Karen Van Hoy: Hello! I am Karen Van Hoy, Captain of the Santa Barbara Flyers and we were speaking about dog agility today. We're going to review just a couple little steps to start to get our dog to work away from us.

So how we're going to start right now is, the food bag. It's got the food inside here it's got the Velcro. Once the dog gets it, it cannot self-reward it. So if I put a cookie out there, they will probably go around and jump and go get and go, oh, that's what I was supposed to do. They need to actually touch this bag to do it. So I'm going to start with just one jump. Pull her with my hand in her collar. They need to be off leashed to work this. Sit.

Now working away from your dog means that the dog needs to be moving forward or you need to be moving laterally. Somewhere at distance that you're not right here with your dog or in front of the dog calling the dog.

So I'm going to throw it and I am going to say, okay, over. She gets the toy. Yeah! Good girl. She brings it back. She gets the food, opens it up and she has such a good time. Working in a lateral motion and you want to make sure that you're working from the right and the left also.

Wait, again, since I'm not a very good softball thrower, I'm going to put it out here. Now I was standing right with her and I was right by her side. Now this I want to be slightly lateral off her and she's going to go straight. Okay, go, go. Yeah! Good girl! Good girl! She brings it back and she gets the cookie. Yeah! Yeah!

So you do this just with a food bag. She's not getting self-rewarded, or you can do it with a toy. So the next segment in dog agility is how to teach your dog their release word.