Training Tuesday: Fun, Challenging Medium-Sized Practice Courses

Sequences and tips from AgilityNerd

This article was reprinted with permission from Steve Schwarz's AgilityNerd blog. 

I met some friends for a practice session and came up with a fun and challenging sequence based on the layout of the existing equipment. We wanted to work on a few things:

• Weave/tunnel discriminations
• Weave entrance/exits
• Serpentines (Serpentine Handling Techniques, Serpentine Sequence)
• Threadles (Mary Ellen Barry on Threadle Handling, Single Sided Threadle Handling, The Connection Between Threadles and Back Sides, Traditional Threadle Handling, Threadle Sequence)
• Blind crosses
• Layering weaves.

This layout/dimensions are from my faulty memory so always check equipment distances/locations for safety! You can always spread out the obstacles if you have more space: just some more running on your part!

If you don’t have an A Frame it should be easy to reuse that tunnel and modify the ending of the sequences.

60' x 70' Setup in Feet

18m x 21m Setup in Meters

Sequence #1

Here are some handling notes/challenges:

• Forward send 3-4 and blind cross the end of the waves.
• Blind cross between 3 and the weave entrance worked wonderfully to put dog on left and into the weaves (and not in the tunnel) if you can be in position.
• Send to tunnel 2. Can you run along the right side of the weaves (layering jumps 9/12 and 3/8/11/14) and get your cross before the weaves?
• Send to tunnel 2. Can you run along the left side of the weaves (layering the weaves) and get your dog in the weaves?
• Supporting the back side (Handling the Quad Back Side - Patrick Bucher Course/Video, The Connection Between Threadles and Back Sides, Back Side/Back Side Jump, Back Side of Jump Handling Combinations - Video) at 6 and being out of the dog’s way, as you converge on their line, to direct them to tunnel 7 caused some dropped bars.
• Threadle 8-9 was tough with the dogs blasting out of the tunnel and the short distance to jump 8.
• Push to back side to front cross (Learning the Front Cross - Video, Front Cross) at jump 11 to put the dog on right worked nicely.
• Definitely turn your dog right at jump 14 to give a safe approach to 15. It’s good practice for a rear cross (Learning the Rear Cross, Rear Cross) jump wrap or a Ketschker/Jaako/throw back.

Here are two more sequences for the same obstacle layout. I dreamt these up at home, so no promises on their difficulty!

Sequence #2

Sequence #3

I hope you’ll set these up and conquer the challenges!