Begin With the End in Mind

I have been competing with Jefferson in dog agility now for a little over a year.  At first, we attended as many classes as we could, and eagerly performed the courses and exercises that were set-up for all the participants.  But, more trials and more experience led me to begin to learn how to identify the specific skills I needed to improve Team J-Dawg. As a result, I develop my own training goals. 

Gone are the days when I “go to the field” and let Jefferson just run around hootie wild, ears flopping and taking random obstacles.  As Stephen Covey’s quote aptly advises, "Begin with the end in mind."  I review our tapes from trials or performances from a recent run-thru and identify a specific skill that we need to polish in order to be successful.  Much like a leadership exercise from my grad school days (and from training to complete half-marathons!), I develop SMART Goals for dog agility.  SMART is an acronym for:                                     Specific  Measurable Attainable  Realistic Timely

This type of goal-setting really helps achieve an objective.  For example, at a recent exercise set-up by my friend, I reviewed the course map and set my own goals for our practice. There were plenty to choose from:  wraps, threadles, weave-pole entries, dogwalk performance, teeter, directionals, running the line, obstacle discrimination, front cross, rear cross, etc.  Rather than let myself feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the exercise, I chose to focus my practice on a few of these items:  weave pole entrance, running dog walk and front crosses.  These are skills that will help strengthen our performance in the upcoming spring trials.  Here is a copy of the great exercise - thanks for sharing, Agility Nerd:-)
 

Since I had set our personal Team J-Dawg training goal, I was more focused and better able to handle the obstacles and accomplish our individual goals.  I worked hard on getting the front cross before the weave poles - after obstacle 3 and made a fast dash to front cross at the end of the running dogwalk - after obstacle 7.  Our team was successful and I was very happy with our progress.  While the other handlers walked the 2nd half (I didn't walk it more than 3 times), I made use of my time by working on a running dogwalk contact in the practice field.  Remember, my training goal for the exercise involved running contacts and getting my front crosses.  So, whenever we ran the 2nd half of the course - obstacles 12- 21 - I still worked on the front cross.  The hardest front cross to execute was after 14 then again after 17.  At one point, I became lost and just handled Jefferson around the closest jump I could find!  We finally were successful (meaning I didn't completely forget where I was going!) and he was accepting of my front cross.  Another huge step of progress was that Jefferson did not shut down and kept on going.  Yay!!   

I am glad that I have learned to set my personal training goals.  It helps me feel more relaxed and not so stressed when handling a complex exercise.  We are still a work in progress...but bring on the front crosses!!

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."  -Yogi Berra