Required skills for beginner classes

[SheltieChe]

I don't agree with you about RC'S. I was learning them in foundations with Sting.This an an exercise that can be taught in a foundations class with or without jumps.Out of curiosity have you even competed yet?

Sharon, if you had to teach beginners class what would you consider required level of skills, i.e. what dog has to know and perform before you can successfully teach RC/ I don't mean general fundamentals for agility but specific skills? And another question- in your competitive background how much RC do you use and would you place jumps in order of importance to know?
Mods, feel free to move the question to separate topic but I really want to know if there is logic what should be taught first for intro beginners class. i.e. would the knowledge of distance skills even needed to be discussed for green handlers and how much importance which piece of training carries? I.e. will FC be more important to teach and would you teach FC before RC for example...

 

[corbinam]

Ellen, I did move your post to a new thread. Thought it might get more responses there

 

[HopeShelties]

In a true foundations class, I would be teaching recall to heels. jumping form, see wood run, contact behavior, forward and lateral sends, cik/cap, body awareness, crosses (though I do agree- a good forward send is needed for a good rear cross.. which is why I did not do many with Aurora until I got a stronger send on her, as she is a dog who will panic if you cross behind her closely). I would start teaching distance, target training, and spend some time making sure dogs had basic obedience skills. I would also be working specific exercises to build drive/motivation.
I do think both crosses on the flat can be taught in foundations. It is on course where it is harder to not first have sends.
I think I would honestly bore many a new person. Most want to jump straight to the fun stuff and skip the real foundation work.
I don't know that I would teach classes the exact same way for true new people as I would for more experienced people. I have found myself working more toward following a lot of what Silvia does on her speed dvd, but I'm not sure it would be the way to start people who don't already know enough to keep it together while at speed. She teaches speed from the get go, but most new people couldn't do the recall to heels, or crosses at speed right away because it is hard enough to figure out what to do with your own body without having to worry about keeping up with a dog, or pushing a dog to go. Most people new to the sport would need it broken down to be able to get through the thought process of what they are doing... I think it could be counterproductive to teach them at speed and have them confused thus confusing their dog. I can remember spending a lot of time 'but which foot should I be turning with?', and I couldn't have done that at speed right away. I would almost have to break up classes for past agility competitors and true newbies with the experienced ones who already know what to do with their body starting more with adding speed right away.
I would want to teach distance to all handlers from the get go as there is plenty that can be done outside of real agility to start teaching distance so that the skills are there when they are needed. You can teach it to puppies with toys and/or food and/or targeting and a cone or other object. I feel distance can be a useful skill for any team. Most of us really can't outrun our dogs, and even with the ones that seem the same speed as the handler, it would often be useful for a handler to be able to get that dog off their side so they can get where they need to be. I also feel distance is a great confidence builder. It is also useful to have when it comes time to start putting courses together. I can think of countless people who complain they can't front cross because their dog is too fast, or because they can't get where they need to be with their dog glued to their side. With distance, that becomes less of an issue.
Of course, I think ANY of the sends and ANY distance can be beneficial to having in conjunction with or before crosses because it makes it much easier to do them successfully. I much prefer a dog I can forward send with for a rear cross as opposed to one who is stuck at my side and I have to do an awkward cross with. I would much rather have a dog I can send out on a pinwheel so I can go ahead and do my front cross as opposed to having to force a cross.
Go on is useful to have as it is nice to have a dog who can go ahead and go on when your motion is continuing forward and you need to take a long straight line of jumps... very common in AKC in novice jumpers.
I'm not sure this is my most coherent post... There are a lot of thoughts here. I'm sure if I sat down and thought about it longer I could come up with plenty more things to work on in a true foundations class.

 

[hrcarol]

As a true beginner, I'm glad to see that we are learning a lot of these skills. I haven't learned all the lingo yet though. What is cik/cap? and see wood run? And what do you mean by teaching distance?
I don't mind working on all the foundation skills but, sometimes I don't really understand how these skills are used. For example: We are doing target training but, when you watch a Agility Competition you don't see targets laying all over the course. And we learned hand touches but, why? There is so much to learn. When you watch and Agility Competition you have no idea how much training goes into it. I really do enjoy it though. Thank goodness I have a smart dog that learns fast!

 

[corbinam]

As a true beginner, I'm glad to see that we are learning a lot of these skills. I haven't learned all the lingo yet though. What is cik/cap? and see wood run? And what do you mean by teaching distance?
I don't mind working on all the foundation skills but, sometimes I don't really understand how these skills are used. For example: We are doing target training but, when you watch a Agility Competition you don't see targets laying all over the course. And we learned hand touches but, why? There is so much to learn. When you watch and Agility Competition you have no idea how much training goes into it. I really do enjoy it though. Thank goodness I have a smart dog that learns fast!

