Thursday, December 22, 2011

Agility in KSA Week 10

Today was our last class for this session. I'm very happy to report that Community Education is going to let us run the dog agility class again starting in late January for another 10 sessions! Even better, I've arranged to move it to Fridays so that I can reclaim my Thursday morning shopping time in Khobar. At last report, I have 7 handlers signed up for the agility class. I'll teach the basic obedience class again on Thursday afternoons; registration for that class filled in about a week.

MH and I planned a very special set up for this final class: a complete novice level course comprised of 11 obstacles with one side change. The course had 7 jumps, 2 tunnels (one straight, one curved), 1 chute, and for a special surprise, two sets of 2 weave poles, canted at 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock, 10 feet apart, put in the course as a "weave" obstacle. You can see the layout in the videos I've posted below: a sweeping U-shaped affair with the chute as the final obstacle off to the left. We numbered the entire course and set out cones for the start and finish lines.

After we had it all set up, MH and I ran it with our dogs to ensure it was runnable, and to figure out where the change of side needed to occur. I originally thought it would be a cross before jump 10, but the speed that our dogs had on the second straightaway meant we could never be there with them when they were at jump 10. So the side change had to be done between tunnel 6 and jump 7. An FC or a RC would work, although we have only taught them front crosses in class, so I hoped they would choose that.

Just imagine what we were asking of our dogs and handlers: eleven obstacles! That's a lot to tackle after only 10 weeks of class, considering that none of these ladies and their dogs attended all 10 weeks. But MH and I wanted to set the bar high for them.

After they walked it and we had a short discussion about walking courses in general and this course in particular, we had them backchain it. This means we had them work the last 4 obstacles, then the last 8, then finally doing the entire thing, with plenty of rewarding along the way. One thing I didn't do often enough with my own agility pups in training was stop and reward during a sequence. I wanted to make sure that our novice handlers and their dogs didn't make the same mistake. Then, after all of that practice, we asked them to run the full course and reward at the end.

Our little novice group exceeded expectations and more! All three dogs were focused and driving forward, diving into tunnels and over jumps, happy to receive their rewards along the way but also quite happy to do the obstacles, and by the end of class, all three dogs were able to complete the full course with only one huge reward at the end. That's a huge leap forward in dog and handler understanding of what agility is! MH and I were getting goosebumps watching them! Of course they weren't perfect but I have seen far worse handling in real trials. I told MH that we managed to create some real agility handlers and dogs in just 10 weeks!

Judge for yourself in the videos below.



All of the handlers looked at the "weave" obstacle and said, my dog doesn't know what the poles mean. They only do it for the toy reward at the end. MH and I said, try it anyway. We've been sending them home for several weeks with either fixed steel 2x2 bases or stick-in-the-ground poles (depending on whether they have a backyard with grass or not) so they can practice. Turns out that practice does pay off because all of the dogs drove forward from jump 7 directly into the first set of 2 poles and forward to the second set. To their handler's surprise, they absolutely understood what the required performance was supposed to be.

And yes, I already know what you purists are saying, that we are totally perverting Garrett's 2x2 method. So what? We are in Saudi Arabia and making all of this up as we go. We put those 2x2s in a sequence and the dogs did them in the sequence. We may not have dogs doing inline weaves yet...but we will. And we are going to have plenty of fun getting to that point.



There were other challenges in our little novice course besides the side change. Jumps 3, 4, and 5 formed part of the curve from the first leg of the U to the second. The handlers worried about these curved jumps because they'd only done jumps in a straight line, but for the most part, the dogs did just fine.

And I sneaked in the curved tunnel, obstacle 6. We've been putting out straight tunnels for weeks but we've been heavily rewarding for the tunnel commitment. So the curved tunnel presented no problem at all for the dogs (handlers, it was another story as they had to drive forward to get in position for the FC!).




On a final note, all of the handlers who signed up for the class (all of them, not just these three) apparently were sneaking around behind our backs because they presented MH and I each with an extremely generous gift certificate for the spas and restaurants at the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain! I suspect MH was as moved by this as I was. And I'm not kidding about the generous part!

This class has been a labor of love on all levels for me and MH. Yes, we get up hideously early on a weekend morning. Yes, we haul every scrap of equipment up and down a steep hill each week. Yes, we set up the class in the dark. But...we have learned so much about teaching agility. We get to remember way back when we were novice handlers too. We get to try out different teaching and learning methods. And we have been able to provide our own dogs an opportunity to do agility that both of us have waited two years for. In the process, a very happy coincidence indeed, we have provided that same opportunity for some handlers and their dogs who are now infected with the agility bug! I am so very thankful that MH is my partner in this venture and that we have found some dog folks who find this crazy game just as exciting as we do.

I am quite blessed to end my second year in Saudi Arabia doing agility with friends.

2 comments:

Rover Mom said...

Congratulations! Great Job!!!!

BC Insanity said...

Holy Moly, here I am so late catching up on everything.
You probably realize that you have just accomplished the impossible!
And yes got goosebumps here too, just knowing the heroic effort and determination on your and MH's part and of course your new students.
So great to see this joy in the dogs and handlers, no matter what they are doing. Loved little Webster :-)