[00:00:00] If you train, compete, or teach dog agility, you're in the right place. Hey there, I'm Megan Foster, creator of Fostering Excellence and Agility. Join me as I share key insights on all things related to dog agility and help find your team's path to excellence and unlock your best year yet. Let's get started. This is episode 43 and today I want to go through how I walk the agility course and plan my strategy and kind of the technical and mental skills that go into the entire process. So I think it happens for me in five phases. The first one is to find the numbers or just learn the course pattern.
You can do this Either by looking at the map, or watching the course be built, or watching the judge tweak it, or wheel it, or watching the course builders number [00:01:00] it. But I would really like to go into the walkthrough already knowing point A to point B to point C. I don't want to have to do an easter egg hunt and find the numbers during my precious 8 or 10 minutes of walkthrough time.
So, step number one is to learn the course. I personally want to be able to step into the ring for the course walkthrough and be able to kind of point to the obstacles in the correct order or trace the dog's path in the correct order so that, again, I'm not having to spend any time wondering where's number seven.
A huge thing that this solves is that I watch a lot of people start to plan their handling before they know where the course goes. So they start to put a front cross between 5 and 6, and then they realize that they don't know where 7 [00:02:00] is. But they've already practiced that front cross between 5 and 6, and that is probably going to stick into their brain and be hard for them to let go of.
So if something unexpected happens, or either the dog or the handler gets distracted, It's more likely that they're going to default to what they walked first, and that might not be what they want to be executing. Part two is, since I'm starting my walkthrough already knowing what the correct path is, I get to focus primarily on the dog's perspective right from the beginning.
So this is where I am walking the dog's path. And taking mental notes of everything they might see, any changes to their line that I need to make, if there are options for which way to turn, I'm looking at both and kind of deciding which is going to be best for this course overall [00:03:00] and for my dog. So I'm taking in as much information about the course from their perspective as I can, because that's going to help me plan a better strategy.
And these are just little mental notes so that when I do get to the next part of planning my positions, I already know what the dog needs from me so then I can just choose the positions that allow me to give the dog what they need to be able to stay on the correct course. Which means the third step is choosing where I need to be on the course.
I don't choose my handling techniques or strategies until I understand where I'm needed. And then later, my handling techniques and strategies get me from place to place on course. But that way I'm always focused on where I need to be [00:04:00] and when I need to be there. So I choose my positions using, uh, what my students have coined the start line method that's outlined in all of my programs.
But essentially, I'm thinking about each obstacle or each sequence of obstacles as the beginning of the course, and asking myself, where would I be if I could lead out? So then I'm always choosing. The position that makes that couple of obstacles or sequence very easy for the dog. Then, as I choose those positions, I have dots in which I can connect.
And that is how I choose my handling strategy. Whatever handling maneuver or technique can get me from one dot to the next. is likely the best option. So once I've chosen my positions, and then connected my [00:05:00] dots via a handling strategy, I can make any adjustments because as I'm walking it and choosing, I'm also visualizing for the reality of this strategy.
So if, during my visualization, I'm pretty sure I can't get to where I need to be. Or I'm not very confident that my dog has the skill required so that I can get to where I need to be. I need to adjust my dots and reconnect them in a different way. Then I'm rehearsing the run as closely as I can to what will happen.
The fourth stage is just rehearsal. I'm trying to Walk that course in the exact same way. I'll be running that course. I'm just slowing it down, so I'm visualizing where my dog is at all times and checking that I'm getting into those positions that I am needed at the right time, and rehearsing this run as [00:06:00] many times as I can.
At least three really good clean walkthroughs is really, really helpful. And then I continue the walkthrough in my mind, even after I've left the ring, visualizing it as I go. Then the final step in my walkthrough phase is, of course, to run the course and then review the video. I've talked about in previous episodes.
Um, what I do immediately after a run to kind of move on and kind of get some ideas and thoughts out of my mind. I do that while I'm cooling the dog down. And then I also schedule a time with myself to go over the video. So that might not happen until the Monday after the competition. But it does happen at some point because I need to know how close my walkthrough was [00:07:00] to the run.
And so I really I need that data so that in the future I can choose positions differently and hopefully choose the best strategy right away. Um, and this is going to produce more clear runs. The more accurate our predictions can be during the walkthrough and the more accurate our rehearsals can be in the walkthrough, the more accurate our runs will be when we actually have the dog.
So this is something that I like to practice. At home and in training, and it's a lot easier in training to film both the walkthrough and the run. So then you can compare the two and, and really collect some great data on, again, how closely you're able to predict and execute in your walkthrough to what actually happens in the competition.
So those are the five phases of walking the course.
Thanks for listening. If [00:08:00] you enjoyed this episode, I really appreciate some feedback. You can leave me a review, engage on social media, or share this with a friend. I hope you'll be back to listen to my next episode. In the meantime, you can find all of my offers on my website, fxagility. com. Happy training.
