CHECK OUT HOW GOOD THE OTHER DOGS ARE DOING WHILE THE ONE DOG IS WORKING, THE DOGS ARE DOING SOOOOO GOOD WITH LEARNING TO RELAX WHILE THE OTHERS WORK:
step one of cik/cak turns from kathy Mocharnuk on Vimeo.
I had a lot of questions about how wise it would be to train the turns and did not fully understand the whole "system" so I got the video to learn what I could-so I could make an intelligent decision on if the cik/cap turns could fit into my handling system.
I am trying to train the dogs using the Awesome Paws Handling system and one of the main ideas when working with that system is not training the dogs to ignore handler body cues and your natural body language. From my understanding you have to be careful with verbal cues so that you are not relying on those as a primary cue, which could teach your dog to either not pay attention to what your body says or to wait for a verbal instead cue of listening to your body language.
I have to say that I really liked the video a lot and would recommend it. The video was like the Sylvia Turkman heeling video in that you can pay on pay pal then as the last step it gives you a link to download the video. You can then watch it on your computer or burn it to a disc and watch it anywhere you please. This Cik/Cap video was slightly more expensive then the heeling one-I think with the exchange rate it was $63.
As I understand it Cik/Cap are verbal cues that are in some ways sort of similar to a left and right in that they tell the dog you are going to go left or right....but they tell the dog to go forward and find an obstacle to turn tightly around, jump with collection and turning.. but it does NOT mean to wrap the obstacle and come back to you. You would NOT use cik/cap on all turns on course.
If cued correctly and taught to fluency the advantages of using cik/cap is that it is easier on a dogs joints...they take off knowing where to go and then land with their feet pointing the correct direction--rather then taking off, landing and then trying to crank their bodies in the correct direction with all those forward motion forces slamming into their shoulders.
It saves time by creating a tighter line.
Sylvia also says that cik/cap that creates great obstacle focus because you start off with teaching the dogs to send around an object and that helps with distance skills. The first steps seem very similar to a forward send in the AWHS I thought. Sylvia also says that by teaching the dogs cik/cap as puppies they can also start out by running full speed right away instead of having to go slow when they first start agility.
Sylvia teaches the cik/cap to her tiny puppies and she demos the first steps with her tiny puppy. You can also teach it to a dog currenty competing as long as you do not use it at trials until it is thoroughly proofed in training, she says that takes about 3-4 months. Like any good turn or collection cue you need to cue it before the dog takes or once they hit that commitment point it is too late for the dog to do anything about any cue you give.
The only thing that was disappointing is that Sylvia showed a lot of neat completed tricks that would help with body awareness that she does with her dogs, but on the cik/cap dvd she did not show how to train any of those and I LOVE watching how she trains tricks, so it would have been neat if there was some of that on the dvd. I guess I will have to wait and buy her tricks dvd that is coming out next month.
I am still not sure how this all fits into my handling system...
on one hand it seems like a forward send, so that seems to make sense, I can see where the dog should be reading our body position to cue tight turns-but on some of the European style elements that seem to be seeping into courses just recently it seems like it would be a really handy cue....and it is not used on all turns, so it seems that would make it less likely that the dog would not jump or totally disregard your cues if you do not use the cue...
I do feel that the body work and the starting elements really could help the dog with obstacle focus and using their body so we are working on the beginning steps and thinking about the rest of it ;-).
I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM ANYONE with thoughts about why this might or might not be a good thing to teach based on the APHS