The more I break it down the more for me it encompasses where I am going with my training both from a person and dog perspective.
Speed can appear to be of the essence but it is not just essence that makes the cake. If you don't put the right ingredients in then no amount of flavouring is going to make it right.
The correct mix and the right conditions are all important.
When we focus on speed too much accuracy is often undervalued.
If early foundations are fixed purely on being as fast as possible and no value is given to learning the equipment then we loose opportunities to build strength and skills that we will call on later in high pressure situations.
Jumping is a valuable skill and jumps play a large part in any course. To create speed we can set up straight lines and wide gaps to encourage extension. Extension usually gives a flat trajectory.
When we want our dogs to turn we want a curved trajectory. Young dogs that have learnt to value the bar and how to use it's body to jump can usually change easily from a flat to a curved style when required.
Time spent learning jumping will build strength and identify any physical areas which could benefit from specific exercises to develop and improve muscles.
There are so many fun games, tricks etc out there which will give a dog a better understanding of how to use their bodies and we can spend this time understanding how our dogs like to learn without making any mistakes on agility equipment.
Teaching a dog to understand how to negotiate a jump by taking time to set up various jump grids to allow the dog to experience a myriad of scenarios will create a dog practiced in jumping that doesn't have to think on course.
If the dog doesn't have to think about taking the bar then it will be able to drive at the bar at the appropriate speed to get round a course as efficiently as possible = no faults in quickest time.
Time spent with our dogs builds our relationships. All the best trainers look to use positive reinforcement in any training. This further builds a trusting positive relationship.
Balancing our dogs training and experiences and the things it gets rewarded for makes agility easy for us both.
When I talk about balance and training I expect this to always be within positive reinforcement.
To me any form of punishment will ruin my relationship with my dog.
If we reward one thing (speed to handler) extensively for months in early training and rush through their jump skills training then the likelihood for knocking bars increases. The dog undervalues poles and/or mistimes jumps to get quickly to the handler.
Within positive training if that dog is then run through that same sequence it will probably work out for itself how to keep that pole up. Sometimes it may take a couple of times. If it is then given a great reward when the bar is kept up then a valuable lesson will have been learned.
If a dog is punished for knocking a bar then next time it will be more thoughtful and take more time to avoid punishment. It will have learned to SLOW DOWN at the very least but in the worst scenario it may even choose to run past a jump (to avoid a negative situation) to run fast to it's owner (which more often earns a reward). Lets hope this isn't in a high pressure situation!
I hopefully say that the punishers are in a minority but PLEASE let's focus on loads of positive training situations so we can all let our dogs be faster and have fun with confidence.
Overall we are all wanting to create the best partnership we can to give us the best results we can.
Keep your ingredients to the right quantities, mix thoroughly and allow the right time to rise.
Run with your legs - train with high energy
Run with your mind - train thoughtfully looking at the overall picture
Run with your heart - train with love and kindness.
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