I have recently been focused on getting Trek ready for World Team Tryouts, as well as the AKC National Championship.  I was contemplating the skills I wanted to work on, and this setup came to mind as a good small sequence for some of the skills I wanted to practice.

Specifically, I wanted to work on hard bypasses around the tunnel, variable tunnel exits, and sending to the tunnel and immediately taking off and trusting that commitment.  In looking at courses from AWC Judge Mirja Lapanja, I feel like these are skills that will serve us well.

I ended up using a 15′ tunnel instead of a 20′ tunnel seen in the diagram.  I think the tunnel length changes the challenges slightly — the 20′ obviously requires more running and sending, but I felt like the 15′ made me LEAVE faster.  Regardless, these are some interesting sequences you can set up in a fairly small space to work on some advanced skills.  You could also substitute the weave poles for the tunnel to create a different set of challenges.  I suspect I will revisit some variations of this setup over the next 6 weeks.

Some tips:

If your bypass cue is not as strong and you are struggling, move the obstacle you’re attempting to bypass further away to make it easier, and reward your dog for the bypass.  Then gradually move it closer.

Try handling the sequences multiple ways, even if you know one way is the fastest option.  For example, in the first set of exercises demonstrated, it is faster to approach the #3 jump from the outside.  However, handling with a wrap on the inside wing, while slower, requires your dog to do a difficult bypass of the tunnel, which was my ultimate goal.

Remember to use deceleration at the tunnel entrance when you are asking for a sharp turn out of the tunnel.  The dog must see this cue BEFORE they go in the tunnel for it to work.

And here is Trek running some of those sequences, as well as working through a couple of errors.

Posted in Agility
No Comments Yet Posted by agilityvet