Backyard Mastery: Turning the "Wrong Way" now in Clean Run

10 Nov 2019Steve Schwarz

I’ve written several Backyard Dogs articles for Clean Run magazine with all sorts of handling challenges for small spaces. (Check out these blog posts about small space training/courses). In my new “Backyard Mastery” mini-series I’ve “branched out” and written a series of articles about techniques I’ve always used to get the most out of any training sequence. In my first article I talk about “Turning the Wrong Way”.

Once you’ve practiced and found the fastest path for your dog, use the same sequence and turn them the other way around one or more jumps. This simple change at a few jumps can drastically change your handling and really challenge your skills!

Check out my article in the October 2019 issue of Clean Run for sequences you can setup and run showing this approach in action:

Clean Run cover photo for October 2019
Clean Run October 2018

Here’s a blog post discussing this technique that I wrote in 2015.

If you only have room for four jumps, you can practice “turning the wrong way” on one or more jumps using a box jump layout Box/Hobday Box/Jump Box/Jump SquareDo It Yourself Box Jump SequencesDouble Box Sequence GeneratorJump Box DrillsDouble Box SequencesNew Jump Box Sequence GeneratorJump Box Drill GeneratorStar Box SequencesStar Box Sequence GeneratorThe Jump Box in Course Design.

If you create your own box jump sequence using my agilitycourses.com website you’ll also see all the dog’s paths and can see them animated!

Dog path #2Dog path #3Dog path #4Dog path #5Dog path #6Dog path #7Dog path #8

Please read my Clean Run article and give “Turning the Wrong Way” a try!

Top photo copyright Diane Lewis Photography used with permission.

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