I find she is discovering the same things about Silvia Trkman's training as I am. I feel the more I learn about how Silvia trains, the more I am in agreement with her. I feel some of the issues I have had with training Ember are things I could've avoided had I found Silvia sooner. I think that training fast first, and then adding in obstacles would've really benefited her. Silvia says a lot of 'why train it this way when you have to go back and retrain it when you add the speed'. That is Ember in a nutshell. Super fast dog. Can do recall to heels all day long.... front crosses, rear crosses... whatever skill you want. It all fell apart once speed was added. Had to go back and rework it all because it is completely different at speed. I also feel that when you aren't starting with a super high drive fast dog, speed doesn't always just come along, and can be hard to come back and try to add later. And I like the idea of building drive and speed as a puppy so that when it is time to work agility, I have already worked hard on the drive and speed and they are there when I need them.
I am hoping to start taking her online handling courses this year, and am implementing her ready set go! (speed) dvd, and cik and cap dvd right now. My goal is to train my young dog Blaze from the get go using her methods. I would like to have the comparison of training one from the start using strictly APHS foundation training (Ember) and one using Silvia's methods (Blaze) and see how I feel each method prepared each dog for their agility future, what effects each has on their speed, and how the methods work for me. I feel very fortunate to have multiple dogs, and to have the opportunity to compare and contrast methods to help me learn and grow, and decide how I want to proceed in training my dogs. I will always use a lot of the APHS, however I want the distance skills that I have in my older dogs, and think I am really going to want to use a lot of Silvia's methods thrown in as well. I think it is just where I am growing and learning as a handler and trainer and finding other things that fit what my dogs need.
