Too slow for your dog?
There was a discussion on Facebook recently, about the European style course that somebody posted, with tons of people commenting on how impossible the course is to run for 1. big dogs, 2. short handlers, 3. old handlers. It sounded like in order to get the World Champion, the best would be to measure the dogs&handlers and let the tallest handler with the smallest dog win as everybody seemed to think that big dogs can't turn tight and short handlers can't get to places.
I guess you guessed that I disagreed. 🙂
I've heard it a million times already: "I'm not fast enough for my dog!" And they were right: they were not fast enough - because they were not moving!!! The length of their legs and their age never had anything to do with it: no legs and no youth will help you be in time if you're not moving, but instead stare at the dog or follow some rules on only being allowed to turn after the dog lands... - Baby, by the time my dogs land, I'm not only turned, but already way ahead, probably at the next obstacle already! And no legs will help you catch me 🙂
So no, it's not about the length of the legs. It's about trusting your dog, teaching him a good commitment, sends and distance skills and then just showing him a jump, trusting them they will take it and RUN at the next spot you're needed. Landing is not your problem. If you saw your dog taking off, then don't worry: s/he will land, no dog ever got stuck in the air. Seeing your dog's take off point also tells you exactly where s/he will be landing, so there is really no reason to stay there and stare: landing is not your problem - take off is. So take care of that take off and then take off to help with the next take off - your job there is finished as soon as you see the dog is committed. At that point, he should also already know where the next obstacle after that one is, so you're really not needed there anymore.
It's also not about the youth. I was 15 years younger 15 years ago (go figure! 🙂 ) and was running slower dogs as I do today and on easier courses as today and yet I was never able to get anywhere. The picture below will show you why. But being addicted to learning, I've learned some important lessons in those almost-20 years I do agility - and they allow me to be faster every next year. I might be older, but I'm smarter 🙂
 |
 |
1994 Can you see the difference? 🙂 2010
When I started, we only knew rear crosses: we handled everything from behind. Handling from behind is still the easiest for me and I can handle everything from behind. But I handle 99% from in front now. - Because I learned that it's faster, clearer and more efficient that way. I saw my first front cross ever on my first World Championships in 1997, went home to set that exact situation at home and executed first front cross in Slovenia 🙂 Front crosses made me much faster as a rear cross automatically puts you behind the dog - and that's exactly why I don't like them.
Then, I learned about a blind cross and how bad it is - but then observed handlers in my seminars and learned it's just another myth as those who though that blind cross will take you to hell had more problems with having their dogs come to the correct hand after tunnels for example (you can do as many front crosses as you want when the dog is in a tunnel - he won't see you - so you can just do a blind cross 🙂 ) while those who were doing blind crosses too had dogs with much better understanding of hands and had less confusion. So we mastered the blind crosses too and guess what - it made me even faster! And even more: it taught me how much faster I can get to places if I don't need to circle my feet around and every since, I'm a big "no feet, just hand" fan and hey - it put me in a completely another gear again! You can't believe how much faster you can run if your feet are facing the right direction!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Together with teaching cik&cap and the commitment and distance skills that come with it, feet turned in the right direction all the time will definitely take you to places soon enough IF of course you trust your dog and run instead of stare. Oh, speaking of myths: never take your eyes off of a dog??? Yeah right. If you trust your dog enough and know where he will be landing and he knows where he is going next, you can of course take your eyes off of your dog! It's all a question of training your dog to the degree that you can trust him and knowing exactly where he is without staring at him. Staring and babysitting will never get you anywhere, no matter how long or not your legs are or how young or not you are.
Never take your eyes off the dog? Why not, I know exactly where she is landing on her ciks. And she knows exactly A-frame is her next obstacle to take. And I know she knows it.
And oh: big dogs can't turn tight??? 🙂 I won't even comment that as since you are on this website, I guess you saw enough of tall BCs and Malinois doing cik&cap to know that tightness has nothing to do with how big or small the dog is.
