Ira Mikkanen is a Finnish agility competitor who has represented Finland four times in European Open with her sheltie Carma. She also has a young sheltie called Iva. In addition to competing, coaching has become extremely dear to her. Now she shares her thoughts about how training could be improved by each one of us, and also how training possibilities could be made better by agility clubs.

The questions to ask yourself before every training session

“In coaching, individual goal setting, individual exercises and tracking of development are very important to me.” Ira asks herself the following questions before every training session:

What do I want to train right now?
Why do I want to train it?
What are my goals for this particular exercise and what do I reward?
How many repetitions will I ask from my dog and how much will it strain him?

If there’s no good reason to do the exercise, don’t do it.

For Ira, individual training is very important: “I train twice a week, both dogs on different days. The exercises are planned around a specific theme, and training normally includes a maximum of 8 obstacles.”

Ira points out the importance of concentrating on what you are doing: “If you want to get to the next level, it’s important to concentrate on the moment: on the theme at hand and the dog in front of you.”

“If you want to get to the next level, it’s important to concentrate on the moment: on the theme at hand and the dog in front of you.”

— Ira Mikkanen

“I make separate plans for Iva and Carma, since they have totally different challenges. Iva needs to train uninterrupted threadles and tunnel-dogwalk discrimination while Carma knows these things already. I don’t want to waste training time on stuff that my dog masters already. If there’s no good reason to do the exercise, I don’t do it.”

80-20 success with repetitions

According to Ira, who is also a teacher, children learn best when they fail 25% of times and succeed 75% of times. “For dogs this is 20% and 80% with individual differences of course.”

Ira says that an exercise is too easy, if your dog succeeds 100% of repetitions. “The reason for doing any training is to progress your dog’s skills. You need to challenge your dog to do so. But on the other hand, you need to make sure his confidence stays at a high level throughout the training session. With an 80/20 rate, you get to reward often and take care of your dog’s confidence. And if there’s two failures in a row, stop to think what caused them.”

“The reason for doing any training is to progress your dog’s skills. You need to challenge your dog to do so. But on the other hand, you need to make sure his confidence stays at a high level throughout the training session. ”

— Ira Mikkanen

We should benchmark other (dog) sports

According to Ira, there was way too much course running at one point but, in general, that has decreased, at least in Finland. Instead, skills are really trained a lot. “When we put effort on agility skills, in the long term it leads to very good results”.

Ira has noticed that in coaching, we often still do course training. Not necessarily because coaches themselves want to, but because people still ask for it. “I think, in coaching, there can be a longer course, but it would be more beneficial if it contained sequences that were planned for each individual partnership. And that is possible only in long term coaching.”

“We should really benchmark other dogsports, in which training is split into smaller entities and more logical. And we should also look at sports like football: you can also learn by playing but exercises are not only about that. Even the most experienced players put effort in both sport specific exercises and developing characteristics important for the sport.

3 reasons for emphasising skill-based short exercises

1. Every course builds on good specific skills

Ira wants to make sure her dogs really understand what she asks of them. She doesn't want to compete if she can’t trust their understanding in training. “For me, it’s very important that I can trust my dog and her skills. And for this reason, small details matter. The best way to get to your goals, is to split skill sets and create small exercises around them.”

“When you build specific skills carefully, everything becomes easier on long courses as well. And you need to maintain and challenge the skills during the whole career of the dog. There are endless possibilities to add variation to small exercises.”

2. Getting results from training

Ira thinks it’s important to keep in mind how to get results from training: How does my dog learn the best?

“I believe that short, well thought out exercises are the most efficient way to get a dog to learn, because then you get to affect the things that are essential for your dog. You get to reward the things you planned and communicate to the dog what it is that you want from him.”

“Quite often on courses, I see that dogs are asked to do things they don’t yet master. Like the German turn, for example, and then the handler needs to compensate for the lacking skills of the dog. In the German turn, the dog needs to master “out” and he needs to be able to cope with movement disruption and, quite often, one of these isn’t yet on the needed level. And this kind of training isn’t very efficient.”

3. Straining the dog less

“Short exercises around a specific skill don’t strain the dog as much - IF you plan the training session carefully. For me it’s essential that the number of repetitions is planned beforehand, so that there won’t be unnecessary strain. And, anyway, for me the first repetition counts the most, so if we succeed with the first repetition, there’s no reason to continue with that exercise.”

Ira plans her training so that she has a course map with a few obstacles and on that same course map, there are 3 to 4 different exercises. This way, when the dog succeeds, she can move on to the next exercise.

What is the role of course training in agility?

Ira thinks that even though course training should not be the norm in training, it has its purpose: “If a handler is inexperienced, course training is necessary for learning to remember a course and keeping things together”. “And when the dog is close to starting competing, you need to train so that all the contacts are in the same sequence. However, training long courses is not necessary every week. Instead, it should be seen as a way to test if the current training themes can be done at high speed and as part of a course.”

“Training long courses is not necessary every week. Instead, it should be seen as a way to test if the current training themes can be done at high speed and as part of a course.”

— Ira Mikkanen

Ira’s tips for agility clubs

Most of us train in a club and so does Ira. The practices of our clubs define our possibilities to train. Ira has done a lot of work in her own club to develop the mode of operation so that it supports the individual needs of each team. Here are her tips on how other clubs can also work to support their teams better.

Continuous training takes the partnership forward - one time seminars may give new ideas but don’t work as well as a trainer that sees the team several times, gets to know them and is able to do a longer development plan for them. This is why organising long term coaching in clubs is important.
Even if it is easy, using weekly courses for several groups is not ideal for the development of individual dogs and handlers. If you want to support training that is planned and takes the team forward, allow every group to build their own exercises.
Designing several small exercises around different themes that anyone can use, prevents dangerous setups and helps people, also the more inexperienced, train what they actually need to train.
It’s totally different to run 8, 12 or 35 obstacles. Encourage club members to do shorter exercises and concentrate on the things they need to train.

Appreciate your teammate and work for your goals

All discussion with Ira reflects high respect for her dogs. This, she says, she has learnt just recently: “We have an incredible connection with Carma, both in agility and everyday life. For this reason, I didn’t fully understand what a wonderful dog Iva is, and that is painful for me to admit. However, after Iva got seriously injured twice in 2019 and we almost lost everything, I realised how I had not fully seen her worth. Now I’ve learnt to appreciate her as herself and we really enjoy our moments together both in agility and in other aspects of life.”

“The most important thing I’ve learnt from agility and dogs, is to appreciate your teammate, and also to try and enjoy the exercises that don’t go as planned. You never know when your dog takes his last obstacles, so appreciate what you can do together.”

“You never know when your dog takes his last obstacles, so appreciate what you can do together.”

— Ira Mikkanen

Ira also adds that success doesn’t come by accident - nor by dreaming. “Success comes with working for it, just like it says on my AgiNotes hoodie ;) And I hope my tips for better training help people to work in a way that takes them forward!”

Check out Ira’s short exercise! You can download it to your AgiNotes app (also to the free version) in English or in Finnish, or use it directly from our blog :)