Lorrie [00:00:08]:
Welcome to the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. I'm Laurie Reynolds, owner of Maximum Fun Dog Sports. We help your agility team build your relationship, communication, confidence, and fun in training so that you can joyfully succeed on any course. In this episode, you'll learn about the 6 "C"s that can help you improve your ability to work away from your dog starting today. The 6 "C"s are communication, clarity, consistency, competence, connection, and confidence. Have you ever watched an agility team working at a distance and wondered how do they do that? Or said to yourself, I'd love to be able to do that. Have you ever wished you could send your dog just a little further so you can position yourself for better handling? If so, you've come to the right place. I can't teach you distance in a single half hour training, but I can give you some insight into the keys to distance so you understand what you need to learn.
Lorrie [00:01:09]:
I'll also give you some tips that will help you in your overall agility journey. I want to help you answer the question, how can I create a dog who's successful at agility and can work at a distance? If you watch teams who utilize distance on the agility course, you'll soon notice a pattern. No matter which handling style or method they use, they have one thing in common, their ability to guide their dogs around the course using a consistent communication system that sometimes makes it appear as if their dogs can read their minds. I'll tell you that feeling of being connected to your dog when he's working 60 or 70 feet away is almost indescribable. But even if that isn't your goal, creating independence in a dog can exponentially improve your performance in every agility venue. The truth is not every dog has the ability to work at those distances, but every dog has the ability to expand their current distance and qualify on an elite chances or a master's FAST course. Every dog has the ability to move out around a straightforward sequence, so you can take a shortcut to the next technical section of the course. It all depends on the 6 "C"s.
Lorrie [00:02:26]:
The 6 "C"s work together to create a team that can successfully work at a distance with energy and joy. Let's talk about each piece. The first C is communication. Communication is defined as a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior. Communication starts with an understanding of how your natural and taught cues affect your dog on course. We can use cues that the dog natively understands to build a communication system for our team. Common, in our case, just means understood by both parties to mean the same thing. Once you and your dog have a common understanding of your communication system, it is relatively easy to tell him what you want him to do.
Lorrie [00:03:18]:
One of the foundational pieces I teach students is what I call the Hierarchy of Cues. Even though we use a variety of cues on the agility course, there is an order of importance to each type of cue that we use. For example, your dog's primary cue is motion. Dogs are inherently social animals. They want to move with the rest of the group, or in our case, with their handlers. They reap a lot of benefits by moving with you. If you think about walks to the park, following you to the food bowl, or moving to the door to go out, you'll understand how we strengthen this natural desire by rewarding them with things they want or need. When we intentionally teach them to move with us on the agility course, they earn rewards for moving to the correct obstacle or for returning to you at the end of the run.
Lorrie [00:04:12]:
We can use this natural cue to help communicate which direction we want them to go while we're running on the agility course. One student could not figure out why her dog always came back to her after starting to move out to a jump on the other side of the distance line. After watching several videos, we discovered that if she got too close to the line, she instinctively stepped back without even realizing it. That single motion was encouraging her dog to come back in. The second most important cue is your body language and body position. If we lean forward, the dog naturally moves forward or away from us. If we stand up straight, our dogs anticipate that we're going to stop or turn, so they slow down or move toward us. Body language can cue a dog to jump in extension or collection depending on whether they think we're continuing forward or turning.
Lorrie [00:05:07]:
You can encourage your dog to move further away by leaning forward even if you aren't moving. Body language and position also encompass where your shoulders are facing and even where you're looking. Here's tip number 1 for you. If you're working at even a moderate distance of, say, 6 to 10 feet, and you want your dog to stay out on the path between two obstacles, point your chest towards the line between the obstacles. That puts pressure on your dog and will encourage her to stay out. As far as where you're looking, if you've ever worried about a discrimination on course and focused your gaze on the wrong obstacle, chances are high that your dog assumed that was the right one to take. You should always look where you want the dog to go. A fun exercise is to stand in front of a jump with your dog.
Lorrie [00:05:57]:
Focus on her face and use your release word to tell her to go. Most dogs will get up from their sit or down, but won't understand what to do next. If you start in the same place, look at the jump, and release your dog, more than likely, she will move toward or take the jump, responding to your gaze. Whether or not she takes it depends largely on whether she has been taught independent obstacle performance. Your position on course, hand and arm cues, and verbal cues also matter, but not as much as your motion and your body language and position. Your goal then is to build a method or system of communication based on the importance of each type of cue from the dog's perspective. When you understand how your dog responds to each of the 5 types of cues, you can build a system that makes sense to both of you. The second C is clarity.
