 Barked: Wed Jun 30, '10 4:47pm PST |
 | |  | | Ultimate question: How can we safely practice for control without sacrificing speed?
I have a *good* problem. My normally calm, sweet dog turns into a speedy maniac when presented with an agility course. I have trained another agility dog, so I am not a novice handler, but this dog has different challenges than the last one, and he is a very green dog (we've had about 12 weeks of classes so far, but we practice what we can at home).
Main problem: He approaches everything at top speed and keeps launching himself off obstacles. At home we have a short two-sided ramp to practice on and he does his contacts perfectly. I think he is going slow enough that I can keep up with him and he cues off of me whe I stop. When practicing individual obstacles he usually stops where he is supposed to with the help of a contact plate. (It just now occurs to me that I should start training contacts at a distance.) When running more than one obstacle, he is so fast that he often goes flying off, sometimes from very high up. This week he flew off the flat middle part of the dog walk, by choice. He thought it was great fun. I took his collar and led him back to the beginning, but what else should I be doing? Our class is big and our teacher doesn't have much time for individual attention. We'll probably look for another trainer after this class. But in the mean time... |  |  | |  |
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Dogster Obsessions: The Starter Kit for Dogs by Wildebeest
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