Dog Handling

I have decided this year (2015) to start a daily blog about living with my four dogs. I suspect that not too many people live in a house with four cross bred dogs and share most of their property with their pets.

My oldest dog is Becki Boo who is a Foxi Huntaway cross. She only recently became the oldest dog as I had to put my 15 and a half year old Staffie cross to sleep with cancer, So Booey as she is fondly known, isn't that comfortable in her role as Matriarch. Midge the Staffie on the other hand was very comfortable in her leadership role and bossed everyone about, all the other animals and humans included. So we have Booey who of late has become a little rotund. She is ten years old and has decided that working for a living chasing bunnies and doing agility is really not for her and sleeping takes priority. This means that the food supply needs to be cut down accordingly. When she gets too hungry she jumps the fence into the farmyard and pigs out on chicken and duck food, the odd baby rabbit that is as yet too slow to get away and absolutely any revolting mess she can swallow. She has achieve FD with the Flygility Association, purely by longeivity of association I think. She has never liked Fly as it means she has to run alone. If ever people are bemoaning that their dog will never achieve a title, I use Booey as an example. After 10 years she has 48 points and is in grave danger of ending up in Advanced class and getting FDX as well. I enter her in competitions so that other people get a chance to win points. Sometimes her work in teams and pairs elevates her opportunities but it is almost a risk to put her in pairs anymore as she has taken to running half way and quitting and coming back. On the other hand over the years Boo has excelled in Agility. When she was remeasured and ended up being a mini not a medium dog it lifted her game. Then with the split of heights occurring at Ribbon Shows she managed to win herself through to Intermediate. She has had very little training. She has a left hand only weave, doesn't like to loop off and do things on her own and generally needs me to hold her paw and babysit her around a course. She seldom hits hurdles in fact I don't know that she ever has hit even one and stays on the contacts pretty well so she is a bit of a doddle to run.

Many years ago I used to belong to the Kennel Club and go to Agility Champ Shows, and I did modestly well with my mini Rosie a collie corgi mix from the SPCA, she achieved ADX, and Midge the abovementioned Staffie pig dog. With Rosie's demise and the Staffie doing a cruciate, I sort of put Champs on the back burner. But lately I have been training people to learn Agility and they all want to step up and compete at Champs level having experienced the Ribbon thing. So we have all joined up and they are eagerly awaiting their first Show, Probably Rerewhakaaitu as run inMay? March? can't remember by the Rotorua Dog Obedience Club. Now that they insist I join up I have to look at who I am going to run at these fancy Champs. Ten year old Booey comes to mind. So the weight has got to go. Over the last week she has become much more lively with a reduction in opportunity to stuff herself and a general cutback in the food available from the family fridge, so it might be possible to get her out there working. She has a good chance of getting around an AD course in the time allowed so thats a possibility. Becki Boo might be the oldest Starter Course dog in NZ but she is still fit and uninjured and very happy out of a course. A bit more urgency with the speed would help, maybe the waistline trimming will help with that as well. Her NALA work over the years has been steady and she has won top Agility Dog for Dog Sports Rotorua once or twice. So before she becomes too geriatric we will see how her year goes as a competitor - what a laugh.......