Lorrie [00:06:55]:
Clarity is related to communication because having a good communication system not only relies on your understanding of the dog's natural responses to cues, but also the clarity and consistency of those cues. We'll talk about consistency in a moment, but let's dive into clarity first. Clarity is defined as the quality or condition of being clear or easy to understand. Dogs respond to amazingly small nuances, as do many other animals. I'm sure you've all heard of mister Ed the horse. He supposedly knew how to count, but was really responding to a subtle cue that his owner was unintentionally giving that told him when to stop pawing. There are more than a few people who think my dogs can read. One of their tricks is that I hold up index cards with words written on them, and the dog does the action on the index card.
Lorrie [00:07:52]:
What they are really responding to is my hand position, presentation, and the positions of the cards, which changes to tell my dogs what I want them to do. Even seemingly small changes in your cues can cause your dog to think they mean completely different things. Clarity in our cues when we're running on an agility course means presenting the same cues without muddying them with extra words, gestures, unintentional steps to the side, or changes in body language. Our cues need to be clearly differentiated. I often joke that the difference between the cue to take an outside obstacle or the close obstacle should be clear enough that it's like screaming to the dog without ever raising our voices. Clarity of our expectations is also important for the dog's understanding. Our criteria for performance needs to make sense to the dog so that they always understand what will get rewarded and what won't. Rewards are one of our main tools for communicating that our dogs did exactly what we wanted them to do.
Lorrie [00:09:00]:
Being clear with our cues promotes a solid understanding of what the dog should do in response. If I lean forward with my arm out and my shoulders facing the dog's path, he should move away or take the outside obstacle. If I stand up straight and move on a parallel path with the dog, he should come in or take the inside obstacle. Making things crystal clear for the dog reduces frustration for both halves of the team. Consistency is also related to communication, and is just as important as clarity. Consistency is the state or condition of always happening or behaving in the same way. Does your dog have daily rituals in response to your activities? Many dogs get excited when you put on your running shoes or pick up their leash. You've consistently performed the same actions with the same results.
Lorrie [00:09:56]:
If picking up the leash always means something good will happen for your dog, like going for a walk or a jog, then they're going to respond by getting excited. You have a consistent routine that they understand. My first agility dog, Maxx, knew that if I came home from work and changed into different clothes and my tennis shoes, we were going to go out and play agility. By the time I got my shoes on, he would be waiting at the door excited to be on our way. We can apply that principle to our cueing systems for communication in agility. If cues are consistently given the same way every time, the dog will respond to them in a predictable way. Inconsistent cues can be confusing and frustrating for your dog. If you sometimes use the arm closest to them to tell them to turn and sometimes use the outside arm to ask them for the same thing, they're unsure of what to expect when you start to raise that arm.
Lorrie [00:10:56]:
If leaning towards them means move away in some situations, like a gamble line, but come closer in others, like leaning over the contact to get them to hit the yellow, the dog doesn't know what to expect in each situation because even though the body language is the same, the response that gets rewarded isn't. We want to develop a system of cues that can mean the same thing every time, and we want to apply the cues the same way every time. Another aspect of consistency is to make your cues consistent with the dog's natural behavior and responses. It is much easier for the dog to learn that forward body language means keep going just like it would on a jog than it would be if we tried to teach them that forward body language means stop. My entire handling system is based on cues the dog naturally understands, other than the verbals since they don't speak English. Consistency is also important when you're rewarding your dog. You should reward for the same performance every time. In other words, if you reward for a 2 on, 2 off contact sometimes, and reward for just slowing down other times, your communication system becomes unclear because the dog isn't sure what your contact word means, or more accurately, what he needs to do when he hears that contact word to get the reward.
Lorrie [00:12:23]:
One area that people don't always think about being consistent in is with their expectations for improvement. We all train with successive approximations, that is rewarding incremental improvements toward what we consider a perfect performance. Part of being consistent is expecting and rewarding the same amount of improvement over the training session or across multiple training sessions. For example, if I start close to a jump and reward my dog for taking it and then take a single step back each time I want to improve performance, my dog knows what to expect. I'm being consistent with what I'm asking for. If I take a single step for the first four feet of distance and then take 5 steps back, I'm not being consistent with my expectations for improvement, and my dog is likely to get frustrated or confused. Our next C to talk about is competence. We have to train our dogs to be competent when taking obstacles, both for safety and to have success on the agility field.
Lorrie [00:13:32]:
Competence is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently or both. The main way we can create a competent dog is to teach them to perform obstacles independently. A dog that relies on the weave pole dance to get through the poles or who has to have the handler right next to the contact zone to hit the yellow has not been taught competence on the obstacles without assistance. It puts too much responsibility on the human half of the team and slows the dog down since he has to wait for his handler. Independent obstacle performance or competence is the most important skill for distance handling. When you teach it using fun games, you end up with a dog who loves to play the game and doesn't connect where you are with what he should do. Competence in performing obstacles independently is the second thing I teach in my Agility FUNdamentals for Distance seminars. The foundations and the theory of distance is first.
