Training new agility handling techniques is a skill and a half in itself! When you know which steps you need to take to master a technique, there’s no stopping you from learning them all!
Earlier, we published a blog post called “How to train a new handling technique?“. It goes through the steps you need to take to learn a new technique. In this post, we’ll give you more tips for your handling technique training.
Glenys Atkins and her poodle Coco are from North NSW, Australia. They are relatively new to agility, they’ve been training with a club for just over 2 years and joined OneMind Dogs pretty early on. Glenys has completed 402 online lessons on the OneMind Dogs website and loves it!
During a period where she was injured, she studied as you can see her doing in the videos. Coco is doing great now and has a fair few qualifications and wins under her belt!
Here are some tips to get you, too, started on practicing handling techniques:
- Start by practicing the mechanical performance of the technique by yourself first. Think about how each handling element works and focus on your footwork.
- It is beneficial to practice the execution of the technique first with a “human dog”: ask your friend to be your dog, and see if your handling makes sense. Switch roles to see what the handling looks like for your dog.
- Next, you can practice the teaching phases with your dog by following the instructions on the video. Pay close attention to the way the dog should be rewarded at each stage.
- Practice the technique equally on both sides.
- Once you and your dog can do the technique on one obstacle, add an obstacle before and after the obstacle where you are performing the technique.
- Add speed and distance to get a more realistic idea of how it will feel to perform the technique on course. Start by adding some speed for your dog. When that works ok, add your own motion to the exercise. The easiest way to add more speed is to put a tunnel before the jump that you want to practice your technique performance on.
Train Handling Techniques online
We have recently updated the OneMind Dogs Handling Techniques online program which is available for all of our Agility Premium members. You can now find all videos related to a specific technique, under the mini-course for that technique. Now you can learn, train and perfect your technique skills all within the one mini-course!!
These short courses will give you an overview of a handling technique from the very basics to the point where you get to apply the technique in a short sequence.
