December 2021 - Five Fault Club

Christmas Steam Engines and Plank Games

Merry Christmas to you and your doggies from Rik and Able!

Santa brought Rik a replacement yellow smily face ball for the one that Able wrecked. Able got coal.

Waimate’s annual Christmas in the (very small) Square was cancelled this year due to covid. Instead a group of people decided to sit on the back of a truck singing carols while they drove around town. In Waimate no celebration is complete without our pet vintage steam engine, which was chosen to lead the procession, while volunteers ran along beside it handing out candy canes and Christmas Cake.

I never miss an opportunity to get Able out and about when strange things are afoot, so we headed outside before dinner to watch the steam engine go past. I vastly overestimated the peak speed of a vintage steam engine, but after a thirty-minute wait the world’s smallest Christmas parade arrived, and the dogs had their first face-to-face encounter with the steam engine. Neither of them were the least bit fazed, perhaps because their chances of outrunning it were excellent should it happen to veer off course and chase them.

Learning to Walk the Plank

My Christmas training project is to transfer Able’s contact behaviour onto a low plank, propped up on his mop bucket at one end to give it a tiny bit of height.

Human and Canine Frights

Our week got off to a very scary start when Able had a seizure in the wee small hours of Monday morning. It was a very surreal way to wake up, especially as he was completely fine a few minutes later, and it took me a good couple of hours to get back to sleep.

Our visit to the vet that morning did not give us any answers. He appears fine, so fingers crossed it was just a random once-off. If not, it’s possible that he could have epilepsy.

Even in my sleep-deprived state I managed to notice that Able was exceptionally well-behaved at the vet clinic. This has always been a place where he gets overexcited, and with the slippery floors things can quickly descend into chaos. We went to the clinic for a lunchtime every week this winter until the lockdown put an end to that, and it’s nice to see hard work paying off!

So that’s what scared me this week … what about Able?

The Wheelbarrow of Terror

A triumphant Able poses after conquering his fears.

Able’s First Christmas Party

This week we had our dog club Christmas party. My older dog Rik does not feel a lot of Christmas spirit when it comes to being in close proximity to other dogs, so Able got to have a turn at the games.

Mr Able McYoghurtface. Somehow despite having a much bigger head than Rik, he is better at cramming it all the way into the tub.

The Border Collie Stampede

Recall races are an annual feature at the party. Able won his heat easily, and then he had to wait while the other dogs had a turn.

Able did not want to wait quietly. Able very much enjoyed his five seconds of glory, and he wanted to go again NOW! He’s always been very calm watching the other dogs at agility, but now he serenaded me with a selection of his best monkey noises as he tried to drag me back to the start line.

CCC Games

I bought a collapsible crate for my agility training online. It arrived this week, so I spent the weekend playing CCC (Crate Cone & Contact) games on the front lawn.

Turns out a 3XL crate isn’t quite big enough for Able. Oops.

Able really enjoys his Crate Games inside the house, but I’ve been reluctant to do too much with a wire crate in case he gets caught up and injures himself. I was very excited to finally take our games outside and play with some more speed and excitement.

The Sunroof Entry

As an easy warmup, I thought I’d try sending Able into the crate from a few different angles. This is a fun little game that helps to build the skill of looking for the entry of something – later, the entry of a tunnel or the weave poles. This exercise is featured on the Crate Games DVD but I hadn’t done it with any of my previous dogs. I thought Able would nail it.