Tunnel and Chute

We are getting closer to our next trial, so I guess I better get all the obstacles out of the way :) Today we have the tunnel (also called an open tunnel) and the chute (also called a closed tunnel).

The tunnel is made of flexible spring-like core and a material pulled over it. Weighted anchors hold the two ends down in place.

This construction allows the tunnel to be bent in all kinds of directions. On the picture above, it is shaped like a flattened out S - there is a bend in the middle causing the dog to go a bit left and right, and coming out facing the same direction as it entered.
Another common setup is a C-shape. This one can differ from a fairly flat curve (like these parentheses), to a full 180-degree turn.

Dogs tend to either love or hate the tunnels, though it seems that the majority love them. Sometimes the initial introduction to the dark bent tunnel can be scary, but once they understand it, it can be hard keeping them away from running back and forth :)
When training the tunnel, usually it is collapsed to be very short at first, almost like a ring, so the dog can simply walk right through it. Then the length is slowly added on while the tunnel is kept straight. Once full length is achieved, curves are introduced as well.

The chute has a rigid tunnel-like entrance...

...with an attached sleeve-like soft material that the dog has to push open in order to get through.

It is very important that the chute material is straightened out before each run through it by a dog - nobody wants the furry ones getting tangled up in there! So at a trial there is always a volunteer sitting near by that runs over and straightens it out before each dog.
Even so, the chute does tend to get a bit tangled as the dogs run through, especially if they are going fast. Unfortunately I don't have any shot demonstrating this (I'll work on that next time), but I've seen dogs come out in all sorts of ways - sometime it even looks like they take a tumble and roll over themselves while inside :)
Some dogs find the idea of the chute pretty scary, but like with the regular tunnel, they usually get the hang of it quickly.
Similar to the tunnel, the chute is also trained fully rolled up at first, with length added slowly, and person holding the material open for the dog. As the dog gains confidence, the opening is made smaller and smaller, until the dog can push all the way through on its own.

For both of these obstacles, the dog must enter from the correct end and exit at the opposite end. If the dog enters the tunnel correctly, runs back and forth inside of it without coming out, and then exits correctly, it will not receive any faults, rather just lose time. However, if the dog runs in, turns around, and comes back out of the same end, it will get a refusal. A refusal is also given if the dog goes past the entrance without going in the tunnel. If the dog completes the tunnel backwards (in at exit, out at entrance), it will get a wrong course. Note that if the exit of the tunnel is farther than the entrance, and the dog does it backwards, it will get a wrong course and a refusal since it will have to go past the entrance in order to reach the back end.

Pause Table

Continuing with the equipment theme, and inspired by Bailey's woes, here's the next obstacle - the pause table.

The table is a raised square platform that the dog has to get up on and pause for 5 seconds.

The table surface is normally 36"x36" in size, give or take a couple of inches. Like the jumps, the height of the table is determined by the dog's height. There are only 3 table heights though: 8" for 4"/8"/12" dogs, 16" for 16"/20" dogs, and 24" for 24"/26" dogs.

To perform the obstacle correctly, the dog must jump up on the table, and either sit or lay down while the judge counts "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go". In USDAA the dogs always lay down, and in AKC the judge will select one or the other for the whole day. I've noticed that on weekend trials, one day will be a sit and the other a down.


If the dog passes the back side of the table (determined by the direction the dog should be coming from), it will get a refusal. Interestingly, one judge explained that once the dog breaks that plane, its approach changes, and what used to be the front become the back. So if the dog does a 360 around the table, it will get 2 refusals - it's confusing!
The judge will start the count when the dog assumes the correct position. If the dog breaks position, the judge will pause, and continue the count once the dog is back in position. The count doesn't start over and no faults are given for that, other than the obvious loss of time.
However, if the dog jumps up on the table and gets off before the judge says "Go", it will count as a table fault and the dog will have to get back on and restart the count from the beginning.
The handler may not touch the dog or the table at any time. Also, if the dog is anticipating the count and leaves right as the judge says "Go", it could earn a fault as well - it should be listening to the handler's release command, not the judge!


Several things make the table a difficult obstacle:
Large breeds tend to approach the table too fast and jump right off of it before they have the time to stop. Some of the taller dogs also have trouble laying down on the table because it's simply too small for them. Small dogs often confuse it with a jump or contact obstacle and do various silly things too.
The table's surface (as well as all other contact equipment surface) is made similar to sandpaper to provide good traction. Unfortunately, this causes many dogs to not want to sit or lay on it because their precious butt and belly are too dainty to be placed on sandpaper :)
Most importantly though, many dogs are so focused on go-go-going that it's very difficult for them to pause in the middle of the run and stay in the same position for 5 seconds. This is the whole point of the table though - the dog must show the ability to calm down and pause. A good solid table performance is great to have, these dogs will let you lead out easily (from the start line, or the table), and that gives a great advantage to the handler.

Tire and Broad Jump

I covered the regular jumps last time, and here are the last two kinds of jumps as promised :)

The tire jump is just what it sounds like - a hoop that resembles a tire, and the dog has to jump through.

The height at which the tire hangs depends on how tall the dog is, just like regular jumps. Unlike the regular jumps though, it's nearly impossible to knock this obstacle down, but the challenge here is for the dog to jump through the tire, and not just through the frame. Some large breeds also have trouble with the tire due to it's constrained size - the bigger the dog, the tighter the hoop feels for them.
This is a very common first obstacle on the course since it's very easy to put the electronic timer around the tire (you can see it on the picture above). A common mistake people make in this case is placing the dog too close to the tire, making it harder to jump through.

