I’ve been remotivating myself this week, so Rio and I have had some specific goals to work on. Waits, and Tugging!
Her wait training is going reasonably well; I find waits really boring to train which is probably why Kim doesn’t have one at all anymore, and Dylan’s has deteriorated to almost nothing. Oops. We’re hitting the three-D’s this week (maybe because it makes me think we’re working on Apparition, which frankly sounds way more fun), Duration, Distance, and Distraction. I need to start practising this in new environments too, but … boring.
I’ve been playing lots of tugging games at home, mainly switching between toys so that whatever I have is best. Rio has no problem with this game, she will attempt to tug with whatever I offer. She definitely loves her food so we do most of our work with toys, if I need to train with treats I can do but I much prefer tuggys for agility and flyball.
Rio will not pick up a dead tug toy though, so that’s our goal for the next few weeks. I’ve been throwing her tuggy out and then racing her to it, and she will race ahead to the toy … then she turns around and runs back and forth between me and the toy until I get there. Not quite the right idea!
I have been trying not to push her waits at training class, so we mainly play wait games whilst the other dogs are working. Speaking of, she was back to being super-focused and super-enthusiastic this week, she loves tunnels and was sending on beautifully through the jump wings to her toy (and then running back to me, etc etc). We also did some turn work around the pole, which is really starting to drive home now. I am excited about getting to run a dog who can turn again! Although I can’t say cik and cap as my Yorkshire accent mangles it, so my current commands for Ri are Go (extended) and Kip (collected). I’m going to sound ridiculous on course shouting kipkipkip but if it works, I’m willing to make the sacrifice.
As Dylan went to hydrotherapy on Tuesday, Kim got to take his place in class. She was very enthusiastic and excited about being there, even if she runs like an old lady these days (not quite as much flexibility as she used to have!). As long as she’s happy, I’ll keep entering her in the odd show (she’s at Penrith in June next), and let her enjoy herself.
Mollie got her own special parcel in the post today. We got invited to join Pedigree’s Joint Care Trial, and considering there were freebies on offer for Mol and I, we signed up. Mollie’s rucksack contained 6 weeks worth of Joint Care treats, a ball launcher and balls, and a rather awesome Flip HD video camera. Sadly we only get the camera on loan, but it will be fun to use while we’ve got it.
Mol was pretty excited about ploughing straight in and eating the lot, playing with ALL the balls etc, but she got one treat only. They smell quite strong, but Mol seemed happy enough. Sadly our dogs aren’t allowed to play with balls in the house, so we’re saving those for her walks.
She’s still really bald from her brutal cut a few weeks ago, but hopefully by the end of the trial she’ll be back to her hairy self and looking good on her photos again!
The owner of a young dog which attended the TAG Easter Show (4-9 April, West Midland Showground in Shrewsbury) has reported that the dog has been positively diagnosed as suffering from canine parvovirus. This is a highly contagious disease which is especially dangerous to puppies and younger dogs.
> If you were at the TAG Easter show please watch your dogs for any symptoms. Incubation is typically 3-10 days.
> If you were at the TAG Easter show, please consider whether you should attend agility shows in the next couple of weeks. As owners it is our responsibility to prevent the spread of diseases, especially such a dangerous and contagious illness. Please remember that the standard KC show entry form requires you to promise not to take your dogs to a show if they have suffered from or been in contact with contagious diseases in the preceding 21 days.
I wasn’t at TAG, I was at Hare’n'Hounds. I can’t imagine anyone travelled 150miles from Hare’n'Hounds to TAG, but you never know, so I guess my dogs might have been exposed. I don’t have another show until June anyway, but I am at flyball tomorrow, where my dogs will expose multiple other dogs, who will then go to other training classes and omg with the infection never stop!? I have a training session next week with a handler who was at TAG, but I should probably cancel that too.
In all seriousness, this is just a signal boost, and I don’t normally do these. Take it seriously, take sensible precautions, disinfect, keep an eye on your dogs. Do not go actual crazy.
This was a soft foam tyre on a metal base, which was pegged into rain-soaked ground. Equipment to this show was provided by Adams Agility.
Dylan has never had an issue with the tyre and has never crashed it before. He took off early to this obstacle because I slowed down at the weaves and then accelerated away, and this seems to cause him to take off earlier than usual (particularly when approaching the final obstacle).
Dyl is physically uninjured.
