Brooke Training Day

Brooke went on another Toni Dawkins training day at the weekend. It was indoors on loose rubber chippings so another new venue and surface to work on. She hasn't worked with different dogs for a while so that was also a good experience for her.

Toni was working on tight turns and accelerating out of them, really interesting stuff! It is nice to hear other trainers ideas as I don't believe in a 'one method suits all' approach to dog training. All stuff to put in your mental tool box! Watching people do the exercises, it is apparent that Toni's handling style works very well for people whose dogs are a hell of a lot faster than they are!! I love learning from and watching lots of the top trainers but many of the people I admire the most in the agility world have long legs and run like proper sprinters unlike me :) Matthew never had that problem with Brax but think he might with Brooke!

Here are a few videos for the workshop

Acceleration out of a turn - I love the way Brooke strides the grid!



Box work - she slips a little on the turn but still manages to bounce across the box



Sorry about the sun in this video although I couldn't complain as it was nice and warm! Brooke doing a short sequence including a 'grab turn' where you don't waste loads of time front crossing on your dogs line - it was definitely faster than a traditional front cross. (You can't tell from the video but the tunnel was a tricky angle from the 3rd jump) Grab turn meant you were ahead of your dog as it came over the last jump and already shaping the line to the tunnel more effectively.



Brooke is booked in to a Lucy Osbourne session in January for weaves and a Dave Munnings training day in Feb-what a lucky girly! :)