Last, but not least, we have the broad jump.

Unlike all other jumps, the broad jump focuses on the jump length rather than height. Here, the height of the dog determines the length of the jump, and it is twice longer than a regular jump would be high (so a dog that jumps 12" will have a 24" long broad jump, dogs jumping 22" have a 44" long broad jump). The jump is slightly raised towards the end, and the dog still has to catch some air to clear it. Stepping on the jump would earn a failure to perform, and is a very common problem with smaller dogs.

Stay tuned for other obstacles :)

Jumps

We don't have another trial coming for a while, so I figured I'd cover some obstacles in the mean time. The most common or all is the jump. The rule for getting over the jump obstacles is very simple - the dog must jump over it, without knocking any bars down. The bars sit on small ledges and can easily be knocked down with just a slight nudge, so ideally the dog should pass right over the jump without touching the bars at all. If a dog knocks a bar, it will immediately earn an NQ in the run because this is considered a serious fault (failure to perform).

There are many different kinds of jumps, so let's take a look at a single jump for starters:

As you can see, it's simply a horizontal bar that the dog has to jump over. The height of the bar depends on how tall the dog is (see the jump height post for a bit more info). Other than learning to pick up their feet and not knock bars, these jumps are pretty easy and a natural obstacle for most dogs.

Another kind of jump is a panel jump.

This one is very similar to the single jump, but has a solid wall-like panel going from the ground up to the jump bar. The solid wall can be a bit scary for the large breed dogs as they can't see what's on the other side that they will be leaping to. However, with just a bit of practice, most dogs have no problem with this jump. Smaller breed rarely notice any difference at all since their jumps are very low anyway.

For a slight challenge of jumping abilities, there are also double and triple jumps. I don't have a picture of a double handy, but here's a triple.

You can see that it has 3 bars in a row, slightly ascending. The dog had to clear all three bars, which usually requires a longer and curvier move than that for a single jump. The double is similar, except that is has only two bars and they are both at the same height rather than ascending. In USDAA, there is also a spread jump, which is similar to the double, except that the bars are set further apart and require a longer jump. Larger dogs rarely have trouble with these since they tend to have a long stride anyway, but many smaller breeds land too soon, knocking the last bar.

All of the above jumps can come with or without wings on them. Wings are decorative additions on each side of the jump.

They don't make much difference to the dog, but they are harder for handling since the handler can't run right next to the jump, but rather has to get around the wings. Wings come in many shapes and color, but the basic idea is the same for all.

There are two more kinds of jumps - broad and tire. While they still require a dog to jump, they are quite a bit different from these, and have different rules too. I think I'll dedicate another full post to those two next time.

The Agility Student

After writing the last post, I thought I'd revisit the timeline of Philip's Agility training. We've been training for about a year now, and have moved through 6 different classes.

February-March 2009: Beginner Agility course, just for fun.
This was the start of it all - a 5 week course, focusing on learning the very basics. We started with regular and panel jumps, tire, and open tunnel. We then added the table and the weave poles. Lastly, we worked on very low height A-frame, dog walk, and teeter. Nothing overly fancy in this class, just the very basic introduction to Agility.

May-October 2009: Basic intro course, focused on competition.
We started this class at a different place than the first one because I wanted to focus on competition. This was also a beginner class, but structured very differently from the other one. Here we focused on all the obstacles individually for accuracy, learned to put 2-3 obstacles together, and covered basic handler techniques - front and rear crosses, lead out, etc. Philip had to go back to basics on several things, but we stuck to the plan and went to class week after week.

October-November 2009: Transitional course, refining details.
After the very long beginner course, we were almost ready to move on. Before moving on to the next big class though, we attended a short transitional class. This was a quick class (30 minutes, once a week) with just 2-3 dogs total. It was basically individually focused on each dog to raise the A-frame to full height, and refine any other obstacle performance.

November-December 2009: Novice Agility.
This class, and all others after it, is structured more like trials - dogs run full on courses and we fix mistakes along the way. There are several levels of difficulty (just like in trials), and this was the lowest of them. I had to get used to remembering 10-15 obstacles per course, and running the whole thing, so that was a pretty steep learning curve for me. On courses, we had to stop and redo some parts often since Philip was still perfecting his skills, so lots of learning for him too.

January-March 2010: Another Novice Agility.
In December, our instructor said she thought we were ready to try a real trial. I decided to wait till after the holidays though, so I signed Philip up for his first trial in January. I got a new job at the same time, so had to switch to a different class time. The class we moved to was technically the same level as before, but in practice was a little more advanced, and with more serious student. All in all I still felt like we moved up in difficulty a bit.

April 2010 - Present: Excellent Agility.
Due to time constraints with work, I basically had to stick with the Novice class while Philip advanced, and couldn't attend an Open class. Since we have moved into Open level in trial though, we needed to start practicing harder courses. So earlier this week we moved to the Excellent class - a huge jump. You can read a bit more about that in my last post. The courses are much harder, and the dogs are much more advanced. It would have probably helped to go through Open level first, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? :)

So there you have it, you can see that we spent a long time as beginners, but I think it was well worth it in the end since we skipped through to trials and other fun pretty quickly once we moved out of the beginner course. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I'd definitely stick to the same general plan (though add in the Open class transition) - good solid basic knowledge is the key to running solid courses.