The 180 Flip

I Googled "dog agility flip" before teaching my class yesterday, and was disappointed that my blog post from last August was the first entry and there wasn't much else out there.  It was a confusing read.  I had not remembered writing about it.  I didn't know much about it when I wrote it.  I'm leaving it up there, not as an April Fool's joke though I felt like a fool re-reading it, but because it has a sense of history.  It shows I'm making progress, and progress comes dropping slowly. It also has a very interesting course map I'd like to set up again.

Now I know more about flatwork, teach it to my dogs much better, and have more to share.  The main thing is that a 180 Flip is a PUSH away from you, and your paths are like 2 candy canes, both curving in the same direction.  It's more than a straight push -- your arm describes a big circle in the air, away from you.

FLATWORK (SHADOW HANDLING):
Even puppies love this work and catch on quickly if your motions are precise and treats delicious.  You can do this in your kitchen or living room.  Not much space required.

On the flat, (i.e., no equipment), put 3 treats in each hand.  Stand your dog to your right.  Lead their nose out and away from you, enscribing a big circle, so they make a 180 right turn.  Just after they commit to their turn, you also turn tightly, 180 degrees right.  Do NOT cross the dog's path.  When you are both turned and your dog is now on your left, treat from the left hand.  Walk a few steps forward, luring the dog with the second treat in your left hand.  Lead their nose out and away from you so they make a 180 left turn.  As they turn, you also turn tightly,180 left. When you are both turned and your dog is now on your right, treat from your right hand. 

Repeat this sequence, left turn, right turn, until all your treats are gone.  Praise, tug, play.

Repeat this sequence every day (maybe 2 minutes), increasing the walking distance between turns, walking faster, running.  Lure/treat intermittantly, then quit luring.   Treat intermittantly from your pocket, after 3 or 4 turns.

Intersperse flip flatwork with post turn and pull through flatwork.  This teaches D to watch your body moves carefully.  3-5 minutes a day of this is all you ever need do.  They think it is so much fun.  It's also a great warm-up at trials, something more than just putting D over a jump a few times, and can be used to signal that "the game is on".

COURSE WORK:
When the dog can flip out perfectly 90% of the time, take the skill to the agility equipment.

The most common "on course" flip is shown in the diagram above.  D has to turn away from you to make the tunnel entrance off the dog walk or A-frame.  The treat comes after they complete the tunnel.  First, teach the flip alongside the tunnel (see diagram), both sides.  Then increase the difficulty by adding a contact obstacle.

The 180 flip is also used in other ways by a few distance handlers.  Jane Simmons-Moake can send D ahead 2 jumps, flip them over a 3rd jump and get them coming back in her direction with confidence (see diagram).  Her flips are wild to watch.  She flings her arm out so hard it just about lifts her feet off the ground!  Her forward motion is minimal.

Some bloggers say the flip doesn't work for them.  Instead they cross the arm nearest the dog over across their chest, turn towards the turn. roll their shoulder, decelerate.  Others say this results in pulling the dog in towards them rather than a push away.  I suspect it depends on how the dog is trained to read your signals.

I believe a unique signal for a "flip" is important.  It should not look like anything else.

My dogs do the flatwork flip quite well, and today I taught the move in my Handling Fundamentals class.  All teams seemed to catch onto the flatwork fairly fast.  Taking it to the tunnel worked well.  Taking it to the equipment was quite a bit harder, but I was only demonstrating when the flip could be used on a competition course.  They hadn't practiced it for long enough to master it at a greater distance than a few inches.

The trick is getting the dog's head turning away from you.  The body follows.  The other trick is convincing students to do their flatwork at home.

P.S. Some people call the 180 Flip a rear cross, and use the above described flatwork to teach the rear cross. I do not. To me, a rear cross is NOT when the dog propels his backside from the handlers right to left, nor when the dog ends up on the other side of the handler, but when the handler crosses over the dog's path, behind the dog. Looking at the candy canes above, you can see the handler never crosses the dog's path. Likewise, some call a pull through a front cross. I do not. To my mind, to be a "cross", the dog's path must be crossed, and the cross must be made by the handler. A fine but important distinction, and it may look otherwise, but it should be firmly implanted that dogs are NEVER allowed to make crosses.  All crosses are made by the handler.  What might look like D crossing over in front of H, had better always be H crossing behind D! 

P.P.S.  There are other ways to get to the dog's other side besides crosses, most notably, the "180 flip", and the "pull through" (also a 180 turn).  I call each of these a "change of sides" rather than a "cross", and I hope this clears up a lot of confusion for my students, as it has for me.

P.P. S.  There is also a straight line flip over a jump (without a 180 turn and without any change of sides), but I'm not covering that here.

Upwards and onward!

U-TURNS, Wednesday Morning Field Practice

Updated 4/1/12 (April Fool's Day)  I Googled "dog agility flip" and was disappointed that this blog post from last August was the first entry and there wasn't much else out there. It is a confusing read. I had not remembered writing about it. I didn't know much about it when I wrote it.  I feel like a fool.  I'm leaving the post up due to it's high Google placement, and the course sequence is well worth setting up and trying, but the subject is much better covered in The 180 Flip which I posted today (no fooling).
Sheryl, bless her, and I met at the field again today, 8:30 a.m.  We feel rushed to practice eanother lawn mowing, and there will be nothing set up again until Saturday night, so we stayed there for 2.5 hours.

On this chart, we ran into a particularly difficult sequence we never could figure out how to do smoothly and predictably.  It was too easy to get stuck behind the dummy (turquoise) jumps. 

