My Agility Story

Rather than write a Marketing Monday blog post today we have spent some time recently cleaning up what is already on the blog. In particular we wanted to make previous posts easier to find. So we created ‘My Agility Story’.

It doesn’t have to be perfect to be great

We had an agility trial today. It was a bit special to begin with as this trial was originally scheduled for late last year but was rescheduled due to the bushfires that caused extensive damage in the lower Blue Mountains where this club is placed. In the irony that is Australian weather the trial was relocated late Friday afternoon after the grounds where the trial was meant to be held on were closed due to all the rain we have had in the last fortnight. If it isn’t fire it is floods!

The Cessnock Wrap Up – Stepping Up

We had our 1st weekend away agility trial. Lots of fun.

 

Training vs Trialling

I love playing with mum’s mind. Doing things nicely in training and then running riot in a trial.

Take start line stays. Check out today’s training. Mum let’s go of my collar and I sit there. She acknowledges the judge… She could have gone off and made a cup of tea. Yep I just sat there and waited for her release cue. And then there is what happens in a trial… Hehe.

Contacts too. The contact is that area at the base of dog walks etc that is painted a different colour. One the way up and down I am supposed to have at least 1 paw touch the colour area. Yep tick in training. Ah trial…. Launch myself off contact equipment at the furtherest point possible… Top of A-frame preferably so I can hear everyone gasp. Oh and did I mention stopping on the table.

So here is today’s video. It was lots of fun today. Trying a few funky moves. A couple of bars down but they were more handling from mum (and we had been training for a couple of hours so I was a bit tired… My excuse). All in all a good day back after a week of holiday.

Let’s see what happens when we go back to daytime trials now as we move into winter.

Hope you enjoy.
Bodhi Oooo

Training Tip Tuesday – Getting into Agility

Super excited after messages from Donna and Kate about them investigating agility after reading about our adventures. How cool is that! Giving humans ideas on how they can spend fun time with their dogs.

So today is less about tricks and stuff for us dogs and instead about helping you humans with some ways you might get into this agility thing. This is Australian based, and Sydney based at that, but hope it gives some helpful hints.

Firstly this agility thing doesn’t have to be a competitive thing. You can just train in agility without every needing to go through to a trial (competition). A lot of training schools are just as interested in letting dogs and humans learn new stuff and have fun together. Canine Fun Sports was where we started out and they have classes for all levels. Similarly our friends are trainers at Goodog do an Agility & Games class. Both are casual classes so you make it when you can.

A lot of formal ANKC training clubs also do agility. These clubs, like NSDTC where we train, may have requirements like a certain level of Obedience, before you move to Agility. This is just for safety (and sanity) so there is a certain level of control as us dogs are often working off lead. It is best to check out the individual clubs for their requirements. ANKC affiliated clubs can be found on the relevant state websites such DogsNSW and DogsVictoria.

The alternative to the ANKC trials is ADAA. We will confess we have done all our trailing through ANKC so don’t have 1st hand knowledge of ADAA but have heard lots of good things about how they run trials. ADAA also has some good resources including a How To on your 1st trial which is really handy (and pretty much the same thing for any association).

If you don’t want to, have time to or don’t live close to somewhere that trains agility than there are still plenty of things you can do on your own. Our Training Tips Page has some ideas. Our friend at GameOnDogs also has lots of helpful videos and equipment and CleanRun based in the US is the Go To for all sorts of agility information and equipment.

By no means is this an exhaustive resource on getting started but hopefully a few hints that help and point you in the right direction. The main thing about all this agility stuff is to have a laugh… Just ask my mate Mawson and his dad who is always rolling around on the course having fun. If there is other stuff you would like to know drop a comment and we can answer it or try to find someone who can.

Thanks to everyone for their Congrats on our JD title over the weekend. Stoked to hear from you and appreciate all the support… We are going to need it as we make the step up to Excellent Jumping courses. If you decided to get into agility I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Mum was a bit excited…. Just a bit.

Last night we had an agility trial. It was a triple jumping trial… 3 chances to run riot… Oh I mean 3 chances to get a qualie in JD… The illusive 3rd pass to get our 1st agility title.

I was ready… Taking prime seat in the very packed car (although mum is a chronic overpacking there was 3 people, my mate Regal the black lab and me all in the car so maybe this isn’t so bad)

The weather had been shocking for the couple of days prior… Lots of annoying rain. I’m a gun dog mutt so not normally too worried by the rain but even this was annoying.

My shaved down coat, while it has been cooler over summer, is not particularly effective in weather like this. Thankfully mum looked after me. Had me all rugged up…

During the worst of it I even became a 25kg lap dog (think I was keeping mum warm too)…

So enough about the weather… Let’s talk the agility runs.

Well the 1st 2 weren’t that bad… Just did a bit of independent thinking on where the course should run. But hey my jumping was pretty good… The odd bar down but not bad for me. Oh yeah and don’t mention the start line stays to mum (despite lots of work over recent weeks I was WAY to excited to let her get out in front). So 2 DQs but partly because mum lets me run and enjoy if we have faulted… Get this feeling mum chases qualies rather than places?

Here is Run1

Here is Run2

There was then a lot of waiting…. Heaps more rain (thankfully I was snuggled up with mum under the gazebo being a lap dog) … Mum thought about just going home….

But she didn’t…. And she is glad she didn’t….

We DID IT!!!! A qualie and our 1st agility title. Here is the video. Mum is just a bit excited.

He was a fun night. My mate Mawson ran shortly after and got his title too… We shall now refer to him as Sir Mawson.

So there you have it…. Plenty more trials coming up… Think mum is now going…. “Ahhhh I need to work out how to run an Excellent course!!!!”. Stay tuned for the updates.

A lesson in perseverance

There are lots of things I help the family learn. For mum there are lessons about work. For toddler I help her learn respect and responsibility. What I am also teaching mum is perseverance.

Training Tip Tuesday – Jumping Foundations Take-Off Side of Jump

So after a break last week from Training Tip Tuesday because, oh did I mention… It was my birthday, we are back.

Mum is still has me working hard on my jumping foundations. Think she is feeling a bit inspired after all the bars stayed up in the RQH Jumping run last Saturday night. We also had a moment yesterday morning when we were doing some jumping grids in the front yard and mum thinks I actually thought about how I was going to jump… I thought mum was going to cry with excitement. Silly mum.

We had SO much fun!

Agility trial on Saturday night and it was LOTS of fun.

There were some bits that because I was SO excited with the 1st trial of the year I forgot how I am meant to do them (starts anyone). Then I had so some awesome moments. Here are videos of each of our runs:
JD: 2 dropped bars but otherwise a nice run. Video
RQH Jumping: Mum’s highlight of the night with every bar still up. She was celebrating at the end so much that the judge reminded her it wasn’t a clean run. Video
AD: Sometime after midnight and I turned into a Gremlin (unlike my previous Reverse Gremlin effort for a quallie in the same ring in Dec). Break the start – check. Leap over contact at end of dog walk – check. Slide off table – check. SO much fun. Video

Hope you get a laugh watching them as much as we had fun running them.

It works great at training…. Start line stays

At agility training I’m normally pretty reliable at start line stays. Even at past trials. I do Obedience… I can sit-stay for a minute with mum 8-10m away.

So last night we went to the 1st agility trial go the year….

I was SUPER excited….

Here is my guide to start line stays….