Agility Dogs

Mr WB will be pleased....

;) Don't come to Queensland. We have days that don't go below 21!! I know how you feel though - my boy doesn't like the heat much either.

Nothing to do with trialling, but OMG, I have a new dog. CK has always been, how do I put this nicely?, laid back in his approach to life, but particularly to training. Since we came back from World Dog Games he's seemed to have a new eagerness and drive. This morning he took it to a whole new level! Instead of the mildly interested, 'OK, I'll do what you want because you are asking me to do it' I usually get, he was pin sharp with the nutty BC eyes - the ones Xena always has on, but he has never had before. His heeling was amazing, his stays weren't really the disinterested, 'I'll stay here if I have to' I'm used to. They were more like 'I'm here, what do you want me to do now, if I stare at you hard enough I can make you..., WOW there we go, you've released me, I'm going to launch and race straight to you and do a perfect sit in front of you, what now, what now, what now!!!!!' Our tricks were the same a very controlled kind of crazy - and he was DRIVING to his toy like he never has before. It's like someone stole my old dog and gave me a whole new one! AWESOME. And all this on a hot, muggy morning. I just hope we can continue this into our next couple of trials. If I could find out what it is and bottle it I could make a mint!

We are going to take a holiday from most training. What we will be working on is flyball turns and just learning some new tricks I might be able to use in our frisbee freestyle routine. Sadly I can't take 6 weeks off altogether because my house would be destroyed by one bored BC and another one who will copy her..... Last time we went away for a week and took the dogs with us I got told off the minute we got home for not training her. She ran into the room where we keep all 'her' toys and started to bark at me!

I can't offer them a home, but I can send two BC's to help them in their endeavours! CK sits for hours on our deck staring at the powerlines over the road and feels it is his duty to let us know when we are about to be invaded. (fortunately only one bark!) Xena is a little less subtle about it and goes NUTS when a possum approaches.

...........and agilty and frisbee and fyball and and and........... Seriously from me - I found it really interesting. 'Punishment starts where understanding stops', is a quote that comes to mind.' Also - FTR - I want a kelpie for my next dog, but OH just won't allow it!!

2010 already. In the last 12 months I've again had a blast with the puppies and learned sooooooooo much about trialling and training. CK Next year I really want to work on how much value CK has for agility and his understanding of what I am asking for. If we can get that right he should just about have his SAAD title by the end of the year and maybe even his ADX and JDX titles, plus whatever games we play as well. I'd also really like to get him in the medallion stakes round at next year ADAA GP. I want to get him turning on the box a lot more quickly and to improve his times so that he is the consistent 4.5 second dog he has the potential to be. I also want to work with him so that he understands what I am asking in the freestyle frisbee ring. We might even do a bit of dancing on the way to this one!! XENA In agility I want to learn to run Xena really hard. The only thing holding her back now is me - if I get it right she runs clear, I'm not happy with clear though - I want clear and fast. I'm going to have to step up if we are going to achieve that one. We need to fix her passing in flyball - after a couple of unfortunate incidents she is a little unsure of herself so we need to build her back up. Once we do that she will keep running consistently low 5 second runs like she does around the little dogs now. Finally I'd like to really nail her freestyle routine in frisbee. Just one more FDM card would be nice as well, but I won't get greedy.

I think that as long as you are prepared to put in the time and effort it doesn't matter what space you have. Case in point - I have 2 BC's. My boy needed to be confined to a small area for an extended period due to an injury. He would go nuts if my girl had free access to the yard so they both had to be confined (seperately) in an area no bigger than a largish court yard for almost 9 months. Xena is a complete nutter. VERY high drive and totally driven to work. The whole time we didn't get one complaint - the most I could get out of any of the neighbours was 'they never make a sound except later in the afternoon just after dark. They make a fair bit of noise for a couple of minutes, but then the auto light comes on and they stop.' :rofl:We don't have an auto light. That was me getting home and turning the light on!! They no longer even make a noise when I get home, but do now have full access to our yard. That said the program was (and still is) pretty full on. Walk from 5:30am to 6:30am each morning (not the injured one - he is the most chilled out BC you will ever meet), home at lunch time, out again between 5pm and 9pm 3 nights a week at training or training/working in the back yard for half an hour. I just don't have to come home from work at lunch any more and the couple of times we've had new neighbours they were absolutely amazed to find out that we have a dog, let alone 2! It's not for everyone, but does show it can be managed.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. I think I selfishly want to see him in an agility home so I still get to see him all the time He could always go to a home that does both!! :D

Well done all - GREAT WORK!!

Damian is definitely keen, just waiting for a call or email - go for it guys!! T

Thanks all - seems the weekend has done Mr CK the world of good as well. His confidence has grown in leaps and bounds in the space of a week. Off to conquer the world now! :D (I'd actually be happy with a couple of starters agiliity cards, but don't tell anyone!)

Sometimes being able to heel a previously aggressive dog past other dogs while retaining that dog's focus is a huge achievement. x2. Well done - that is an awsome result.