Bu, WC Lievin 2011, photo by Jaume Llibre Leon
Big dogs can't turn tight? Bu says: watch me 🙂 -
She is 53cm (almost 21") and is turning MUCH tighter as Le who is 37cm (14 1/2")
(And note my eyes are off her again: looks like I never watch my dogs after 1994 anymore! The more I trust them, the less I stare :))
To learn more about how to be fast enough for your dog, you're welcome to audit or take part in Handling classes - we have people of all ages there, doing a really great job on getting to places on MUCH more complicated courses as the one that started this debate was.
Great article! You’re the enfant terrible of agility 😉
Totally off topic, but as you might also have thought provoking ideas on this one I’m going to ask anyway (and if you don’t feel like answering it’s of course totally fine): What do you feed your dogs? They look so healthy 🙂 Any thoughts on Puppy vs. Adult food and when to switch?
🙂 Sorry to disappoint you, but I have nothing important to say on dog food… No opinion at all actually -- I don’t know much about it as I was never interested enough to study it and my dogs actually did perfectly good on any food and I always fed them everything we won in trials too, even if it’s not a very fancy food 🙂 At the moment, I’m buying them Acana, but just because friends said it’s good 🙂 I don’t really see any difference that way or another. I mostly feed Performance as keeping weight on my dogs is not easy and I feed Puppy until 6 months or so, but not exclusively: they get some of what other dogs eat too, simply because it’s sometimes the easiest.
Hahaha… No you didn’t disappoint me at all, just what I thought you might answer 😀 A lot of people are obsessing over food + trying to find the perfect reward and there you are with your spectacular dogs ‘just’ feeding whatever kibble you have 😉 Guess that staying healthy has more to do with exercise, tricks and happiness?!
Yeap, that’s what I believe too!
Great article, Silvia! I learned by experience with Little Spur that the more blinds I do the faster he goes. 😀 He doesn’t like BC or FC. Too much pressure for him, even though we do practice them at home plenty.
I love that I am seeing more people getting in better shape so they can run faster in agility. The sport has become a sport that really benefits both dogs and people, physically!! I think you can have a lot of credit for that!!! 😀
I feel that this article was written expecially for me. I have all the complaints contained in this article. I do all the babysitting and staring at my dog. Thank you for this excellent information, things I know but do not do. Now it’s in writing and I can re read it as often as necessary. My young dog is not quite two and I just don’t trust him enough yet but it’s really all about the training. I have work to do now…thanks again.
Yes, I still have this problem with Le who is 20 months -- but better trained as I seem to think 🙂 But I’m really good at trusting Bu and finally getting there with Bi too -- it makes handling her so much easier!
You do master the skill of writing next to handling your dogs with splender. 🙂 The article describes the main problem probably 80% of the worlds handlers are facing.
🙂 Count me in that 80% too though! 🙂 I’m usually pretty good, but on big competitions, I tend to revert back to not-trusting and trying to help too much -- costed me a third Gold with La on the last World Championships!
Great article, and very very funny and sarcastic 🙂 what I like to read 🙂
Can add a thing? I think that what is more important in agility is training rather than handling. If you just teach the dog to jump a hurdle in the middle of a field and to somehow go over contact obstacles, and then put him/her on a course, trying to have a clean run without losing too much time only handling, you sure need do be super fast, have quite a slow dog and be a master of handling. But if you train your dog for a good indipendent perfomance on obstacles, and expecially you teach him to do several movements (turn left and right, run straight and don’t do any obstacle, take an obstacle on the other side, etc etc) on cue, then agility is for anybody, even with a fast dog, because you don’t have to always be by the dog side to controll and correct his/her path, wich would instead need pretty long and fast legs 🙂
I am just 16 , and can be fast if I want (and of course I never want when I do P.E. at school 🙂 ), true, but I don’t think few training and much handling is a good idea as well… I would need to always run by the side of my dog, to controll her, and so to be as fast as her, but that’s sure not possible unless I learn to fly 🙂 or I do agility with rollers on 🙂 she is really incredible speed for 60cm and 24kg dog.
