Hi all, Today I spent most of the day doing homework, training the dogs and writing out lesson plans for our up coming classes together. I am so excited to share with you all of the cool things Ive learned in the last few months! In our Foundations of Agility Handling class we will be veering away working with the obstacles and focussing on body awareness and strength exercises and working on the handlers movements and how the dogs can read them. (Dont forget the importance of verbal cues!) When I was a student in agility classes a few years ago teachers often neglected any sort of body awareness and strength work saying it would just come naturally Well, Pepper NEVER could do weaves and it wasnt until I started looking into this type of thing I realized he had ZERO core strength. Have a look at this video of a dog doing weaves. We ask our dogs to do some beyond AMAZING things in their lives, whether its in dog sports or everyday life and they need the muscles to do it! I cant wait to help you and your dogs do some AMAZING things either on the agility course or at home for you! Same with the idea of the dog watching your movements and following your handling. Well now I know that I as a handler have to make sure I am sending clear signals for the dog to read. I will never forget once in a trial ring Pepper ran straight into my knees and I fell face first into a teeter (blackeye = owch) Reviewing my video of that run now I can see I gave him weird cues that made him super confused (sorry Pepper) Dont worry you will learn all this and more! So get out those clickers and start reviewing some of the games we have played in the past! I will be announcing a start date for our classes tomorrow so stay tuned! https://youtube/watch?v=8hBjKqMgNWM&feature=player_detailpage
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 02:07:05 +0000