wuffles Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 For those of you who train and/or compete in more than one discipline (eg. obedience, agility, flyball), do you have any specific strategies on fitting everything in, or do you just overload yourself? Does anyone take a break from one thing to focus on another? Do you think that training too often could have a negative effect on the dog? For those that work full time or have kids or other demanding schedules, do you find it hard to fit everything in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulesP Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 One year I was training in obedience, agility and herding at the same time. I would have herding on a Saturday, obedience on a Sunday and agility on Monday. That did my head in a bit, the dogs coped better with it And I was training a couple of dogs. And instructing! It didn't seem to have a negative impact on the dogs. Poppy was the one that did all 3 and she just wants to work, work, work. I let working on the house slide a bit. These days I prefer to go walking in different spots so I suffered more burnout then the dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tassie Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 (edited) in answer to your last question - yep - but it's easier if you can let some things go like housework, garden ....... (Helps if you only have yourself to consider.) Seriously - I love mixing up sports - and very little of the training is going to conflict - well, maybe sheep work and tracking - but Kirra might have been a dog who overused her eyes in tracking anyway. Not having gundogs, retrieving/field work is not an option, and although I dabbled with agility ET make that flyball - in early days, it didn't work for us (though I know a lot of people can combine flyball with other sports really well.) Tracking has a limited season because of weather and snakes - so they tend to get a break from that over summer. I tend to think that at least for my BCs, the relationship with the handler and the desire to do 'stuff' with the handler is key to their training - and that applies to obedience, agility and DWD, and conformation to some extent - although I don't handle Rory myself. Overlaying that relationship are the specific of each discipline, so mixing and matching is not so much an issue. Mind you - I need to say that the old saying - "Jack of all trades and master of none" probably applies to me - but hey - the dogs and I are having fun - and that's what it's all about for me. :D ET fix mistake - I meant flyball, but was thinking of agility, so that's what the fingers typed - Doh! Edited September 22, 2011 by Tassie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Yep way to handle it you "break" your up and coming agility dog so can only do obedience with her . Nah you manage keeps you busy but I certainly didn't flog training Ness really outside of training - 1 obedience class a week and 1 agility class a week and she is trained up to UD has CDX and all the agility titles. I didn't even do any real foundation agility work with her. Most of my time each week outside of class was spent teaching obedience exercises. You can compete and get a dog around the course without having a frustrated dog on one agility class a week . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulesP Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 And the first 3 responses are from Border Collie owners :rofl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janba Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 And the first 3 responses are from Border Collie owners :rofl: Thats because Border Collies can do anything and everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogs4Fun Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Just to break the border collie streak. A few years ago I was training and trialling two Cairn terriers in both obedience and agility - in fact competing in two agility "flavours" - ANKC and ADAC. They both got to CDX, ADX, JDX and were both trialling UD before retirement. One also had all the Excellent titles with ADAC. So it can be done. Both dogs enjoyed both disciplines and I had no problems with them confusing things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuffles Posted September 22, 2011 Author Share Posted September 22, 2011 Just to clarify, I don't have any issues with confusion between sports, was just wondering what everyone else does I do find it a bit hard to try fit everything in, life gets in the way I don't think fulltime work helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livertreats Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 While I like to do everything, decided just not possible, so I do tracking and retrieving in the winter, and while we still train obedience save the trialling of that until summer. Hoping to add HWTM to our summer activities as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
**Super_Dogs** Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 For those of you who train and/or compete in more than one discipline (eg. obedience, agility, flyball), do you have any specific strategies on fitting everything in, or do you just overload yourself? Does anyone take a break from one thing to focus on another? Do you think that training too often could have a negative effect on the dog? For those that work full time or have kids or other demanding schedules, do you find it hard to fit everything in? Good questions. I train and compete in Agility, but I am not sure if I am going to be able to go down this path with my pup. So if I can't this would mean Agility and Obedience. I have been thinking - how would I fit this in. It is easy if you have mutiple dogs in the same dicipline, but mutiple diciplines is alot of time with training and competitions. I think you would have to break up the year. Too hard otherwise!