Flip finish or around the back? - Page 2

My older dog (krieger Nikko vom Barish) did the jumping flip finish. His head would go as high as my head. My young dog (Uruk von Karthago) does around the back. One day he desided to go around my back when i gave the command. That was natural to him so i went with it.  I have also taught the finish the way that Ivans dogs look. Where they go past your left side, turn around behind you and come up into the basic position.

       Mark

www.ultimatekanine.com

www.kampkanine.com

Thanks for the replies everybody.  Now this may be an ignorant question, but for those of you that teach both, do you have a different command for them or do you direct the dog with your eyes?  You can't use hand signals in a trial , right?

Not sure what the schutz rule are but in the Canadian obedience ring you can use either a verbal or a signal, not both. I teach a verbal and a hand signal for both right and left and I use a different command for either side.  My finish left command is the same as my heel command. 

As a legal sort of cheat I also teach eye movement as a signal all on its own. The I use the eye movement with either the signal or the verbal as some extra help. As long as you don't move your head it is within the rules! This means I have 3 commands for either side, verbal, signal and eye movement.

I have a bigger dog so... around the back. Both are fine, though.

Whatever the dog shows he prefers.  Mine usually choose around the back.

"Thanks for the replies everybody. Now this may be an ignorant question, but for those of you that teach both, do you have a different command for them or do you direct the dog with your eyes? You can't use hand signals in a trial , right?"

Travel time, my older dog knows both but that's because she does rally and you can have both show up on the same course (and there is no choice, you do whatever is in front of you).  For our Dog Sport obedience work (similar to SchH) when I say "Fuss" from a front sit she goes around the back because so far she is consistently straight doing it that way (sometimes with the flip she doesn't quite get in all the way).  For rally, "finish" means around the back and "swing" means flip finish, and she will do either with the verbal command or the hand signal (just wave the right or left hand to the right or the left).

I prefer the flip finish, however with every aspect of training I try to look at the whole picture.......

1) the dog itself
2) the ability of the handler
3) the ultimate goal of the dog handler team
4) etc. etc

For the most part, the around the back finish seems easier to teach both a dog and a new handler. Soem dogs though seem to naturally want to do one or the other, so I recommend to all new handlers do what works for you and your dog.

You are doing Sch so there may be rules, scoring trends, or training reasons for one or the other I may be unaware of due to my limited knowlege of the sport.

Good luck

I think it depends on the dog too, a very sharp flip finish is fabulous to watch, but also easy for the dog to be crooked.   The go around is the safer one for sure.   My male knows both and on the call out of the blind he would go to the left to heel position, where after recalls he would go to the right.   I did Rally with him to get a title for the PAM and he had to do a left finish there.   My female goes around and is nice and tight and getting quicker....Right now as soon as she comes around, bam food my my left hand as a reward and that really is bringing the speed around.  She also gets food in the front position so she doesn't jump the finish.

 

Kathy