# newbie to agility and distance handling



## Guybrush (Apr 17, 2012)

Hi I am new to agility and after discussions with my trainer regarding my disability we have decided to start learning distance handling from the get go.

Does anyone have any information on distance handling?

Also how do I know when Kaylee is a good agility weight? She is currently 68 pounds, I can feel her spine easily, she has a well defined tummy tuck and I can feel her ribs easily. See photo from today.

I can't wait till our next training day.


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## Rainheart (Nov 28, 2010)

I will definitely be lurking on this thread... Beamer and I are also pretty new to agility and getting to that point of needing to work on that distance. Next agility trial is at the end of April! 
Beamer is a good 61-62 pounds last time he was weighed and looks fine now, I think. He isn't lean like my puppy, but his weight looks healthy.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

We run the FAST classes in agility, and like them the very best because of the distance work. We didn't start distance early, and I wish we had.
There are a few things that I would suggest about working distance.
First, remember that body language is very, very important to a dog. So if you are telling her to "GO" (as in over a jump that's far away), be sure your body is pointed in that direction, and use your hand to indicate to her what you want. If I want Tito to "GO" away from me I make a pushing motion with my hand. If I want him to come in toward me, I make a scooping toward me motion. Not sure if any of that makes sense the way I'm describing it.
Second, be sure that she's very solid on the names of the obstacles. I worked this with Tito to the point that I can stand pretty much halfway across the room and tell him what obstacle to go to. This is easily taught by selecting one obstacle at a time, doing it repeatedly, and giving it a name each time. After you think she knows the names of a few, try having her differentiate between them by having some obstacles near each other. For example, a tunnel right near the dog walk. Tell her to "Go tunnel" and see if she does. If not, she's not solid on the names yet and you need to back up. Of course, it's totally different when the dog is moving fast on the course, they tend to head to the next obstacle even though you are telling them to head to a different one. 
Again, though, remember your body language. If you are telling her to "Go tunnel" and are pointing at the dog walk, she will probably rely more on your body language than your words.
Totally critical that she understands at the very least GO and COME, and very helpful for her to understand "turn right" and "turn left". Also "get out" is useful, it tells the dog to keep going past an obstacle and go on to the next one. 
I use "go" and "come" in conjunction with the obstacle name. So it might be "go tunnel" which means head out toward the tunnel, or "come tire" which means come back toward me but jump through the tire on the way. A jump sequence might be something like...."Go jump, Go jump, get out, Go jump, turn left, come jump, come jump" which would send him over 2 jumps, past something he's supposed to ignore like maybe a tunnel off to the side, another jump, turn to his left, then come back over 2 jumps.
Clear as mud??

edit to add...I think the single most important thing is to break it down into really small pieces for the dog, be sure they are solid on each concept before trying to add anything.


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## Guybrush (Apr 17, 2012)

Thanks for the replys I am already learning 

Hotel4dogs you make perfect sense, Kaylee knows the words "go out" from DWD training and she knows one or two obstacle names (tunnel and over for jumps) but we will definatly practice with the names of the other obstacles.

Our obedience recall is brilliant (according to ccd judges) but its totally different to agility recall so that is another thing we are working on. I really have to work on rewarding her for coming to me but not sitting. We are using the word "here" for agility which means come to my side and we use "come" for obedience recalls. Are there any tips on that?

Thanks for all the help.


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## SwimDog (Sep 28, 2014)

Placement of reward!

If you have a reward you can toss ahead to where you need it you will find it's much easier to get distance work than when feeding from your hand.

Another compatible piece is teaching your dog to work while the reward toy (or a bowl with a few treats in it) is out. That means your dog needs to be able to move around and do tasks and not go for the food/toy until signaled.

The faster a dog is going, the easier it is to get great distance. Don't be afraid of speed.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I actually use "come" for both, he hasn't had a problem between obedience and agility. More on that below. The reason I didn't use "here" is it sounds too much like "heel" (I think) to a dog moving fast. Come doesn't really sound like any other word we use.
The reason I think he's had no issue between obedience and agility is because commands are only valid until another command is given. So for instance, if you tell a dog "sit....down" the sit command is only valid until the down command has been given. (I do those in rapid succession...sit-down-sit-down-sit-down, I call it doggie push ups, but I digress...). 
Same is true in agility. If you tell her "come tunnel" the "come" command is followed by the "tunnel" command, so while she is coming to you, she now must follow the second command instead and go through the tunnel. She will now await your next command, which might be "Go jump", which means go away, and take a jump. Make sense?
So working distance is really just stringing together a whole lot of commands. The more experienced the dog, the more commands you can expect to string together successfully. To you, Come Jump is one command, but to the dog, it's 2.


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