In Titus' agility class we have been working on a 'move' commonly called 'come to hand'. It's a move that instructs the dog to take the obstacle close to you. It's an important part of obstacle discrimination that helps the dog and handler communicate without the dog being glued to the handler's leg. 'Glue-ing' is not a problem that Titus and I have. He loves to get out and play on the course so more often than not he is several obstacles away from me, and looking for more! We reached some form of success (most of the class is spent on my handling skills which are far below par) this last Tuesday while working on a sequence in the middle of the course. The trap was set as such: after a tunnel (which makes most dogs speed up and makes Titus 'zoomy') there were two jumps and then another tunnel. The trick was at the second tunnel dogs were supposed to take the entry that wasn't facing the jumps and out of the dogs immediate line of sight. This was difficult for us because in agility there is a famous phrase 'Tunnels Suck'. Dogs LOVE tunnels and will more often than not take a tunnel obstacle before anything else, therefore 'sucking' your dog in. We watched every dog in class shoot into the wrong end of the tunnel, and Titus and I followed suit. After much trial and error I managed to get my body positioned just right so Titus knew I was asking him to take the opposite end of the tunnel. It was such a simple success but I was flying high the rest of the lesson! I didn't even mind in the slightest when Titus went off course to try out a set of weave poles (weave 'love' is a completely other story that I will rant about some other time) or when he enjoyed the dog walk so much he kept seeking it out from random parts of the course. Summarily we enjoyed a wonderful evening with hot dog pieces, a whole lot of dog walk practice, a few successful weaves, and an unexpected conquering of 'come to hand'!
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