Completly off topic: the Aiken’s picture is marvellous! What a cute and happy dog! By the way, why didn’t you take a Samoyed anymore? Not to do your own business, don’t worry, just to know if there are any issue with northern dogs as sport dogs, since I love this kind of dog but also love agility and other dog sports, so to get prepared to future dog 🙂 (not soon for sure- but I love to get ready in advance 🙂 )
I actually did want another Samoyed 🙂 But as I was still living with my parents when getting my next dog, it was easier to get them allow me a small dog as another big dog, so that’s how I ended up with PyrSheps. Having a herding breed showed me how easy dog training can be 🙂 I also loved how easy recall and no-deer-chasing is with them and how much I can work with them while with my Samoyed, I needed to keep it all to minimum (I wouldn’t do any agility with him for a week before a trial to have him extra excited and fast there etc.), so herding breed definitely suited my lifestyle more -- loving to run agility more often as that and hiking in the woods with dogs off leash every day… I was still thinking to one day have another Samoyed, but I never saw another one that would be as wild and crazy as Aiken -- most were just pretty show dogs, without Aiken’s unstoppable wish to run, run, run. So I don’t think I’ll ever have another one. Maybe one of those sledding mixes, I love those. Or, even more likely, a whippet, I really like whippets. I guess I just love dogs who love to run 🙂 -- And oh, don’t have fur, I hate grooming!
Ohhh, yes! You need to get a whippet some day! 🙂 I can’t say about them in general but Ruby never had enough of agility, even on some crazy weeks when we did several sessions per day for five days. He got to a point when he would much rather run the whole course and get the ball (or get to run it again) than just one obstacle and get the ball. Anyway, I’m sure if you had a whippet she would go nuts for agility -- how could it be any other way? 🙂
Hahahaha, I had a husky before I got my MinPins. I was SO tired of the hair EVERYWHERE and that hiking in elk country once meant 3 hours of screaming to get her to come back after chasing the elk. :O Caution about the Whippet, as they have similar coats to a MinPin…….they get SO cold. I love my MinPins, they are SO easy to train and SO smart, but they are so hard when it’s winter. They get SO cold. I am not sure I will have another so short coated dog because of that?
Yeah, that does make winter trialing harder, but we actually don’t do lots of it anyway (not many good flooring for that around here…), so that’s fine. Better as grooming&vacuuming for sure!
Well, that’s exactly what I love of northern breeds: they aren’t docile and don’t work just because “you are the boss” but they’d rather make fun of you if you don’t become their best friend before asking them to work… What’s funny is that my dog, Bella, is a no-pedigree sheepdog (those used by shepherds) but she behaves as I wrote above… I didn’t expect this from dogs actually bred to be docile and workaholic, but then ended up loving this kind of dogs 🙂 what I don’t like of northern dogs is only that passion for chasing…
And I expected Samoyeds are bred just to be cute balls of fur for shows, as with any pretty breed… see Rough Collie for example. I suppose one need to look for very rare breees to find charachter instead of just look, I really like Laikas for example. I don’t know much about sledding mixes, but they do lots of sleddog near my city, so I could easily meet one of them! The only bad thing with no-pedigree dogs is that is somewhat hard to compete, whatever dog sport, you have to check all rules to see where mixes are allowed to enter competition and where not, and so… What is really really annoying.
Hm, no, I don’t have this experience with rare breeds at all… There is not much choice and usually no one breeding for work, so I try to stay away from rare breeds. And the only competition I run where mixes are not allowed is World Championships, so… Also, my herding dogs don’t work because I were the boss 🙂
Thank you for this post -- I so appreciate it!
Ah, Silvia, you wrote that post for me, I know you did! It was an on-target analysis for what’s wrong with my team.
With each of the “Euro” courses that you have given us in Handling II, I say to myself (and very often): “I’ll never make it to ___”(fill in the blank. But as I try the course and as I watch your video and those of classmates, I experiment and constantly prove myself wrong. It’s my negative self-assessment which has created the limits for me, not my groundspeed!
