My Own Agility Class

You are mistaken. Jennifer actually knows me and my training pretty well.

Yes, I WOULD teach the adults in my club to train better if they'd accept my help. If they are taught and only know methods from a poor trainer, how do you expect that they are good trainers? I have taught myself, I have gotten much help adn advice through the internet, read many books, etc. Of course I'm going to know more than someone that has only the education of my trainers to go by. That isn't being egotistical, that is being factual. They lack in knowledge because they follow and do what my trainers tell them to do.

I would also like to add that I said my TRAINERS were too full of pride to admit that my training methods work. I never said anything about the rest of the adults in my club. They know not any better because they've been taught by someone that is ignorant.

And lastly, because my trainer's methods are harsh and often do not work very well, of COURSE a perosn is going to be thinking "wow" when my methods work so nicely, and often much faster. It might take some convincing to get some of the adults to use my methods, but when they do, they are surprised and compliment me like crazy.

Tessa, you're proving my point and digging this hole deeper, in the process. I think you're a sweet girl, know that you love your dogs and are passionate about dog training. Learning about dog training from the internet or a book, and from trainers you've very clearly stated were "terrible"., does not make you a trainer though. It makes you passionate about doing better! I do understand that. I believe a lot of adult dog owners here, who've read the same books you have, solicited the same info from the internet and other sources and have taken obedience classes from great trainers, are not calling themselves trainers, as a result. So, I am now taking away your shovel away. Not because I'm a dog trainer, but because I'm a mom and I want you to have a great day in school tommorrow, not having lost any sleep over this! Good night, Tessa.

I never called myself a professional dog trainer. But I do train dogs.

I dont have school tomorrow, I'm on spring break. If I had school, I wouldn't be in school anyway.

I think you have loads and loads of potential but I really am not comfortable with the idea of you as the "trainer". If this was more of a "come over, practice and share suggestions" rather than you being the "trainer", I wouldn't mind. It has nothing to do with liabilty - although now that its been mentioned, I do see Otch1's point! Nor does it have anything to do with your age. Its your ability as a "trainer" that worries me - just because you can train your own dogs, doesn't mean you'll excel as a trainer.

I am no trainer but to my untrained eye, I see a couple of problem spots in this video. I fully understand that dogs will have off-days but Marq's attention was off - both at the start line and on course. There were run-outs that went uncorrected for both dogs and the handling was confusing/inconsistent; Marq looked faster than Ebony but he's a much bigger dog with a longer stride, so I'm not convinced he was going all that fast (or perhaps he was and the close spacing of the obstacles is what slowed him down?). Since he is so toy motivated, why didn't you throw a toy at VARIOUS points on course to increase his drive/attention?
I'm a lot like you... I've researched a lot online, spent a small fortune on dog books/DVD's, seminars and 100% positive reinforcement obedience/agility training courses. I feel like I have enough knowledge to offer suggestions but never would I self-proclaim to be at the same level of a trainer. We both have a lot to learn and issues to work through with our own dogs before taking on everyone else's!

Having said that, I don't think its going to change your course of action so with regards to the set-up, I think it would be a good idea to NOT finish at the same end of your yard all the time. It seemed to either cause the dogs to slow down because they knew that was the end or get too focused on getting to the end instead of the handler.
From what I could see, the practice area didn't look completely fenced in - is that safe/responsible - are all the dogs attending reliable off-leash?

Good Luck!

I offer a positive place for friends to come and train. I teach them what I know, I suggest handling techniques to them, and I point out when they are doing something wrong and show them how to do it right.

Something that hasn't been mentioned much in this thread is the actual details of my experience as a trainer. Yes, I have trained many of my own dogs, but I work with dogs that I do not own on a weekly basis. I train/have trained at least 6 different rescue dogs that have been adopted by my trainers in agility and/or obedience, many years back I was asked by my trainers to train an elderly woman's Yorkie because she had difficulties walking, and I now work half officially/half unofficially as a trainer at the local humane society, where I am a regular volunteer. I have been training in both agility and obedience for nearly 9 years. I do have experience witha good number of breeds, sizes, temperaments, and backgrounds of dogs.

