Hi Katie,

Sorry for the delayed reply. With all the reorg of the site your post have been "in transit", ;-)..

I am happy to hear that you like Lesson 18. Eric and I are very proud of how it turned out. Lesson 18 is very challenging and fun both to watch and to run.

Yankee loves running for Alicia. He actually would run for anybody, so come on down (no snow here), he'll be happy to run for you, ;-).. Go, Yang-Yang!

Now onto your questions..

COLLECTION

I do not have a cue for collection. Meaning, say, I have a cue "Jump! and expect the dog to take a jump, but I do not have a cue to the point of "Collect!", ;-).. However, I do teach the dog obstacle performance, configurations and maneuvers/transitions that elicit collection in order to be successfully executed.

Here is a good example: weave poles. The dog has to collect on entry into the poles, insufficient collection the lack of thereof and the dog will fault the entry. So, instead of teaching collection on entry, I teach the ENTRY itself and the dog figures out to collect. Thus the dog has now acquired, experienced and applied the skill of collection. As the dog becomes more proficient entering the poles, he regulates the amount of collection needed. Less collection is better, ;-).. and it's up to the dog. He sees collection as a tool to successfully perform a task, and not as a task in itself.

In regards to jumping, I show the dog where he needs to go and let him do his best to apply his skills to get there. If I show the dog to take a jump and come back to me, he will hurry back as soon as he lands. If he jumps long and lands wide, he'll have to work harder to catch up with me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that collecting over the jump would get him further faster.. Again, the dog self-regulates the amount of collection vs. speed he needs to apply.

Collection on serpentine style handling is another good example. Handling 90% of the course as a serpentine has become very popular. A lot of handlers have great success with it. However, the great majority of dogs land behind the handler half the time, though they are highly trained and expressly cued for collection.. I don't have this problem. Reason being, I believe, that I don't teach collection cues. For handling from the front, I teach the dog to target my front (kind of logical, ah?).. and it's up to him how he does it.

Lastly, collection adds strides, which equals loss of speed. I'd rather take a wider faster path, then end up with the dog always anticipation collection and forgetting to run.. BTW, with so much emphasis and special cues for collection, how many handlers do you think have bothered to teach extension, ;-)?? Anyone has a cue for extension? How does the dog know when to stop running collected? LOL.

RESPONSIBILITY

That's a moot point, IMO.. And depends on the dog. Let's assume I somehow manage to get the whole responsibility notion through the dog's head, which may be possible with some dogs of certain breeds, but in general.. good luck with that.. You can let the dog know that dropping bars results in unpleasant consequences of some sort, but that is not taking responsibility. That is knowledge/fear of the outcome. I've trained dogs who try very hard and do feel responsible for bars and still knock them. And I have trained dogs whose middle name is "I don't give a heck!" and they never dropped a bar in their life. So, how do you separate effort from the outcome? Reward honest responsible effort and thus reward bad bars? Or reward irresponsible performance as long as the bars stay up? You tell me, ;-)..

I don't dwell on this whole responsibility subject. Instead I appreciate a good effort.

Contacts too.. Last weekend Yankee ran in a DAM team tournament.. He won Team Standard, meaning he did happen to hit both AF and DW USDAA style contacts. Then he ran Relay, and his last contact with the DW was at the end of the horizontal plank, oops!.. In fact, that was the most "spectacular" DW performance YY has offered so far.. So, how do you judge this? Yankee didn't put in any special effort in his standard run and he certainly didn't go to La-La Land in relay.. In both runs he did his best.. and was rewarded equally.

Lastly, dogs are different, just like people. Some can handle responsibility, some would rather not. Some need support in certain areas. There are a lot of great Agility dogs who won't fit the "must take responsibility" job description.. they'd be fired..

Olga.

Ou, thanks! I really enjoy picking your brain! You have some really interesting training philosophies! 

Yea, I wasn't sure where it had escaped to! Hehe...