WAO Time

  By Leanne | May 18, 2012 - 10:27 am | Rio, Training, tricks
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Now I’ve got my rant for the week over with (see previous post), I can go back to thinking of fun things to do with Rio.

Our goal this week is to go back and do some more motion sensitive stuff, maybe some more door-shutting stuff. We haven’t done anything like that in a while. Her tug/dead toy work is going well so we’ll keep working on that as well! She’s also doing much better on walks with Dylan, less flattening him and more getting on with being normal (as much as is possible for Ri!)

She does seem to be a bit soft and sensitive at the moment (not compared to Dylan or even Kim, but for her) so I’m not sure if that’s just the fabled fear period raising it’s head, or maybe she’s being hormonal, I don’t know. Speaking of, I wanted to give Rio the chance to mature for longer, but I am not looking forward to the whole bitch-in-season thing. I can’t wait until she can get spayed. How do people keep entire bitches?

In between training the dogs, I’m keeping track of the WAO results. I think it’s kind of sad that the UK doesn’t seem to support it’s teams in the same way as, say, the USA. Maybe we just aren’t as vocal about it. I am excited to see how some of the English guys do, especially since I actually know some of them this time. I am also a tiny bit jealous, one day I would love to be there. I have said before (even relatively recently) that I didn’t want to try to compete at Championship or above level. Apparently things change, because I now think I do want to do that. Right now it’s not exactly feasible, seeing as I have one sensitive little soul and one tiny puppy, but maybe at some point in the future I’d like to challenge myself to be successful at that level.

Flyball Starter Tournaments

  By Leanne | May 17, 2012 - 3:44 pm | Flyball
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This has sort of been a pet peeve of mine for a long time, but I’m now facing returning to Starter Tournaments with potentially 2 dogs (one young, one old) in the next 12 months. So I thought it was time to take a closer look.

I think all flyballers can agree on what a Starter Tournament is. This is a competition for dogs who are not able to compete at Open or Multibreed tournaments, for whatever reason, and is held under mock tournament conditions including ring party and a judge. The lanes are netted, jump heights are optional, and other training aids (box jumps, chutes instead of boxes, extra handlers) should be allowed. Dogs from 12 months are allowed to compete (although I think a fair argument could be made for raising this to 15 months, but that’s another topic).

However, here are the rules pertaining to Starters in the current BFA Rules and Regulations:

5.2 (b) Dogs may not compete on the same day in more than one team at a BFA Sanctioned Tournament, including Starters and intermediate

5.2 (d) (g) If a Starters Competition is run, dogs entered must be a minimum of 12 months old.

5.19 General Welfare of Dogs also covers Starters, and some of Section 3 (Discipline) sort of covers it, although it’s open to intepretation. I think flyballers would inteprete gross misconduct in Starter tournaments as such, but it’s worth noting that at least some Starter competitors are not BFA members.

Starter tournaments are currently running under the idea of good sportsmanship, honesty, and the general community of flyballers being nice to one another. Which is a lovely thought and has worked reasonably well for 15 years, but it’s already showing cracks. There is a lot of confusion about Starters, about which dogs can run and why, about whether you can drop in and out of Starters, about how the tournament is going to be run, etc.

I’ve looked at every schedule currently available on the BFA website, and only one schedule directly mentioned Starters in the rules. That was to say that dogs entered in the Starter tournament could not enter Open on the same weekend (and vice versa), which is actually covered in the BFA Rules & Regs anyway.

I found one peice of documentation on the web vaguely outlining Starters (props to Delta Force for their training docs!)

Current discussion on the BFA Forum suggests that members should notify the BFA when an older dog returns to Starters. But there is actually no reason why you should, since it’s not a rule and there is no way of penalising anyone who does (and why would you anyway?).

In an ideal world, Starters would be Sanctioned as a seperate tournament with variations on the standard BFA rules. If I had any idea how to go about proposing a rule change, I probably would, but I don’t. If that’s not possible, then at least providing an outline of suggested rules for Starter tournament organisers to adopt should be considered, instead of this whole “everyone knows” stuff. Because not everyone does!

Waiting

  By Leanne | May 16, 2012 - 6:23 pm | Agility, Dylan, Rio, Training
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Maintaining the “optional working” rule is difficult, sometimes. I know it’s the right thing to do, but this week Rio started class by visiting all the other dogs. She got a second chance to work, but failed to take it, so she headed straight back to the car. That’s a very short training session. I know this is the right thing to do for me; I do not have the patience to try and convince a dog to work with me, and I don’t want to put Rio in a situation where I am stressing and impatient.

