This weekend was the Ohio 4-H Dog Expo. This is a yearly event that has been going on for a long time. I remember attending as a 4-H’er with Blaze 9 or 10 years ago. It was the first day I ever saw him get tired enough that he chose to lie down to rest (during the car ride home!). During the day, 4-H’ers attend different sessions on obedience, rally, showmanship, agility, Canine Good Citizen prep and other activities. Kids, dogs, parents, and advisors attend from all over the state.
This year, I was paired with a committee member to do some re-working and teaching of the Beginner Agility session. In past years, teams were introduced to different pieces of equipment. This was valuable as many of the kids don’t have access to equipment at home or with their 4-H clubs.
We changed it up to use a few exercises from the great book Agility Right From the Start so that we could get the kids thinking about the concepts (over, under, on, between, moving together, loving noise and motion) and knowing how to use everyday items to work on this. Many of them aren’t able to go and take classes or get parents to build or buy equipment. And that shouldn’t stop them from being able to safely do agility type activities with their dogs.
The lunch discussions with some of the committee members were really great. A few things that came up:
Low-participating teens: In one group we had some older kids who were standing in the back and not really participating. When the group of us teaching discussed the situation later, we suspect it’s not uncooperative teenagers, but the 4-H’ers not wanting to make errors or get in trouble. It was really hard to get some responses and participation out of them, but when given clear instructions, they often did very, very well.
Tolerance of force: I’m continually surprised at the number of kids with slip collars and with how heavy handed the young kids can be. I saw one kid move a dog from the floor to a raised surface by grabbing his slip collar and just picking the dog up that way. Somehow, the adults interacting with these kids have allowed things to get to this point. It’s a hard balance for me, a stranger they may only see once, to start to change thing. I can’t just “ignore the behavior” and reinforce other things because I can’t have the kids handle the dogs that way. I do have to set things up so I’m not seen as a ‘bad’ person” (Stop pulling on the collar! Pick him up with two hands! Don’t push him to lie down! Don’t drag him over the equipment!).
Sad dogs are good dogs: Most of the dogs weren’t enjoying the interaction as much as I’d like. The kids have spent more time training the dogs to not do things than to do behaviors. The preferred technique would be to pull the dogs over the equipment (some more gently than others!). We worked to get the kids doing a good job using food and getting the dogs to offer some behaviors. Interestingly, about 90% of the dogs did get to that point for the on/over/between piece of the session.
Getting appropriate parent help: For events like this, it’s often the most dedicated and invested parents that bring their kids. To take time off work/schedules, pay for the clinic, drive here, and spend the day, the parents have to be very dedicated. This also means it’s very hard for some of them to step back and let the kids work, or to know when it’s appropriate to step in and help. We had to be careful (and positive) with the parents to get them to use positive phrasing with the kids, to help appropriately, and to know when to just the kids have a few opportunities to work it out. My favorite moment of the day was a parent who was sitting close to the action and she couldn’t help but to start cheering when a kid did well. And it wasn’t even a kid she knew!
I love doing the 4-H things and working with a variety of kids, parents, and dogs. I wish we did more clinics throughout the year so that we could get even better with the teaching and activities.