Large vs. Medium
This weekend, I've heard twice something like "o.k., yes, but with medium dog, that's easier". Can somebody please explain me why everybody thinks medium/small dogs are easy to handle and a pure fact of a dog, being large, makes them so much more complicated to handle??? Why would it be easier to handle La who constantly sets the best times from all jump heights than a large dog? Because large dogs jump longer? Well... My large dogs do jump long (one of them EXTREMELY long) when asked to, but when they are asked to jump short, they jump shorter as any untrained small dog!:)
Don't get me wrong, I personally do prefer running in large vs. medium class, simply because there is for sure more competition and little details that I love so much are even more important. I really love running in large, it feels really good when my slow no-drive Bu sets best time in large, thanks to her turns:).
BUT I must admit Bu is my by far easiest dog to handle. Why? She is my best trained dog. The only difficult thing about handling her is how to get her to the start line without her getting scared of a dog passing by, of a too loud voice or anything else... Once on a course, everything is very easy with her, the only problem is when I'm too late with my directional cues... If she is already in the air, she will try to correct her path and knock a bar... And if she is already landing, she will make a big circle of frustration about not being on exactly correct path first before coming back. So she is really great handling teacher, she always does exactly what asked, but insists to be asked in time, or...
La is Bu's opposite. She doesn't care where, why, who, when... - as long as she can run. Unlike as with Bu, I can save the situation even when I was too late with my directionals and she is just as happy in whatever enviroment. BUT the more exciting&louder the enviroment is, the less she listens and more she just runs...
And Bi is again another story, she is for now the hardest one to handle, simply because she is not yet fully trained and because we still need to improve our team work.
To sum it up, in my opinion, what makes a dog easy or difficult to handle is mostly how well he is trained. By order of importance, I will list some skills that make a dog easy to handle:
1. cik&cap - I never get why people don't train that, I think cik&cap make life SOOO much easier. Of course, you can get good turns by just handling (look at the Italians or Finns afterall:), but handling just gets too complicated - to the point of being impossible on some courses.
2. good understanding of switching from obstacle to handler focus and back
3. independent obstacle performance - whatever that performance might be. I'm always stunned when people say running contacts are too difficult for them to handle, but at the same time need to completely stop with their dog on every contact... Is it really easier to start with a dog from zero speed as to keep running and move where you need to be when the dog is running his contacts? The same with weaves... The beauty of weaves is that you're always faster as a dog on this obstacle and it allows you to position yourself for the next sequence - if of course you can leave the dog in alone...
4. good balance between liking all the obstacles, handling moves, close and distance work
5. other directionals: out/around, left&right, go
6. start line stays - yes, it does make life somewhat easier, but as you see, that's still at the very bottom of my list of skills
And of course, the faster the dog and the longer the strides, more important those skills are. The more of those skills are missing, the harder the dog is to handle, especially if a dog is really fast and long strided. But fast and long-strided is still a piece of cake if you only take the time for cik&cap!:)
Feel free to post the skills you think are the most important.
18 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hi, absolutely right, as always 🙂 I would just add the ability to distinguish individual obstacles with a verbal cue -- but it could be also the part of your point 3 🙂
Hi 🙂
I agree in your way of thinking. I don`t think size matters when it comes to “handle a dog”. Small, medium or large -- always something thats difficult. And a well trained dog, is more easy to handle !
And kip/cap makes it better! As you write- look at the fins!!! wow!!!
I also think (as you have told before) that good connection with your dog makes agility easy. By training 100 tricks 😉
I think my dog are more like your La, she doesnt care about anything, as long as she can run 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Hi,
more I train the more I have to agree with your point of view.
I actually find it quite funny that here in Finland we have some 4-5 different handling maneuvers intended to guide the dog to make a short jump and turn: one to be used if the dog is jumping towards the handler, one for case where the handler is turning with the dog and so on and so on…
We can actually spend good weekend seminar only with maneuvers that are solution to situations that could be solved better and much more efficiently if the dog would actually be taught cik&cap.
Goes without saying that cik&cap are currently quite high in my priority list, right after “teaching the dog to do all obstacles”, in other words, contacts.
Thanks for adding your thoughts to conversation! Any chance you can post a video with those Finish Specialties? I think many readers don’t know what we’re talking about and it’s a real must-see, just too funny! But way too fancy for me, I like to keep things simple:).
Good luck with your contacts!
Hi,
I am sorry I agree in a lot of things with You, but not with S,M/L. I have two malinois and medium mudi. With mudi it looks much easier for me, no problem with first contacts, easier second contacts and when I am late with my handling -- malinois they have normally only one stride between obsticles or even bounce. Medium dogs they have normally two and more strides between obsticles (even it could sometimes happend even only one), so there is more “time” for them to change the direction…
Best regards
Martina
Hi,
I agree with a lot of things with You, but not with S/M versus L. I have two malinois and one mudi -- medium. For me it looks easier with mudi, I dont have to solve the first contacts, it is easier to handler my mudi after the running dogwalk, it is easier to save the situation when I am late in handling, beacuse my mudi does normally two or more strides between obsticles. Sometimes one stride, but never bounce. My malinois do one stride, sometimes bounce between obsticles, so there is almost no time to correct my handling. But even it looks easier with my mudi for me, it is still a lot of things to train and a lot of a lot of fun 🙂 And when I see nice large/medium/small team I just think about how great the team is, no matter of categorie.