Watching this makes me feel sick, partly thinking that if Dylan had done this five years ago, he would have hit a solid lifebouy tyre with the frame base. I initially thought he had hurt his hip as he turned back towards me, but the show photographer was actually taking photos of this obstacle and showed me immediately that he had hit with his chest. I’m amazed that he is ok.
Five runs a day on not-so-flat ground has killed me, I am going to have to get my running shoes on and do some training this summer as well. When I am not flailing around behind Dylan, I can actually handle him well. This was as much a surprise to me as to Dyl! As I am finally beginning to accept and admit that Dylan doesn’t really have a wait anymore, on a few courses I really struggled to get to where I needed to be.
This was our first Grade 6 show outdoors and at fitness, and although Dylan and I were flagging by Sunday afternoon, we generally did much better than I expected. Our training held up, we both have the skills we need to handle the courses, and when we got it right we were getting top-10 placings. I expected us to be outclassed, or at least out of touch in terms of speed, but surprisingly we really weren’t. Our major weak point was contact speed, which may be down to the rubber contacts and Dylan’s cautious nature when faced with something new. I don’t think he feels completely comfortable or confident on the surface yet, but we have no where to train on rubber contact equipment so I will have to hope it improves as we go. His Aframe and Seesaw were fine by the end of the weekend, but the dogwalk still needs a lot of work.
We also had one big weakness, called Taking Off Early for the Last Obstacle. From watching the videos, this is my fault; when I slow down on the second to last obstacle (a contact or weaves) and then accelerate, Dylan takes off early. He can get away with this on a single jump perhaps, but unfortunately he crashed through the second part of the spread on our first run of the weekend, and then again on our final run of the weekend he had a fairly horrendous tyre crash. I will post a video of his tyre crash later this week, when I can bring myself to watch it again.
The courses all weekend were generally challenging, particularly on Friday. We had a fair split of 4-7, 5-7, 6-7 and Open classes, but barring the C1-7′s, the others definitely erred more towards G7 than G4/5. Lots of push-outs, obstacle avoidance, and required independent contacts in the course designs all weekend. Is that this year’s trend?
I think we generally either went clear or got E’d, with two 5F runs that I can remember. I trained all the 1-7 classes and held Dylan’s contacts, as they were very straightforward up-down courses where we were unlikely to get places anyway. We got one rosette on Friday, a 6th in the G5-7 Jumping, a really tough course for 4-7 and despite a dither at the beginning Dylan ran it really well. I think we could have been faster; I’d just walked out of another ring and then straight on to the line for this class, and at the third tunnel (obstacle 12) I had to choose between speaking and breathing, so we ran the rest of the course with minimal vocal commands (or forward motion, because there was also an option between running and dying of exhaustion).
Saturday was marginally more successful, a 13th in the Garry Smith’s very nice G4-7 Agility and then an unexpected 10th in the G6-7 Agility. I thought the agility was a very easy course so I held Dylan’s Aframe contact whilst I got into position, but apparently there weren’t many clears. I can only assume everyone else thought it was easy and trained it as well! There was a particularly evil G6-7 Jumping on Saturday which was at least fun to watch, even if Dylan and I got E’d immediately.
Sunday we had no clears at all, oops! We had a really super run in the G6-7 Agility in Ring 1, Dylan didn’t come through for the pull-thru at 3 so I took him back, but he ran the rest of the course perfectly. That one was a bit frustrating! The very final class of the weekend had a really difficult pull-thru at the start, I wasn’t sure I could get there, but I’m very pleased that I did and I’m even more pleased with how I handled it. Unfortunately I then attempted to fall over a jump so we got E’d. Nobody’s perfect.
Rio had a good weekend. She’s Miss Sociable at shows, she really adores Cat and Tracy so they get regular face washes but she’s happy to sit and snuggle anyone given the opportunity. She was also very polite with all the dogs, although she was a little bemused by the 15 week Bernese puppy who desperately wanted to play. Considering the Bernie was already as big as she is, I can see why she was puzzled! We played lots of games around the rings, mainly a game called Sitting Calmly, which Rio is very good at. She showed some interest for the first time this weekend and watched a few dogs run, but it was very relaxed and she got lots of praise. On Sunday, as she’d done so well, I took a tuggy and we tugged ringside for a while, which she loved. I don’t foresee any problems with her wanting to engage and play ringside so this isn’t really a priority to work on, but it’s nice to know she will if asked. I’m more concerned with keeping her non-reactive to the other dogs working, and so far so good.
