AG345: Connection & Commitment: Mastering the Key to Clean Handling

Peripheral vision is one of the biggest components of maintaining a strong connection on course. It can also be the most difficult! The art of both being able to see where your dog is and where you are going at all times on course is not always easy to master. In normal life, we are very rarely practicing using our peripheral vision and instead tend to turn our heads right to what we are looking at. So really, peripheral vision is a pretty unnatural and underutilized skill! And yet, it’s oh so important!

But why is it so important?!

Being able to maintain a peripheral connection throughout most of the course allows your dog to feel connected to you at all times and without any confusion. If you’re instead looking directly at your dog and then looking away frequently on course, your dog can often mistake that as an incoming blind cross and cross behind you, drift off of their line, or even attempt to cut you off to get in front of you and re-establish your connection/get to where your eyes are looking. So, when you’re able to see both your dog and where you’re going at all times, there is no need to ever fully look away from your dog and cause any of those potential issues/confusions!

There are of course exceptions to the rule and times that you will want to be looking at your dog’s landing spot on specific types of turns or directly at your dog when sending them away from you, but we will cover those types of incidences once you have mastered the baseline of peripheral vision.

Okay, now onto building up that foundation!

For our first drill, you are going to first focus on building that strong peripheral vision foundation without the pressure of a dog. Then once you have mastered the drill without your dog (which still isn’t easy!), we will add your dog to the picture.

Your set up for both with and without your dog should look like this:

You should have six wings set up in a V that starts on the wide end of the V and then moves into the shorter end of the V. The wings should be set up so they are staggered from one to the next and create a zig zag going up the V. There should be a cone placed in the middle on the wide end of the V.

Step one:

For the purpose of this first part of the exercise, the cone will stand in as your dog.

The goal of this first step is going to be to be able to see both the cone and the wing you are moving towards at all times.

This step should be done at a walk.

• While keeping the cone in your line of vision off of your right side, you will begin moving towards the closest wing on your right.
• When you are within an arm’s distance of the wing, reach out and touch the wing with your hand.
  • You should NOT look directly at the wing at any time. Instead, your cheek should be back and you should be able to still see the cone in your line of vision while also seeing where the wing is.
  • Do not reach your hand out to touch the top of the wing until you are that arm’s distance away. We want this to be exact!
  • Stay in motion the entire time!
• Once you have touched the top of the wing, switch look now over your left shoulder. Make sure that you are doing this smoothly and quickly locking on to seeing both the cone and the wing at the same time.
• Now move towards the next wing, still working seeing both items at once.
• When you have reached an arm’s distance from the second wing, reach out your arm and touch the top of the second wing without looking directly at it.
• Continue like this, zigzagging up the line of wings until you have reached the last one while still being able to see the cone at all times.

Step two:

• Repeat step one, but start increasing your speed.
• This can be a really challenging exercise if you’re not used to utilizing your peripheral vision, so build up your speed slowly!
• Continue to build speed until you can do it at a light jog and then a run!

Step three:

• Put the cone now in the middle of the short end of the V and repeat the exercise, but in the opposite direction so you are beginning your V on the short end and zigzagging up to the wider end.
• This can be much more challenging because as the wings get further away, they are harder to keep track of in your peripheral vision, but make sure that you still never look directly at them!
• Start at a walk and then work back up to a run.

In our next peripheral vision lecture we will be adding your dog to the picture! So, you will be sending your dog around the wings in a zig zag while maintaining your peripheral connection. Sound easy? Not so fast! You will also have to be touching each of the tops of the wings as we are doing here while working your dog and maintaining that peripheral connection while managing your timing as well.

Here's a sneak peek so you know where you’re headed:

But before we get there…let’s start working on you and your dog’s send and go skills!