ITS END OF YEAR TIME AGAIN!


Well here we are another twelve months has shot past and lots of things have changed and some have stayed the same.

Dog Training really has morphed into people training. The dogs behave as dogs do when they are at various levels of understanding what the heck humanity expects of them. Just getting the handlers to acknowledge that their handling makes the world of difference to how a dog perceives the requests it gets to perform certain tasks. That is one of the things I like about Agility. Because the handler must ask the dog to perform a variety of tasks, they have to find the words the acts and the games that form the pattern of behavior that the dog needs to achieve those tasks. The information feed to the dog has to be in split second timing so poor dog doesn't miss the turn or pull off the A frame. It is an extremely good way to force handlers to form a working bond with their dog. The handlers get competitive because they can see others have achieved the ... weaves dog walk seesaw and they want to do it too. They also want to do it fast because if you are fast and accurate you win the game and people really like to win. So the poor old dog becomes a pawn in the Agility circuit games in an attempt to win out... or come first..... or achieve gold.

It is extremely easy for an uninitiated first time dog handler to overdo it with their pup and cause break down of the joints . I like to think that I warn people enough, but I still have to send folk off to the Chiro with their dog or to the vet to get x-rayed or even to the Bow tech people to destress the pain and anguish they end up with. Arthritis sets in fast in injured joints and the dog is quickly unable to be the 'great athlete' his handler aspired to. Agility is not a fitness regime for dogs, it is an end result of fitness training, exercise diet and bonding.

The dog does not come fitted with an automatic ability to be obedient but it is very capable of learning that a word 'sit' means bottom on the ground, it could also be that a hand signal without a word means put bottom on ground, it could also be a click or a whistle which means put bottom on ground. So what if we try to get a sit using all those mechanisms available to us and the dog knows that they all mean the same thing. Next lets do down, lie, drop or whatever word you chose, and so on we go.

Now we can walk along and drop our dog to the ground and walk on without it and then call it to us. So now we put up a hurdle without bars, we walk along we drop the dog into a down wait, we walk on past the hurdle and call the dog through between the uprights and then and then. WE REWARD THE DOG. Dog gets tug or ball throw.

Now I put a big wide plank on the ground and I teach dog to walk on it. At the end of the plank I drop him then I run on to hurdle and call him and he comes bounding through between the uprights . This kind of bonding obedience and early agility training is huge fun for the dog.

The other day it was Chippy's Vaccs day at the vet. She admired his big strong developing muscles in his back legs. These are his jump muscles but they didn't get formed because I jumped him to death.

He is only 15 months old for goodness sake. He got those jump muscles working the hills by being, deliberately taught how to go up and down hills and how to pull me up hills and how to pull old tyres up hills. Hill retrieves are the easiest form of muscle building exercise available to man and dog.

Swimming is a way to build chest muscles. Jumping is a two ended thing for a dog. It needs take off gear (back end) and landing gear (front end). The muscles and tendons in these areas have to be toughened up to handle the stress.

The food amounts and quality of the diet are integral to creating a fit and happy shiny and willing Agility dog. There is no point in buying the latest dog kibble and chucking it in a bowl in the approximate amounts recommended on the packaging, if it is not going to serve your dog the extra bounce he needs for a good athletic body. A happy well fed dog that is the right weight for it's size and breed, is a heck of a lot easier to train than a dog that is either under or overweight. The damage that dog will sustain during Agility training is eventually life threatening.

Walking on various surfaces and uneven surfaces works on the pads on the feet and on the strengthening of the joints and cruciate areas of the lower legs. Choose stony beaches, but don't let your dog run over the thing when he is completely unused to this terrain, just lead him quietly across it for about fifteen minutes and watch him pick his way over the stones and watch his feet adjusting to the territory, Stony or rocky riverbeds are the same. Sand toughens up pads as does walking on lumpy tarseal for about ten minutes every day. Concrete footpaths are also good. Running on grass all the time is a very unchallenging surface for dogs and does result in softening of the foot pads and tendons. Some summers doing Agility the ground is so parched and hard it is jarring every nerve in the dogs' body, so the tougher their bodies are the better. Likewise running in slippery wet muddy conditions, where tunnels and down contacts are like being on an ice rink, also presents challenges for the body of the dog.

By now you will be catching on to the fact that not every dog, either because of breed, size or shape, is an Agility Dog. In NZ the Heading Dog has come up as the best possible dog to do Agility with. However perfect, as this unique blend of breeds is, it still needs to be prepared and coached to perform at Agility.

Because of the amount of exercise (how much is too little and how much is too much) needed to hone the dog's fitness, and the complete lack of understanding of the care and attention the body of the dog needs to be truly fit, I have decided to run a one day Seminar on Sunday 10th January2016. It will have a maximum of 10 Club Members attending with their dogs and will take about 5 hours. BYO lunch. We will go through all the daily exercise needed to make your dog fit and all the special exercises on the hills that I have built up through the years to build muscle tissue to hold my dog’s limbs together.

At the cost of $10 it is not designed to be a big money spinner for me, but it might help me get through to people that they can't bring their pet dog out of the back yard, unexercised for three days, with a diet consisting of a continuous supply of Supermarket home brand dog biscuits and expect that it will be a great Agility dog. I hope you will join me for a really fun day. Wear good tramping shoes. There is a fun end to this Seminar txt me to book. I already have four bookings.