Agility Angles

I think it was the novelty of agility that drew me to the sport. And not only agility itself, but having a skye terrier in agility. One of the things I enjoy about our breed is the fact that you don't see them everywhere, and so doing this type of activity with them appeals to me.

The second factor was that the training for this sport is done almost entirely with positive reinforcement. No collar corrections or harsh physical reinforcement is used. The dogs really enjoy what they are doing and as their confidence builds, so does that of their handlers.

April and I started our classes at one of the largest schools in the area and as we arrived for our first class, I had my doubts about controlling April once she was off lead.  We had no obedience training prior to our class, but as we worked our way through the program, the commands came as our skill progressed.  During the first class we were introduced to the tunnels, chutes and basic jumps. By the time the class ended, I knew that she loved it. Her natural instincts came out as soon as she entered that first tunnel. The jumps she accepts as something she has to do in order to get to the next tunnel, but as we trained and she got in better physical shape she did better and better at them though they will never be her favorite.

And did she get into shape!  Even though we only train once or twice a week she has developed wonderful muscle tone and really blossomed.  I do recommend that if you are training your skye in agility you also take the time to roadwork them on flat surfaces at a walk about 2 times a week. It helps their endurance and keeps their top-lines nice and level.

The next step in class was to become familiar with the contact obstacles.  There are 3 main contact obstacles, the a-frame, the dog walk, and the teeter. Each has areas painted yellow called contact areas and the dogs must put at least a part of a paw on the contact area when negotiating that obstacle.  Getting used to these took longer, but again the skye had an advantage over the larger dogs. Since they are long and low, the dog walk didn't seem like such a major undertaking, though the teeter took just as much work as with the larger breeds. The a-frame was a bit harder, but with patience April and Danny came to enjoy it as well.

As classes went on I found that a large school and class structure was not the best setting for my skye.  Since their classes need to be organized for the majority of dogs, they sometimes lack the flexibility to adjust to working with a condroplastic breed or even dogs that need different methods to bring out their best performance.  I found that there were some training techniques that were holding April back or even hindering her.

I found a small local school whose instructor was an AKC agility judge.  Her classes were very small with no more then 3-5 dogs.  We made just a few changes and April's performance improved immensely.  The main item that we changed had to do with the a-frame contact.  Most classes teach the dogs to come down the obstacle and stop at the bottom with their front feet on the ground and their back feet on the contact area.  This was OK for the teeter and the dog walk, but the angle on the a-frame put a skyes entire weight on their front. Since the possibility of a skye missing that contact is slim, we found that if we let her control her downward momentum, she came to love the a-frame and our problem vanished.

Next, we quit working inside.  The more we worked on concrete floors, no matter how padded, the worse we got. Now we train from April through October until the classes move inside. After the November through March layoff, my skyes don't forget a thing and even enjoy it more.

In training my skyes for agility and tracking, I found that more is less.  Large amounts of repetition get you much less then you expect. While a golden or a border collie will continue to work and work just to please their owners, our breed is not of a like mind. I find if my dog is having a problem, the best way to cure it is to take a vacation, not increase the amount of work that they do.  We only train once or twice a week for about an hour and that has been plenty.

We started working in agility about 3 years ago and didn't enter our first trial until we had trained for about 1 1/2 years.  At that point I figured that April knew everything, why not give it a try.  Well the first trial was a disaster, but we learned a great deal and everyone needs a good laugh. We had been doing bits and pieces with no more then 6-8 obstacles in a row.  A full course is at least 13 jumps and obstacles and as soon as I started running my dog, I found that there was a lot more I had to learn about what I should be doing in the ring.  After 3 or 4 months more work on full courses we earned our first 100 score and first in our height group.

As time goes on we keep improving our skills.  Our big problem now is with the weave poles. How do you convince a skye that there is a reason to go back and forth through these white poles?  Well, I am happy to report that after her Sept. to April layoff (longer this year because of puppies), April came charging out onto the course and did the first clean set of 12 weave poles in 3 years! All that work really pays off. We only need one more leg for her Open title and then I told her she could go tracking and let Danny do all of those jumps for a change.