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 in answer to your last question - yep - but it's easier if you can let some things go like housework, garden ....... (Helps if you only have yourself to consider.) I haven't read the rest of your post yet, or the others, but this statement is so true it deserves I don't have many guests over because I am hardly home - my garden is a shambles, full of weeds and long grass, and my housework is at the very bare minimum! A sweep of the floor once or twice a week. If I want to get stuck into housework, I need to wait for a trial free weekend I don't have one of those coming up for a few weeks now, so it will have to wait Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FHRP Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 I'm another who's house and garden are a shambles I do several dog sports with mutliple dogs. I usually have a main focus though with each pup brought in and that's where the contentrated early training will go. With Rogan it was Agility, with Polo it was Retrieving. Elements of each dog sport can carry over into others, so that although you may not specifically be training for something else, you're still setting good foundations (stay, recall, focus etc.). Agility and obedience are easy to train at clubs or the local oval and relatively easy to fit in. Retrieving, field work, tracking and I would expect herding take more effort to find suitable grounds and more time to train so harder fitting them in. Although if you want to be highly competitive at any dog sport, they all take a lot of time of course. This year I have concentrated on Field work with my GSP and that is all I have trained with any of my dogs, although I've still trialed in other sports. I did drop training and some trials in other sports this winter due to time and to reduce any confusion for mainly me, but also the dog. Now that Field season is over it's on to UD trainng with Polo!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casima Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 I do Agility with all mine, my new pup is going to do it too. I also hope to do herding with him too, will be my first time seriously doing 2 sports at once, now sure how I will fit it in... am sure the dogs will be fine with it tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Podengo Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Interested to read all this! I don't have a puppy yet, but if all goes to plan it will be a very busy little puppy! I compete and instruct in agility at the moment, wanting to get into OB/rally, maybe tracking, flygility and oooh maybe conformation if I have the right dog... and a breed specific sport LOL need lots of dogs.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kavik Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 I get confused when I train for multiple sports Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pie Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 One is enough for me thanks Even that one feels like it consumes my life sometimes and I have to step back. Am trying to do a bit of obedience too but we shall see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 (edited) I do obedience and agility with my two, and also train a bit of retrieving with them. I compete in the first two and hope to compete in retrieving at some stage next year. I would love to do tracking, but I just don't have the time with those 3 other sports plus full time work. And next year I am going back to study (while still working) so my time will be even more stretched. Oh and I will be doing agility with my mum and dad's new pup starting term 4 and into next year and beyond. I want a new pup in a few years to do obedience and retrieving with, plus conformation. Not sure how to fit it all in! The way I cope now is Monday night obedience, Tuesday night obedience with some agility, the very occasional Wed arvo obedience (otherwise a teensy bit of something in the backyard), Thursday night agility with some obedience and retrieving, and any Fridays I am free and can be bothered, retrieving training. Weekends for trialling or retrieving training. No, I don't have a life!!!! And a very messy house, full dirty washing basket and an empty fridge!!! And with all that training, I should have better trialling dogs, I guess that says something about my training ability then, not my dedication Edit: that is on a good week. Some weeks I just CBF!!! Edited September 22, 2011 by RubyStar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 One is enough for me thanks Even that one feels like it consumes my life sometimes and I have to step back. Am trying to do a bit of obedience too but we shall see. Peer pressure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeltaCharlie Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Hmm at the moment we are doing agility, flyball, obedience, herding and DWD (not every dog is doing every sport though). Most of our training is done at home though. We have a full set of trialling equipment for agility and flyball, the obedience and DWD don't really require much in the way of equipment, and our sheep trainer is about 45mins away. When I lived in Sydney I had agility Monday, flyball Tuesday, obedience Thursday, agility Friday, then the weekends were spent either at trials or herding Saturday and flyball Sunday. Needless to say not a lot gets done, especially with 9 dogs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bundyburger Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 We're about to start agility properly (been playing with basic stuff for a while but not with a proper club) and am thinking of trying flyball too Although for us it's one class on alternating weeks as they're on the same day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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