FREE video analyses for all of Daisy and Chispa’s runs together at the 2019 Agility World Championship held in Turku, Finland, September 2019!

Instructions for how to build your own international style PVC wing jumps. Also legal for AKC/USDAA and UKI competition.

For those of us involved in a team sport with our dogs, we serve not only as trainers, but as canine coaches too, and although it’s taken me several years to fully grasp the concept, I do believe that in order to achieve maximum success with our dogs as athletes, we must be flexible coaches, able to be the coach our dog needs us to be as his/her needs change, rather than expecting our dogs to conform constantly to our needs.

In my day to day life, do I view struggle as a sign of weakness? Or, do I view struggle as a challenge, as an opportunity for growth? In my day to day interactions with my dogs, how to I react when I bump up against something I don’t know, don’t understand, or struggle with?

Juno is my only girl dog. Those of you who know me know that although I love working with students that have female dogs just as much as those with male dogs, there’s just something about me that just likes boy dogs more. It’s the boy puppies in a litter I ooh and aah over, […]

Although I originally posted this on my personal website some time ago, the information is perennially relevant, so I thought I’d share here on the Classroom Blog, where posts of a more educational nature reside 🙂 There are a lot of online classrooms springing up here and there, and I think it will be interesting […]

Objective Getting great video feedback starts with submission of a great video! The following tips will help your long distance instructor give you the best feedback possible, whether that instructor is me, another instructor in my online classroom, or an instructor in another online classroom. Let’s get started! Dress Appropriately It may seem strange that […]

  Recently, I listened to an interview on the radio with a Psychology Professor named Jim Stigler at UCLA. He was talking about how he’d watched anxiously as a fourth grader in a Japanese math classroom struggled at the front of the class to solve a problem. Maybe you didn’t know this, but I used to […]

Happy Thanksgiving!   Here in the USA, this time of year is often referred to as the season of remembrance.  Thanksgiving and the upcoming holiday season helps to remind us to be thankful for the things we have, be mindful of the many who go without and to send positive thoughts to those who cannot be […]

Today was Chipper’s very first USDAA trial! As I listened to the very thoughtful and thorough briefing that the judge gave to the Starter’s Snooker competitors, I was surprised at the number of competitors that had no idea how the game was actually played! The judge was very patient explaining the rules – but oh, […]

The height of your dog determines what height they will need to jump. The measuring process can be a stressful one for some dogs and “real” measuring wickets are $250, whew! Here’s a simple version of a wicket that costs no more than $10 in materials. This project is very easy and can be adjusted depending on your needs.

Make your own set of weave poles for training This video will show you how to make your own set of 2×2 weave poles for training, which you’ll need for my WEAVE POLES 101 course. Quick, easy, and inexpensive, that’s the DIY way! Save your money for something more important, like…dog treats!

A while ago, Alen Marekovic from Croatia posted a recent training exercise on facebook.  His course was the base for the following exercises and I give him full credit for the design inspiration!  I immediately saw the 5 parallel jumps at the top as a unique challenge that would make for an interesting drill.  So, with a little […]

If you can’t get your body to do the correct things at the correct time, it’s not going to matter one tiny bit how perfect your timing is…the mechanics of the forward motion front cross.

Last week I posted this set-up for the Competition classes I teach in Kansas City. Normally, I will use set-ups I have had in class when I teach seminars.  This time, I decided to bring some game drills I used in recent seminars back to my classes since we had so much fun with them! […]

Last night I taught a workshop on handling serpentines, threadles and push-throughs.   The participants had already attended a class on the introduction of these skills, where we worked one or two skills at a time, so everybody was ready to be pushed a bit more! The drill I devised was a spin-off of the […]

Many of us have some amount of usable space to practice small exercises at home with our dogs.  Even with a number of indoor agility training facilities in our area, I can’t emphasize enough how supplementing your “formal” training time with practice at home is so important.  The more you can focus on small things […]

A great example of how what you think influences how you behave, and how a little tweak to your mental routine can change the outcome dramatically!

