Different Dog Sports And Time

[JulesP]

I am really struggling at the moment with trying to train Poppy in both obedience and agility at the same time. It is more a time, concentration factor for me. The dog seems to be coping well!! I feel that I am doing neither properly and I do like to do things 100%.

How do other people manage the time commitment to multiple sports?

Chuck into the mix the fact that Poppy is also doing herding and I am doing agility with Brock!!!

Not a bad problem having too many hobbies!

[ness]

When somebody designs a 36 hour day I might just be able to squeeze in everything I wish to accomplish and at the level I wish to accomplish .

Should say I hate making decisions and I am tossing up between a herding training day and an agility trial. Harder knowing my old girl needs 1 more leg each for her remaining two titles. My decision at the moment is leading towards the herding though :cool: .

Edited May 26, 2009 by ness

[JulesP]

Lol I didn't even get into the 'which thing' to go to debate!

[Janba]

I have 2 dogs who are more than ready to trial in tracking and have been since last year. The problem is that tracking trials interfere with herding training and trialling.

[ness]

Janba. Well if my older girl would get her act together and get those two remaining legs that she needs in agility I wouldn't have any decision to make and the herding would win hands down :cool: .

[Seita]

I tend to focus more heavily on one thing at a time and get that to a level that I want and then focus more on something else. For example I currently show and obedience trial, last year I did 4 shows with my girl but did like 12 trials as I really wanted to get certain titles then. This year I'm only doing some basic obedience work and focussing more heavily on showing and training my new pup up. I won't start on agility until I have the time to actually commit to it and do it well, I can't see much point in having loads of things going on and none of them being done really all that well. Once a dog is at a level that I'm happy with then it's maintenance training from there which frees up to time work on something else.

[Mrsdog]

Aah, all you perfectionists! Sure, it is nice to be really good at something, but if you don't try them all how do you know if you might be missing out on the one thing you are REALLY good at (or that your dog really prefers).

Obedience is the starting point for all things and never becomes redundant. This is your first building block. Then you prioritize. If you want to be really good at a particular thing then that is what you spend most of your time training. Now don't shoot me down on this one, but I truly believe that doggy dancing is the hardest of them all. To get a really good routine going takes untold hours of practice. Remember you have to teach your dog a routine, know the steps yourself, and keep in time to the music. There are a lot of so/so routines out there that are not really very interesting. In order to be entertaining you need that extra pizazz, and to get that takes lots of time, imagination and dedication.

I am your Jack of all Trades and Master of none, taking part in obedience, flyball, agility, title my dogs in the conformation ring, have done doggy dancing but decided I am not dedicated enough to be good at this, would like to do tracking and gundog, and am spending this weekend finding out about Rally O.

Remember, the most important thing is that you and your dog enjoy what you are doing. Doggy doesn't care if you get first place or last, he is happy to just be there with you and he will keep on trying to please you. At the end of the day we all go home with the best dog there anyway.

Noels.

[The Spotted Devil]

Lovely perspective Mrsdog

I'm focussing on obedience at the moment, have put showing on the back burner for a little (time factor), enjoying agility training (when we make it!!!), have dabbled in retrieving with a friend's dog (now THAT'S an addictive sport!!!) and would love to do tracking and endurance (easy for him!) with my Spotted friend. Once Ziggy has his CD title I plan to focus more on agility.

Doggy doesn't care if you get first place or last, he is happy to just be there with you and he will keep on trying to please you. At the end of the day we all go home with the best dog there anyway.

