If your dog is presenting the wrong behaviour for that word, then that is what he thinks the trick for that word is.

For example, if you ask for a wait on the start line and they jiggle about looking like they might break at any moment and then they go before you are ready, that is what they think the trick is when sat in front of a jump. Just because they can understand wait when away from agility doesn’t mean they are being naughty once at training or a show.

Each word has a trick attached to it and each trick can be expanded upon.

UP can mean stand up on your hind legs. Depending on how the handler then uses their arms, it can mean stand up and now stretch your front legs out higher, or wave with one paw. The initial trick begins with the one word and then your physical cues get the dog to expand the trick.

On the start line, whether due to limited class time or nervous energy, you will, without knowing, expand on your wait command. Your arms will move, your voice will change, your nerves will communicate to your dog. Your dog will start to jiggle about and you will confirm this new trick by allowing the dog to move forward and take the equipment, thereby rewarding the new dimension to the word wait when asked for in front of equipment.

Are dogs deliberately naughty around the equipment?

I don’t believe they are. I believe they look to us for clear direction and commands and if we are consistent with what we want from each command and only reward that behaviour then they will only give the behaviour we want. Some dogs need more reminding than others and more input to achieve consistent results. Some dogs take years, others only months. It doesn’t matter which type you have, the important point is to recognise what your dog needs from you and be consistent with what you expect from them. For the rest of their life.

What should you do when a dog has expanded on a trick and changed the meaning of it?

I always find a new word for the original trick and start shaping the dog's behaviour to the new word. For example, stop, instead of wait, for start lines. Make sure that you never allow this new word and trick to fail by being inconsistent with the physical cues surrounding it.

Training In the Ring

How interesting the debate about training in the ring. Elimination and out. Judges' own rules.

Ok, here is how I see it.

In agility, equipment is put up in many different ways. One week we see one course, the following week we will see something completely different. Now, the saying is never work with children and animals. How true. Everything I train weekly will occasionally, or with Raz, mostly, be thrown out the ring (no pun intended!) because Raz is a living, breathing, free thinking individual. Like all dogs.

AND I am one of the lucky ones, with years of experience of running (and winning!) with advanced/grade 7 dogs in many finals. I am lucky because I have my own equipment. Yet with all this equipment and the time I spend on it, I am still not only surprised at some shows by the equipment patterns I see, but also by how my dog interprets it with me when we are both under pressure.

Dogs are not machines and neither are we. I certainly know that I run and think completely differently when I am in season! I also run differently when the children are annoying me or if the food van only serves fried food!

All these things make life interesting but they also make a partnership with your dog just a little bit trying at times.

I have been training agility here and abroad for nearly 19 years. It is simple for me and all the other top handlers and trainers, with multiple top dogs, to keep up the good work.

We use all ring time as training time.

Even when we go for it and try to win the class, we are training by reinforcing our commands as we go round with 'Yes!' 'Good!' 'Ok!' AND by allowing the dog to keep moving forward as each obstacle and path to it is performed correctly, according to the commands given (both verbally and through body language). In a bad round we will give the dogs a chance to show us something it can do well to get big praise from us, whether it be a held contact or the chance to try again with the weave entry it just missed, or to nail the pull through it didn’t quite listen to the first time. If we don’t, we leave with a confused dog who will try anything next time to stop this from happening, usually resulting in even more mad agility moments.

Dogs need consistency from you. If you say 'Stay!' and they don’t, you need to correct it or you will have problems. One missed correction leads to hours of unnecessary retraining. I should know I have been retraining people and dogs for years!