Agility Dogs

I nearly retired him 4 times - each time I had entered the next trial and he did something just good enough to encourage me to keep running him a while longer. I haven't had the retirement thought for quite a while now! I used DAP spray and rescue remedy for a while too. I think they helped, but I'm not sure if they helped him or me more!!

Rather than throwing the disc as you would a frisbee roll it on it's edge so that the pup gets used to chasing a frisbee - just not one that they have to jump for. Think a coin rolling on the floor when you drop it.

The other option is to throw 'rollers' until they are old enough. I know in the US and other countries there are some insane manouvers, but we try and avoid that in the way it is taught here. 2 keys - teaching the dog to land safely and in a balanced manner and throwing low/well (practice). I know disc dogs who are 10+ and are still running just as hard as some of the pups.

Corvus - I get what you mean. I guess what has surprised me is not that it has happened, but the speed with which it has happened. Seems that the planets have aligned. Interesting JP - CK is 5 next month! T

Background - CK is from a line that his breeder describes as 'soft'. Not in itself a problem, but I think CK might have started life on the softer end of the soft line. Again, not a problem in itself. THEN at 4 months he broke his elbow - not smashed, but cracked the tip where the tendon (or is it a ligament???) attaches and was not allowed off lead for about 9 months while we got him sorted. ENTER problem - as a very novice (read clueless) dog owner at the time my response was to keep him at home with limited exposure to the world. By the time we got him back into the world EVERYTHING was scary. I quickly realised my mistake, but the damage was already done - between the ages of 14 months and about 3 y.o. he would pee himself if a scary man (not sure why, but almost always men) would approach him. He would totally freak in situations where he wasn't comfortable. Adding to this he was attacked a couple of times when we were out on walks, so any dog that walked past him needed to be warded off. The only places he was comfortable were our house/back yard the flyball ring/training (go figure) and playing frisbee in a 'safe' area. In the agility ring he was just a nervous mess. So.....undersocialised soft dog with some bad experiences into the bargain. We did heaps of work with him and finally got him to tolerate a lot more, but he was never a really drivey dog (except for flyball and frisbee), nor was he confident around other dogs (except in the flyball ring). Then I did a workshop with a really good agility trainer and put some serious rules into his life as well as working VERY hard to develop drive/value for whatever it is we were going to do. Progress continued SLOWLY, but it still wasn't what I wanted for him so I nearly retired him from agility. Sadly we decided to give up flyball so I didn't retire him from agility and things gradually continued to improve until May of this year. Since then it is almost as if someone has stolen my dog and replaced him with a new one. After 3 years of slow improvement it is almost as if he has discovered himself and exploded into his full border collieness. He is confident, pushy and happy all the time. At the recent ADAA GP in Tamworth (a place he LOVES) he just wanted to play and flirt with other dogs to the point of almost pushing some of them too far and then ignoring when they started to give warning signals. (At which point he was removed from the situation - in the past he would have tried to eat them for rumbling/growling/lip lifting.) Every time he set foot in the ring instead of kind of giving 50% to 60% he did everything at a 'flyball' pace - to the point where I was struggling to keep up, despite being used to running a quick dog. Since we've been back he's come up another notch and is quivering with excitement when I get him out of his crate - even in 30 deg heat. On the weekend he was running quicker than my girl. I've done a LOT of work with this dog and he is almost where I want him to be, but my question is why after 3 years of effort did it all happen so quickly in the space of a couple of months. It's almost as if someone has flicked a switch and turned him on, but has since been slowly feeding in more and more power. I'm just interested if anyone has any thoughts on why things have happened this way and I now have totally different and very cool dog or if they have had a similar experience.

A friend of mine keeps bugging me to play with Wikki as well - I didn't help matters the other night by playing with her while the dogs were lined up waiting to run at agility. One day, but I'll get next year's WAC out of the way first!

My three lying together on the deck - a little dark, but I like the effect.

WOW - thanks guys, so many varied responses. TBH, my first two are too close together, but were never 'meant' to be performance dogs, it has just worked out that way. I was going to have a 5 year gap, but then Wikki (with the same Dad as CK) came along just a bit too early and I couldn't not have her come and live with us when the chance was there. I'd love to win lotto and retire as well - would make everything much easier!