Cik cap: Terms coined by Silvia Trkman that tell her dogs to collect (get their feet under them, jump shorter) and turn a certain way. I would say that these probably aren't being taught in the majority of training clubs around the U.S. I train with a well-known trainer, and she doesn't teach these skill at any level. I have just started to work on them by myself, and see their value. But, I wouldn't let that deter me from training somewhere if it's not being taught because it is somewhat new, and not everyone is "sold" on them being crucial. Here is some information from Silvia.

Target Training: Targets help a young dog learn to work away from you. They learn to see ahead--what patterns should they learn? What should they be able to accomplish independently? They can learn that they don't have to stay glued to your side to be rewarded, and this is very handy because our dogs run faster than us, and we can't always be right with them. A mistake that a lot of green trainers make is to teach their dog (inadvertently) to focus too much on the handler. You'll find dogs that stare at the handler's hands and not the obstacles ahead, etc...

Distance is similar to the idea of target training. It means that the dog is able to work away from you--either forward (ahead of you) or laterally. This skill is helpful on a course, especially if you can't keep up with your dog, and is necessary for certain games like USDAA's Gamblers. Personally, I don't think you need to teach distance, just independence and responsibility (and distance comes from that)...but that's just a difference in perspective.

Hand touches help the dog to learn to focus on you. Hands are some of our biggest resources on course. The dog needs to learn to see changes in hand gestures. Most dogs know this innately, but feeding from hands, targeting hands, and teaching crosses on the flat help the dog to concentrate on what the hands are doing. Think of it sort of as the opposite of target training. The dog needs to learn both to stay with the handler (and watch for cues) as well as drive ahead and work away.

 

[k9kreationz]

I gotta say, this is interesting. We taught our dogs RC w/o movement (to start with). So they'd learn to move their head as soon as you pass their tail. I never had to teach a send to get a RC, in fact, none of us needed that. On the flat or with obstacles. Now, I'm not saying they were 100% perfect, because I know many of times it was my own issue, not Koji's.

I guess, beginner class is a question itself. IMHO, for the people that KNOW they want to compete, I'd stick to the very basics. Wobble boards, target training, one jump drills, early contact training (i.e. if you did the Sanders A-frame box method, you'd start with the box), but the dogs should see NO CONTACTS!!!

I wish more training centers would have fun agility and competition agility classes from the get go. That way, those that just wanna have fun, learn to have fun and who cares about all this FC/RC stuff. Those that want to compete, great. And if someone changes their mind, they go to Foundations.

Just my two cents....since I see how lacking Koji is in foundation because we blew through it all.

 

[ortegah]

I'm assuming RC in this thread means rear cross instead of running contact? We need a different acronym for each

In our basics classes we've always done tunnel work, back chaining contact work, very low jump work and just try to keep things fun and simple. As for heeling, wraps, hand touches, etc. that's assigned as homework. Our instructor would show us how to do it and then say, "Go home and do these every night for 5 minutes." Typically within 2 weeks each person had their dog doing these simple things with no problem. The typical new handler doesn't have all the equipment at home, so class time is the time to learn equipment. Anyone can teach their dog hand touches and stuff at home, so why waste time in class on it?

Just my opinion and all

Edited to add: as for crosses, most of the new people I've seen in my years are totally blown away and confused by front crosses and rear crosses so that kind of thing isn't introduced until later on.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

I completely agree with Cheryl, Ashley and Stacey...
In my experience in the beginning all you want to do is blast over obstacles because in our own limited vision we beginners think those will be the dog's toughest hurdles, so to speak.. then we find out after a bit of experience that this is baloney, because dogs learn obstacles much faster than to stay with you OR to go away from you or to be independent..

Because you have trained them too much value for either sticking to your side and every move only (and slowing them down) OR taught them to be so obstacle focused they make up their own course always rewarding themselves, LOL

I am forever grateful for my instructor who has made me stay away from big contact equipment for a year, lol... Until Toffee is ready to do the behaviour I want at the end zone he is not learning them! My instructor says power through the equipment only, no walking the dog walk, no slowing the dog down with wait wait wait, if they know their job they will want to get to that endzone and target (I want do 2o2o) because we have built all this value for it... and in the meantime we teach wobbleboard, contact trainer, planks on low milkcrates etc.. to teach the dog to ONLY run on these contact equipment, build muscle memory so dogs get confidence and speed