I was at a Suzanne Clothier seminar in CT this last weekend and was speaking about agility with dog behaviorist and researcher Dr. Rudy de Meester from Belgium. He mentioned that he was concerned that people who compete in agility can push dogs harder than is good for the dog's health. He told me about one dog sport and one type of agility competition that were new to me.

The new (to me) dog sport is canine cross country or CaniX. It is basically skijoring without skis. The human and dog are connected by harnesses and run together over a course. Since it involves running with your dog it requires the human to be as fit as the dog. I wish I was in shape enough to consider it.

The other interesting thing he mentioned was an agility game played in Belgium (and maybe elsewhere in Europe) where the object of the game is not to beat the clock but to match the clock. The team that comes closest to matching the course time wins. The thing I love about this game is it can be played by all ages of dogs and competitors. Dr. de Meester liked it because it didn't encourage handlers to push their teammates past their abilities. Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of the organization or this game. So if any of my European readers could give me some more information I'd love to learn more about this game.

The more I do agility the more I enjoy the games. At first I was intimidated by the rules. But now I'm older and not afraid to screw up on course and get disqualified. It doesn't take long to develop some simple strategies and the planning of your run can be fun. Running the courses can also challenge how flexible you can be when things go wrong.

Also the local availability of CPE and, lately more, USDAA trials makes it easy and inexpensive to play more games and earn titles in the games. Some parts of the US also have a lot of NADAC which also features games. I think Bud Houston is bringing back JFF which will feature a lot of games too.

Are there any unusual agility games that you enjoy playing?

The AAC Canadian World Team, going to the IFCS World Agility Championship in Belgium in May, has put together 7 PDFs containing over 500 AAC courses and another PDF containing 80 practice drills as a fund raiser for their team.

I contributed my $ 20 CAD and got my electronic download tonight. After just a quick look it is certainly worth it if you have the space to setup a course for a class, a fun match or for your own training. The drills document has some setups for which the trainers have multiple sequences, for example the Susan Garrett setup has 15 different sequences. The only issue one might have is some of the practice sequences are full course size; but you could remove the unused obstacles to make them fit in a smaller space.

This was a great idea and I wish other teams would consider doing a similar thing; as you can never have too many courses to play with! So go on over to their website and download your own copy of the courses. I wish the Canadian competitors well at the Championships, but I will be rooting for Team USA and especially for the US team members with whom I've had the pleasure of training over the years.

Two weeks ago I posted two handling approaches for Bud Houston's two jump Minuet setup. After my post I got some good handling alternatives for the sequence from sharp AgilityNerd readers. So one morning this weekend before the frost fully melted and turned the yard back to mud, I setup up the video camera and took a crack at filming some of the alternatives.

To refresh your memory here is the course setup:

Bud's Two Jump Minuet

Here are four more handling approaches shown in the video. I name the approaches by the handling used to turn the dog between 2-3 and 4-1:

1. Front Crosses [FrontCross, LearningFrontCross] on the take off side of each jump.
2. Rear Crosses [RearCross, LearningRearCross] on the take off side of each jump (could also be viewed as a Post Turn [PostTurn, LearningPostTurn] followed by a Rear Cross. The wrap around the jump standard is then completed by performing a Front Cross across the length of the jump.
3. Blind Crosses on the take off side of each jump followed by a Front Cross to complete the jump wrap.
4. What I'd call a Single Sided Serpentine [Serpentine, SerpentineHandling] handling approach, where I stayed on one side of the jumps and brought Meeker over the jump into my back reaching hand as though we were handling a Serpentine. This was actually the first approach I filmed and you can see Meeker is launching long over the left jump because I'm giving him his turning cue too late.

So far we've got six different handling methods for this sequence. Of course you could mix up the crosses used in each sequence too to get even more permutations. Are there any more raw methods we've missed?

Updated with handling discussion - 14-Jan-08

This "How Would You Handle It" is a middle sequence of a longer course I ran at Anne Riba's Apex Agility this past summer. It is a pretty straightforward sequence with a couple handling options. Unlike the last course, in this course their are no handler restrictions to impede your handling options. The only restriction is you have to take the A Frame with the dog on your left (as that would have been the only option in the full course) as shown by the green handler labeled START in the diagram below.

Sequence 2

Obstacle Legend

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Agility pioneer Bud Houston posted some simple setups as part of a game idea with several interesting handling possibilities. He describes an agility game called the Minuet which is a timed game where the handler and dog repeat the sequence as many times as possible within a fixed time limit and get points for each complete sequence.

I had some time at ring rental when I recalled Bud's simplest sequence and thought I'd give it a quick try:

Bud's Two Jump Minuet

How would you handle this?

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With the kind permission of CPE judge Lisa Potts I am posting her courses from the trial at For Your Canine from the end of June. Lisa's courses presented honest challenges and had nice flow. I think both small and large dog handlers were happy running these courses. She made life very easy on us course builders too, the progression between levels and classes was smooth with nice nesting of obstacles. I think these would be good courses to setup for a fun run.

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I started writing this post back at the end of March and got distracted without finishing it (if I recall I was trying to fit it into my backyard and video tape it)...

There was an interesting discussion on the CleanRun Email List about handling the long Serpentine [Serpentine, SerpentineHandling] opening of a Jim Saunders Jumpers With Weaves course. The 80 foot long nearly straight layout of the first six jumps sounds like it was quite a challenge. It looked like the kind of sequence where a handler can easily get behind their dog and be out of position to direct their dog. Fortunately, there didn't appear to be any obvious off course traps. So the challenge to the handler remained deciding where to cross and actually being able to get there. It looks like it must have been a good course to run.

Here is Paula Orcutt's version of Jim Saunder's course:

Course Opening

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Monica Percival has posted the 2005 USDAA World Cynosport Games courses to the CleanRun email list files section. If you are an email group member you can click on this link.

The files are in Clean Run Course Designer format. You can download the free trial which converts to a free reader after 30 days here.

Marj has posted some training drills using a Double Box setup that she attributes to Greg Derrett. She has drills for all the major handling maneuvers:

• Front Crosses [FrontCross, LearningFrontCross] here
• Rear Crosses [RearCross, LearningRearCross] here
• Push Through here
• Pull Through here

I have to admit I had never given a name to the "Push Through" maneuver. To me it was a Jump Wrap followed by a Push over the next obstacle. But this naming is more descriptive and it's symmetry with the Pull Through is also appealing.

I'll have to give these a try. Thanks Marj!

Guy Blanke has posted the 2005 FCI World Championship courses on his website here. He has them posted as an image and in a 3D format he has developed.

Now that I have a little more space in which to practice, I'm looking forward to setting up interesting sections of these courses.