As illustrated, green H can handle 1 (see-saw), from the right side and be in a good position to direct D into the tunnel past 4, then U-turn back and over 4 with a right/left arm change, but on the red path after the FC before 4, the rest of path is the same (orange path and H).  I moved the upper turquoise jump to the right to make room for my orange H's, but in reality it is right in the H1 space so there isn't as much room at H1 to maneuver as shown.  It becomes imperative to block that jump with your body.

At H2, it's very hard to run fast enough to get a FC in -- you almost have to flip D to 6.  But flips are frowned upon in some schools, and it makes you feel like a darn airplane there are so many arm changes in this sequence!  I don't know what else to do?  I may reach out and ask our local experts.

Addendum: I did reach out, and Georgie came back with the FC solution.  I tried it several times but there isn't really enough time at H2.  So I resorted to the flip.  It worked for Maxie about half the time.  Lucky went HUH!  I can see that teaching the flip is important after all.  Sometimes you might need that flip.  Okay, so next I'll blog about The Flip.

Circle Work, Flat Work, Shadow Handling

Susan Garret's videos mention Circle Work, also called Flat Work and Shadow Handling, so I thought I'd look it up on the internet.  This teaches D how to follow H's cues between the obstacles.  I found one article on the internet, by Terry Long, which I copy here because the link has since gone down.  Enjoy!

"Your dog may have mastered agility obstacles, but how well does he handle the flatwork in between?


If you were asked how much time you spent teaching your dog the weave poles, you probably would be able to come up with a number framed in hours, weeks, and months. When asked a similar question about the teeter-totter, you might come up with a pretty realistic number for that, too.


If, however, you were asked how much time you spent teaching your dog how to run in between the obstacles, you just might be stumped. That’s because many agility handlers focus almost exclusively on training the obstacles. Yet, it’s “on the flat” that most problems such as off courses, knocked bars, and wide, loopy turns occur. And frequently, it is a dog’s misunderstanding of our body language, as well as our poorly timed turning signals, that cause these problems.


Foundation training that focuses on a dog’s understanding of our body language is called “flat work,” “shadow handling,” or “circle work.” It requires nothing more than the handler, the dog, and some rewards. Not only is no equipment required, it is important to practice your circle work without equipment nearby. You do not want your dog to inadvertently take an obstacle when you do not cue him to do so with specific positional cues. But that’s for another lesson entirely.


Why do it?  Circle work has many benefits. Your dog will learn to:


• Enjoy running with you and responding to your physical cues.


• Run along both your left and right sides, not forging ahead or drifting wide.


• Turn tightly to your body (and later, around a jump stanchion).


• Interpret body language such as acceleration and deceleration.


• Keep driving straight forward unless you give specific physical signals such as shoulder turns (to redirect the dog after an obstacle) and arm changes (front crosses and threadles/pull-throughs).


• Not cut in front of you.


• Not cross behind you (blind crossing).


• Not practice herding behaviors such as flanking (moving laterally away from you), nipping, barking, or spinning.

Getting started:  We’ll begin with teaching your dogs to run the “outside circle.”

1. Choose a reward your dog finds very motivating. This can be a tug toy or treats.
2. Start with your dog on your left (you will repeat these exercises on your right later). Move in a clockwise direction. Ask your dog to hand target your left hand (this assumes you have taught this foundation skill previously) by stepping back with your left leg and placing your left hand, palm outward next to your leg, for your dog to touch. When your dog touches your hand, say “Yes,” and step forward one or two steps, rewarding your dog when he catches up with you. From this point forward, you will “pump run” keeping both your arms up and your hands in fists.
3. Be sure to reward your dog close to the side he’s on. Do not allow your dog to cross in front of you to grab a toy from your opposite hand. If you do, you will be teaching your dog that it is okay to cut in front of you.
4. Start moving in a very small circle (not much more than a step or two), generously rewarding your dog for staying at your side.
5. Keep your sessions short. Use 10 treats on the left (or 10 brief tugging sessions), release your dog, and take a break for a couple of minutes.
6. Repeat 2–5, starting on the right this time, moving in a counter-clockwise direction.
7. Gradually increase the size of your circle and the number of steps you take between each reward.
8. Increase your pace so that you are eventually trotting or running a large circle.
9. Accelerate hard and reward your dog for accelerating and catching up with you.
10. Decelerate, and reward your dog for checking his stride and staying next to you instead of driving past you. If he does pass you, withhold the reward and start over.
11. Decelerate and stop, and reward your dog for not driving past where you stopped.
12. Be sure to practice 7–11 on both the left and right sides, moving clockwise and counter-clockwise, respectively.
13. Once your dog masters the basics, teach him the front cross. Start with your dog on the left and run a straight line, but practice the following footwork and before trying it with your dog. To execute the front cross with your dog on your left, hold your reward in your right hand. Then, with your invisible dog on your left, pull back your left shoulder and turn your right shoulder in toward your dog, pivoting in toward him. Bring your right arm across your body as you turn toward him (this is the beginning of teaching your dog to respond to an arm change). Drive out of the turn by taking a step in the new direction. Reward your dog when he catches up to you on your right. If your dog tries to cross behind you, pivot to your right, back toward your dog, interrupt him, and start over. Now try it with your real dog! And don’t forget to practice both sides.


To teach “inside circles,” start with your dog on a leash so you can better control his position. Repeat all of the above steps with your dog on the left and running counter-clockwise and then on the right running clockwise. Inside circle work is more difficult, so remember to raise your rate of reinforcement and use your leash until your dog understands the game.

Terry Long, CPDT, is a writer, behavior specialist, and agility instructor in Long Beach, Calif. She can be reached at aboutagility@dogworld.com.