Thank you for that reminder! The only thing Ziggy cared about when we won on the weekend was the possibility of chewing on the trophy or playing tug with the ribbon What made my day more than ANYTHING was his madly wagging tail during the heel work, the look of confidence in every exercise and his ridiculously over enthusiastic recall And this is from a perfectionist who has learned to change her definition of "success"

[tlc]

You guys are so lucky to have the opportunity to do all these things. I so wish I lived in a town/city where there was more doggy things to do. I have one who loves agility, but we only have a few classes run a year here, and it is on at the same time as my obedience classes and it is at the opposite training school. One of mine I know would love fly ball she is so good at jumping and loves the ball but alas no fly ball around here anywhere. My oldest loves tracking and we have done it a couple of times he achieved a pass in the beginners level with his eyes closed but there is only a couple of classes here a year. I just wish I had more choices. One of my girls loves agility and is so so so good at it but she wont retrieve, we are working on it like crazy but she is just not into it at all.

We were going to have a lady come to our obedience school to teach us the basics of doggy dancing which I would have loved to try but it got cancelled which was dissapointing. I guess I need to remind myself as Mrsdog said whatever we do the dogs are happy to be with me and thats the main thing.

[J...]

I only just manage with one dog and one sport - I work on her fitness as a priority over training for agility, so that takes up most of our daylight hours at this time of year outside my work. Then trying to squeeze in some training here and there, it's not that easy. My yard is too slopey for much agility training so I need to allow 15 to 20 mins extra to pack the car and set up at my chosen training spot, it's a lot of time when there's so little light

tlc - I have nothing here doggy wise at all, I travel an hour and a quarter for training. If you're so keen to do agility, why not do agility while it's available at WDTS and then go back to the other club for obedience while agility isn't on? WDTS don't run the number of training sessions they used to, you'd find you'll still have plenty of time at the other club.

Edited May 27, 2009 by Jess.

[tlc]

I only just manage with one dog and one sport - I work on her fitness as a priority over training for agility, so that takes up most of our daylight hours at this time of year outside my work. Then trying to squeeze in some training here and there, it's not that easy. My yard is too slopey for much agility training so I need to allow 15 to 20 mins extra to pack the car and set up at my chosen training spot, it's a lot of time when there's so little light

tlc - I have nothing here doggy wise at all, I travel an hour and a quarter for training. If you're so keen to do agility, why not do agility while it's available at WDTS and then go back to the other club for obedience while agility isn't on? WDTS don't run the number of training sessions they used to, you'd find you'll still have plenty of time at the other club.

Thanks Jess, You have to go a long way for training, that must be a real drag but I would do it to if I had none nearby. I did do one block of Agility with WDTS but there was a slight conflict of interest, with me training at the other school and the fact that one of the trainers told me I would have to use a chocker chain on my boy, among other things which I was not impressed about. Also I am now an assistant trainer with Brierly, and as we dont have many trainers I dont think it would be fair on the others if I took 4 weeks off.

I also know what you mean about time outside work with the dogs. I spent the majority of time outside my working hours with the dogs keeping them fit and healthy is my number one aim and like you my back yard is not big enough to excersise all of them so out we go. its been great latley Im finding a lot more people to go walking with so lots of socialization for the dogs as well which is fantasitc!!

[J...]

Fair call. That makes it a bit harder - it is hard enough to find instructors at the best of times.

I hope you weren't told to use a choker chain for agility? I told them straight up I wouldn't use it for obedience, and never did. Then again I'm just a little bit opionated on how I chose to train my dog. My dog's the out of control one who needed to be punished! Anyone who has seen my dog work will know just how funny that is

Edited May 27, 2009 by Jess.

[magicmine]

I am trialling 2 of mine in obedience as well as another in obedience.( who isnt my dog) We are also training for agility and we are starting weight pull this weekend. We also show on weekends too but we pick what we want to do but dont think there is enough hours in the day to do all the stuff i like to do with my dogs.

My dogs enjoy anything we do and just love doing things

[tlc]

Fair call. That makes it a bit harder - it is hard enough to find instructors at the best of times.

