Hi I take Luna to agility (I hope I am posting this in the right place) however I'm trying to train a "send away. She's got a good recall and from her obedience training she comes back to my right hand nicely. However with agility its trying to get her to follow my hand at a distance without coming back to me which is an issue. If I try to indicate for her to go over a jump or through a tunnel, unless the obstacle is directly in front of her, she'll often come back to me. We are both very new to agility (only a few lessons in) so it is me making the handling mistakes rather than her! The instructor has said to work on sending her away from me and get her responding to my left hand more. Is there a way I can teach her a reverse recall i.e. send her away from me rather than come back to me? Thanks
Hi there. Yes, there are several methods of doing this. The easiest way is by using a target post, mat or place board. You first teach your dog to target this object with their noise or feet and then gradually build up the distance between you and the object. For agility purposes, you can also teach your dog to wrap the object (go around it - in both directions). The easiest way to start this is by using a lure and, gradually, increasing distance between yourself and the object (post/tree/fence) that you want your dog to wrap.
Hi. We do agility weekly. It took quite a while before she understood that she needed to keep going and listen to my voice commands without turning around to look at me. We’ve been doing agility for about 2.5 years now and it’s only been in the last 6 months that she will run a course without me running at least part of the way with her. We have had to have several down periods due to injury (usually me) hence why it has taken so long. I struggle to keep up with her a she is so fast and because I can’t run very much with my spinal injuries. We are doing a masterclass on ‘working on’ in a few weeks. Maybe you can see if your instructor does something similar. The other thing you can do is after she has done the first jump call out ‘over’ (or whatever your command is for jump over the next jump) and throw a ball over that jump at the same time so she has something to aim for.
Hi Naya Thanks for your advice. When she goes over a jump I say over but my instructor said I don't need to say it because if the jump is in front of the dog, they will instinctively jump - I still say it though as it reinforces the behaviour. I use a ball but it's only useful if the instructor is holding it at the other end of the course/obstacle otherwise she is more focused on it than on what is in front of her. I don't think we have a working on session coming up but I will definitely ask. At the moment I am working on her following my left arm over a jump and around a cone. We've had some success so far but she will turn around to watch me sometimes or go towards the cone then come back so I assume she is more focused on the cheese in my left hand. She certainly won't do it without food just yet but then again she's a stubborn foody like me!! We've been doing agility for about 8 weeks now and we both love it. She's happy with the different obstacles (tunnels, jumps, long jump) we have tried so far. The main thing is getting her to focus on my left arm/hand movements when I'm guiding her rather than her running back to me.
