Handling strategies

newfire's picture
Submitted by newfire on Wed, 2006-12-13 09:15.

I have a couple of questions about this lesson.

1- rear crosses- at the start you are having Tim use the arm furthest from the dog to release the dog from the start. Does the use of this arm signal to the dog that a turn to the right is coming ie are you using this as a pre cue?

2-If you run with the dog off the line (or were signaling a similar thing on course) how would you indicate it?

3-Do you want us to perform the excercise with fronts as well as rears/ inline turns ?

thanks

Elizabeth

‹ Going through the box Gina - jumping 26" ›
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Olga Chaiko's picture

hands, inline start, etc.

Submitted by Olga Chaiko on Thu, 2006-11-16 11:46.
1 - Please review the video On the Use of Hands

That should shed some light on the mechanics of the hand signals that I teach to help navigate the dog through the course.

In a nutshell, the hand next to the dog is the Lead Hand and signals a Go On; conversely, the hand further from the dog is the Recall Hand and signals for the dog to turn into you. The dog operates on the premise of never going behind the handler, or arbitrarily switching sides, which allows you to signal your dog to maintain an existing line when the Go Hand is engaged and turn into you when you use the Recall Hand.

When you are performing an inline turn or simply want the dog to come in a bit without switching side, use your Recall Hand, smartly dubbed by my students "The Claw", ;-).. it does show the dog a preview of the path you wish the dog to take, given there is some vertical and lateral distance between you and the dog. Otherwise the dogs still reads the same thing only in real time.

It's very similar to steering a car, you turn the wheel until your car turns enough and then give gas and go straight. If you oversteer, you'll end up in the ditch, in Agility that will be "off course"..

Please watch the video of Tim running my dog Luz and you will notice how it works. Dogs find this hand system very easy to follow and take to it quickly, ask Pickle.. It's also very simple for the handlers to feel when to switch hands - just watch the dog and see if you need to steer or you need to drive straight.

2 - I will address Inline Start in the near future. Your virtual classmates Doc and Tracy England are the masters of the inline start and they will demonstrate the technique I developed for those teams who choose not to lead out.

In fact, leading out and starting inline are not mutually exclusive concepts. Your startline position should be dictated by the course. My own dogs are equally comfortable with both and will even start with me standing behind them. More on this later..

Back to Elizabeth's question, yes you will signal the same way if you run with your dog, just take stock if your dog needs "gas" or "steering" out of the gate..

3 - Please work on the exercises in the way that you see in the videos presented for the lessons. And if there are different ways of doing the sequences, please attempt them all, unless some techniques are not suitable for your particular dog.

The exercises in the videos are geared for the development of certain skills and by no means are "the only way" of running the sequences.

The video of the lovely sheltie Night and Chris Osborn features an exercise of front crosses in full "training mode" with the dog being rewarded with food every time she makes a choice for a change of direction. It's a great video for you to see the change of hands in the context of front crosses.

Happy turning,

Olga.