Best regards
Martina
Sorry, only now found your message in spam… I think we actually agree on that one too, I just think that we’re talking about two different things. I was not talking about training at all and I most certainly agree that some training is easier with S/M dogs and this is up contacts and jump issues (never saw S/M dogs with bar problem) -- no work needed with S/M dogs in that area. See-saw on the other hand is harder for smaller dogs as they need to wait longer. I do NOT agree down contacts are easier with smaller dogs. Bi can do THREE strides dog-walk and always does one-stride A-frame (less as any Malinois I know) and was still the fastest from all my dogs to learn the concept. I think understanding is the important part, not length of stride and with small dogs, you can sometimes be tricked into thinking they understand while they actually were just lucky. No fear you can do that mistake with long-strided dog!
However, I was not talking about training, but handling. And I DID say and do agree with you that long-strided dogs are harder to handle IF they don’t know to jump short when asked too:). But as I said, to again take Bi as an example as her strides are extremely long: when asked to, she can jump way shorter as any untrained S dog and even shorter as my not-so-well trained M dog:), so when we get rid of the other issues, I think she will be way easier to handle as untrained S dog or La.
Also, I agree that when you’re late, you can save the situation with smaller dogs easier as with long-striding dog, but I guess that’s not the way anybody would want to run agility and we all strive to be in time. And when you are, you can tell long-striding dog to jump just as short as you need him/her too:). No need to save anything then:).
So as I understand it, the cut off between the medium and large classes is at 17 inches. And large dogs jump 26″ right? My question is, have you seen many dogs that are a sliver over 17″ actually run in the large class or do they simply not compete in agility? If they do run, do they show a lot of difficulty getting over jumps and is there a way to condition them to make it easier for them? Do you think it is fair to run them when the jump height is so high? I live in America, so my 17 inch dog only jumps 16, but I’m just asking this for theoretical purposes.
That’s correct, 17″ dog officially jumps 26″ here… We actually have some BCs in Slovenia that are just a little bit over it and do fine on 26″. Heavier build dogs can’t do it, so if of a bad size, they either don’t compete in agility or they let them compete in medium. We have some of those 18″ heavier build dogs competing in medium, they’re there just for fun anyway. The sad thing is that people are now putting 18″ BCs into medium class because they saw it’s done in World Championships… La is starting to look like a real midget between all those “medium” dogs in medium class. We don’t care, it’s just that medium class is a real joke by now.
Anyway, no matter what height, I do think that conditioning, crosstraining and keeping them very fit and lean, warming them up etc. is VERY important for ANY dog, doing agility, at whatever height.
So, are the dogs formally measured? How would somebody enter an oversize dog in medium?
How tall is La?
They are, but based on what sizes we see in World Championships, they are measured to any height the owner wishes… La is a little under 15″.
Hi Mariah, I also have a dog 17´´ and he is in large cathegory here in Europe, he has to jump cca 24´´. He is a strong-boned male, with shorter back, so our goal is -- as Silvia wrote -- to keep him fit and lean. He is not able to turn around the wing on those high jumps as close as border collies do, but with a lot of condition training he has no problem and can jump nicely (thanks to Silvia and her way of training ;-)). But he needs a lot of force and time to get over the jump -- more than bigger dogs, so precise handling is absolutely needed, otherwise he takes bar down.
Thanks for sharing your story, it’s nice to hear they are capable. 😀
Here in the US, I hear people complaining because their 17 inch dog has to jump 22 in USDAA but it’s better than 24 or 26 I suppose…
I thought my Pyre was 17.5 but I measured him yesterday with him standing straight up and he is a sliver under 17 so I’m really not sure what he is going to do: or what the people who measure are going to do. He will be two in August but I think he is done growing. It would be awesome if we could fit into the middle class.
I did a calculation in Sweden on results from 82 classes (jumping and agility equal). I checked the 5 fastest runs for each class, independent of height. Booked them in the correct height and I also logged which height had fastest time. I only used classes that the same course length so hopefully the course was the same but of course I have no guarantee here.
To be honest large was pretty dominant, 81, 5 % of these classes a large dog was the fastest and almost 70 % of the fastest times were booked on large dog. And I think we have a lot of good small and medium dogs.
I think a lot of people mistake a well trained dog to be easy to run with……indirectly blaming there mistakes on there difficult dog and not on the training. 🙂
I agree, I think there is way more competition in large as small/medium. But that doesn’t make medium dogs like La, Dizzy (UK), Smitty (US) easy to run just because they jump 45 vs. 65cm as they constantly set best times from all jump heights. But still, apart from her speed, I’m very well aware that La could be almost as easy to handle as Bu if she were equally well trained. It always hurts when I see people getting mad about their dogs in a ring… What I see is a brilliant dog and a handler who would desperately need a good instructor and what they see is a stupid dog and a handler who knows everything already…
And I forgot to say, nice new website! It will very interesting to read the discussions. 🙂
I didn’t know where to put this question but here we go: I´ve heard that you train right/left as a spin first. My question is how do you transfer it from a spin to a turn? If I said left on a course, my dog would probably spin left….
I guess you should just try it 🙂 They usually won’t spin, but simply ignore it and follow the body language. And after some trainings make a connection. Bu was the only dog who actually spinned that I know, but I didn’t worry, kept using it and she got it in one or two trainings, no big deal.