Marq is no border collie. He isn't extremely fast and obstacle driven, nor is he extremely intelligent and focused. He is a pointer, and he is a bird brain. When other dogs are around, his performance decreases a bit until he gets adjusted. This is something only continuing to work him around new and other dogs will fix.

You're right. I'm still going to hold practices and classes, no matter what is said here. I have knowledge, and I want to share that knowledge. I want these dogs to be treated kindly and with respect. If peopel are willing to leave the abusive methods behind, of course I will help them to learn to use positive reinforcement. And honestly,I am baffled as to how dog lovers can sit here and tell me not to teach these people to use positive methods on their dogs.

I do have a large fenced in yard, but do most of the training in the unfenced yard next to my backyard. Both dogs at the last practice were completely reliable offleash. The lab had been trialing for about 3 years, and Marq has already been trialing and was completely trained offleash. I do not live near any very busy roads, and we left the tags on the lab because this dog does not live in this town and is not known here. Any future dogs that come to my classes and practices must stay onleash until they have reliable recalls.

As for my courses, advice taken. I do work trials on a regular basis and know the actual distance that should be between obstacles, but when setting courses for the bad trainers for our outdoor agility practices are are always taught to set them only 8-10 feet away. It was habit to set the obstacles only with that much distance. Next time I will attempt to spread the obstacles out more, though I am limited in my space.

Okay, not trying to sound rude, but the last part of your post sounds pretty harsh. First, if they didn't have a good recall I know Tessa would never risk that. Second, if you ever attend agility trails with your dog, you will know that some times it's not fenced in or blocked off, and your dog is off leash with no collar on. Also I don't think her friend would just let her dog off leash (or Tessa would allow it) without knowing the dog was solid off leash.


Also, the first part, Tessa is a very good trainer. I know that for a fact from what I have seen and heard her do Have you seen the progress she is making with the shelter dogs she works with?

Lizmo - I didn't mean it to be harsh.. She mentioned a puppy and lab would be coming and another friend with 2 Springers next time - I just wanted to make sure she'd taken that into consideration before she went ahead with the same set-up.
Sure its an obvious point to make but based on my own experience at agility courses, fencing is quite necessary. It's usually an overload of distractions for dogs and there's generally at least one who'll get the zoomies. No dog is 100% off-leash and when you mix so much fun and distraction, you never know what's going to happen. I think its a reasonable point to air - no matter how obvious.

I can edit my post if you find it that offensive to say something like:"From what I could see, the practice area didn't look fenced, will you able to make adjustments for dogs who do not have a reliable recall"??

I'm not so sure this thread is going in a very good direction.

I understand people's concerns. I am young. I know when I here of other jrs offering classes, despite that Iknow there is a whole community of us out there that do instruct classes(and some even get paid), that question still arises in your mind if they truly are experienced enough to teach.

I am NOT a professional trainer. I do not kow if it is the direction I will go even years and years down the road. But I do know if becoming a professional trainer every interested me, it would not be for a very long time. I have had bad experiences with trainers, and I would never want a future student to have that same experience. If training were to be in my future, you'd bet that I'd be traveling and assisting under a great number of trainers, going to seminars, reading books and books nad more books, and doing everything possible to learn everything I can and gain experience enough to be confident in both sports as well as behavioral problems. While I do address adn work with many of hte common behavioral problems found in shelter dogs, I still have tons more experience and knoweldge to gain.

With all that said, I still would like to think with the experience I do have, that i have enough to teach obedience and agility to other young individuals, and even the occasional adult. Perhaps not the most advanced of levels(though I do compete, I don't teach those, ..don;'t have students with dogs in that level, and would recommend that they find a real trainer for that advanced stuff), but I can adn will continue to teach the basics and encourage people to use positive reinforcement.

