"Laughter filled the room as the students participating in my introduction to competition obedience class, sub-title “through the eyes of the dog” tried to keep track of the sequence of cues they’d come up with playing “Add a Cue”. The mixed group consisting of experienced agility competitors curious about and thinking of someday trialing in the obedience ring and students who had but recently completed their first basic obedience class were, it seemed, having a delightful time challenging each other with more and more sophisticated cues. Cones I’d set to allow for 2 steps of heeling became targets and obstacles. It was a delight to watch students come up with ways to teach their dogs skills they’d never seen before. Using clicker training, hand-targeting, and sometimes lure-reward, everyone was not only practicing the simple skills they all knew but quickly and successfully teaching their dogs to target to the cones, go out and around, weave through legs, pop-up to stand, all the while trying to keep track of a sequence which quickly grew to well over 20 cues. Yet, no one gave any thought to how difficult what they were doing was - laughter carried the day and they "just did it" as did the delighted dogs whose grins expressed their reciprocal delight at their "peoples" pleasure. I’ve always enjoyed how games take the self-consciousness out of trying new things for the first time. While having fun, students learned skills by themselves which I would have been hard pressed to teach them in that short a time."

Daniel Meunier