Let me have a chat to Damian when he gets back and I'll answer in the next day or so. Cheers Tony

Your husband is a very wise man, although I hope he had better luck on the cup today!! Aside from the pressure of keeping CK sane it was really just heaps of fun! To quote one of the production guys - 'very rock'n'roll'..............(Although you might have thought differently when you saw Damian line up to throw his last disc.) The guys are a great bunch of people who really love their dogs. The best thing about frisbee IMO is that it is accessible to just about everyone with a dog and it is a realistic goal. It isn't nearly as scary as obedience or agility where you have to train for months or even years before being able to get into the ring. (Although Jade and CK both have agility titles so it probably helps a little bit.) We just teach a few basic things that help the dogs with safety and then you are away. It's pretty hard to break a dog mentally playing disc and even if you aren't getting it right they don't seem to mind too much because it is such a fun game for them. Just in case you missed it in the email....... [email protected] or drop me a PM if you have any other questions in the mean time or I can pass on your details to Damian. (I'm on the committee of BARK, but Damian is president of Canine Disc Australia.)

Well done guys. I think to get the dogs doing something new under those conditions was absolutely awesome!! All the puppies did VERY well.

Yep, Damian is best to chat to - he has the big picture in mind and is really keen to get things happening. Thanks for your kind comments. I think CK's stress actually made it easier for me (apart from running so far and then having to steady to throw!). Focussing so much on him kept my mind off everything else.

WOW!!!! WHAT A WEEKEND - I AM NEVER GOING TO FORGET THE WORLD DOG GAMES!!!! This is a long post, but I am so excited about what we achieved and still buzzing after playing frisbee in front of 4500 people!! Thursday went well with all the paperwork etc happening, but CK had a rest until Friday. What a disaster that was - the artificial grass and lighting seemed to have him a little concerned in the morning's practice. By the time we got to the dress rehearsal he was totally freaked out by the amplified noise in the arena and then one of the camera men shoved a camera in his face when he wasn't expecting it - not once (forgiveable), but twice in 3 minutes. For a soft dog that was just about the end of it all. To top it off every time he had a run he toileted on the field - pure terror - think dog in a thunderstorm. Any way, I worked really hard to support him and we got through it without a total breakdown (him or me). I was sitting outside the ring seriously contemplating taking him home when a lady (who later turned out to be one of the animal trainers at the Outback Spectacular on the Gold Coast) came up to me and told me I had done an awesome job with him and that it would all be OK as long as I stuck by him and kept him feeling safe. She then started to cry and told me he reminded me of her boy and that he was a wonderful dog. (OK, we both started to cry.....) I decided to take CK for a good run, halve his food and start him on rescue remedy then see what came of it the next morning. I also did some serious thinking about how to manage most of his fears and came up with a plan that involved taking him out for a run every couple of hours to get him out of the strange environment and relax. I also decided to run out and collect him every time I threw the disc as well as to make sure he was crated until the last possible moment every time he was to go on - then when he came out of the crate I carried him into the ring to avoid the camera. It seemed to work - he went really well in the Saturday warm up and when the crowd came in (all 4500 of them) it seemed to soak up some of the noise that was bouncing around the place. After the first two throws he settled down a little and decided that he could run down the right hand side of the field and avoid the cameras (why I was throwing off centre to begin with). A couple of times he started to drop his tail, but as long as I got the disc back and kept his focus on either me or it he was OK. By the end of the final round when I went to pick him up he was bouncing around wanting to play more so all ended up as it should have! To me that was what the real brag for the weekend was - getting CK to a point where he was comfortable in such a foreign environment. From Thursday night the result really became secondary, but I should probably talk about that as well. We were leading after the first round and I then had a couple of bad rounds which put us 8 points behind going into the final round (but still in second place). In the final round we scored 19.5 points which was the highest round anyone had over the weekend and only 2.5 points off the max possible score, which put the pressure on the leader. He needed 12 points to win and it came down to his last throw with 4 seconds to spare - we just got pipped into second place. I have to say that after the rocky start a lot of the flyball and agility competitors were in tears talking to me about his performance. (He is a well known and popular boy!!) I've managed to find a really short clip of a couple of my throws that someone snuck out of the arena (I'm trying to find out if I know them!). Any hoo, our big goal for the weekend was to showcase the sport and I think we did a pretty good job of that judging by the level of enquiry! Look forward to working with some of you to get the sport into other areas of the country!! Tony and CK

I don't think it would be too hard to convince us to come down at all. One of our biggest goals for WDG was simply to showcase the sport and to grow it outside its current SEQ (plus Townsville) base. The feedback we got both from other WDG people and the general public was absolutely awesome and we would be more than happy to work with anyone who thought they had the potential to get a club up and running!! Damian and his wife Karen are the people who brought the game to Australia - it was just brilliant that he and Jade won on the weekend. As for me, I'm not even a little disappointed that we got second - it was such a hard environment for the dogs to work in - especially on their own and away from their handlers. (Bloody soft Border Collies!!) I'm happy to help out with any other questions, but I'm sure Damian will also be more than willing to have a chat - his details are on the website as well. Hope to be talking a lot more soon! Cheers Tony (AND CK)

Hey guys, I'm pretty sure they are using the Aust version as a test for over seas markets. They have been talking about next year's Aus event. I think my guys might forget what it is they are there for if they had to come out of a quarantine period........ Only a couple more days to go!!!!!

Very Cool!!! well done to both girls.... Go on.......you know you want to........

We'd love to have you at BAD!!

ADCQ (Agility Dog Club of Queensland) at Tivoli (Ipswich) is an ADAA club that does foundation activity for younger dogs. BAD (Brisbane Agility Dog Club) requires your dog to be 12 months before you start. Both clubs are ADAA affiliates, but have members who trial in both ANKC and ADAA agility. (My girl is on the associate register and will be doing more ANKC next year, but ADAA is our focus). PM me if you want more info on ADCQ.

Woo Hoo!!! Division 3 for us. Only one more sleep before we hit the road!!