However, because Dylan only did 15 minutes of flatwork, and our final class was missing the usual people due to the football (I don’t even know), I got Rio back out for another try. I was dithering all evening over whether this was a good idea, and I’ll admit it probably wasn’t motivated by the “right” reasons: I wanted to her to get some exercise and tire herself out a little bit. As it was, I let her off lead in the arena and she thought about working with me, but decided Diva looked way more fun, although D was on lead and actually boring. So I stood, and waited, and waited, and chatted to Emma … and Rio spent a minute or so giving off all kinds of calming signals (sniffing whilst pacing, curving in on Emma or me or the equipment, wall eyes) because she couldn’t work out what to do. I don’t like seeing her like that, but by constantly nagging at her to work, I’m not helping. She needs to think it through on her own, and she’s a smart cookie, so I trust her.*

After a minute, she decided to see if engaging would bring some joy. So she came to wigglebum at me, and did her “can we play tug?” dance, and when I said yes, she relaxed and switched on. So we worked for 10minutes, and she was awesome. We did some tunnel sends, some go-ons over a line of jumps (bumps instead of poles still, at this stage), and some beautiful 8″ kips. I love working with her, she runs fast but is surprisingly thoughtful, even if her legs get away from her sometimes.

I feel like I’m sometimes asking too much of her at her age. She’s at that weird age where she has very mature dog moments, and then very puppyish moments, often right next to one another. I think she will get more from doing bits of training here and there now, rather than waiting and not doing anything until she is older, because when she is in focused, working mode, we both have a great time and she is amazing. It’s good for me if nothing else, I’m getting a lot of practise at recognising when I am not in the right mental state for training.

Dylan was also amazing, bless him. He was on the flat only, no poles, and was very excited to be at training. He even thought about playing with Diva! His wing wraps are so beautiful on the flat, he hugs the wing so tightly. As soon as there is a pole in – even at 8″ – it falls apart completely. I’m living with that now, so long as he’s happy. We finished up with one run over the seesaw, which was also beautiful. He was a good boy!

*I really do trust her, which surprised me as much as anyone. It feels like we’ve known each other for a lot longer than 6 months. It’s taken Dylan and I years to learn to trust one another; our partnership is a created thing, something built and put together every day. Maybe out of Lego, that seems like it would be Dyl’s kinda thing. Kim and I have a much more organic relationship. I think Rio and I maybe have a bit of both right now. It seems to work.

Training in the Park

  By Leanne | May 13, 2012 - 3:16 pm | Agility, Kim, Rio, Training
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I decided today we needed to get out and do some agility training elsewhere, so I loaded a jump, Kim, and Rio into the car. It’s finally feeling like May, no rain! No sunshine either, but it’s warm outside, enough that I can wear my crocs and give my poor feet a break. I rubbed the back of my ankles raw a few months ago, and the skin has not recovered yet. Doesn’t seem to matter what footwear I’ve got on, I still end up with plasters all over the back of my feet by the end of the day. Not great for running with the dogs.

Rio did well, some super kips (wing wraps) and go ons. I am a little unsure as she’s not paying full attention when we train like this, but I’m not sure if I’m just asking too much of her at this age. Her attention span varies, sometimes she’s 100% focused and other times it drops, and things are distracting. Her enthusiasm is always 100% though, so it’s a hard one to fathom. Pretty pleased with her though, all the same. She’s working her wraps at 8″ now, and it’s still looking good. I’m excited by the prospect of having a big dog to run who can actually turn!

Kim played around a little bit as well over 8″, I want to build her muscle tone back up so she’s on a fitness mission. She is entered at Penrith in June because she still loves working, and the jump height isn’t a problem, but she’s not quite as strong in her back end as she was. That’s the lack of flyball training kicking in, I think, but she should get back to that soon as well. I’m almost sure she’s going to be going back and doing some Starter tournaments this year, which will keep her happy!

Rest

  By Leanne | May 11, 2012 - 1:36 pm | Dylan, Health, Mollie, Photos
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No shows for me this weekend. Dylan did need adjusting, and two days of rest before five classes isn’t enough. I’m disappointed we can’t go, but we have five weekends in a row of flyball and agility coming up so missing one day will be better in the long run.

He’s on full rest right now, and I might take him to flyball tomorrow for some flat recalls (just like Rio!), and then build up from there.

Unrelated photo is unrelated. Mollie’s boxturn is unpredictable and not at all pretty, but sometimes it’s not too bad.

Mollie Boxturn