ALPHABET DRILLS BOOK
by Nancy Gyes (See other books by author)

Summary: The jumping drills in this book are based on patterns from letters of the alphabet. Their purpose is to help you become more imaginative when setting up practice drills for yourself, or for your students, and to familiarize you with common obstacle patterns seen on agility courses. Each letter focuses on specific handling skills or dog skills, and uses a minimal amount of space and a minimal number of jumps (5 jumps is the average).

Price: $29.95

The jumping drills in this book are based on patterns from letters of the alphabet. Their purpose is to help you become more imaginative when setting up practice drills for yourself, or for your students, and to familiarize you with common obstacle patterns seen on agility courses. Each letter focuses on specific handling skills or dog skills, and uses a minimal amount of space and a minimal number of jumps (5 jumps is the average). The intent of using a familiar pattern for each setup, like the outline of an alphabet letter, is to aid you in remembering each pattern of jumps, so that eventually you can associate the pattern of the letter with the associated drills.

Alphabet drills are designed so that they are useful for all levels of agility handlers. If you’re new to the sport, there are drills to help you and your dog learn the basics of front and rear crosses, lead-out pivots, threadles, serpentine handling, pinwheels, 270s, and more—you can truly train the full spectrum of necessary handling skills with this book. If you’re an advanced competitor, you’ll find more technical drills for maintaining and tuning up your skills, as well as problem solving.

Regardless of which handling method you use, Alphabet Drills will provide years of material for maintaining your agility skills and also training new skills. You’ll never have to worry about what to practice again! Problems getting your dog in the correct entrance of the tunnel? Do the R drills for a week. Wide front crosses or problems with lead-out pivots? T is your drill. Does your dog spin in the wrong direction when you do a rear cross? Work on J drills.

These drills were originally published in Clean Run magazine starting in February 2005 and ending in April 2007. Some of the letters have been revamped for the book and new drills added. Photos and training tips have been incorporated into the text. In addition, Nancy has written an introductory chapter that covers topics such as what age to start training, training effectively, getting ready for training sessions, and what to do if you have problems. There are also new appendixes that contain articles on handling and training serpentines and 270s, the pattern method of course design, and a photo “dictionary” of handling maneuvers.

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Front Cover

Back Cover

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• DO IT YOURSELF AGILITY EQUIPMENT, 2ND EDITION
• AGILITY RIGHT FROM THE START
• CLEAN RUN COURSE SOURCEBOOK, VOL. 1 - STANDARD AGILITY COURSES
• ALPHABET DRILLS SETUPS CD
• SIZZLING SEESAWS DVD - A PROGRAM FOR TRAINING THE TEETER AND SOLUTIONS FOR COMMON TEETER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS

• TAKING CARE OF PUPPY BUSINESS
• CONTROL UNLEASHED - CREATING A FOCUSED AND CONFIDENT DOG
• ALPHABET DRILLS SETUPS CD
• WHEN PIGS FLY - TRAINING SUCCESS WITH IMPOSSIBLE DOGS
• RUFF LOVE