These are tough times for teaching in agility. There is a broadly held sentiment out in the world that we solve the riddle of competition by teaching the dog to take responsibility for all things. In general we might call this compensatory training. That means that we heap upon the shoulders of the dog the responsibility for compensating for every error of the handler.

On one level it is an effective system as dogs are clever animals and willing accomplices to our most extreme whims.

Yet it strikes me that it is fundamentally out of balance that the dog should be 90% of the team while the handler holds up a meager 10% of the responsibility for work on the agility course.

I watched a lady this past weekend in competition with her PWD. Her errors were so extensive and constant that it looked like the judge was doing calisthenics. As she left the course (and walked past me) I heard her say to the dog “One of those was mine! But the rest was yours!”

Actually, all of the errors were hers. The bit that surprised me is that she didn’t recognize small things that I hold as basic: move in the direction of the course; support the dog; move with energy and commitment. Little stuff, like that. “Talking” is the weakest possible cue the handler can provide to the dog. How does one expect to survive by talking his way through the course?

I had a conversation with another lady with a great Border Collie. She’s been invited to the AKC’s World Team tryout. So she is a walking bundle of intensity and under pressures that most of us can only wonder at. In her jumpers run her dog dropped a single bar. She told me afterwards that “I got in her way, and she dropped a bar. But she’s going to have to learn to keep the bar up. I’ll be getting in her way a lot.”

At any rate what I might have told her is simple and obvious advice: Don’t run the plan, run the dog; in order to do a Front Cross you must actually be in front; the dog turns when the handler turns, not where the handler turns; that kind of stuff.

Introspective

I am a lazy dog trainer and sometimes feel like I am taking a leisurely walk in the meadow while those around me are racing to beat the devil. To mitigate this shortcoming I confess to being not very intense. I take the long view of my dogs’ careers in agility and their lives in my pack.

Once, a couple years ago, AKC judges Judy and Jim Smotrel were here in town. At the time the AKC was cracking down on the “training in the ring” thing… that was quite epidemic in the Ohio valley. I went into the ring with my boy Bogie and had a pretty good run! When I came out somebody rushed up to me to say “when you were finishing the dogwalk Jim put the whistle in his mouth. He was ready to get you for training in the ring.” I laughed and told him truthfully “Hell! I don’t train my dog at home. Why would I train him in the ring?”

So now I am struggling a bit in competition. And it occurs to me that I’d better get going training my dogs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not alarmed. To comprehend my not very driven attitude you must keep in mind that I view agility as a game in the park with a dog. And anything to which one might attach “importance” beyond that is an illusion and an ego-boo including the “Q”, the “Title”, the “Win”, the “Championship”, and also (Lord have mercy) … most of all “The World Team”.

Indeed if you ever catch me submitting an email message with the alphabet soup acronyms of my dogs’ accomplishments in the world… you can just go ahead and beat me with a stick.

Desi and Hazard are my third generation of agility dogs. It’s really fun starting all over again. They are both about two years old. Both have interesting issues that I have to solve.

I’ve changed a couple things. Obviously I have gone from dogs to bitches. I’m interested in the idea that there is really any difference in the drive of the sex. A lot of people swear by bitches. Though I’ve always admired a dog’s faithful willingness to do whatever I want to do.

I’ve also redefined a number of training methods, primarily with the contact obstacles. And I’m doing a lot more early distance training and conditioning.

I’ll keep you posted.

Screwball

I’ve already gotten a couple emails about my “Screwball” web log. “What was that supposed to mean?”

Okay, it was actually a literary allusion. In fourth grade I read a book titled “Screwball”. One of the chapters was “Screwball Turns Over a New Leaf”. It was a lovely and inspiring story of a young lad’s struggle to be accepted by his own peers. His family moved to a different town, giving him a new school, and a chance to start all over. The lesson I learned from the book is that we each have the capacity to reinvent “self”. It has been a life lesson for me.

Once a month my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Nichols, would read to us previews of new book offerings from The Weekly Reader. I skipped many lunches and squirreled away those coins that my mother gave me (20¢ for lunch plus 4¢ for a milk) to save up so I could afford to buy at least one book each month. I don’t remember most of the titles, though I do remember Screwball. And, I remember Five Chinese Brothers. I read it to my next door neighbor and bestest friend Billy Blomquist. He laughed so hard at the bit about the brother who swallowed up the sea that tears ran down his cheeks and his face turned purple.

That doesn’t really explain the leaf I am turning over now. I’ll write more to this later I suppose.

Questions, comments, and impassioned speeches to: dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net.