Dog Handling

Dog Sports Agility Competition

Well here it is AGM time for our Dog Club again. We have a lot of enthusiastic people wanting to be on the Committee. We have always been lucky in Dog Sports Club that every year people step up to take care of the Club. This year we will lose Renee as Treasurer which is a shame, she has been a really hardworking Treasurer, but her husband thinks he needs her to help him more than we need her to help us. We are not in a position to argue with that. The AGM is coming up on the 16th May. It will be at McDonalds on Fenton in their conference room and the night will start with presentations, certificates and trophies. We have a long list of achievers to celebrate so please come along and find out who won what and you might discover that you are one of the lucky achievers.

Throughout this last year I have been running, with the help of the Club, an Agility Competition with a run every month, to help new people understand what it feels like to compete in Agility, complete with ribbons and ladder board to aggregate the points in each grade. So now at the end of the year we have some amazing scores and some fantastic achievers to celebrate.

I enjoy training people to run their dogs around an Agility course, mostly because the dogs really love it, the people get some fitness, the dogs don't get a chance to get fat and there is no reason why absolutely anyone with any dog can't do some sort of obstacle work. it is not that easy to learn at the beginning, but if people are willing to give it a full year of effort, their end result can be somewhat stunning.

Today (26th April) was the last run for the year so that we can calculate the winners in each grade. I was blown away by the standard we have achieved this year. If this is year one I can hardly wait to get to the end of year two of the competition. The runs today were all very controlled and uniform and every handler and every dog knew exactly what they had to do. You all do me proud. I am feeling so elated about the general standard I saw out there today.

Our 'Learners' grade is dogs who have only been doing agility this year, some have only been doing agility for a couple of months. The Learners stay in this grade until they have three wins and then they graduate to Beginners. Jenny and Gus are in this grade. Jenny has learnt such a lot this year, in spite of her continuous war with Gus, a Jackrussellxdashund. Gus does not necessarily do what we expect him to do. Well his run today was just lovely, he got all the way around with only one deviation. But the best news of the day is that Gus has a little sister now called 'Bree' a twelve week old Border Collie pup. Jenny so wants to do Agility with a dog who will listen a bit better than Gus . So now I can now look forward to two years of training with puppy Bree and Jen. Alex and Shadroc. Shaddy the Pitty. He won last months competition but he was one second too slow today. Shadroc is the best example of a pitbull in working condition and achieving picture perfect behavior in every way. His run today was faultless including his weaves which can be a bit dodgy. Averill and Tyson (2) came to their second competition today. Last time Averill came and entered her beautiful Sib/bord in First timers. She had always wanted to do agility and her boy dog is a mature four years old and still very playful. She won the First Timers on that first day and has been training with us over the last 7 weeks ). That training really showed today. A truly lovely round. This team have places to go in Agility. I can't wait to see what he is like in a couple of months time.

The day truly belonged to Debbie Trimbach and Sophie. They won Learners Grade and the whole competition. Sophie had a clear round of a blistering 20.19 seconds. Chris' Boston only managed a 20.88 seconds to win Experienced. So wow to that time. Deb and Sophie got the fancy top dog ribbon today and it is just about the most wonderful culmination of twelve months of really hard work on the part of this team. Smashing effort.

At the last Competition Alex and Shaddy did much the same thing, won the fastest dog in the Competition over the Senior Competitors as well. Shadroc's run today was just one second slower than Sophie's run and the answer to that was in the weaving technique.

Last but definitely not least in Learners is the Katie and Tyson(1) team. For their efforts this year they have accumulated the most points, jointly with Alex and Shadroc and so we have a tie for Best Beginner Agility Dog in the Club Competition. Tyson(1) is an Aussie Terrier from the Rotorua District Council Pound. After a couple of years of work he is only just start-ing to get his head around Agility course work. Of course there has been a bit of a baby hump in the middle, so he missed a few months while Katie got her act together with Motherhood for baby No.2. It has not been plain sailing for this team but through consistent work and consistently attending the Competition this is one of the most deserving teams in the Club and I am so pleased that Katie has continued with Tyson, he has taught her a lot of …patience.

Beginner dogs are the in betweeners they have got to the stage where they have been training two years plus and are ready to try their paws at Kennel Club Agility. Hilary Quemby runs her two dogs Jess and Jay in this grade. Hilary has had a couple of small forays into Ribbon Shows and this coming year should see some results for her. Jess is a very steady mature Blue Heeler now and works extremely well. Jay is still yet to mature in style and is a typical heading dog when it comes to being a little bit manic. If we can nail Jay's weaves this year she has a real chance to be very successful and Hilary is such a good handler. The winner of Beginner dogs for the year are Anne and Gemma. This team is a delight. Anne has worked so hard to learn a technique to run Gemma. We really hope we can get Anne to a couple of ribbon shows to run in Elementary this year. I think they might surprise us all.

