Dog Agility Seminars and Individual Agility Training

New Plymouth Seminar September 7th 2009

Wairarapa Instructor Seminar August 8th 2009 - 9am - 4pm

Hosted by WDOC, held at the Clareville Showgrounds, Carterton

Course Content

A formula for teaching dogs new things
The basics of foundation class and other things you can do.
Class Structure, content and progression
Role play running a class
Problem solving session Working with peoples individual needs, explaining how you might make a change to get a different result

Fantastic weather! A great group. We spent the morning discussing and demonstration the training of new dogs and new people. We were fortunate to have a group of newbies come along as the demo dogs and handlers which made it all seem very real. After lunch, we role played the running of a class for a starters/novice group of dogs, with volunteer instructors taking the class will we discussed how it was going and prompted them with ideas.

Summer Agility Training in Ashburton & Christchurch
from the 22nd to the 27th of January 2009

Thanks to the Mid Canterbury club for inviting me to visit again. From the time I arrived until I left, I was kept very busy training people at their club in the A&P Showgrounds in Ashburton. It was very hot! 40 degrees of hot. Training was scheduled for the mornings and the evenings. A very wise decision as the afternoons were too hot to train in. Once again we trained in pairs which has proved to be very succesful. I was able to train with people several times over the 4 days, which resulted in some great performance improvements.

For this trip Quick came with me to act as the demo dog for the training. She had a great time meeting all the people from Ashburtoon and their dogs, especially when we when to the river! As we drove out of town and crossed a bridge over the river, there was no water in it at all. Bernadette assured me that there would be water in the river where we were heading. And there was. Just enough for Quick to swim but not much more.On Saturday we headed up to Christchurch with Heather for the CCOC Agility ribbon trial. I was a very nice day, sitting under the trees, watching the dogs run and talking to everyone.

Then is was back to Ashburton for a BBQ and then a hands on seminar with the clubs insrtuctors going over an number of "how to train" sessions.

After training was completed on Sunday night Steve & Tricia picked me up and took me to CHCH where on Monday I presented a seminar for the CATS club. It was great to have so many people there from CATS and Selwyn. They were a great group asking many many questions. Quick worked very hard that night as we demonstrated what is sometimes quite hard to explain in words.

Summer Agility Camp January 2&3 2009 in Feilding

The sun shone brilliantly for the first day of summer camp and the participants, from Auckland to Wellington, used the shade provided by the trees in Timona Park to keep relatively comfortable.

We started with an overview of my Dog Training Methodology and progressed through Basic jumping, understanding the effect handler position has on your dog, an overview of the principles of proofing and applying it to the weave entry, finishing the day with some TOYF (Thinking on your feet) exercises. These are always great fun and so it proved again.

On the second day we awoke to the sound of rain, heavy summer rain. The programme was quickly rearranged, with some inside training organised. We did manage to get outside to run the advanced jumping skills exercises and the FDSH (Fast Dog Slow Handler) exercises. We finished the day with a great discussion on the various methods to train the contacts and why you would choose each one of them.

Hamilton November 2008

I was excited to be asked to present a seminar for the WAG instructors. The purpose of the seminar was to provide the instructors with skills that they could use in their regular classes. We choose to use a combination of training the instructors and their dogs on the chosen topics, and regularly intersperse this with discussion on how it can be used within their classes. The topics chosen for the seminar were:

Title	Description
Front Cross - It’s the most common Pull Through – its just a front cross	• What does it get your dog to do? • When to use it. • When NOT to use it • Where to perform it • The footwork in detail • Teaching your dog;
How to train a dog	• Training in THREES
Speeding up the slow running dog	• Lots of ideas on how to get you dog going. • Training regime play/behaviour/play Speeding up the dog that does the contacts slowly! • Ideas on how to change your dogs behaviour.
Weave Entries	• ultimate proofing • Weave speed.
Jumping	• Changing the shape of the dogs jump • Teaching the dog to look ahead and extend or compress • Teaching the dog to jump & turn • Pre-cues • Jumps - setting your dog at a jump and moving to the next position. • Positional cues • Movement cues • Going tighter exercise

At the end of an intense day of dog agility training, we finished up with a game of "follow the leader". The first group played very nicely and the game went on for ages as everyone stayed in. The second group had a couple of "competitors" and the sequences became tight and twisted very quickly. Its a great way to finish up and everyone enjoyed the game!

NDTA 2008

The NDTA is over for another year and it will be remembered for being unique. This year there were many new things being tried out for the first time:

The Agility finals were introduced to provide a highlight at the end of the weekend and they proved to be a spectacle and an awesome display of high quality agility.
This was the first NDTA to use the indoor venue for agility. The Manfeild indoor venue was fabulous and enabled the dogs the best possible opportunity to perform. . The surface indoors is the best I have ever run on and the atmosphere of the three rings running right next to each other was brilliant.

