Agility Seminar with Stacy Peardot

Last week I attended three nights of agility seminars with Stacy Peardot (arranged by Deb Kelly of Blue Moon NSW and Tom Weir & Jody Bronovich) ... what a great start to the new year. Stacy is a pleasure to train with and so full of great advice for every handler and every dog, her handling skills are second to none and she teaches clearly and simply, easy for all to understand and apply.

A nice group of keen and focussed dog/handler teams attended - I took Ticket along. By the end of the three evenings Ticket and I were running some very complex courses and much faster than I would have imagined! Wow, what an awesome feeling ... the freedom of running with your dog as fast as you possibly can, without micromanaging or losing your mind!

It just proves that good handling skills will carry you a long way, along with correct evaluation when walking the course and deciding on the best path to take. There were very few bars down and the more we pushed and the more accurate and decisive we were, the keener and better the dogs performed.

Stacy made it clear that we should evaluate a course based on the BEST way to handle it, NOT to suit the dog and it's skills (or lack of) ... if we continually analyze courses based on our dogs inability to perform certain skills then we will never go that one step further to improve our training and handling.

Being consistent, clear and precise is essential in order to work your dog at top speed with accuracy and remember, that "off course" jump that you're worried about may be the distance challenge jump that you're worried about not getting next time - it's just how you look at it!

Stacy leaves me feeling very capable and motivated. Thank you Stacy for a great agility training experience once again! Come back soon!!!