July 2021 - Five Fault Club

Horse Arenas and Toy Games

Last weekend I went down to Dunedin for the Zone 5 Games weekend. We don’t have a lot of opportunities to play games in the South Island, so this is one of the highlights of my calendar. Rik was very happy to be back in action after a couple of months off, and I enjoyed the chance to choose courses that played to our strengths.

This was Able’s first time in an indoor arena. Some dogs find these a bit intimidating. They are usually large uninsulated metal buildings, so they echo a lot – particularly when a barky dog is running round the course. Able took that in his stride, although he was a bit worried at first about walking over the metal tracks for the large sliding door. I’m glad that I had the chance to get him into this venue so that he could get used to it. We’ll visit another equestrian arena in Christchurch next weekend and I hope he’ll be calm and confident there too.

It was also his first appearance at an agility show in a couple of months, and I was pleased with his behaviour overall. He was polite towards the new dogs that he met (he particularly liked Zinc de Wit) and he mostly settled down quietly while I watched the action – except when he saw his favourite people, of course.

The “almost indestructible” rhino was not, in fact, indestructible. But it was a lot of fun!

I realised this week that I haven’t done a lot of work on toy games with Able. This is fun stuff that burns up a lot of puppy energy – but also requires a lot of human energy, which can be in short supply for me over winter. As Able’s legs grow (see photo above) we also don’t really have enough room inside for some of these games, so I need to make the time to play outside while the sun’s up.

Running to a Toy

This is a very simple game that goes by several names (Race to Toy, Drive to Toy etc). The idea is just to throw a toy ahead, and then race your dog to try and catch the toy. We are looking for our puppy to laser-focus on the toy and run to ahead of the handler. Later on, this should lead to a dog that runs ahead of the handler to an obstacle at high speed.

Unstable Surfaces are Fun

When Able was young I played shaping games with him on a variety of strange surfaces (a baking tray, a tarp, a scrunched-up cardboard box etc) but not on anything that would move a lot. Since then, I’ve noticed outside of training that he is pretty confident with things that move under his feet. His favourite game when he’s in his ex-pen is to tip his water bowl upside down, stand on it with his front paws, and glide across the floor on it.

If he was a less confident puppy I would have kept up the surface training a bit more, but instead I’ve been putting more effort into other challenges. This week I pulled my balance equipment out of the shed and Able had his first play on unstable surfaces.

Poor Rik, it’s cold at night – and her bed is still not close enough to the heat pump.

I have a couple of cheap wobble boards similar to this one, and a couple of FitBones (inflatable balance cushions designed for dogs). The FitBones were more of a vanity purchase on my part – you can find much cheaper inflatable balance cushions from various NZ-based fitness shops which will serve the basic purpose of getting your pup used to uneven surfaces. For a young puppy the objects you use should be minimally inflated and feel quite squishy underfoot. As your puppy gets older and stronger you can increase the inflation level.

An Easy/Lazy Method for Training Back Up

I started dabbling with Able’s back-up behaviour a couple of months ago, but we didn’t make much progress and I shelved it. That’s part of the truth, anyway. The other part is that I do most of Able’s training at mealtimes using his kibble, but that doesn’t really work for back-up training. Puppy kibble comes in tiny tiny pieces and it’s too dark to easily see against the carpet, and I need to deliver the food behind him where he can’t see it land.

I was a bit annoyed with myself to realise that my puppy was six months old and still couldn’t back up on cue. I didn’t have any plans last Sunday so I cut up a huge pile of cheese and set alarms so that I could get in four training sessions that day to knock it off. I was surprised to find that he was further along than I thought – and now I’m pretty pleased with his back-up.

Sitting and staying, and looking pretty calm too … I feel like things are starting to come together at last.

Backing up is a very useful body awareness exercise for agility puppies. It really helps them to understand where their back legs are, and how to move them independently. Later I’ll work on backing up onto a platform – which I’ve found to be vital to training a stopped contact – but first I want to see if I can get a bit more length onto our back-up down the hallway.

Tips For Training A Back-Up

This is an exercise where form matters. The puppy should be stepping backwards with one back leg at a time, and you should see the back legs moving before or with the front ones.

The most intuitive way to train a puppy to back up is to just walk into his personal space, and then reward him for moving backwards. The problem with this is that it usually results in a puppy that walks backwards with the front legs first, and then the back end just gets pushed backwards.

The Power of “Legs”, and the Desexing Decision

Yesterday Able turned six months old. He is 53cm tall and weighs 21kg – about the same size as my older dog Rik, and his sire Blitz. He eats an astonishing amount – more than twice what Rik eats – so I suspect there is still a bit more growing to happen.

A walk at Knottingley for the half-birthday boy. His tongue seems to be getting longer too.

I am now entering uncharted territory in one regard. All of my previous dogs were desexed at around six months of age, but Able won’t be. It’s unlikely that I will ever breed from him, but I have decided not to desex him until he’s at least eighteen months old … and quite possibly never. Since I last had a puppy, there has been research to show that early desexing affects a puppy’s growing skeleton, so I want to wait until he’s all grown up. More on that later, but first …

Supermarket Distraction Training

I am continuing to work on Able’s Very Very Excitable greeting behaviour. It’s hard to find strange people to train near in the middle of winter, so we go to the supermarket a couple of nights a week and train in the car park.