly runs. D Excellent Anxiety If you are just beginning AKC agility competitions, the heightened anxiety over a Double-Q may be difficult to understand. But someday, you will be competing at the Excellent level. Missed weave entries and popped contacts will, by and large, be a thing of your past. Your focus will shift from worrying about how many refusals and wrong courses you have to burn in a run to wondering just how well you performed and how quickly this was accomplished. Now is the time to dream how you will Cider is Bill’s first agility dog. His first AKC agility competition was in Savannah, Georgia, in November 2003. That weekend they earned three blue ribbons in four runs. They would have earned the fourth ribbon if he had been a seasoned, competent handler. The theme of human error holding down the “Q rate” has followed them closely since. In the years since their first agility trial, he has improved significantly as a handler, but hesitates to conjure the notion of being competent, let alone the notion of consistent. Cider has humored and humbled him along the way and still found room to bless him with Novice, Open, and Excellent titles, and as of October 20, 2007, a MACH title. Fast delivery of the best tunnels anywhere Competition tunnels • Ultralight tunnels for the backyard • Teacup and standard sizes 10' to 24' lengths and choice of pitch • Solid colors and multicolor combinations Chutes and sandbags, too 800.464.0112 Agility is not our business–it is our passion! December 07 | Clean Run 29
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Clean Run Magazine - December 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - December 2007
