The Run

The Run. Something every person who competes in agility wants. The amazing feeling of complete connection with your dog, a feeling that every team chases weekend after weekend.

So what is The Run?

The Run is a time where you feel completely connected to your dog, you are both so completely in sync that your don’t think about the course, your cues, or what you should do next, you just do it. Everything flows, your cues just happen, no thinking, just action.  And at the end of the course you wonder if you forgot a portion of it because it went by so fast. That is The Run. That is complete connection.

So how do you get there? How do you get to a place where The Run happens?

I have found after teaching for many years and traveling across the country, handlers want The Run to happen NOW. They want that connection and that feeling right out of the gate.

In my experience The Run usually doesn’t happen until the dog is around 5-7, for me it has happened with my dogs between 6-7. (this isn’t an exact timeframe, just a general range I have noticed)

Sometimes I think handlers try to rush that feeling, that connection with their dogs. In my experience  this leads to that connected feeling taking longer, the dog can feel that pressure as well as the handler and it can delay that connected feeling.

The Run with Nargles 

Getting to The Run is what creates that feeling, that connection. All the time spent training, and trialing, learning how your dog reacts to your movements and your cues, all of that together is what creates The Run.  It can’t be rushed, it can’t be forced. It is something that happens when you least expect it.

My Run with Try, bobble and all, this was it, The Run can have bobbles, it can have mistakes, none of that matters. It is about connection. 

Enjoy the journey that gets you to The Ride, don’t rush, don’t force, just let it happen and enjoy every second of it.

Amanda Nelson