The Threadle Slice
Yep, an agility geek term
Hello Agility Friends and Enthusiasts,
Olive and I have been BUSY. We’ve competed in several trials, a masters handlers’ seminar with Aneta Obrusnikova, and a bunch of fun practice play sessions.
During the session with Aneta we really struggled with a seemingly not so hard sequence. This stretch required a backside to the near jump then a straight-on jump and then a jump from the near side before heading to the tunnel. Olive kept taking the third jump from the back side. It was our fourth session that day and she was tired so I didn’t push it with her.
BUT, I also knew we needed to learn a new skill – the same side, open shoulder threadle slice. Threadle is the term we agility geeks use for when we ask our dog to take the non-obvious side of a jump.
Prior to the seminar I had only used my off hand to cue a threadle but actually that can be quite awkward as you are bending your far side arm across your body while running. Also, I had used the verbal cue “Loopa” because I had heard it somewhere and smarty Olive knows so danged many words I’ve had to get creative. However, both the off-side arm cue and “Loopa” are a bit long and awkward, so I shortened the verbal cue to “Loop”.
Here is a vid of the Aneta O seminar in which we did not yet have an open shoulder threadle slice.
And here is a vid of our practice session where Olive gets the difference between the open shoulder threadle slice and the jump over the same sequence of obstacles. She picked this up so fast I had to ask her if she’d been watching Youtube videos!
Yesterday we used this in a trial for the first time and it was so much smoother.
She is the best partner and I am so lucky to have her as my very first competitive agility dog.
Tomorrow morning Team Olive heads out to Paso Robles California for the UKI West Coast Open! This will be the second big agility event of our agility “career” so far.
I’ll be sending insider insights and updates.
May the Course be with us!
Much Love,
Cylvia and Olive