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Relaxed AND Ready: Goals for my Agility Dog
I recently re-posted a story about my puppy, Sprint, and her inability to be within 100 feet of a basketball court because the movement and sound of the game caused an over-reaction of staring, getting stuck, and vocalizing. This state, where she can't hear or respond...
Essential Skills vs Foundation Skills: What are they and why do they matter?
In my coaching program, Fostering Excellence in Agility, content is broken down into bite sized pieces so that planning your training becomes less overwhelming, and those bite sized pieces are categorized in a way that is easy to navigate. Essential Skills and...
Timing in Agility
The secret to staying ahead is good timing 🙂 I think of timing as a loop. Good timing is all about predicting behavior, and I do think this gets lost in agility. We are so often waiting to see something specific, but if we wait until we see it, we will be too late in...
Before You Start: Foundation Behaviors for Weave Pole Training
Let's talk about all the different skills that make weave pole training MUCH easier: Reinforcer Skills Having clear cues for how and where the reward will be delivered helps the dog mentally let go of where the reward is before they start, making it easier for them to...
Reducing & Delaying Reinforcement
I just wrapped up my workshop, Houston, Weave Got a Problem* and a common theme with the working spots and the follow-up questions was getting the same weave pole performance from training to trialing. Can you elaborate a little more about rate of reinforcement in...
The Habit You Need for Goal Getting
It's a new year, so everyone is talking about goal setting. I'm not into "new year new you" type goals. I'm constantly working on a new version of myself, so I don't contain these transformations to the beginning of the year only 😉 On December 30th, I was a part of...
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.