The Interzone Teams event was extended to include a relay where all the team members ran as a team over the course. It was fast, furious and exciting and congratulations to Zone 2 for going all out, mastering the course and winning the event.
The Interclub event was run as a separate event and proved to be a spectacle.
It was the first time the NDTA has had its own website with full information available during the 10 months leading up to the event. I am very proud of the NDTA website as it was my creation and I continually updated it for 10 months!

And outdoors, well there was mud. On a nice day just imagine what this picture would have looked like.

A special highlight of the weekend for me was the outstanding performances Quick put in during the weekend. She won the Starters Agility Final by a clear 1.1 seconds. Just a stunning performance by a very clever little dog. A very very good result given the dogs spent almost the whole time in our dog trailer while we spent our time organising the event.

Here is a picture of us with the Judge of the final, Peter Dynan from Adelaide in South Australia and the Agility Chairperson Lyn Sayers, just after being presented with our winners medal.

Starters Winner

NZKC National Dog Show September 2008

Peter competed in the National Dog Show at the end of September. Quick was amazing, winning the National Starters event and two Novice events. This was just her second Championship event, so was a stunning result. Peter and C also competed, winning a Senior event and being placed 2nd and 3rd in two Intermediate events. A very successful weekend. That's me in the middle of the photo at the end of a very windy and wet day. Quick did not have to come to prize giving!

Mid Canterbury Club Training

Peter trained members of the Mid Canterbury Club in the sunshine at the A&P showgrounds in Ashburton. Training covered a group session on Instructing at Clubs, individual training and training in pairs. The pairs training is a very successfully way to train. People learn of each other, get a short break and get intensive training all in one session.

Canterbury CATS

After the National on Monday, Peter ran an Instructors seminar at Canterbury Cats. The seminar covered Dog Training and Handler training methods and included simulated classes we participants had the opportunity to instruct a class while being mentored.
This was followed the next day by a number of individual training sessions on a wide range of topics from how to train the weave, how to get focus from my dog, how to get distance from my dog and various handling manoeuvres.

Rainy Season August 2008

August is the rainy season, a great month to stay inside in front of the fire.

The highlight of month was the Zone Team Trials held in Feilding. Quick won the Starters position on the team and C was first in Senior as well.

Hawkes Bay July 2008

HOSTED BY the Central Hawkes Bay Club and held at the Napier Club grounds, we held a fantastic weekend of agility training.

While the rest of the country enjoyed winter, i.e. snow, hail, rain, in the Hawkes Bay we had a sunny weekend, with a little (cool) wind (lol). Hey, it didn't rain!

The Starters/ Novice workshop held on Saturday was extremely popular with full classes and lots of auditors watching on.

A wide range of topics where covered during the day covering wall the areas of agility, weave pole entries and completion, jumping, speeding up contacts, front cross, pull through and how to remove call-off issues.

The Intermediate/Senior workshop focused lateral distance handling, how to mirror your dogs path in the gamble, front crosses, practicing the four types of serpentine and jumping skills.

A big thank you to Cathy from CHB for organising the weekend

Hawkes Bay Club Workshop 30 June 2008

On a rather cool Hawkes Bay night I ran a workshop for HBCOC. The topics selected for the night were problem solving on the contacts, both the ups and the downs. Proofing the contacts. A little bit of handling the front and rear cross, and some "thinking on your feet" exercises.

We had two groups of very keen handlers that alternated for each exercise so everyone had a chance to try out things with their dog. They really loved the "thinking on your feet" exercises, it really tested their brains and their stamina. There were some great questions about contact problems and training and we had fun working out some solutions.

All in all an interesting nights training at HBCOC

Canterbury June 2008

I was in Canterbury to judge at the Waimak championships agility event. After two busy days judging I stayed in Canterbury to give a presentation to the Canty Cats club on Monday night.

What was meant to be an hours talk on agility training quickly progressed to training and demos of handling techniques. There were lots of questions from a very enthusiastic crowd and two and half hours later I was exhausted.

On Tuesday I headed down to the Mid Canterbury club for training. An interesting mixture of individual training, pairs and a group of eight was organised. We covered a wide range of topics from jumping, weaving, front cross handling, and distance work to speeding up dogs.

Tauranga May 2008

On four sunny and warm autumn days I was kept very busy by the Mount and Tauranga clubs.

On Thursday afternoon I held individual training sessions for members of the Tauranga club.

On Friday and Saturday two great days of workshops covering many many topics were held for the Mount club at Deb Jacksons place. Everyone worked hard and tried everything. Very busy and tiring!

On Sunday I headed back to the Tauranga club to train several people, while a flygility tournament was being held next door.

Upper Hutt April 2008

The first day was a handling workshop for Starters/Novice handlers. We focused on getting the basic moves right throughout the day. In the last session we held a question and answer session and worked through specific problems people were having with their training.

The second day I ran a course strategy workshop in the morning and a "thinking on your feet" workshop in the afternoon.

New Plymouth January 2008

A busy weekend which focused on what and how to instruct at clubs. It included plenty of hands-on work, with people preparing, taking, and reviewing practice classes.