Report on the
Marq Cheek GVDC Handling Seminar
by Anne Swan

The seminar GVDC hosted with Marq Cheek on Saturday August 24th was a day filled with learning handling tips that work well for our individual dogs, and keeping the agility training FUN!!

Marq arrived with his characteristic enthusiasm and encouraged videotaping of our exercises and his comments as a training tool for future use. That was especially helpful for me, and I have watched our video a few times to analyze how my position, cues, body language, etc influence how my dogs perform on the courses. Marq provided a wonderful multi-page handout with enough exercises for 6 months of training (at least!) He provided in-depth information on course walking, preparing for your course run, what to get out of watching others run, games strategies (for USDAA games including Jumpers, Snooker, Pairs and Gamblers), Motivation, and Accuracy vs. Speed. The packet also included goals and homework and included several books for recommended reading. There were 14 pages of exercises in the packet, and many pages had at least 2 different courses on them.

Marq was a wealth of information, he had many ideas for the participants to try with their dogs. This incuded motivating the dog to play, various body language cues to use, and improving the lines we create between the obstacles. He really encouraged us all to RUN!! with our dogs. I saw many dogs zipping around the courses faster than I have ever seen them, and one dog who made quite an impression in the first class was Natalie Bayless' little Bichon Roxanna. I had never seen Rox. do agility so quickly and with such enthusiasm, and I know it impressed us all -- including Natalie.

Marq maintained his high level of energy and enthusiasm throughout the very long day. We ended the last class with a fast, fun relay game with two teams of dogs. I was impressed that Marq was able to keep cheering for us to RUN!! with our dogs all the way to the end of the afternoon, but I hear that is a characteristic trait of his. This was my first seminar with Marq and I hope to participate in future seminars when he has them.

I would like to thank Marq Cheek for the wonderful day of learning he provided to over 20 dogs and handlers, and for putting a great deal of time, thought, and effort into our seminars. I have received excellent feedback from several of our participants, (read below) as well as many comments on how much people enjoyed the seminar and learned from Marq. We had such great groups of handlers and dogs in both classes, very nice people to spend an afternoon with.

Thank you to everyone who arrived early, very early (before 7:00am) to help with set-up including Joe Root and Natalie Bayless, Kathie Brusca, Bruce Brackman, Joe and Linda Karl, and there were several others too (Thank You and I am sorry I didn't mention everyone's names.) And also another big Thank You goes out to everyone who stayed past 6:30pm to help put all the equipment away, which was basically the entire group of the Master's/Excellent seminar, and Dave Baley too. And again, Joe Root was there again for take down, what a trooper and such a big help! Thank you also to Gene Granaroli for bringing the equipment trailer to the park early in the morning and taking it home in the evening. You are all very much appreciated!

Here is some of the feedback I received via e-mail from the seminar participants:

Lynette: Best tip was on how to create a line by getting a lead change before the jump to change direction.

Michelle: Thanks for offering this seminar with Marq. I really like the way he teaches and works with individual dog/handler teams. He helps me without barking orders and fine tunes even small problems. It helps that he has Shelties...hahaha. Thanks again-Michelle

Tom Freeman: I liked the way his courses allowed for the dogs to move out and still have the opportunity to accomplish difficult moves. I felt that the event was well organized and a lot of thought went into it.

Wynette (auditor): Really enjoyed it even without a dog. Watching everyone else and all the things that they have to think about on the course is really amazing. I'm just getting ready to start agility with my little terrier/Chihuahua mix, Sandy, and it was a great way to get more familiar with agility and what it's all about. Marq seemed like a really good trainer and I'd look forward to attending with my dog when we're both further along with our agility studies!

Kathie: I thought that Marq gave all of us all individual time and attention. I like that he helped us with our handling according to our dogs. I also appreciate that he took the time to read and comment on our questionnaire. He is one of my favorites. The line of drive to set up my position so as to correctly drive my dog to the next obstacle. Each time I failed to do this, and then did it correctly, I eliminated Dixie's spin. For example, a big step pushing Dixie out as she exited the weaves lined her up for the angled jump, eliminating the spin and lining her up for the second jump.

Marchelle: Thank you for putting together the Marq Cheek seminar. I had a good time with Beau. The first thing that really impressed me was that he not only read the questionaire we completed but took the time to make comments and then gave it back to us. He seemed to really care about each handler and dog team. He always let you know when the dog was preforming faster and seemed to be having fun. He made the dog's enthusiasm and speed the most important criteria, more important then how you technically performed the exercise. He paced the seminar well and made sure we all finished with something fast and fun.

Linda: Thanks for the fun seminar. Marq was great. I left with a lot of new things to try. At class on Sunday Pete and I worked as a better team because of Marq's suggestion to run Pete through some quick sits, downs, turns, heels, etc., before setting him on the start line. He was more focused and ready to wait for my release, and also less barky and ants-in-the-pants anxious. At Marq's suggestion I also treated him each time he waited and was able to get further away from him without his bolting. We didn't stop to fix anything during our runs - we just kept going and had cookies at the end. Pete stayed very focused and happy and we had a fun class together. I really appreciate how Marq delivered his information. It came across supportively, made sense, and I am using it already.

From Marq Cheek after our seminar: Thanx for writing and glad you and your club members enjoyed it. The handling was quite good overall, so it was more a matter of fine tuning here and there vs. reinventing. Good luck to you and your gang and we'll see you at an event in the future I am sure! May the course be with you, Marq