I hope you weren't told to use a choker chain for agility? I told them straight up I wouldn't use it for obedience, and never did. Then again I'm just a little bit opionated on how I chose to train my dog. My dog's the out of control one who needed to be punished! Anyone who has seen my dog work will know just how funny that is

No they didnt want me to wear the choker for agility but thought he could use a choker for general obedience, and thier really wasnt any reason as his general obedience was good but he got so bored with it, thats why I took him to agility in the first place. Sit heel stay come drop, was all just routine to Cooper and he needed something more challenging!! Although it didnt help that they wanted me have him off lead which I had to do and he took off into the advanced class and said hello to all the other dogs and just wouldnt come back when I recalled him. In hindsight now he was probly a bit young (just on 12 months) but he has always been a very sociable boy. I think the fact that we have off lead socialization at Brierly, as soon as I took the leash off him he thought it was play time. It was very funny but no one was impressed at all and no one would help me catch him they all just stood there and watched on as he went from dog to dog to say hello all the time Im sure wondering why the other dogs wouldnt play with him. Anyway he has grown up now (3 yrs old) has great recall but still is too friendly for his own good!!

Do you live close to Warrnambool or did you shift away? You probly know Mawson (Shannon) she has changed clubs and only comes to Brierly now and she used to do agility with Mawson as well.

Magicmine, My guys also love doing all I do, I usually take them everywhere that is humanly possible with me. The weight pulling sounds interesting!!

[FHRP]

Sometimes you do have to make a choice about what to concentrate on for a while. Like Mrsdog my dogs play Jack Of All trades, but I enjoy trying different things with them, and they seem to as well. The most intensive time is when the foundations for any sports are being set as these are so important. With my youngest boy we currently compete in Retrieving and Obedience trials. We started Agility training last year but I dropped it when I realised I didn't have the time or inclination to put the effort in for the solid foundations. We are still training pretty strongly for both Retrieving and Obedience as he's still young and very much learning even though he's progressed through the levels well. When I'm happy with pulling back a bit on those I'll probably add Agility again.. or when they invent this 36 hour day, and I have the energy my dogs do....

Edited May 27, 2009 by FHRP

[Tassie]

<snip>

I am your Jack of all Trades and Master of none, taking part in obedience, flyball, agility, title my dogs in the conformation ring, have done doggy dancing but decided I am not dedicated enough to be good at this, would like to do tracking and gundog, and am spending this weekend finding out about Rally O.

Remember, the most important thing is that you and your dog enjoy what you are doing. Doggy doesn't care if you get first place or last, he is happy to just be there with you and he will keep on trying to please you. At the end of the day we all go home with the best dog there anyway.

Noels.

Hi Noels - that would be me too. I love doing different stuff - but I'm not a dedicated or consistent enough trainer to get perfection. I am trying to be good with Mr Rory, and put a lot of foundation work into him - not specifically obedience, although I think what I'm doing will pay off in obedience. Luckily I don't have to do the show stuff - I have a lovely friend who does that - I just taxi him round, and enjoy it . Miss Kirra doesn't believe in obedience (the discipline that is ) - so I don't have to fit that in with her. We mostly do agility now - training maybe only once a week now she has her Masters titles.

I was lucky to have the chance with Kirra to learn to do some farm sheep work - that was a buzz, and both she and Fergus got their TD and got Test 4. Hopefully Kirra and I can go on with our tracking this year, and I've started some baby tracking with Rory.

My time is somewhat limited since I've gone back to work 4 days a week - to be able to feed the luzxury part of my doggy habit . Oh, and then there are the couple of classes I teach at dog club on Sundays.

I'd love to do some more with doggy dancing - but you're right - it's incredibly time consuming and difficult in ways the other disciplines aren't - even at just above entry level. And I need someone pushing me to do stuff and do it properly.

But hey - the dogs and I are having fun - and if all we're doing on a given day is hanging out - that's fine too.

[J...]

Do you live close to Warrnambool or did you shift away? You probly know Mawson (Shannon) she has changed clubs and only comes to Brierly now and she used to do agility with Mawson as well.

I'm about 45 mins up the road, I used to train with Shannon at agility but left not that long after she did. Now I train at Ballarat, the agility instructors there are actively trialling and are very experienced, and have no issues at all with high drive dogs.