Staying insired to train people for agility
I have been running classes and organising Agility continuously for 17 years now. It is a long time. I have to look for inspiration sometimes to motivate me to continue doing what I do. I find behavior training a lot less demanding and ideally it is what I want to do long term now with my retirement looming in about five months.
It is about that long ago that there was a big stir up happening at the Kennel Club Agility Committee. There was an unwritten rule that Agility was for adults only. I believe there were children running their parent's dogs in novelty events but they definitely weren't competing in the real thing. Then there was this little eight nine year old girl called Chelsea who wanted to run in the real competition. Her dog Brodie was a couple of years younger than her but was still aged five when she started being trained for Agility. However Chelsea had been doing all sorts of tricks with the dog since they were babies together and the dog knew every word that her young master uttered. I was one of the few who supported that there was no reason why a young person couldn't run in a real competition and compete against adults. Now standards back then were very patchy. There were a lot of very ordinary performances. The inevitable happened, the little girl beat all the adults. Wow how inspirational is that. Chelsea single handedly lifted the standards of Agility in New Zealand because nobody wanted to continuously be beaten by a child and she put young people firmly into the competition arena as equals to the adult competitors.
Alex and Chelsea Marriner and I started a Junior Agility Group to train young people up to compete. I had them first to teach them some control and how to do the equipment, then when they got good enough they went into Alex and Chelsea's class. We had quite a large herd of variously talented young people but two of them were standout and both for different reasons. They were sisters and the elder sister had a beautiful Border Collie. She quickly graduated into Alex and Chelsea's class. The little sister grizzled and complained so much to her mother that she wanted to do Agility too and she wanted a dog as well that her Mother let her get a puppy from the SPCA. About the only thing that resembled a border collie about this dog was that it was white with black. Could have had some Labrador, could have had some heading dog, anyway little sister Katherine turned up with her ten week old puppy at my beginner class. At that time the age for training a pup for Agility was 18 months old and in hindsight I believe this probably is the right age, given that the dog needs to grow and mature its body in order to have the strength to learn agility.
I let Katherine do tunnels with her pup and feed him on the equipment. I picked her and her sister up from time to time and brought them to class when their Mummy was working and generally encouraged both the girls. The Club Committee at that time warned me that I was allowing training on equipment by a dog under the age of 18 months. I just laughed at them. However it got fairly nasty. In my opinion the kid and her dog weren't doing anything that would endanger the puppy or the child. Anyway it got even more serious and I had to resort to subterfuge to allow Katherine and her Pup to continue. I managed to get a key out of the Club which was almost unheard of, but as they would not allocate time for Flygility Training I offered to train on Sunday mornings and to organise the Nala Fly for that time as well. As no committee members were available to open the club, I was able to have a key. This enabled those who wanted to do extra training an opportunity without the Committee of the Club being aware of it. That they didn't realise I was bending the rules and allowing early training was quite amazing. However, Katherine got her pup up to a standard where she was ready to compete.
There were a lot of sacrifices made by the girls' Mother to keep them involved in Agility. It is an expensive sport and to have two children and two dogs competing on a very small family income was a great challenge. Other Club Members including Alex and Chelsea helped to get the sisters and their dogs to shows and on occasions paid entry fees and supplied lunches and accommodation so that they got the opportunity to compete as widely as possible. As a few years passed Katherine was the sister who continued to want to do Agility and who worked hard with her dogs to bring them up to the standard that she wanted them to be at. Katherine always had determination, passion and flair with her dogs.
Last Sunday in Taupo there was a dead heat in the Jumpers A. Chelsea Marriner and Katherine Martin. There was a run off. Katherine up first. The course wasn't at the top end of A difficult but had a couple of tricky little loopy bits and some nasty little call offs. Katherine's run was passionate and exciting and she smiled at her dog. Her body language was lovely and her dog never missed a beat. The run was clear. Then it was Chelsea's turn. Her run was calculated and scientific, all the corners were cut at just the right time. The experience and maturity that she has, showed through the whole run. Her run was clear and was the winning run deservedly.
Both those young women were inspirational and I saw those little children now leaders in their chosen sport. Those are the moments that make it possible for me to continue to help people get started in the sport.
Whenever I have Nick Chester as a Judge I remember the young man from a Rotorua College who came to training in his school uniform that I also used to pick up and bring to training when he needed it. Contrary to the young women who came to training Nick was fairly hopelessly laid back for the first couple of years and his dogs ran all over the top of him. I used to despair of his lack of concentration. I am amazed by his lovely courses and his judging style and his still laid back capability. It is great to see a young guy go forward in the sport dominated as it is by female competitors. Nick Chester also inspires me greatly to carry on introducing people to the Sport. Even those who may seem to take a bit of time to get a handle on their dogs may just go forward and end up doing some incredible things.
Inspiration also comes from those I train who have huge life issues which stop them from full time training or just make training very difficult. Those older people who are training for the first time with their first dog. That they persevere and meet the physical challenges of the sport and enjoy the moment of competition.
But I must confess that the future of the sport rests with the younger generation and unless there are young people coming into the sport all the time it will come to a point where it struggles to continue to improve the standards and meet the needs of the mid 21st Century competitors.
So I was quite shocked to receive this text recently.
“Raewyn in the dog world ribbons are for achievement and it takes a long time to get to a level to gain one. That is completely different to encouragement and in my opinion should never be used for this reason”.
It has become a laughing matter and this is not the first time this has happened. I think the club needs to clarify this before all the high achievers are gone elsewhere don't you think?'
This txt refers to my awarding the ribbon at Club Day to a little girl called Charlotte and her little mixed breed mini dog. The person writing the text was not at the Competition on the day Charlotte won.
This is what I saw in Charlotte. A small child with a fantastic bond with her dog. The dog noticed the Child's commands. The dog was obedient to the child achieving an A frame, collapsible tunnel bendy tunnel and several hurdles including a wing jump. The child rewarded the dog and smiled and the dog responded. At the sprints run, Debbie Trimbach taught her how to get her dog to run away to the bucket and come back and she and the dog achieved it, I was inspired.
One day that little girl is going to remember that ribbon experience and she may go ahead and do some sort of animal work. She has the x factor. I have seen it before read top four paragraphs. There is another child in our club who has the same x factor, but she doesn't have a dog that she can call her own yet. I am watching her very closely, at some point she will probably also win a Club Ribbon.
So I apologise to those Club Members who feel that I am undermining the integrity of the Club. I hope you will forgive me for indulging in rewarding Inspirational performance against all odds. It is the one thing that has always kept me going.
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