Go Rally Training Manual and the 2-minute trainer brochures

In the upcoming weeks I’m going to start creating the homework brochures, in 2-minute trainer format, for Go Rally Training Manual.

I gave a great deal of thought to what direction my rally training manual would take when it came to dealing with different organizations, venues, and signs. Ruthann McCaulley chose AKC and wrote her book covering skills needed sign-by-sign. One year after publication she added 200+ pages to cover new signs.

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to try to get a new edition published each time a venue changes its rules or adds new signs. When I started rally there were 2 venues (APDT and AKC) and now I believe there may be 4-5 venues (C-Wags, UKC, ASCA being new additions) offering rally. So linking my book to a venue and writing just to that venue is problematic.

I considered how we deal with this in agility and chose that as my method for Go Rally Training Manual.  Essentially, we don’t talk much about venue in agility training. We don’t start a class with “now we’re going to teach CPE weavepoles.”  We just teach weavepoles and students apply their skills to whatever venue they choose for trialing.

So Go Rally Training Manual has 8 chapters (designed for an 8-week class or, as I did last year, a 4-day camp) covering 30+ skills.

My goal is to create 2-minute training brochures to be used as companion documents for the training manual. Instructors using my training manual will have brochures to hand out as homework assignments, as follows:

chapter 1:  brochures on intro to heeling, left turns, right turns, jumping up cloase, jumping at a distance

chapter 2:  brochures on heeling off lead versus on lead, stay for walk away, stay for walk around jump, jumping front

chapter 3:  brochures on lateral shifting sit to the right, lateral shifting front

chapter 4:  brochures on paces and pace changes, positions and position changes, lateral shifting sit to the left

chapter 5:  brochures on automatic sit, moving down, moving stand, stay for walk around dog

chapter 6:  brochures on finish right and forward right, finish left and forward left

chapter 7:  brochures on around, front, and retrieving

chapter 8:  brochures on right pivot, left pivot, back-up 3 steps with dog in heel

That’s a lot of brochures but I believe instructors will file these with the lesson plan for that week and will, when a student needs a specific homework assignment, hand them a brochure addressing that training issue in a 2-minute training format.

I’ve had a lot of years’ experience giving out homework assignments. I’ve seen those eyes glaze over as you describe the homework.  I know two things — homework is more likely to get done if it is simple and short, and homework is more likely to get done if it’s on a handout.

Go Rally!

Tags: 2-Minute puppy training, basic dog obedience, Bud Houston, choose to heel, dog agility, dog performance sports, dogs in motion, Go Rally, Marsha Houston, puppy training, rally obedience, sport obedience