I frequently keep the course maps from past trials and I occasionally review them for practise. I was surprised not long ago when several fell out of my folder. I looked at them quickly, thinking WOW they looked truly simple. Guess I have ingested something valuable in the space of 4 courses!
That photo of Bu at the wall is just amazing.
I must admit that those courses in Handling class are even harder as what we see in trails: simply because when I train those difficult stiff, I can say “that’s truly simple” to everything we do see in trails! 🙂
Sylvia, I think your article is the best I’ve seen on agility handling recently. It is so true. And I have to tell you that all the excuses are not only about fast handlers and long legs or lack thereof. My little Papillon who is physically challenged and stutter steps badly was a very nice running dog and hardly ever made mistakes in his prime. He did well considering all he did not have. And yet all I ever heard is that he did well because he was so small and that must make things so easy for me, right?
Well, running a very tiny dog successfully is not easy, only for very different reasons than running a big, fast one. Many, many tiny toys can barely get around the ring and make as many or more mistakes due to handling errors as big dogs.
And yet those of us who do manage to do well with them rarely get credit for the work and care we put into what we do, or for the intelligence and ability of our dogs.
I just wanted to mention this because there are people who will try to take the wind out of the sails of any team that makes it look “too easy.”
Rather than credit the talent and good efforts of the team, our frail human natures unfairly needs to compare and rationalize this success, which all too often means cutting it down to reasons we are able to digest.
I think it would be a more fulfilling sport for more of us if there were less comparing and more appreciation for what we are able to do with our dogs rather than on what someone else might be doing better.
As you mention, learning is the key and no matter what we are physically capable of doing, building knowledge and skills can only help us make the most of what we have.
As the motivational expert Dale Carnegie once said, “stop worrying and start living!”
Yeah, I’ve heard “yes, but she is small and then it’s easier” a million of times when I was still running with my PyrSheps. I’m now running BCs too and still don’t get what they meant as my BCs are actually easier to handle as my PyrSheps (as they have naturally good commitment and distance) and their course times are about the same. I also still don’t get why running contacts would be easier with a smaller dog, as they all need to learn to adjust their stride and I sincerely didn’t notice small dogs would find it easier: I’m actually finding that long-strided dogs tend to figure it out quicker as they’re required to do so on every try while a small dog might in fact just be lucky on some of the tries. See-saw is another obstacle that is sooo much easier for heavier dogs as for tiny no-weight dogs! Challenges might be somewhat different, but there are sure enough of them with both small and big dogs to keep it interesting!
Hi Silvia,
I just want to put my little grain of sand here…
Since I am new to agility..so new, that the first time I heard or saw agility was in this website!. And since we are still practicing our fundations,I dont have trial experiences to relate to…but when I read your article yesterday something clicked in and I started to see things from another angle…and what it is more important I can say that I am starting to understand agility…!!!
I reviewed all my videos of training in slow motion and of course I am one of those who stare at the dog to see if they perform as you are expecting…but the funny thing here is that I didnt even realize I was doing it…So, thank you very much for the article which give me a clear picture of the whole thing once again…
P.S Our training yesterday after reading the article was awesome! 🙂
OMGosh! You are writing about ME!!! (Minus the old of course!!).
Thank you for the inspiration and motivation!
Could you please email me with upcoming seminars?! The only good thing about getting older -- time and money are not an issue!!
🙂 I don’t have a seminar schedule yet, but I won’t be doing many seminars as long-distance classes actually work so much better as they allow me to supervise the whole process. So that’s what is keeping me busy enough those days 🙂 I will probably only have 3 weeks of camps here at LoLaBuLand and that’s all. But you might be interested in long-distance classes? They really work great!
Hi Debby,
Don’t know what stage you are in your training/showing but the long distance classes are fabulous! I have my young dog in Sylivia’s class as well as my older dog who is showing. I’ve learned a lot. There was a large learning curve for me to learn to edit and upload videos. If I can do it, very technologically challenged, anyone can do it. Hope to see you in the classrooms:)