And, as a final note, I am going to also mention that I DO recommend these people to trainers first. But manyl do not have the money to afford the gas and classes farther away. I'm hoping they do eventually go to a real class, but its a slow progress. You must first convince them that the methods, time, and cost of the class is worth it, and by showing them how well positive reinforcement works, paired with actually teaching handling techniques, they might eventually take the step to venture away from teh abusive training club such as I have.

I have actually never yet been to a trial with fencing. The trials my club hosts in the summer merely have flags surrounding the course areas.

The place the "real" trainers practice at for outdoor training isn't' fenced either. It has a fence around the entire perimeter of the fairgrounds, but the dogs could easily escape from the openings in the fence and run right onto the busiest road in the city. And to think how they let dogs that are *obviously* not ready to be offleash to be taken off is beyond me.

BTW, I did look for a place in my town that is fenced in that I could use. All I could find was tennis court.. can't be jumping dogs on that.

I may nothave had the most positive, most knowledgeable trainers to learn from in the beginning, but I have learned from their mistakes, and I'm learning to do better, and I am doing my best to help others and their dogs.

I'm sorry, I got too defensive in my last post.

I do train in a fenced yard, but my trainer has a partly fenced in yard (but she has about 20 acres) Also there are not many places Lizzie could go, but still they need those distractions in order to be able to trial smoothly.

But I do have a question, if you are competing with your dog, and it's an unfenced area, what are you to do?

When you've built drive for agility and have trained around enough distractions, I think we'd agree that its not a problem. From what I understood, Tessa was or will be training people who are just starting out and at that stage, I think fencing is a must.

I find that classes are more challenging for Dodger and I than running a course because there are so many more distractions. In a training class, treats are dropped all over the place, dogs have or are marking and with all the dogs in the same ring barking, straining at the leash, tugging/chasing a toy or zooming WOW.... Combine that with "boring" drills instead of the fun part of running a course and most dogs will have a wandering attention span. With appropriate training, running a course is the easy part - its getting and staying at that level that's tough IMO.

Okay, I understand now. Thank you

Lissa, really appreciated your post. You obviously have experience in agility and training in general. Experience, proper handling skills and a safe environment are crucial in any type of training program. As you'll read repetitively in a lot of my posts! Lol. Most of us have enclosed buildings or completely fenced areas, before allowing a novice dog to train off leash. There are some great agility schools, several nationally recognized, in my area. Safety is the first issue addressed when encouraging their students to enroll. It's a blast to watch these trainers classes, the energy level and enthusiasm of both students and dogs when being introduced to agility.

I believe it has already been mentioned in this thread, but I guess it needs repeating.

I have a very large fenced in backyard. When transitioning to offleash, I will try to use my backyard, and then to offleash unfenced when veyr reliable.

Lol. It's very ironic and funny. Both times at my new class I have actually had class with my friend and taught her hte exact same things before I went to the new trainer's. Last week I had already been having my friend teach tandem turns, and that is what we worked on a bit in class. A few days ago we worked a bit on speed/extended jumping, and that is one of the things we touched on in class. I did learn the name of collective jumping though, and how to better teach it other that just merely putting it into a course and rewarding the tight turns. Eventually when the puppy is old enough, this is definitely what we'll be working with, and what I'd like to start working with the older dogs after we get more attention and proper handling from the handler.

Hi;
Sorry but with my old computer I can't view the video's, so I am going to ask some questions before I make any comments on whether your a 'trainer' or not. Ok?
What skills do you include in foundation skills?
When do you introduce obstacles and how do you train the obstacles?
What contact behaviours do you teach and when?
When do you start sequencing?
What kinds of sequences do you use?
What is backchaining, why is backchaining used?
When do you run the dogs on full courses or half courses?
What body language do you teach the students and when?
What is RVP, LOP, FC, RC, Threadles, V-sets?
What are the rules of crosses?
Have you competed any where other than CPE? And were you successful and to what level?