I really enjoyed all the “Fancy” classes this weekend presented by judge Leslie Bickel.  Casa de Canine offered both the MC Biathlon and individual classes over the last 3 days, so there were challenges a’plenty!  Today’s MC Standard course had a fun opening that led to multiple handling options: The initial decision the handler had to […]

I have had a great time with my Online Coursework Facebook group!  Every 2 weeks I post a set-up with 10 exercises, ranging in skill level so there is something for everybody, in addition to gambler and snooker challenges.  I usually share demo video focusing on a few sequences and handling options (not all of […]

I really enjoyed the set-up I designed for classes this week.  It offered a lot of opportunities for different challenges I used in all of my competition handling classes (from Beginning Comp to Extreme Agility). Here is the basic set-up: The first course I set for the Advanced Comp Class (the Beginning Comp class had […]

Written by guest blogger and student Diana Dickinson – you can visit her blog, which she posts on regularly, HERE. Every agility competitor I know worries about getting dehydrated when it’s hot. We spend all day at a trial, and it gets hot in the sun, or in the arena, and we drink lots of water […]

Hear Daisy’s thoughts and analyses for all nine of the courses she ran in Medellin, Colombia, at the 2016 Americas Y El Caribe competition in April of 2016. This 45 minute video is free for you to watch, along with the course maps!

It’s time to stop calling threadles threadles, and start calling them what they REALLY are…landing side approaches. Why is a change in vocabulary important? Read on!

Here’s the set up, course map, and analysis for the course that we ran in class at Clear Mind Agility the week of December 15, 2016. Enjoy!

Here’s the set up, course map, and analysis for the course that we ran in class at Clear Mind Agility last week of 2016. Enjoy!

Here’s the set up, course map, and analysis for the course that we ran in class at Clear Mind Agility last week. Enjoy!

Here’s the set up, course map, and analysis for the course that we ran in class at Clear Mind Agility this week. Enjoy!

The international JWW course run at Clear Mind Agility this past week.

Check out the course I ran for Valentine’s Day!

Some thoughts on disappointment, risk, reward, playing not to lose vs playing to win, and long odds.

Instructions for how to make your own Hillbilly Hydrotherapy tank. For less than $1000 you can have an underwater treadmill of sorts in your garage as well!

Some thoughts from Daisy on the two different types of goals, and why knowing the difference between the two can help guide your agility training.

What does it mean to ‘play to win’ vs ‘playing not to lose’ – and how does that impact your ability to achieve the types of performances you’re after with your dog? What does winning even MEAN?

Instructions for how to build your own international style PVC wing jumps. Also legal for AKC/USDAA and UKI competition.

FREE video analyses for all of Daisy and Chispa’s runs together at the 2019 Agility World Championship held in Turku, Finland, September 2019!

In this episode of the 10-Minute Trainer, I’d like to share with you a few of the short exercises that I use with my dogs to make sure that we’re both on the same page with our understanding of location cues.

In this episode of the 10-Minute Trainer, we’re going to spend our ten minutes working on an obstacle that is often overlooked….the table.

In this episode of the 10-Minute Trainer, we’re going to spend our ten minutes working on POST TURNS

In this episode of the 10-Minute Trainer, we’re going to have some fun with weave poles. I’m going to assume that your dog already knows how to weave, and that, in your 10-minutes today, you’d like to spend some time working on weave poles in a way that’s quick, fun, and productive! So, here are a couple of weaving games you can play, alone, or with a training partner.

In this episode of the 10-Minute Trainer, we’re going to have some fun with weave poles. I’m going to assume that your dog already knows how to weave, and that, in your 10-minutes today, you’d like to spend some time working on weave poles in a way that’s quick, fun, and productive! So, here are a couple of weaving games you can play, alone, or with a training partner.