Funny you should ask...we spent the entire weekend working with Stuart Mah, who is basically the creator of the ideas of handler vs. obstacle focus (he used to call it city v. highway driving). Many of the dogs in our club are obstacle focused, and there were a lot of things that he did to help them.
Here are a few that I can think of...
One set up was a straight line, 2 jumps to a tunnel. The obstacle focused dogs would often run and grab the tunnel before any instruction from the handler. Typically, the handler is pleased with the dog because it did, in fact, correctly handle the sequence. However, the dog honestly just guessed. So, the next time, the sequence may be a 180 from the last jump, not the tunnel. The dog automatically thinks "I was right last time, so I'm right this time...you (the handler) just messed up" and grabs the tunnel.
One exercise they did to get the dog in tune, and to help them know that they don't go to one focus or another without direction, was to have the handler go more slowly towards the tunnel. If the dog grabbed the tunnel without instruction, the handler turns and runs back in the opposite direction, running their "perfect dog". The dog comes out to find that the handler has moved on, and begins to wonder what was incorrect. If the dog waits with the handler (in this case, it may induce a refusal, that's okay), it goes to the tunnel when released by the handler. It is critical that the handler make the decision about when to release to the tunnel. If the dog starts committing, and THEN the handler says "go tunnel!" the dog again thinks he was guessing correctly.
A small exercise that can be done for even baby dogs is this. Put a target plate on the ground with a cookie. Back the dog up and send (obstacle focus). Do this a couple times. Then, put a cookie on the plate, but keep the dog moving away with you with the use of a cookie. If he grabs the cookie on the target plate, that's okay, it's the handlers fault. But, if you keep treating him for moving away with you, yay! Keep feeding cookies to keep his attention (talking to him the whole time quietly "yes, that's it, with me, good boy"). At your choosing, release him to the target, "GO!" and move with him. This teaches him to go from handler to obstacle focus. The dog soon learns that they can have the one cookie on the target plate by grabbing it right away, or they can get cookies with you, AND the one on the plate. You can increase the difficulty of this exercise by adding a jump, and sending over the jump, etc...
Those are just a couple principles that I can think of
Sorry it got so long!
