ATTENTION MEMBERS - CLUB RENT DEAL - LIMITED TIME OFFER!

The last general meeting of Dog Sports unanimously decided to offer a new system to current members of the Club. All paid up current members have the opportunity to pay $180 in club fees in one sum between the 1st April and 21st April. This $180 consists of $30 annual sub and $150 in $2 ground rent fees. This amount was calculated as giving an advantage to those who use the club two or more times a week. Our best people are paying the lion’s share of the rent because they are at the Club every day. You do the math some people are in effect paying $500 per annum. Having the rent in advance is an advantage to the Club. All of this money will go into a Savings account to pay the rent only. This will free up other funds for updating and maintaining equipment etc.

This amendment to our subscription will be ratified at the AGM and amended if necessary. Meantime please pick up a subscription renewal form and use one of our many ways of payment to update your membership and take advantage of this strictly three week only offer. Those who do pay $180 will be listed on the notice board so that there is no mistake as to who no longer has to pay $2 per time attended. However, you will need to still put your name in the book so we know when and who attended on certain days, this is also a health and safety record of who is on the grounds.

FRIDAY NIGHT TRAINING

Friday night is my training night that is it is the night when I train my dogs. I see very little value for my dogs or me training alone on an empty patch. My dogs need distraction (apart from Fayez’s Bunny watching habits), and other dogs to be compared with.

Last year the night was used for CGC type lessons so that a couple of us could enter CGC at RDOC. Which we did. I think a lot of us would like to have a go at that again. So I have incorporated a couple of things from CGC in that timeslot, for example, tonight we did a five minute tie up of the dogs and left them there while we walked away. All of the dogs were perfect. We also did play time and stop play. So that the dogs have an on switch for play and an off switch for play. That went very well too. Both of those tests would have been successful for all of us if we were doing CGC. We also do a quick control and obedience exercise. We do some Rally O at slow medium and fast pace. We do some regular obedience and for the last two weeks we have been doing weaves. The new piece of equipment for this week was the Seesaw. So as you can see it is a general sort of meandering lesson of all the things that I think benefit my dogs to make them listen, obey, lose their distractions, get into work mode and play when I am ready.

So who attends these Friday night sessions? Jenny and Bree, Sue and Molly, Deb and Sophie, Nicky and Skyla, Carol and Jade, Geraldine and Jewel are pretty consistent alongside Fae and Me and Chippy as well. Let’s talk about levels of ability for this class. Quite obviously they are all over the place. The bravest of the lot are Geraldine and Jewel. They are brand new members and Jewel is approaching five months. In the two weeks they have been coming this team have improved over 100%. For very young dogs this is low key zero height activity that sets a training tone for the dog and allows new handlers to work alongside some of our more experienced handlers and encourage each other along the way.

Tonight the team with the best score at Rally O straight Obedience 9/10 was Sue Warrander with Molly. You would not believe the improvement in Molly's concentration and ability. Once Molly has done some Obedience her Agility work is so much better. Her weaves tonight were just great and she achieved the seesaw exercise easily. Jenny and Bree likewise get a better result with their weaves and agility work at the end of a session about Rally O and Obedience. So why would this be? There are two reasons. the first one is 'warm up’ The dogs and handlers get the chance to do half hour of warm up physically and mentally so that they are prepared and able to settle into their agility work, and B they are used to who is around them by the time they have been in class for half an hour and the distraction has faded away.

It is so nice to see Nicky and Skyla working as they did tonight only 7/10 for Rally O and Obedience but there were some lovely moments. Incidentally two points disappeared from their score because of handler only mistakes, in effect Skyla only made one mistake. The other standout workers are Carol and Jade. They have been coming to various classes for quite a while but this class works for them. I think they are coming of age as a team, Jade definitely likes to do her best and tries so hard. Their Rally O work was a 10/10 but the Obedience work let them down. Jade does not do good stays. We need to work on that. I do the Agility stuff with Chippy as we are just winding up his 12 weaves now. Not that he was in the mood tonight but we all have our moments. It is really Fae's class to continue with her anti distraction work. the Bunnies were fair galloping around tonight, but she managed to stay focused even to doing the entire Rally O and Obedience work with the leash on the ground, mind you she did have a piece of food stuffed up her nostrils when we were closest to the fence between us and the bunnies but I was thrilled with her work. Fae's Agility is spotless but her distraction levels are terrible. So with my dogs I am taking the things they struggle with and putting them out there with fellow members with some of the things they struggle with as well and together we are solving each other’s problems.

So that is my Friday night class. I do not put fees on this class, it is practice time, no pressure, no worries about mistakes. Of course the club rent fee of $2 stands. I am happy to share this time with my fellow club members and do this quiet effective gentle work to lift everyone's handling skills. Feel free to join me but please txt me first. I don't mind up to ten people and dogs but after that it won't work. The regulars to date have priority. I am not sure about the winter terms it may be too cold. It is cancelled if wet.

NEW SATURDAY CLASS - please register for it if you are interested.

It is essentially a course for hunting dogs. It starts at 2.30. However if anyone wants to do it it includes long distance work called Range and return, some SARs exercises and retrieves from long distances. We will be looking at bark on command exercises and using whistles to ask for this and other things we want the dogs to do. Any commercial dog whistle will do if you are unable to personally whistle. Voice is totally useless to field dogs and hunting dogs. A thirty meter rope would be an advantage if your dog likes to do very long ranging, maybe beyond what our starting point will be. The cost is $10 for non-members and $5 for club members. You may discover your dog has hidden talents. It is particularly good for those dogs who like to wander during class and don't come when called. Shades of natural horsemanship where you drive the animal away and it keeps coming back. I will be running Fae in the class as I think it will be good for her. She is essentially a hunting dog who doesn't actually listen to anything except the excitement of the chase. This is not proper hunting this is manic dog doing their own thing, never mind the human partnership. A lot of hunting dogs are like this, they hunt for themselves, never mind the job at hand for the human hunter. Some settle into a good pattern of work eventually if they are well handled and others bend the will of the master so that they call the shots on how the hunting will proceed. All dogs should be working for their Masters not doing their own thing, so if you think your dog needs a bit of extra fitness work and you might like to try this course, txt me and let me know.