First steps in agility

In my previous post I detailed how Sumo entered our lives and how we ended up doing agility. He made such impressive progress in a short time that I started to research agility training more and more. My very first aha moment was when I discovered Susan Garrett's 2x2 method for training weave poles. I got my first copy of the DVD in February 2013 and my jaw dropped when I watched it for the first time. The one word that changed my thinking fundamentally about dog training was repeated a number of times by Susan. That word was CHOICE! Letting a dog make his own choice for a behaviour and then rewarding that behaviour, supercharges the reward. I saw and experienced the power of positive reinforcement first hand. It was such a powerful experience to me that it changed me as a parent. I live in a culture that overemphasises discipline and rules when bringing up and educating children and even though I was very critical of this I still caught myself overusing discipline and correction with Juan. Susan's 2x2 DVD taught me the mechanics of positive reinforcement (which we arrogantly think we understand but we don't) in a step by step fashion and at that point in time I started challenging myself to be more creative and set up environments and opportunities for Juan to make his own successful choices. So besides letting your dog and the people around you make their own choices, you have to help them set up an environment where it is easy for them to make the right choices and be successful.

Now I'm sure you can imagine what happened after having such a profound experience right? I became totally addicted to the sport of agility and loved every moment training. I loved how technical the sport was and I couldn't stop learning about this amazing sport. I started training daily at home in my backyard, in the nearby parks and Sumo could weave twelve poles within 2 weeks, just like Susan promised in her DVD. I had an insatiable hunger for more information and bought more books and DVDs. The moment I wanted to take my training to the next level I met my first real obstacle, lack of equipment. I asked Zimzala if I could come train there more often but they weren't open to the idea of me using agility equipment without a trainer being present. I started making PVC jumps and bought my first tunnel at a pet expo. I continued training at Zimzala with Mariann on a weekly basis and a couple of months later I entered Sumo for his very first dog jumping competition in July 2013. I was super excited to compete and had very high expectations since he was doing so well in training. My expectations were too high and nobody really prepared me for what was to follow. Sumo started great but the new environment overwhelmed both of us and he ran off the course after the first few obstacle to take a quick sniff at a nearby bush. He came back to be me when I called him and we completed the course. Luckily there was a show the next day and we went back for more. This time I let him explore the environment for much longer before we ran our round. He ran beautifully and stayed focused. Unfortunately he missed his entry into the weave poles but he stayed on course and completed his round.

Jump 3, first trial.

Making progress, now at jump 7, first trial.

I think I was a bit lucky with my second round on the next day. Many more eliminations followed. The key thing any new handler must realise is that it is very important to train in different locations on different equipment before you go to trial. Your dog needs to generalise its skills and the only way you can achieve that is by training in as many different environments as possible. Do yourself a favour and listen to Bad Dog Agility's podcast about generalisation. There is never a good reason to blame your dog, never. Even when it feels like they are not listening to your commands, especially when they do it so well in training, there are almost always something in the environment that is new and you are not realising that a significant variable changed. More than often you as a handler are also behaving differently when you are under pressure or nervous in a trial. Late cues and conflicting body language is probably the number one mistake all new handlers make.

It was mentally quite tough to process failures and move forward. I realised I didn't really have a clue where I am going, I had no idea how to take my training to the next level beyond just training simple skills. I didn't even know all the skills I needed to train and I am still figuring that out. I had no roadmap and I definitely needed one. One also needs somebody to tell you that success comes in small increments and teach you how to adjust expectations so that you can find a win and joy out of each round. It is always there, you just have to challenge yourself to find it.

More on how I got into the next gear in my next post. Happy trials!

My name is little Sumo and I love agility

I started training my first dog in agility less than 2 years ago and started competing with him about 14 months ago. Even though I've had incredible success in a short time I still consider myself very inexperienced and a beginner in the sport. In this blog I hope to share some of the challenges I faced right at the start and how I overcame them and how agility transformed my thinking not only about dog training but about life in general. I will not stay a beginner forever, but while I still am one, I hope to leave some breadcrumbs along the path to give you the direction I felt I didn't have. I hope to continue sharing the challenges, frustrations, aha moments and joys I encounter on my journey and encourage you to do the same, because we learn so much more by sharing information with others. Before I get to the juicy agility training bits, I have to first give you some background on how it all started for me.

Almost 3 years ago my son Juan, was 4 years old and we wanted to buy him a puppy. One tends to gravitate to what you know and since I had a Staffordshire Terrier when I grew up I convinced my wife that this is a breed that is very child and people friendly, sometimes too friendly.

We had no aspirations of showing a dog in the breed ring and didn't really know anything about dog sports so pedigree and papers were not in the least important to us. My wife, Madeleine, went onto Gumtree, a local on-line ad website, and saw the cutest puppy that was supposedly a pure bred Staffie.

A couple of days later we had the puppy delivered to us, and then a transforming journey started. We decided to call him Sumo, the name of one Madeleine's previous dogs, because we expected him to have typical stocky Staffie wrestler-like features.

 

At that point in time, we knew very little about dog training and the most prominent dog trainer on TV was Cesar Milan, whom we watched quite regularly. I'll revisit my views on his training methods later, but it is important to note that what was true for me is probably true for millions of pet owners spanning the globe - we have a very limited exposure to good dog trainers in mainstream media, and this is surely affecting how we treat dogs.

I took Sumo to a local puppy class presented by Gill Painter at Zimzala, a local dog training facility. I will always be thankful to Gill for helping me make that connection between fun and relationship building with Sumo. She was such a relaxed trainer and emphasized playing way more than obedience and there was nothing that I looked forward to more than driving to puppy class on a weekly basis and watching how Sumo interacted with all the other dogs.

I also remember Gill making a comment about his looks not being very typically Staffie. As he grew older I realised that he wasn't a pure-bred Staffie and I was deeply disappointed at the time. As a result of this I had his DNA tested by MuttMix and the results confirmed that he is a cross with over 75% (Level 1) of his DNA being Staffordshire Terrie (suggesting that he had one pure-bred parent) and 10-19% (Level 4) of his DNA being Jack Russel Terrier. Judging by the picture of his father, he was probably the pure-bred Staffie. But, whatever mix he is, he is the most handsome boy imaginable, and if you add all his other special abilities one really wishes he was a breed!

Sumo was a highly sociable and energetic little puppy. In one or two classes, Gill put out some agility equipment. Sumo loved it and where other dogs ran around jumps and avoided tunnels, Sumo naturally jumped over them and run into tunnels. At that point Gill suggested I do agility with Sumo and then I asked her, "What is agility?". Knowing how obsessed and addicted I am to the sport know, this is probably funny to hear but we all got to start somewhere.

After puppy class, I completed an obedience class with Sumo and in August 2012 when he was 8 months old, I started an agility class with Mariann Wilson at Zimzala. I remember how impressed she was with his speed and she emphatically told me I must compete with him. I replied with reluctance, not yet willing to commit to something serious and preferring to have a nice social training class every week. This was probably the only time Mariann was emphatic and she never put any pressure on me to train more or harder, she gave me the kindest and most gentle introduction to agility any beginner could hope for. She supported me in the beginning and let me experience the process for myself and she also let me struggle to find some of the answers myself, which was very frustrating but also rewarding. Thank you Mariann!

It didn't take many agility lessons to realise an amazing journey was lying ahead of us, and as with puppy classes I was looking forward to my weekly agility trainіng more than anything else. Something life changing was about to happen, I just had to let it happen.