Look forward to your reply.
Take care
Lynn

I never said I was a professional trainer.

If it is your wish to only challenge my knowledge and abilities to bash and tell me that I am in no way a professional trainer, you're hitting a brick wall. I already know I'm not a professional trainer. So there really is no need to answer those questions.

I was not bashing you, I was trying to get a handle on your knowledge.
If you are unwilling or unable to answer ANY of those questions, it clearly shows your lack of knowledge. Especially when you have become defensive.
You kept making statements about the abusive trainers, but if you can't anwser those questions, you would also not be doing justice to the dogs nor their handlers. It has nothing to do with being a Pro or not, nor does it have anything to do with your age, its about knowledge and responsiblity.
Actually I am sad that you were unwilling to answer the questions ( or at least to attempt them), there is no shame in not knowing the answeres, but there is for not admitting it.
BTW, I don't have one student that can't answer those questions, once they are past the beginning levels of agility. Also most people that I know that compete in agility can answer those questions.

Take care
Lynn

No, it shows my ability to not allow myself to be taken advantage of and belittled.

At first I almost fell for it and started to answer the questions, but then realized what my answers were going to be used for: to be twisted and used to show how "ignorant" I am. People can think what they think about me, I'll know what I know. In the end it changes nothing about my knowledge or how well my students do.

If you say this isn't about bashing me and telling me I'm not knowledge, than yes, I will answer the questions.

You can either answer the questions or not, that is your choice. I have not belittled you nor bashed you. I have not been rude, nor have I called you names etc. You are the one that is getting defensive. So instead of being defensive prove your knowledge.

Take care
Lynn

What skills do you include in foundation skills?

Of course basic obedience should be taught and very much understood. I teach my friends to place their dogs on wobble boards, ladders, low raised planks, slippery surfaces, etc etc etc. Anything that will build a dog's confidence no matter what it is walking on. These exercises also help teach body awareness, which is crucial before you place any dog, puppy or not, on full size equipment. I also encourage them to teach their dogs tricks to get a feel for how fast their dog learns, what it responds best to, etc. Then I teach them to train their dogs to spin both left and right. If they place a verbal command to it just for an additional trick they can, but it is the body movement/arm signal that I place most importance on. Soon we turn the spin command into the tandem turns. Also, I encourage them to start working on startline stays. Leaving the dog a great a mount of distance away, and call and run as fast as they can, treating and playing like crazy when the dog does reach the handler. Holding the dog back can help to encourage speed as well. I also teach them to train their dogs to target. I recommend to both a lid and hand. A lid isn't necessary unless they want to teach 2o2o, but I still find it a good trick to teach. But, I do really insist they have the hand target. There might be more, but I do not know the names to it. I just do it because I've seen it done, have done it with my own dogs, and it works.


When do you introduce obstacles and how do you train the obstacles?

I introduce the obstacles when the dogs are ready for them. Whey they are confident on the raised planks, wobble boards, etc. If I had an adjustable dog walk, it would be very gradually raised while the handler teaches the pupy to run across. My a-frame lowers, and we just teach confidence on that buy just running. (Contact behavior will be explained later.) With the teeter, I'd prefer to just be able to place a very large table with padding underneath so it only tips just the tiniest bit, and increase the amount it tips, but for now all I have is my on hands and I lower it myself(not on the high end, but the low end so the dog doesn't learn to watch for me to lower and it still feels the tipping and shifts its weight). Also, I teach the dog to tip it itself. Jump up and use its front paws to bang it. I think some people call it the "bang game".

Jumps:the puppies, depending on each individual and size, I may have the bar completely on the ground, or it might be set to 4". I just do recalls back and forth over the jumps, me holding hte puppy or dog, handler calling. If it is a puppy, the jump is not raised. If it is a dog, the jump is gradually raised. We will go back later to look at jumping behavior and correct anything if needed, as well as teach collected jumping.

