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Agility Seminar

Vickie

By Vickie,
in Training / Obedience / Dog Sports

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Vickie

Vickie

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I'm not sure if I have posted this or not...

Rhonda Carter arrives from the US next week & will be running 2 Agility Seminars.

Sydney

Dec 9-10 2006

Blacktown Canine Grounds

Melbourne

Dec 16-17 2006

Action Dogs Myuna Farm, indoors

Rhonda is one of the top trainers & competitors in the US right now. She won the 22" USDAA Grand Prix recently and has represented the US & competed very successfully at the World Cup twice now.

Apart from the fact that she is obviously an enormous success with her own dogs, I have heard & read that she is an outstanding teacher as well and her seminars are very popular in the US.

I'm just wondering if anyone is interested in auditing?

The working spots are sold, but there are auditor spots available. I do every seminar I can & thoroughly recommend it to anyone currently training a dog or thinking about it in the future. There will be a variety of dogs attending with a variety of styles. It is a great opportunity to take notes, ask questions & walk courses. It is also a valuable tool for those who instruct, agility or otherwise.

I always come away from agility seminars so motivated. These people really know how to motivate a dog & more importantly know how to teach you to do it. To achieve this level of success requires consistency in training beyond what the average trainer is currently doing.

Link with details is here:

http://mywebsite.bigpond.com/pep-lill/1Rhonda.html

if you are interested.

Vickie.

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Vickie

Vickie

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any infor on what to expect on which day?

I could probably attend one of the two days, but would like to know what is going to be covered on each day.

Honestly I don't know. From the 6 seminars from international presenters I have done already, I can tell you this:

Day One, there is usually an Open/Masters level course set up with a variety of specific challenges. Everyone walks the course and then runs it. After we run it, the instructors usually assesses what they are dealing with, asks us why we did certain things and gives a general talk about how the course was handled & things we will work on for the rest of the day. They course is then broken into segments & we pend the rest of the day learning the skills required to get through each segment. If people are having trouble with a certain thing, they will often deviate and set up some drills to show us how to build the skills up.

Day Two is often a similar format and will usually incorporate some of the skills that were learnt on Day One.

Auditors are included in all of this as they walk the course and are fully involved in the discussions on each topic.

Inevitably, there is always a discussion/exercise on motivation, body language, consistency, contacts, obstacle discrimination, distance, setting line and leadouts on one or both days.

I can't guarantee that Rhonda will follow this format...I don't know. To be honest, I don't much care. I have been doing agility for a number of years now and always leave a seminar armed with a thousand tips, things to work on & a heap of motivation. So to me it doesn't much matter what is taught because it is valuable to me.

Even if I already know a concept that is taught, I can improve/perfect it, I can learn a new way to teach it to students, it can reinforce the value of it for me, I can learn a new way/situation to apply it etc.

These people make a living out of teaching agility and they all follow the same basic concepts, which I guess is why they are the best.

Sorry Myszka :thumbsup: Maybe not the answer you were expecting but I hope the above makes sense. I would always recommend Day One, if you can only do one day.

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Vickie

Vickie

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I think the course is only complex because it incorporates a number of things. So where you might find just 1-2 challenges in a normal course, these ones have 5-6. They really need to do that to introduce the concepts. They are certainly not unachievable, they are based on foundation skills, but it can appear daunting all aty once at the beginning of the day.

It's up to you...it is interesting though that when we run the course again at the end of the day, it is often the less experienced teams that run it the best. I think there are 2 reasons for this...1 is that the more experienced teams can have some bad habits to break & 2 is that less experienced people are like an open book, they can just learn! With more experience you question & compare eveything to what you have done before. JMO.

I only go to a seminar to learn. I don't need to go there to talk about what I already know, that is not what I am there for. It's what I don't know that interests me.

I love going when I have a pup and will certainly be using this one to come up with & revise my plans for Shine (6 mths). I always come away with a very defined plan for starting that pup. Like I said before, it's not about what to fix, but how to do it correctly in the first place.

So yes, I think it is valuable for anyone. I think if more people did seminars in the early stages, rather than waiting till they are "serious" or competing, they would have a lot more success with their dogs.

Edited by Vickie
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sidoney

sidoney

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As an auditor you won't need to run your dog anyway and there are always ideas and concepts accessible to novices at these seminars. And you get tremendously motivated. Plus you get to see that you don't need to be an expert to attend them, there are always people at various places in their training. As Vickie said, always good to see the best early on, then you won't get led astray in your early stage training when otherwise you may not realise that you should or should not be doing something.

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sidoney

sidoney

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I'm planning to, for at least as much as I can manage, as I've been looking forward to this for ages ... I will have to cadge a lift from someone as I can't drive post op for a while. I'll just pay day by day and see how I go.

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sidoney

sidoney

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I don't know about pay on the day. I'm hoping that I'll be able to be flexible coz of my circumstances but will have to find out. I would not think of just turning up. I'll be contacting Deb to check. Times are usually around 8.30 or 9 but contact Deb about the seminar and you'll get all the info.

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Vickie

Vickie

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Cool! It's going to be a great weekend.

I just read on the agility list that there is someone with a working spot who may not be able to use it, so there may be a 1 or 2 day working spot available in Sydney. PM me for contact details if you are interested.

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Vickie

Vickie

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Hi FreyaJade,

the only difference between working & audit is that you take a dog in a working spot & run the courses.

There will be a variety of people auditing, some very experienced handlers, some instructors and some more novice.

Some people actually prefer to audit as they feel they can take more in without having to worry about their dog.

It'd be great to have you there. Rhonda has a wealth of knowledge. I think sometimes I learn as much about dog training in general and about teaching people as I do about agility at seminars.

Edited by Vickie
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