From the Agility Obstacle Task Pack - A-frame!

The agility grab bag gods knew exactly what we need last Friday morning, right before our last agility trial for July. Ocean's a-frame contact behavior goes between 2 on and 2 off at home and at class to running at shows. Sometimes that running ends up being striding just above that much needed yellow zone. So I sat with this card for a couple of hours and thought about what my plan of attack would be.

I ended up opting for this little course out of Clean Run's Exercise Sourcebook Volume 1. I swapped out the tunnel for my a-frame and kept the teeter as bonus contact training. I ran the black circles for our session. Since we would be showing for two days right after this session, I also swapped out the jumps for my hoops and jumps with no bars. For two trials in a row, I had jumped Ocean for three days straight...I wanted to give him and his body a little bit of a break from that. I really like working handling at home with those hoops because it's essentially working flat work with an obstacle.

 

This video is of our entire training session and it's nine minutes long. But, at least you can see how the hoops work and I wanted a visual for anyone who might want to use the impulse control exercise I worked with O at the bottom of the a-frame.  In class last Wednesday, we worked on getting O to hold his 2 on, 2 off and not self-release to something very high value (a tug toy.) For him, running agility is very self rewarding and his "running contact" is him quickly self-releasing from the a-frame. I used this same exercise here at home...and will continue to when we have an A-frame in practice. The exercise itself is pretty simple. I place the tug toy on the ground about 4 to 5 feet away from the bottom of the a-frame. If you're training with a friend, you can have them place the high value reward for you. The high value reward can be anything your dog loves...it could be really yummy food/treats or their favorite toy. Tugs and balls are much more valuable to Ocean than food is. When Ocean runs to the bottom of the a-frame and holds his 2 on, 2 off....I release him to the toy and we play as his reward. The first attempt he does self-release and grabs the tug which is what he shouldn't do. But he figured it out the next and following attempts. Another thing I like to do which you will see closer to the end of the video is to play tug with Ocean while he is in the correct position on the a-frame. I'm more or less rewarding for position like how you would feed your dog a treat in the correct a-frame criteria position. This idea would work for any pieces of the contact equipment and the table. If the dog moves out of position off the equipment....the play stops. If the dog moves back into position...play more. If your dog is very tug play motivated, they will really enjoy this sort of game and reward.

Tasks Indepth: Agility Flatwork

     

Agility flatwork (also known as shadow handling or circle work) is a skill that is a critical part of every agility dog's foundation training. In a very large nutshell, flatwork teaches your budding agility dog to run along side of you and to follow your directional and speed cues. I didn't realize until recently with my own dogs how little weight I put on Flatwork in the beginning stages of their agility careers. The foundation classes I took with Lars years ago just touched on flatwork in one class for about 15 minutes. I thought to myself in my newbie agility handler mind "How important can that be?" and it wasn't really ever discussed again in class. Ocean had done a lot of foundation training at home before he  got into an advanced beginners class. Again, I didn't spend much time on flatwork like I spent on obstacles and teaching "fun stuff" to him. It was this summer that I started to see some early Lars like behaviors (running past me, not staying with me, etc.) pop up in Ocean while running agility. After some serious thought and mulling over the issues of how the same problem popped up in two different dogs...I decided the problem lay with me and what I had or hadn't taught them. What I hadn't done was putting in the time and mileage with flatwork.

   When teaching a dog flatwork, you are more or less teaching them a lot of the handling moves they will see you make in agility without the distractions of the obstacles. If you really think about the sport of agility, your dog spends the majority of its time on a course running to each obstacle than actually performing those obstacles. What happens on the ground from obstacle to obstacle is as important as what your dog does with those obstacles. When one does think about that, it becomes very clear that teaching your dog to focus on you, your body language/movements, and your changes of pace needs to be in your training tool box. This is where you teach your dog deceleration and to accelerate based on your body language and your speed. Flatwork (as I found with my guys) can help an obstacle focused dog become much better balanced out with handler focus at the times when you need your dog to check in.

   Flatwork is truly the backbone of agility teams. While it teaches your dog how to read handling movements without distracting obstacles, it also develops a communication line between you and your dog. When we as handlers are working flatwork, we become more aware of what you're telling your dog through your movements. Before I work some flatwork with Lars or Ocean I make sure that I have a clear picture in my head about what my cues will be for each dog. I've lucked out with my boys because they both run in a similar manner and I don't have to completely change out my handling methods when running one or the other. Handlers with dogs who run as polar opposites may have to do a dry run of flatwork without their dogs to get in the frame of handling each dog needs.

    Some basic flatwork exercises are:

     - Large circles in both directions - This helps teach the dogs to work rounded distances to the right and the left as well as lateral distance.

    - Front and Rear Crosses on the flat - This helps the dog learn lead changes and direction changes.

    - Serpentines - This is a must have for higher level courses. Dogs will learn how to change their pace and turn in tight areas.

    - Small circles/Figure 8's - These teach dogs how to negotiate tight obstacle sequences like 180's in higher level courses.

I find that Lars can run both directions easily with small circles. Ocean has a hard time on the inside of the these circles and he doesn't yield well to me turning left and towards me.

    - Straight Lines - A lot of handlers take straight lines of obstacles for granted and that their dogs will do them easily. But it's best to work that into your flatwork program as well. 

     Now that I have been playing in agility with my dogs for a while now, I am continuously going back to it throughout Lars and Ocean's career. I will keep going back to it because it helps maintain the definitions of my handling to the boys as well as letting me reinforce them when they respond correctly. Sometimes you can even use flatwork as a type of game to play with your dogs because there's no pressure of obstacle performance. It's just a game of follow me and that can be a load of fun for both handler and dog.

     If you want to learn more about how to teach your dog about Flatwork, (there's a lot to know on how to do it correctly) look for Barb Levenson's book Flatwork: Foundation for Agility. I picked it up from Clean Run earlier this summer and found it absolutely wonderful. It explained things well and thoroughly. So, pick it up for your agility reference library! It's a book you will refer back to every time you get a new agility partner.