I’m back to teaching agility classes and I’m so happy to see some of my past students again. For the most advanced level class, we’re playing with having a ‘theme’ for three weeks so that we can really build on the skills. Our current theme is ‘distance’, and specifically working towards Gamblers/Jackpot type agility games.
We’re spending some time on skill training (fluency is needed for distance work), sending ahead, lateral distance, start line stays, and small distance challenges. We spend part of class playing a game/courses and then at the end of class we will come back to the hard areas and work on those skills.
There’s so much to work on, we could do months and months on distance only, but we’ll be moving on to look at other skills for a period of time.
Week 1:
- 30 seconds of point accumulation and discuss strategies for individual dogs
- Distance challenge portion, practice handling and ‘running to that spot.’
- Put it together: Points accumulation then distance challenge
- Lateral sends to jump
- Skill work: Teeter, weaves, start line stay
Week 2:
- Skill work: Weaves, aframe, sending ahead to a jump
- Run a distance game
- Discuss and practice a hard area
- Run again
- Discuss counter conditioning to the whistle noise
Week 3:
- Distance game
- Lateral distance skill stations
- Distance game – “non traditional”
- Skill stations: Dogwalk/tunnel discrimination, pinwheel distance, weaves.
What is our next theme? I’m not sure yet, we’ll have to have a vote next week. Maybe obstacle discrimination or speed or distractions.
