THE GOAL:

The dog goes 360° around the barrel as tightly as they can.

STEP 1:

  • The dog starts at your side or slightly behind you in a sit or laying down position. Have them facing the barrel.

  • Say the release command and show show around the barrel ether in silence or with some encouraging words if they need them. We want the behavior first, before we add the command.

  • Throw the ball away from you, when you see the dog goes 3/4 around the barrel, so they will turn tightly.

  • Give them a sincere reward - if you reward with the toy, play with them a little after the try. In both cases, if you reward with toy or food, give them encouraging word for the try well done when you reward them. We want the dog knowing he did well. With that we encourage more fluid and faster moving around the barrel, the dog learns faster and above all we want the dog to have fun!

STEP 2:

  • When the dog goes around the barrel with consistent successful tries, you add the command you will use. I use “cik” when the dog goes left around the barrel and “cak” when they go right around the barrel

  • Throw the ball in the same direction as in step 1, away from you.

STEP 3:

  • With every successful try, slowly add distance between the barrel and where the dog starts. This will add more speedy entry, making them do more collection before the barrel - slowing down more before the barrel, shortening their steps.

Don’t forget to be patient with your dog, even if your first tries are not tight around the barrel, they need time to understand what we want them to do!

Common mistakes

THE DOG DOESN’T GO AROUND THE BARREL COMPLETELY

If your dog doesn’t go around the barrel completely and turns around mid way, make sure you are throwing the toy at the correct time. You should trow the toy, when the dog is 3/4 around the barrel.

Another solution for dogs who are consistently not taking the barrel all the way around is slowly building up the angle of where the toy is thrown:

  • Start by doing just the 180° around the barrel.

  • And then slowly tighten the angle the dog has to take, by throwing the toy every just a little bit more towards the 360° angle every successful try.

  • If the dog starts turning around again in the middle of the exercise, you may have gone to fast with tightening the angle. Some dogs just need time to get used to the exercise, so start with the angle they understood and keep slowly tightening the angle.

  • Don’t forget, at this stage, we don’t add a command yet, first we need consistent correct behavior, then we add the command. But, you are welcome to say incurring words, so your dog will take the barrel, if he isn’t used to do things in silence.