Trainer Thrives on Helping Competitors Polish Their Agility Performance

Fine-tuning your skills before a dog agility event like the Cynosport® World Games Presented by Purina Pro Plan can help put you on top of your game.

Agility trainer Lo Baker of American K-9 Country in Amherst, New Hampshire, thrives on helping handlers and their dogs prepare for competition. Her 35 years’ experience teaching the sport has given her an intuitive recognition of the tweaks that can polish a team’s performance.

“Lo knows us individually and the dogs individually,” says Rachel Molenaar, of Dracut, Massachusetts. “She has an acute eye and can tell you precisely what you need to do to improve.”

Rachel and her 31/2-year-old Papillon, ‘Hazel’ (Witchinghour Marvelous Miss Hazel), regularly attend Lo’s dog agility class. Their 2024 Cynosport performance in Tucson, Arizona, produced two first-place podium appearances. They were part of the Purina Pro Plan Dog Agility Masters® 3-Dog Team Tournament Champions, and they won the 8-inch Purina Pro Plan Dog Agility Steeplechase®.

“I am so proud of Rachel and Hazel,” Lo says. “Hazel is a very fast little dog. Early on in training, I told Rachel she needed to get some distance handling skills on Hazel since she runs so fast and is often far ahead. Rachel did her homework and got it done.”

Distance handling is an important skill that teaches a dog to follow cues and run beyond the handler to take obstacles across the course, Lo explains.

“Most dogs are faster than their handlers. You don’t want to slow them down to only run the handlers’ speed,” she says. “You want to give the dog as much information as possible. Using verbal cues, your body position and the direction you are moving, you want the dog to understand where he should go to do his job.

“Not every person nor every dog can run fast, so I like to look at the team as an individual,” says Lo, who has personally trained and competed with her Golden Retrievers, Australian Cattle Dogs and Border Collies. “Depending on the level of accomplishment you want to achieve, from competing at local trials to the World Team, every team is different.

“No single thing works for each team,” she says. “A slower handler needs to use more verbal and distance cues, and a fast, athletic handler can focus more on the lines they are setting.”

Lo prepares her students for an upcoming event by encouraging them to practice skills and obstacles that are challenging and to be sure they have the right competitive frame of mind.

“When a dog makes a mistake like knocking a bar or going off course, it can be good because it gives you the opportunity to work on the problem,” she says. “Dogs don’t purposefully try to make mistakes. Rather, the problem lies with the information the handler gives the dog.

“You can work on this by changing your physical and verbal cues. For example, opening the shoulder and giving the dog more direction on where to go can be an important game changer to the dog.”

As for having the right “head game,” Lo says, “It is okay to be a little nervous, but you must be able to think straight. You have to be in the right mind space to handle the pressure otherwise you will crash and burn. You want to feel butterflies but not let them take over.”

A key skill in learning agility is setting the line you want the dog to take on a course, Lo says.

“Setting the line is what it’s all about,” she says. “You want the dog to know where he’s going without asking any questions. You want the dog to move as fast as he can without questioning what comes next.”

“Lo really teaches us to set those lines,” Rachel says. “She asks us, ‘How do you want the dog to take this jump, so the next jump is easy?’ She encouraged me to teach Hazel four different backside cues depending on which side of the handler the dog is on and whether the jump should be taken in extension or collected. It was a whole lot of work but worth it.”

“It is much easier for the dog and handler when they know what to expect,” Lo says. “You want to use physical and verbal cues that tell the dog whether to cue extension or to land in a collection.

“A collected jump means the dog adds a stride closer to the base of the jump, so he lands tighter and turns going toward the next obstacle. For fast, driven dogs, it can be very difficult.

“An extension jump means the dog can take off from farther back and land farther out since the next obstacle is on the future line.

” Agility can be pretty tricky, Lo says.

“You have to watch your dog, anticipate his moves and give him the information on where to go, so he has time to react,” she says. “Some dogs are moving over 7 yards a second, if not faster. Speed can be dangerous and cause injuries if the handler is late with the cue.”

Training can be hard work, but Lo doesn’t let her students forget what the sport is about. “I try to remind my students that they are doing this because they love their dog,” she says. “They are playing with their best friend.”