The winners and place-getters for the year in this competition were:

Experienced: Winner - Chris Hutchings and Boston, Runner-up - Raewyn Saville and Chan Veterans (dogs 8 years and over): Winner - Raewyn Saville and Midge(15 years) , Runner-up - Chris Hutchings and Bootz(8 years)(ably run today by Lucas - Jenni's grandson) Beginners (dogs who have been training more than twelve months): Winner - Anne Hall and Gemma, Runner-up - Anabella Vidal and Cairo Learners: as above joint Winners - Katie Douthet and Tyson and Alex Jones and Shadroc. Runner-up - Deb Trimbach and Sophie.

All points for last year will now be wiped and new scores for the 2014/15 season of club competition will begin with the session in May. Some of you have wins towards graduation to the next grade, these carry on. So if you have one win to-wards graduation then you take that with you into the new year's competition. The May Competition is a Starters Course with a full set of 12 weaves, so get plenty of practice in the next month.

Two lovely add-ons to the monthly Club Competition are the Puppy Race for all the pups under 12 months including our babies in puppy class. The winner today was none other than Charlie Fleming being run by Ellen. He is a gorgeous bonny golden retriever puppy whose family just dote on him. Runner up was Sue with Girl watch this space, Heading Dog Girl is a real goer with promise.
We also had our First Timers with us today. These are people who are not members of our group but just want to have an experience of running their dogs in an Agility Com-petition. There is also an opportunity for our members with a new pup to have one run in First Timers before they go forward into Learners. Today's winner was a young man by the name of Bradley with his Border Terrier Buddy. A great effort and Bradley is going to come to Control class to build on his dog handling skills. He is a talented junior with a great dog handling future. runner-up was Chris Hutchings and Kiki. It is a real thrill to run this day It is mid holiday time and a long weekend and we had 21 participating dogs. There are few things that are quite as enjoyable as this monthly day of friendly competition.

My congratulations to all participants, I hope we see the above achievers at the AGM presentations at 6p.m. at McDonalds Fenton Street on 16th May Friday night.

What is Lure Coursing? By Julie Wenham__

About 2 years ago we heard about the Dog Sport of Lure Coursing. We had at that stage a 1 year old Rhodesian Ridgeback. We waited till he was 18 months old and decided to take Jagga to a Lure Coursing meet held at Broadlands, Taupo. Well he was a natural and although Ridgebacks aren’t pure Sighthounds they have been allowed to course competitively by the NZKA.

In simple terms, coursing means to run or race after something. Lure coursing is a simulation of a rabbit (the lure) in flight from predators (the hounds) who chase after it. For humanitarian rea-sons, live rabbits have been replaced by white plastic bags which are moved through the coursing field by means of a special string at ground level with pulleys controlling the direction. The lure makes sudden turns, veers off in various directions, and often does the unexpected as a rabbit would if pursued. Hence, you will often hear handlers telling their hounds to "get the bunny." The object is for the hounds to course the "bunny" until it com-pletes the pre-determined pattern at which point they are allowed to catch it. A lure operator ensures that the lure always stays slightly ahead of the dogs until the course ends.

The hounds are coursed in groups of two, picked at random from the entries within the breed. The Sighthounds are awarded points on Enthusiasm, the follow, speed agility and endurance Coloured lycra coats are worn to denote the dogs and to facilitate the judges in scoring them. The coats are always bright yellow, bright pink and bright blue, and the colour worn also determines the dogs start-ing position.

The dogs are coursed in a preliminary round in the morning and then again in the afternoon with the lure moving in the opposite direction. Two judges who are positioned for optimum view, score each dog to determine the first through fourth placing dogs as well as the next best qualifying in each breed. Basically, that is lure coursing in a nutshell.

In March Jagga received his coursing Champions sash being only the second Ridgeback to do so. I would encourage anyone who has the time to bring their dogs along whether they are Sighthounds or not to have a go as the dogs get so much pleasure doing something that is pure instinct. We also normally will have separate puppy runs and fun runs for non SightHounds in which any dog can take part.

If you are interested in having a go at our next monthly meet con-tact sfcc@hotmail.co.nz for a schedule.