A Lesson With Bex

In this post one of our instructors, Bex, gives us a peak at her beginner Agility class plan.  Read more from Bex in her blog: http://dogagilicious.m.webs.com

Today's lesson was a combination of working on old maneuvers, the front cross, and introducing new ones, the rear cross.

Rear crosses were introduced with the use of just two jumps in a straight line, the dog was released over the first, and their toy was thrown over the second, coaxing them to drive forwards giving the handler time to cross behind them (as shown below), once this was smooth, it was practiced within a sequence of obstacles.

The same course was used all night, but by changing either the order of the jumps or the handling, the focus split between these two crosses. The diagrams below show the same course repeatedly but the solid line shows where the handlers should run, and the dotted line shows where the dogs should run.

The classes homework from tonight's lesson was to begin training back foot target with the use of shaping, this is demonstrated nicely below in a video with my mum and Mia. 

To begin with a channel needs to be set up with only one entrance and an upturned box (preferably with some carpet or material on top to prevent the dogs feet from slipping). The trainer should sit on a chair at the entrance with the box not too far away and the dog in between the two but facing the trainer. When the dog puts their back foot onto the target (box) the behaviour is rewarded by a click, and the treat thrown under the chair. This is done repeatedly until the dog confidently puts both back feet onto the target, at which point the distance between the box and the chair can be increased slightly. 

The second video is what we are aiming for.

The other piece of homework for the class was to walk their dogs, but as they do, practice rear crosses. Basically, the dog is on one side of you whilst walking, you let the dog go ahead a little, so you have room to walk behind them and switch sides. The idea of this is to enable the dogs to become more confident with their handler moving behind them for when they have to rear cross in a course.