Dog Handling

NEW CLASS CALLED SEARCH

Things at Dog Sports morph constantly as it becomes obvious that we need to give people and their dogs jobs to do to assist with training. All the obedience lessons in the world will not keep people sucked up to dog training in the same way as learning Agility or Flygility.

However, it goes without saying that these full on athletic sports are not for everyone. Handlers do need a degree of physical fitness and dogs also need to be of an age where they are capable. This means really young dogs, older dogs and dogs with physical disabilities such as the loss of a leg, are not involved with the club as they don't feel it is the place for them.

When handlers are learning a sport or activity with their dog they are also learning waits and stays, recall and send-aways, otherwise their dog can't participate. From all this has been born the sport of ‘Search’. I hope we can grow this and invite as many people as possible to participate. Search has four sections and can be done with any degree of proficiency. It can be done on leash or on long-line or it can be done free running. It is fun and it is very easy to train for the basics.

Course 1 is Agility Hurdles on micro and a tunnel. The target is a tent made of a tarp into which the dog must stick its head to get a piece of treat food. The course is 30 meters but run one is only 10 meters. For beginners their handler can go with them until they understand that if they travel over the hurdle and down to the tent there will be a treat. They then need to travel back over the hurdle to their handler. Once the dog can achieve this they can then attempt the 20 meters and then the thirty meters. All of the dogs last weekend managed the thirty meters perfectly so they are all ready for next week doing thirty meters only. No this is not difficult, but it acts as a confidence builder and a warm up, it uses Agility equipment and so it allows beginners to teach their dog to use that gear. It also makes a wonderful intro course to Flygility.

Course 2 is a blind send-away/retrieve. The handler may choose the toy or ball or object they want the dog to retrieve. So here we have to teach our dog to bring something back to us. The course lengths are 25 meters, 50 meters 75 meters and 100 meters. You must succeed on the short course before you can go on to the longer courses. The dog does not know where it is being sent, it does not know how far to go. All except one of our dogs achieved 75 meters on our first effort. We didn't do the 100 meter course, but we will at the next meeting.

Course 3 is ‘Find the Body’ and stay with it until released. We have a very short dummy for this exercise, at the moment it lacks legs but I am working on it. We put food on our dummy to teach the dogs to go there. In obedience terms it is a send-away, find, drop, stay. Some of us coped with a stand stay which is fine. The terrain is important, we used the gravel piles in the pits area at the club last time and that was fun but it always needs to be in a new place, luckily we have plenty of options at the Club. Most of us were really at the 'feeling our way into the exercise' stage with this course. However it was quite promising for some of the dogs. It is a good idea if the dog will voice when it finds the 'body' however only one of our dogs was voicing on our first attempt.

Course 4 will be new to everyone at our next lesson but I believe it will be fun. We will have a person go and hide. We and the dogs will not know exactly where. We will then send our dogs off to find the person and we will follow our dogs either on lead or free running. The person who is hiding will have food for the dog when it gets there but must not call or attract the attention of the dog in any way. This version of hide and seek is a great way to get the dogs to look for missing people or children. We will give each dog 5 minute’s total. The shorter the time it takes the greater the score for that dog.
Some of the skills that need to be learnt to participate in Search are being able to carry a variety of things such as............a set of keys, a child’s toy, a dog toy, a piece of clothing, a small first aid kit, a piece of rope, a piece of wood. The dog needs to learn to send-away and stay away, to bark on command and to retrieve over distance. It doesn't actually matter who does it the best but there will be achievers who inspire others to try harder and train more. To get some of these skills they will need to do Obedience Classes or practice a lot at home.

If you think it sounds intriguing come and join us for an hour and a half of absolute concentration at 2p.m. on Saturday. Cost of the class is $5. There may be a small surcharge for any extra gear we find that we need to have as a group, and of course the ground rent fee of $2 for the Club still applies. I will definitely put up a trophy for the end of year for the highest scoring achiever. This really is great fun. I worked with Chan and he was just terrific. I think he has it in him to do this quite well.

FLEA SEASON IS COMING UP

This is a reminder to us all that the 1st day of spring is the beginning of the Flea season. No matter what anyone says if fleas bite your dog's skin it will set up all sorts of skin conditions which follow your dog for the entire summer making him itchy, irritable and costly to maintain. Once a skin condition gets really nasty then you will be stuck with the whole veterinary visit, prednisone, cycle for the whole summer, it is expensive time consuming and unnecessary.

