This Should Have A Title

But I can't think of one. Ah well.

So this is just a big rant- not even a rant, really. Just me venting, in a non-emotional way.

I know squat about fashion, but from what I imagine- and learn from TV, woo- someone starts wearing something that they think is innovative and everyone else copies it for one reason or another. Regardless of whether or not it "works" for them.

I've seen a lot of that lately with agility, and it's something I don't understand.

"All the rage" lately seems to running contacts and verbal directions. And I don't just mean a little "out" and "here" when it's needed. I mean a constant stream of "left left left LEFT" "right right right RIGHT" "BACK BACK". And it seems particularly popular in the masters rings at trials.

I don't quite get it. Okay, yes, I understand having a verbal on certain "maneuvers" could be handy, but when the dog clearly doesn't have a single clue what the heck they're being told to do, it's just annoying. If you can take out every single bit of movement from yourself, stand perfectly straight on to a jump, in the middle, and send your dog to do whatever it is you want them to do on that verbal only, brilliant. Go and wow everybody with your incredible training and handling at your next trial. But if the only reason you're doing it is because it's the "in" thing for agility, and your dog doesn't get it, why are you even bothering?

This is what's annoying me so much lately- people just going with what everyone else recommends and what everyone else is doing, regardless of what works for them and their dog. I will say it right now: I will never have verbals for every way imaginable that Charlie can take a jump. I don't see the point, I know it won't work for us, I know I have way more important things to devote time to training to. Charlie's always been a more body cue focused dog- that's what works for him. He follows my shoulders, and so long as I'm a deligent handler and put myself where I should be, he'll manage it. I can get him to tuck and take a jump tightly, or extend before jumping, all by the way I'm positioned before, as and after he take the obstacle. To add a verbal onto something he is already more than capable of doing to me defeats the whole purpose of running him. I don't want to be able to stand in the middle of the course, or back at the startline, or wherever, and send him running about just by barking out instructions to him. I want him to watch me, not just focus on everything else and flick an ear back occasionally to grab an instruction.

Maybe that's blown out of proportion, but after last Saturday at Logan, that's what it looked like. So many handlers- especially in masters- didn't shut up for one single second on course, and they were so busy looking ahead and yapping that they stopped handling and their dogs were just all over the place. And this is masters. I saw some shocking handling, from people who have been around for years and years and run oodles of different dogs, and yet on Saturday it just looked like they'd never set foot on a course at all.

So whether it was a work in progress thing that they shouldn't have been roadtesting, or something that they genuinely believe works well with their dog but for some reason on Saturday it didn't, or the only reason they're using it is because it seems like every other "successful handler" is doing it- whatever. It just seemed stupid and pointless.

I've had some people ask me things along the lines of "Why don't you do this with your dog?" and they always always always look at me funny when I tell them "Because it doesn't work for us". What is so hard to understand about the fact that not every single dog will be able to be worked in the confines of whatever is the current big thing in training and handling?

I don't know what it is with the dog community lately- at least the one around here- but it's become so cliquey, and trend driven. It's awful.