Send Away

Another exercise in the Advanced Teamwork class is the Send Away.  Here are my notes on this class:

Send Away

1. Principal parts: Dog goes away from handler to the designated cone.  Dog remains in sit/down/stand at cone until directed to second location.  Remains in sit/down/stand in square area until directed to heel position and continue heeling.
2. Orders:  Send your dog.  Resend your dog.  Forward.  Call your dog to heel.
3. Judge determines the position at the end of each send.  They can be different.  Choices are sit, down, and stand.
4. Single cone at end of ring, about 3 feet from ring barriers.  In the opposite corner is a 4x4 square marked with chalk or tape.
5.  Set up facing cone – on same side of ring, but opposite end.  Command and/or signal to send to cone and command and/or signal dog to stand/sit/down (determined by judge).  Dog must be within 3 feet of cone.  
6.  Command and/or signal to square, then command and/or signal the dog to stand, sit, or down.
7.  Judge calls heeling pattern.  Any time after two turns, judge will command “Call your dog to heel”.  You continue moving – dog comes to heel.  You continue heeling together until judge commands halt.

I've done some training for Treiball, and that has helped immensely with this exercise.


Send to the cone - this is a simple "place" to my dogs.  Remember, place is go to the cone and place your paw on it.  They have gotten very good at this exercise.  But then notice that you have to put them in the position of the judge's choice.  How many of us practice a "stand" at a distance?  I actually have, and it paid off here.  At first, Bella and Zane didn't understand that once they touched the cone, they might have to do something else.  Basically, I'm building a chain - place, then position.  Zane would try to hit the cone with his paw again, but he soon understood the chain and could sit, down, or stand once he got to place.


Now, the send to the marked square.  I actually have not worked this with just a marked square.  I am using a rubber mat to send them to.  This is something we've done with Treiball.  They've learned to go to a mat, then to move side to side to other mats in a line.  That was  a great foundation for this exercise.  I do use herding cues and signals, so I continued that with this.  From the cone to the mat is either "go bye" or "away" with the arm "pushing" them in that direction.  Once they could do that easily, we added the position cue.  It's working well.


I have not added the call to heel to this yet, but we already do a lot of call to heels, so I don't expect a big problem.  They may have to work on staying in position while I start moving, but they'll get it fast.

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