It is indeed the same discussion. Glad you managed to explain it a whole lot better than I did!

Grtz,
julie (from the small brown one, and thé Hasse )

I’m reading your blog for a while now and really enjoy it! This is the first time I reply. I suppose I’m following the same discussion as Julie is and it is really funny, yes! For me it is a matter of “training dogs” versus “trying to fix everything with handling”. You teach your dogs “agility excercises”, in Belgium (where the discussion is ongoing)), people focus on handling and running and to my point of view do not “train” their dogs well enough. Performance on contacts and weaves are still depending on the position of the handler. That’s why it is so important not to lose contact! The dogs can not complete an obstacle without the handler being in the correct position. Handlers still tend to look for “excuses”. “Oh but you turned away after the contact, that’s why the dog missed”. Must sound like old school to you! My husband and I are turning away from this. Our youngest dog, Nimble, knows what a contact means, indepedently of where we are, or what we do. She knows that a weave only ends when she passed the last pole. We still have a lot of work on jumps though, she is still to sensitive to our handling, and also on proofing the weaves even more. But at least we “see” the work. That’s something we miss in a lot of handlers overhere. They do not seem to be ‘open’ for changes and improvements.
And then I read that you are still “open” for recommendations from other people. Amazing!

I believe focus and contact is always important but your focus can differ from ours. Because you KNOW your dogs will perform well on the obstacles so you can focus on your position to prepare the angle to the next obstacle. While Belgian handlers need to focus on their position AND the dog’s position on all obstacles. To me that’s an obvious disadvantage!

One thing that has struck me in watching European competition is how variable the handling is from one person to the next: I think I even saw one top-ranking competitor whom I SWEAR ran most of the course backwards!

Lots of multiple cueing as well, both verbal and physical, and much arm waving… or at weast that is how it seemed to me!