This is how I handle the flea thing. Bearing in mind I have three dogs and one cat sharing similar spaces. It is also important that your worming regime is up to scratch (so to speak) as the two problems go hand in hand, um paw in paw. So first of September I spray my house with a thing called Kiwicare No fleas. I buy the concentrate from Bunning’s and make it up in litre doses. I vacuum my car, and my house then I spray the inside of my car and my whole house, carpets, curtains corners, soft furnishings, couches beds etc. I put veterinary quality flea pour on on my dogs and I make sure I have a good supply of eucalyptus oil. I am a regular feeder of crushed garlic to my dogs and I do find that this helps condition the skin. Once a week I groom my dogs thoroughly and apply a little bit of eucalyptus oil to their tummies. They quite like this. My reasoning is that tummies seem to attract fleas, even if you are using the most expensive pour on a flea will often jump on to the tummy space, bite and go yuk and jump off again but in making that one or two small holes they can still set up skin issues for your dog.

All the time I hear people say, but I am using the pour on and my dog is still getting the skin condition. You also need to be aware that summer is a time when plants are doing their best to be virile and there are lots of plants in the garden and in the park that will set up an itch and scratch problem. I do find that eucalyptus oil has a calming effect on skin irritations and you can use it as often as you like. You can use common and garden salad oil if you like but the dog licks it off pretty quickly. Eucalyptus is effective because it doesn't taste that nice.

I redo my house spray on 1st December and 1st March. My last flea treatment on the dogs is usually 1st March; unless the weather is still quite warm and flea attractive, then I will do an additional pour on on 1st April. Then I am over flea treatment until September again. Get on top of the issue now ... good idea huh. Unless you have a thing for your Vets and want to pour lots of money into their lifestyle.

KNOWING YOUR LOCAL BODY DOG BY-LAWS

Do you actually read your by-laws when they are sent out with your Dog Registration request, or go online to check the law occasionally? It is subject to change at the time of the Annual District Plan revamps.

• Picking up dog poo is not just something nice you do to make the ground user friendly for others IT IS MANDATORY. IT IS A LAW AND YOU MUST DO IT. Otherwise you can be caught up with and fined heavily.
  

So who is going to see my dog poo then? Well I often do and believe me I get very abused when I advise the perpetrators that they should pick up their mess. I do it nicely at first. I often show people how to do it because they don't know how to use a bag as a glove on their hand and collect the poo. At the Club I go around periodically and collect up the stuff that gets missed because of night training. I must admit I am sure my dogs have gone after dark at the club and I have not noticed, so I do a big collect of every poo I can find and there are quite a large number each time I do it. I would like to think other club members are happy to do this regularly too because otherwise we will get into trouble with our generous landlords, the Stock Car Club. Yes I know the Sumner farm dogs come each evening and do theirs there, but tough just pick it up so we don't get the blame.

The Redwood Forest dog walk area is a must see on the subject of Dog Poo. There are masses of it. I just can't go there anymore. There are places where you cannot avoid it. Honestly it is disgusting. At Hamurana we have an off lead dog walking area at the Lakefront.

In 2005 I made submissions to achieve this free run area. It was to be on lead only. The Councilors consulted with me about the closing of a portion of off lead from 15th December to 1st March during middle of day hours. I was extremely proud to be part of that local body by law. The Animal Control Department at the RDC told me to be vigilant about advising dog owners to pick up their dogs droppings because they would take the right to run off lead off us very quickly if there was deemed to be too much mess at the Hamurana Beach area where Families picnic during the summer months.

I have been abused a few times over the last ten years but recently an English couple who live along the main road really roasted me. The gentleman in particular promised to 'break my dog's back' if he approached his dog. He also decided that I had 3 dogs illegally as only two dogs per household are allowed. As I said above it pays to check your Dog Bylaws. Hamurana's Rural Aspect is outside of the ring fenced urban area that the law of two dogs applies to. I have supplied them with a copy of the salient parts of the By Laws. However I don't imagine I am flavor of the month in that household and I am left picking up after their dog as well, although I have promised to deliver it to their gate - at no charge of course.

Happy Training. Raewyn Saville