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Is “time” related to progress?
Time spent at a training project isn’t in direct correlation with progress. I hear it from clients all of the time: “I’ve been doing this since he was a puppy, he should know this!” or, “I’ve been doing this for many months, he should know this by now!”, or something...
Tips for Your Training Plans: Record Keeping
If you struggle with record keeping or coming up with plans, I suggest breaking the behavior into very small pieces and focusing on one piece at a time, every time you train, for one month. In one month, the behavior will become a habit, making it that much easier to...
Consistency within a Handling System… The Big Picture
I want to talk about Handling Systems for just a second. I don't want to hash out which is better or which is easier for the dog or for the handler. In fact, I don't want to call it a handling system. I want to call it a Cueing System. Instead of talking about how...
The Pitfalls of Cue Escalation
What is cue escalation? This is what happens when a handler gives a dog a cue, and the dog responds with the “wrong behavior", and when the handler reattempts to give the cue, the cue has changed. It has gotten bigger, louder, slower, faster, more obvious, etc. The...
We Need to Take Care of Our Human Learners, too.
My least favorite thing about agility is that the standard practice is to teach the humans and the canines at the same time. Not only is this incredibly inefficient, it can be frustrating for all involved: instructor, handler, & dog. It’s time to change this...
Loopy Training for Agility
When we are setting up a training session, we should be paying close attention to the following details: Antecedent: how are we going to arrange the conditions so that the desired behavior is most likely to occur? Behavior: what behavior are we looking for from the...
About
Megan Foster
FOUNDER, SYNERGY DOG SPORTS
I have been training in agility nearly my entire life. With seventeen years of experience, I have had the opportunities to work with hundreds of dogs within a large variety of breeds.
I began my agility journey with an American Eskimo and a Westie. In 1999, I began competing with my first Shetland Sheepdog, Buddy. Buddy’s lesson to me was about connection and bond. While running him, I knew that agility was what I was meant to do.
