AG300 Fast & Focused: Control Unleashed for Agility

(info subject to change!)

• Week one:
• Breaking down each theme
• Themes overview
• Foundational skills
• Baseline for each theme

Week two:

• Basic exercises for all themes
• End of run routines – leash targeting beginnings
• Startlines – picking your initial pattern
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – circle pattern
• Criteria inside the ring – contact game 1
• Outside ring skills – exiting the car/crate skills
• Working around people – game 1
• Working around dogs – game 1

Week three:

• End of run routines – adding leash cue & removing dots
• Startlines – building a behavior chain
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars - soft turns/slices
• Criteria inside the ring – contact game 2
• Outside ring skills – transport skills
• Working around people – tunnels
• Working around dogs – mats & tunnels

Week four:

• End of run routines – adding speed/excitement & removing leash target
• Startlines – anti-rushing
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – distractions
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – sounds
• Outside ring skills – waiting by the ring
• Working around people – mix up the structure
• Working around dogs – less structure

Week five:

• End of run routines – removing leash rewards & back chaining
• Startlines – distractions!
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – handler distractions (colors game)
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – turns
• Criteria inside the ring – contact game 3
• Outside ring skills – adding distractions
• Working around people – less structure
• Working around dogs – passing dogs & settling

Week six:

• End of run routines – making it look like a trial & distractions
• Startlines – making it look like a trial
• Criteria inside the ring – knocked bars – layering in handling
• Criteria inside the ring – building in sequences
• Outside ring skills – different environments
• Working around people – building in coursework
• Working around dogs – building in coursework

The end of an agility run at a trial can be a really feelings-inducing time for a lot of dogs!

The run has just ended, so even if things all went perfectly, at the very least our dogs generally have big excited feelings about whatever just played out. Then on top of that, our dogs often have expectations when it comes to how/when they should receive their reinforcement, which is inevitably going to be different during a trail. And at the same time, there are lots of potential things going on around them, both inside and outside of the ring—people setting bars, moving leashes, dogs starting their runs, people and dogs moving by, etc.

So it absolutely makes sense that they might having feelings!! But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to mitigate those feelings. Because what do all of these things boil down to? Lack of being able to follow specific, set expectations. Sooooo that’s exactly what we’re going to do for our dogs!

To make all of this as easy and clear as possible for our dogs, we’re going to split this into a couple of different pieces:

• Targeting your leash (or you, then your leash)
• Exiting the ring
• Delayed reinforcement

And for all of this, we’re going to be using our CU Superbowls/dots pattern.

For this first week, we’re going to begin to shape our pattern. The initial pattern will be the same for everyone and then later on, we’ll be able to tailor the full, specific routine more to each of your dogs.

Our set up for the pattern is going to look like this:

You should have four dots laid out in a row with at least two feet between them. Then about three-four feet away from those dots, have a wing or cone set up at one end.

We’re going to do the Superbowls pattern up and down the set of dots, ignoring the wing for now. The only thing different than the Superbowls pattern is that we’re going to cue our dots verbally. This will become important later!

So start by placing a piece of food on the dot and let your dog eat it. Wait until they look up at you and when they do, verbally cue “dot” and then move to the next dot. Place a piece of food on that dog and repeat. Continue to do this back and forth on the dots, always going all the way from one end to the next.

Video:

Now that your dog has a good grasp of the pattern in this specific set up, two dots away from the cone/wing, you should now have your agility leash preplaced directly on top of the dot.

We’re going to repeat the same pattern, but with our leash on top of the dot. Repeat the exact same exercise as above, but just with the leash there. Nothing else should change.

Video:

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Our last piece for the week will be about adding your leash cue. The set up should look exactly the same here. The only difference should be that you are now saying your leash targeting cue instead of your dot cue before you move to the leash/dot combo. Since the pattern is predictable, I like to just insert the leash cue in here without doing a formal cue transfer and I find that almost all dogs are 100% fine with this. If you think your dog won’t be though, let me know and we can try the more formal cue transfer!

So if you think your dog will be fine, literally just replace your leash cue verbal with your dot verbal right before you go to that dot/leash. Keep using your dot cue everywhere else and the pattern should remain the same.

Video: