Every Team Needs To Find Their Balance Of Responsibility
07 Jan 2025
Every dog and handler team needs to find their balance of responsibility. In some teams the handler takes most of the responsibility on course to direct their dog throughout the course. You an see this where an experienced handler can get a very novice dog through some difficult courses because the handler can get to each challenge and assist the dog to navigate them. Over time, as the dog gains more skills, the handler can put more responsibility on the dog to “go do what I ask” with less support from the handler.
Here is a wonderful team where the handler has done a lot of training so their dog can take more responsibility for navigating the course because the handler can’t be everywhere.
I think so much of agility training is recognizing the imbalance of responsibilities/skills and adapting to the current division of responsibilities and/or training our partner so we can move toward the balance we desire.
There is no one correct balance, only the right balance for your team mate at one point in time.
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