formal obed compromises agility?

[gmcwife1]

Originally Posted by Mikelia

I am just new to trialing in both venues but I think each one compliments the other. German shepherds were designed to excel at any activity presented to them. Eli and I are consecutively working on agility, obedience and nosework titles. Both agility and obedience teach body awareness. With ob it is close but very precise, I find that has transferred into better turns and wrapping in agility. And agility teaches them to love working the game with you, which transfers excitement into the boring game of ob.
And I don't think the dogs get confused at all. Eli knows the difference between agility obstacles, repetitive heeling and being let loose to search.
But ultimately, it is up to how you present each 'game' to the dog. Harsh training is going to confuse the dog, no matter which venue you are training in. I chose to do agility with him as we were losing his 'umph' with the obedience, and it worked out beautifully

We are hoping this will be our experience

Our daughter is training our pup (9 month old) in obedience and rally first and will then move to agility when she is old enough.

[JakodaCD OA]

actually I started doing competition obedience prior to agility, however, I ended up doing both at once, and trained left and right heeling positions .

I found having a good solid basic obedience complimented the agility.

However, as an example, my sister was a die hard obedience person when she transitioned to agility, it was VERy hard for her to work her dog off her right side. The dog was ok with it, my sister, the handler had a hard time with it..This was years ago, and she is now switched breeds (from lab to paps), and is now a die hard agility person Having a good trainer , she's got a couple of the top paps in agility right now.

[ponyfarm]

Originally Posted by wildo

I really dislike reading replies that start out with "Well, I don't do the thing your asking about, but I'll chime in anyway" but, well... I don't do obedience but I'll chime in anyway.

There are LOTS of people who do both, successfully, without issue. In many ways it is no different than a SchH dog doing therapy work. The dog is quite capable of figuring out what "game" it's playing- whether that be running really fast and jumping over stuff, or staying by my side sitting on command doing the most boring sport ever.

LOLOLOLOLO Thats all I can add!

[x11]

Originally Posted by Liesje

... (well she didn't really like blind crosses but was fine front and rear). ....

yr trainer lets you do them? i was always told no way.

[Liesje]

Yes she made everyone try all three types of crosses several times. First she would tell us what cross to do and then after we did all three we could pick which one to use once we ran a longer sequence.

[robk]

Originally Posted by wildo

I really dislike reading replies that start out with "Well, I don't do the thing your asking about, but I'll chime in anyway" but, well... I don't do obedience but I'll chime in anyway.

There are LOTS of people who do both, successfully, without issue. In many ways it is no different than a SchH dog doing therapy work. The dog is quite capable of figuring out what "game" it's playing- whether that be running really fast and jumping over stuff, or staying by my side sitting on command doing the most boring sport ever.

I laughed out loud at my desk at work when I read that. You must be talking about some other kind of obedience than IPO style ob that I think is pretty cool.. Have you seen any of Vislors videos?

[I_LOVE_MY_MIKKO]

Originally Posted by x11

yr trainer lets you do them? i was always told no way.

They are becoming more and more common! I use them a lot and my trainer has actually gone to a trainer to learn more about them and when to use them so she can teach them in class.

[GSDElsa]

I think as long as you balance out both sides you are fine. IMO a lot of the basic work for agility and some things in obedience are the same....perch work, targeting, paying attention to body cues............as long as you're smart about it and have both in mind I don't think there should be a problem.

[llombardo]

Originally Posted by x11

it is the dog responding instantly to yr body position/cues at speed around turns and choosing correctly from a variety of obstacles in its face i thought would be the bigger problem than getting sloppy in a sit or down.

IMO mess ups in agility are handler errors. The dog is working off the handlers ques and if the handler is too far one way or the other I could see the dog making the decision to go where they think is correct.

[wildo]

x11- like Mikko said, blind crosses are definitely becoming more common. Actually- my understanding is that they WERE common, but went out of style (my extrapolation here: perhaps they went out of style as Susan Garrett [who is adamantly against them] started winning more and more). They are now coming back in style- and wouldn't you know it- the people who are winning big agility competitions are using them. I don't think I'd want to train with someone who wouldn't let me experiment with different handling styles. Go look at all the threads I've started in the agility section about handling systems. The best (recent) advice I've gotten lately is to NOT be a slave to a system. Pick and choose what works for YOU.

RobK- Actually, I was referring to AKC obedience- specifically the CD and CDX title. I actually think that the AKC's Utility Dog title is pretty cool- articles, directed jumping, etc. That's neat. SchH obedience is pretty neat too with the aframe and panel jumps. And I think SchH obedience has the send away with the down at the end? That's REALLY neat in very fast Malinois that slide to a stop.

I suppose in a way that was kind of meant as an inside joke in case ponyfarm read it. She knows that I find obedience pretty boring. I'm glad that you guys got a laugh out of it anyway!