Tunnels: tunnels are the first things I teach. They are fast, fun, and a great booster of confidence. I simply shorten the tunnel. I hold hte puppy at one end while the handler calls them through, giving tons of cookies and praise when they get it right. Soon, this is just turned into the handler sending through and rewarding when it comes out. We lengthen the tunnel, and eventually add very small angles of turns, only gradually increasing turns. (Most dogs fly through this, but I have experienced one that needed the very very gradual change in the turn in the tunnel)

What contact behaviors do you teach and when?
If they wanted 2o2o, that would have been taught entirely different then the a-frame. I will teach them to target to a lid, and then place the lid on the bottom of stairs, etc. Anything that is a bit raised off the ground and I can use. I find most dogs after this is well enough trained when they see the lid, it clicks in their minds and no additional gradual change is needed once you put the lid at the bottom of the a-frame. I simply have the a-frame lowered, and have the dog jump up on it from the side and immediately target. Soon then I do the entire a-frame or any other contact
I let them choose the behaviors they want to teach. If they want to do running, they can. If they want 2o2o, they can. HEck, if they want to pray and point, they can! I'm there to give them advice, not force anything on them.

When do you start sequencing?

I start sequencing when the dog knows individual obstacles fully. Usually simply start with tunnel and jump. ONLY two obstacles at a time at first. I will have them run though the tunnel, then place a jump in front of the tunnel, and have them do that. When they are confident with that, I will place yet another jump in front of the tunnel and have them do that sequence. This is all in a straight line. Eventually I add small curves, but nothing to make an actual turn yet. It keeps building from there.

What is backchaining, why is backchaining used?

Backchaining is exactly what I described up there when teaching sequencing. I teach it to teach sequencing and to address problem areas with dogs that already understand sequencing. If my dog is having a hard time with something, I back chain to get where I need to be at again.

When do you run the dogs on full courses or half courses?
What body language do you teach the students and when?

I try my best to teach turns and handling before ever putting it into any course. I break it down the best I can and know how(again, remember, I don't even know the names of some of the things I already know how to do just from running in agility and the top levels). Hand targeting comes not play here for front crosses. And I teach "go's" by throwing toys over a jump to eventually turn into rear crosses. I also put the tandem turns the dog knows on ground into use with just one jump, then two. Then longer sequences.

What is RVP, LOP, FC, RC, Threadles, V-sets?

I dont know, but I'd be willing to bet if you didn't use the abbreviations, that I'd have more of an idea. And even if I didn't for a few, I bet big money that I've still come across it in handling my own dogs in courses in teh years I've been competing. I might not have the training of the names of the handling, but I do know how to handle my dogs pretty darn well considering my lack of qualified instruction.. now, this is jsut biased..but heck, I think I handle pretty well without that consideration. I'm certainly not a handler that just barely stumbles through a course.

What are the rules of crosses?

Again, can't say I know any strict set of rules, but I bet I use them every time I run a course successively with my own dogs in competition. For me,the rules are 1)Don't get in the dog's way(ie: DON'T do a front cross, DIRECTLY in front of the jump, practically preventing the dog to not be able to jump) and 2)Don't run into the dog!


Have you competed any where other than CPE? And were you successful and to what level?

I have competed in USDAA, NADAC, CPE, and UKC. I no longer compete in USDAA(probably never will). In NADAC my own dog has titles up to the Elite level. She's got her Open Jumpers, Elite Regular, and one leg away from Elite Chances I think. She's also in Open Touch n Go and Open Tunnelers. Her only problem is that NADAC is too hard on time. She's not a border collie, she's a cocker spaniel. (Reason being why she doesn't have her Elite jumpers, tunnelers, and touch n go titles.)

Marq is just a baby in the agility world. He will be starting his trailing this year, though last year I did have him out about three times for just fun and trial experience.

As for my other dogs, with them my biggest success has been just getting them to run full courses and over come many of their issues. And honestly, most of the time my very small successes with these guys and their behavioral problems is 100 times more rewarding than any capital letters you can place before a name.