I have 3 Agility Dogs - well, I will in about 3 weeks time when the third starts trialling and the other night I had a light bulb moment. I got our third one because the second one, was....well.....loveable. As an agility dog he has always been really good at flyball, frisbee and scabbing pats from anyone and anyone who didn't look too scary. We've given flyball away at least for the moment and frisbee is pretty easy so I really wanted another dog to train for agility since after 4 years I just couldn't get CK to see the value in it. All of a sudden he has come alive and decided that agility is the coolest thing on the face of the planet so the much threatened retirement plans have gone on hold and I now have 3 fun to play with agility dogs. In the back of my mind I kind of had a plan that Wikki (no 3) would come and live with us and then when she was 4 or 5 we'd look for number 4. Now as it turns out I've come to the realisation that when she is 4 or 5 the others will be 8 or 9 and hopefully still running. I always thought this would be the case, but the realisation is more that I can't train 4 competitive agility dogs. (Given that training for the trained dogs is as much about fitness as it is about skills the commitment in time is still there even if the content of the training is a bit less intense.) I've had to rethink my plan and now recognise that I won't be ready for another dog until at least one of the current bunch retires from competition. It will be injury/age that forces it so the training load will decrease at that point. I'm kind of a little disappointed to possibly be putting our next puppy off, but at the same time excited at how much is left to be done! Has anyone else a realisation like this and what was it.

I voted for the weekend one, but in reality Wikki flew in on Wednesday night (about 11pm) and i took the next day off work to sleep. After that it was business as usual (save for the rushed lunch time trips home to let her out of her crate occasionally.) I agree with those who said to get the put into their routine asap.

My guys go to Rowan Kilmartin at Animal Options (ormeau). Ph: 5546 6756.

Work him for a shorter time at a higher intensity and then build up - don't let him get to the point where he shuts down. It takes time - my boy has taken me almost 5 years to get to the point where I'm happy with him.

I used crate games and VERY short sessions to get my very soft, some would say lazy boy moving. It's taken a long time, but the crux of what we did was to teach him that unless he is moving at 100% speed there is no reward for it.

Just a thought - the one BIG thing that has helped CK has been to teach him to bark on command. Other friends with similar dogs have found it really helps with confidence - don't know why, just know it works.

I LOVE the surface. Sometimes it's a bit hard to pull up 90+kg and turn, but the dogs seem to love it and really it doesn't chop up that much. sometimes the big dogs cause a bit of a headache around the weavers, but overall I think people and dogs love it. (Just sux having dogs with white on them!)

My boy is very similar to this. We've done a lot of work with him to get him to the point where he is comfortable in his own company. As Pax said - crate games has been the foundation. Have a read of Susan Garrett's Ruff Love, that has also been part of it. So has shaping- works wonders for their confidence as they learn that it is OK to fail and they start to think independently. I've now got a dog who I can tie out and leave with HEAPS of people around and who will leave me when I ask him to. The down side - he is becoming pushy in 'asking' for what he wants.

You've seen a couple of mine in brags, but here are some more. (ONly the good ones of course.....)

Thanks Stellnme! The locals from John Oxley Dog Training Club were amazing - without their help it would not nearly be the event that it is.

Don't say one day.......You know Rory wants to meet Wooness.... ;) The venue is AMAZING. Thursday night a number of people literally had their tents destroyed by a storm, but were still able to camp in stables (eewwwwww) and run their dogs. I think we had about 2500 runs over the 4 days and finished ahead of time each session.

Our brag for the week was the ADAA GP at Tamworth. All 3 dogs were just amazing. For her part Wikki got to have a run in the WAC fundraiser training on Friday morning and spent the weekend thinking she was going to be allowed to play again - sadly she is going to have to wait for another 3 or 4 weeks. (Poor Woo). CK was my favourite boy all weekend. He ran HARD every time he came out of the crate and was super happy with everything that went on. We didn't get a lot of results - I'm still working out my timing with my new quick puppy dog. This was his best run for the weekend - 2nd place in Regular Maxi Gamblers. Then there was Xena. She and her team (including Sobriquet and Flyte from DOL) won the Maxi Team Challenge. She managed to win the Medallion Stakes Invitational Final, but the biggest surprise of all was 3rd place in the Midi Individual All Round Challenge event. Sooooooo proud to be running competitively with such AWESOME dogs. She finished up with 9 cards for the weekend. Was also great to meet some other DOL members and see their fantastic puppies. See you all next year!

WELL DONE KENZIE. Ness, you've done such a great job with her.

Hey Sheena, What clubs have trials while you are up here? I'll tell you if they are near Noosa or not. HOw far are you happy to travel? Tony

Hi Tony, didn't realise you were on DoL, Raffy was in the Team with Xena at the nationals COOL!!! Look forward to catching up. I still tell everyone about Xena and Callum in the Relay! Poor Callum won't get to see the little girly - he isn't able to come (or at least Penny isn't.). For those who weren't there Callum fell in LOVE with Xena. The usually perfectly behaved little man (250 dog) chased Xena all around the course until she stopped at the bottom of the a-frame and turned to look at me as if to say - 'are you going to get rid of this annoying little dog'. Poor Penny was mortified - I was just immensely proud of my little girl for running the course with another dog in hot pursuit .

Hey Sheena, I'll be there with CK and Xena. (Black and White BC's.) Running in the Regular Maxi and Int Midi classes. I know of a few other DOL members who are going as well. Cheers Tony