Our January challenge is designed by Sara Pontoppidan, a Danish international level agility handler. This challenge consists of seven short sequences that you can use to test whether or not your dog really listens to your verbal cues.
The exercise
Topic: verbal cues and obstacle discrimination, distance work
After both my girls had puppies this summer, we have concentrated on rehabilitation with canicross, swimming, fitness and dog parkour. Both girls got into pretty good shape fast, so we were able to start agility training again. In the beginning I noticed that I need to work on their listening and obstacle discrimination skills. I could also see that the weaves, running contacts and staying at the startline without taking off too early needed a bit of work. So we have been working a lot on all of the things they both needed to be reminded about. In this exercise I wanted to test all those skills.
I have designed many small sequences to put everything together. The course is built up of them, having the same route (jump 1-2) with small changes on the way, just to see if the girls really listen to my verbal cues. I know for a fact that Gaia repeats what she has done the last time, so this kind of training is needed with her.
It is a long course, so I divided the course into smaller sections to secure my verbal cues on various obstacles. The sequences:
1-6
7-11
12-15
16-21
22-26
27-32
33-36
Have fun testing your dog’s skills :)
Get the course map
The course map and the exercise can be found in the AgiNotes app. If you don’t have an account yet, register for free. No time limit for the free version.