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Cathy Toft
Davis California
Training
Experience:
I've been training dogs since 1994
and was very fortunate to start dog training just as "clicker"
training and the sport of dog agility took hold.
You can read more about me as a dog trainer
here: Thanks to Susan Anderson, I started training in
agility
 formally in about 1997 and was one of the first students in
Pawsability Agility.
I've trained with Susan and later with Kathie Leggett of
Touch'n'Go Agility
most of my agility career.
I've trained 6 dogs in
agility, taking one as far as the master's level and another as far
as the excellent level. I attend agility seminars when I can.
My primary qualifications to teach you in Dog Agility Pre-School,
however, come from training some really, really difficult dogs.
One dog in particular, Babe OA AXJ, gave me the challenge of my
life. You can read more about her story
here. Thanks to Babe, I became an expert in operant
training, a method that is perfect for training a dog in agility.
It's because of Babe I am adamant
that laying a foundation in agility (or any kind of dog training) is
more important than anything else you can do.
You can read
more about Babe's agility career here. I spent years
training Babe in her agility foundation, and when we started to
compete, she moved from competing in novice to excellent B in a
matter of months. Most importantly, the trial setting was
always a source of fun and companionship for her, because she knew
her "job" even before she stepped one foot on agility equipment.
It's all pretty amazing for a dog that most people would have put
down and no one had any hope for.
In addition to my dog
training experience, I'm arguably qualified to teach you through my
experience as a UC Davis professor , teaching hundreds of students
in a variety of subjects for the past 30 years, and, one of my areas
of research expertise is animal behavior.
You can find out more about
me in my day job here. |
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My agility dogs: |
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Kallie
[U-CD Storm's Wicket
Raven NA NAJ HIC] 1990-2001
Kallie was my first
agility dog. We started training with Susan Anderson
in Pawsability Agility around 1997. The two
pictures of Kallie on this page are from those early days.
Kallie started agility at the age of 7. She competed
one season and completed her novice titles. Soon after
starting in Open agility when she was 9, Kallie got lung
cancer, quickly followed by acute kidney failure, so she
retired that season. She lived until she was one week
shy of 12 years old and kept up her agility at Susan's
matches for a year after formally retiring from competition.
Read more about
Kallie here. |
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Ladybug
[Hollicove's Lady
Heart HTD-1s PT] 1991-2003
Lady started in
Pawsability Agility soon after Kallie did, at the age of 6.
She never really liked agility all that much. Maybe it
was the way we trained, or maybe it was Lady. She
never saw any point to any form of dog work with the
exception of herding sheep. Now, that made a lot of
sense to her! She nearly died from bloat and
torsion when she was 8. At that point I decided Lady could
do whatever she wanted, so I retired her from agility before
she ever competed in that sport. She went on to
compete in what she loved doing most, herding. She
deserved a better handler than me. |
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Babe
[Babe OA AXJ HIC]
1994-2007
Babe started agility
training when she was about 5 and joined a Pawsability
Agility class the following year. I
tell Babe's story elsewhere. Babe was the first
dog I trained extensively in foundation work before she ever
competed. She had the most solid weavepoles of any dog
I've ever trained. I retired her when she was 9, when
she developed early spondylosis and couldn't jump
comfortably. |
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Megan
[Windsong's Morgan le
Faye AD PSII AX MXJ OAP OJP HIC]
Megan is my retiring
competition agility dog She was 10 on June
1, 2007 so she's cut back to CPE agility where she can jump
16" and is starting her rally obedience career. It
takes so many years to build a partnership in agility, let
me tell you how much retiring your competition teammate
leaves a huge lump in your throat.
Megan's foundation work was
non-existent. I spent most of Megan's active agility
career fixing problems and retraining. Although she
was a talented, well-socialized dog, it took her three
agility seasons to go from Novice to Excellent B, in
contrast to Babe doing that in 6 months. Her time with
me was so short, it shows how penny wise, pound foolish it
is to skip over your dog's foundation work, but we didn't
know any better in those days. [Photo
thanks to DogHouse Arts]
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Rocky
[Wild Wind's Continental
Divide HIC PJI NJP NFP CL2-S, CL1-H, CL2-S, CL2-F]
Rocky is my
up-and-coming agility dog. He is the first of my
dogs to benefit from the extensive foundation work program
we all now do. The value of this foundation was made
abundantly clear to me when we had to take nearly two full
years off agility when I become committed to assisting Yolo
County with a
large animal cruelty case involving over 80 collies.
No doubt because of his foundation work, Rocky resumed
agility training after all that time having lost almost
nothing--too bad he didn't improve without any training!
(dream on...) Rocky was my "guinea pig" for the
foundation program I'm offering you in Dog Agility
Pre-School and you'll see him often as a demo dog.
I'm hoping that teaching you will force me to keep Rocky's
training at the same high standard I aspire for your dog. |
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Pippin
Pippin came to
me from a huge animal cruelty case prosecuted in Montana
(the "Montana
collies"), confiscated from a hoarder who had more than
200 collies. He was at the top of the HSUS's
euthanasia list, and the
American Working Collie Association asked me to adopt
him because of my successes in bringing Babe around.
He's an incredibly talented, athletic working dog. Of
course, he was horribly socialized, and I would have to work
very very hard to get him to the point where he can perform
in public. After Babe, I don't think I can do
that again. But no question--agility is so incredibly
fun that training in agility can give confidence to the most
abused of all dogs. Pip is another example of that.
If Pip can love doing agility and do it well, so can your
dog. |
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