Jacqueline Soccodato has had an amazing agility career with her rescued All American Dog, Buster, including earning three MACHs and two PACHS; making the finals of the Westminster Kennel Club Master Agility Championship; & being at the top of the rankings for All Americans. She competes with her new All American, Champ, on League teams at Port Chester Obedience Training Club in New York. She shares a great tip on prepping for competition.
I’ve competed in agility for more than a decade and I have the same trainer for Buster (my Masters level dog) that I do for Champ (my then-Novice dog). Once the basics were in place, we began private lessons with Champ. I remember some of my first sessions to be so discouraging.
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The courses our trainer continued to set required a skill set that we did not yet have. I didn’t complain at first, and we failed miserably, making mistakes at every turn. I let it go, but week after week, as I started to walk the course, I continued to get frustrated. It was always the same type of difficult sequence, and I remember thinking, “I better bring Buster in because this is way above Champ’s pay grade.”
Finally, low on patience, I said to our trainer, “We will never see anything like this at his level in competition, can’t we just do an easier course?” She stopped setting bars, turned to me and simply said, “No”. Then, she said something I hold with me every time I step to the line. She said, “You don’t train for Novice; you train for the Final”.
Fast forward a year, and she was right! Champ was in Novice at the start of 2024 and by August of this year, he was in Masters earning QQ’s, MACH points, and even acing the Premier courses. Although we struggled at first to get through those tricky courses, we learned so much and when the challenge presented itself in competition, I was able to execute my plan correctly. Had we never tried this level of difficulty early on, I am sure our success rate would not have been this great.
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In my former life I was a competitive ballroom dancer and when I thought about our trainer’s advice, it made perfect sense for dancing. I didn’t train to learn a basic step; I trained to make a final. I don’t know why I didn’t apply this same principle to agility. By training for the goal, we make our desired outcome much more attainable.
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