Lorrie [00:14:34]:
Students remember what they need to focus on for independent performance using my CLAWS mnemonic. C stands for call the dog over or through an obstacle. LA stands for move laterally away from the obstacle after sending your dog to it. W is run with the dog, maintaining a parallel path at a distance. S is for send the dog ahead of you over or through an obstacle, either without moving like you would with a handler restriction line or when you're behind the dog. When teams can do all 4 of these things at their goal distance, they end up with a dog who has competence on obstacles. Competence also applies to your dog's responses to handling cues. Communication is the first and most important step for teaching cues, which we've already covered.
Lorrie [00:15:25]:
Once your dog understands the cues, your job is to practice them and then proof them with distractions and different environments until your dog is competent in their responses. Our next C topic is connection. One facet of connection has been a bit misunderstood in the past few years. Connection does not mean staring at your dog around the entire course. It means making sure that you and your dog can see each other's faces so the dog picks up cues about where to go next. It also means understanding what your dog is doing, where they're headed, and how they're feeling as you run. The definition of connection is a relationship between 2 things, beings, or groups. In this case, us and our dogs.
Lorrie [00:16:16]:
During one seminar, I had 2 teams who both had been taught to look directly at the dog's face while they were going around the course. Both of the dogs had a very difficult time taking an obstacle unless their partners were right next to it. Once they understood how to look at the path they wanted the dogs to take, the dogs started moving 5 to 6 feet away to complete the obstacles. That's not a huge distance, but it was a great start for these two teams, and it really improved their understanding of what connection actually is. Another aspect of connection is engagement. The connected team is focused on working together to achieve the same goal. They're aware of each other while still accomplishing their half of the teamwork. When you lose that engagement on course, your dog is likely to go off course or lose interest and decide sniffing the grass is much more important than staying connected with you.
Lorrie [00:17:13]:
We all form bonds or relationships with our dogs, but a working relationship is on a different level. I know plenty of teams who have a fantastic personal relationship but are missing that connection on course. Conversely, there are teams who can maintain that connected relationship while they're playing agility but are missing that connection off the field. Ideally, you'll nurture both with your dog. Creating a strong connection with your dog leads to the ability to read each other on course, making agility a fun and flowing dance between partners rather than a series of cues and redirects. The last C to talk about is confidence. Confidence is the result of all the other Cs. I would also add experience to the factors that build confidence in your dog.
Lorrie [00:18:04]:
Confidence for agility can be looked at in 2 ways. The definition is a full trust or belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of another person or yourself. To be a cohesive agility team, we need to build 2 types of confidence. 1 is the dog's confidence in us, and the other is confidence in themselves and their skills. Of course, they don't think about having self confidence, but we can measure it by looking for signs of stress, uncertainty, or hesitation. A dog who has confidence in themselves will respond to a cue happily, understanding what we want and performing it without hesitation. Confidence in the dog is built with training, communication, and experience. When you've worked together long enough that the dog knows exactly what to do when you're running together and joyfully does it, you have a dog with confidence.
Lorrie [00:19:05]:
The other aspect of confidence we need to create is the dog's confidence in us. Clear and consistent communication, expectations, a strong connection, and consistent cues and rewards all come together to allow the dog to understand that they can put their full trust in us to be their guide in agility. One really critical thing that you can do for your dog to build his confidence in you is to avoid correcting mistakes on course or in the middle of an exercise. Over the years, I've learned that 99.9% of the time, a mistake on course is our fault. Either we were not clear with our cues or we didn't train the dog to the level he needed before putting him into the ring. Even times when I thought my well trained dog messed up, when I reviewed the video, I almost always found an error on my part. Asking them to go back and fix something we messed up, breaking the flow and the fun erodes their confidence in us and our cues. Find a logical way to continue on course instead of stopping the game and going back to fix things.
Lorrie [00:20:17]:
One other point I'd like to bring up with that is to handle errors with grace. We mess up way more than they do. If it truly is something that they made a mistake on, know that they forgive us a lot, and we should give them the same courtesy. A key takeaway from this lesson is that if we start with a clear and consistent communication system, build confidence with a good training plan that encourages independence, and nurture a strong connection through engagement and fun training methods, we end up with a confident dog who is capable of learning to joyfully work away from his handler on the agility course. With that comes reduced frustration for you and your dog, more willingness to play agility, and increased speed since they no longer have to wait for you to catch up. Here's what I want to know. Which C will you start working on today? Thanks for listening to this episode of the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. If you want to solidify the 6 "C"s in your agility team, join us in The Agility Playground.
Lorrie [00:21:25]:
The Agility Playground is a low cost membership that meets you where you are on your dog agility journey and helps you propel your team to new heights. You can check out The Agility Playground and join our community at www.maximumfundogs.com. Happy training!
