Weekend Wrap: 9 December 2018

This weekend Rik and I went to Taieri’s champ show. As usual, the South Island agility community got into the festive spirit with judges, competitors and even the equipment dressing up for the occasion.

The Christmas turkey making sure that Tabasco gets his dogwalk contact.

The highlight of the weekend was the very entertaining strategic pairs class on Saturday evening. One team managed to get round without mishap but some teams took several minutes to finish and had the audience in stitches!

Santa Claus made the journey south to judge Starters.

Rik and I had a successful weekend with a win in Novice and our first AD clear round. I was very pleased with our other Novice run too, especially her confident drive into the weave poles while I was miles behind.

How was your weekend? What was your dog’s best moment in the ring?

Nervous or Excited?

It’s common for new competitors to feel nervous when they step into the ring for the first time. For some this becomes a downhill spiral – they start worrying because they’re “too nervous”, which makes them more nervous, which makes them worry more …

When you’re about to run a course, your body will prepare by releasing adrenaline. Adrenaline enables you to run faster and also heightens your awareness of what is going on around you. These are very useful things when you’re trying to steer your dog around the course!

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Weekend Wrap: 2 December 2018

This was my first weekend off from agility in a while. Today was also the first warm sunny day we’ve had in Waimate for about three weeks! It was nice to see blue sky for a change.

I had booked the Rug Doctor from the supermarket for today, as I wanted to tackle the stains from the Epic Upset Canine Tummy of September 2018. We spent the lovely sunny afternoon inside doing housework rather than going for a nice walk somewhere – Rik was much happier with this plan than I was.

The face of a dog who is just as happy “helping” with the vacuuming as she is walking round the park. One of the things I love about my dogs is the way they can find joy in nearly anything.

It was drizzling by the time I finished, but we did go for a stroll round the park, and then I set up the Jumpers B sequence that we struggled with last weekend so we could practise it.

What did you and your agility dogs get up to this weekend?

Five Gold Stars for the Outgoing Agility Committee

Voting closes tonight to choose the 2018-20 Agility Committee, and we’ll soon have a brand new committee to run our sport. Before they go, I thought I’d take a moment to thank the outgoing AC for all their hard work. I’m especially grateful for the following changes to our sport that have been made over the last two years:

  1. The Club Trainers Subcommitee – I think this is an awesome initiative to help support and grow our clubs. I’m looking forward to seeing what the subcommittee achieves over the next couple of years. 
  2. Taking AC meetings on the road – It’s a super idea to make the agility committee more accessible to people around the country. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the Christchurch meeting, but maybe next time! I hope the incoming committee keeps this up.
  3. Consultation on Starters and AD classes – Personally, I think our agility graduation system needs some revision. The survey revealed that I’m in the minority there, but oh well. I’m so glad that we had the opportunity to discuss graduation and have our views heard.
  4. Funding the Ian Gray history project – Many of you will have seen the discussion about this on Facebook. What you may not realise is that Dogs NZ and our AC have each contributed $500 to this project. Ian was the “founding father” of agility in NZ, and it was thanks to his efforts that agility became a Dogs NZ recognised sport in 1987. I can’t wait to see the finished project!
  5. Requiring voters to be members of an agility club – Prior to this change, any Dogs NZ member could register for the agility voting roll. This opened our elections up to interference from outside our community. I’m not aware of anything untoward happening (hopefully most people have better things to do than meddle in our elections!) but I’m glad to see this loophole removed. It also sends a message that people who compete in agility and want to have their voices heard should belong to an agility club. Personally I think this should be a requirement to compete at all!

Thank you to all the outgoing AC – Carl, Sallie, Bevan, Diana, Chris, Steve, Wayne and Joanne – for your hard work. Thanks also to the other volunteers who keep our sport running – particularly Pete (website), Cam (permanent numbers) and the heights review-subcommittee.

What was your favourite decision made by our outgoing Agility Committee?

What are AD and ADX Advanced Trials?

AD and ADX Advanced trials are the agility equivalent of sex. A lot of new competitors have questions about them, but they’re usually fobbed off with “don’t worry about it now, you’ll understand when you’re older”.

If you’re new, all you probably know about them is that you’ve been told not to enter them, but the online entries system keeps trying to sneak an AD entry onto your bill. Today I’m going to attempt to explain what they are and how we finished up with them.

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Weekend Wrap: 25 November 2018

Yesterday I went to Cromwell with the 2019 NZDAC committee for a tour of our venue. The southern South Island has had a huge amount of rain over the last month, and the good news is that the grounds at the racecourse have held up to it very well and it was nice and dry underfoot!

The view from the TV camera room. Our rings will be inside the track, to the left of the all-weather equine arena. The grass has been shooting up with all the spring rain, but it will be a lot shorter on show day!

I stayed the night with my friends Flip and Gaz in Arrowtown and went to the Queenstown club’s ribbon trial today. It was a long day but we were fortunate enough to stay dry all day, and it was great to see the newer Queenstown competitors have a go. Rik and I did weren’t quite on form today but we did have the odd moment of brilliance – I was very impressed with her send to a backside in Jumpers B from a long way back!

What did you and your agility dog get up to this weekend? What was your favourite moment?

Sit, Stay, Walk Away

Almost every agility run begins with a lead-out. This a chance for the handler to move into position to handle the first few obstacles while the dog waits patiently for her turn. Or that’s how it’s supposed to go, anyway …

Breaking or creeping during lead-outs is one of the most common bad habits in agility dogs. My last dog Spring was one of the guilty. I had a lot of trouble getting a decent stay out of her in the first place. Within months of her agility debut the rot had set in – she started crawling along on her belly while I was walking away. Once I turned around to see her lying on the wrong side of the first jump, which she had crawled right up to and then underneath!

A fun video from the 2006 FCI world champs. Even at the top level, you’ll see a lot of dogs who fidget and creep because they just want to get started!

Why Do Dogs Break?

There are three common reasons why dogs break:

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What to Enter at Your First Ribbon Trial

So you’ve been training for a few months and you’ve decided to have a go at your first ribbon trial … but which classes are you actually supposed to enter?

Agility and Jumpers Classes

We have two types of agility competition in New Zealand. “Jumpers” courses only contain tunnels and jumping obstacles, including the tyre and long jump. “Agility” courses which also include the weaves and contact obstacles – dogwalk, Aframe, crossover, and seesaw. At most shows there will be a mix of agility and jumpers classes offered.

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Weekend Wrap: 18 November 2018

Today my club had our annual working bee to clean all the winter mud off our equipment and fix the stuff we’ve broken. This year we had the added challenge of converting all of our jumps to the new heights.

We still have a lot of the older metal style hurdles, although we are gradually replacing them. This weekend two club members and a supportive husband removed over 500 metal lugs from these jumps!

Our old agility table made a great workbench for grinding the metal lugs off our jumps.

We have fitted plastic stick-on lugs to some of our hurdles, although we will need to finish this job off at training next week. One complication that we hadn’t anticipated is that many of our jump poles are a wee bit too long for our hurdles now – the plastic backing of the cups reduces the span of the hurdle slightly and the poles are an extremely snug fit.

Has your club modified your hurdles yet? Did you encounter any unexpected challenges?

Training Basics: Reinforcement and Punishment

Most people don’t want to learn too much about the science of training when they take a beginners agility class – they just want to run around and have fun with the obstacles. A good instructor will distil their knowledge down into easy training “recipes” to teach each skill – easy steps for you to follow which will get your dog performing the obstacles without hurting your brain too much.

As with cooking though, recipes will only get you so far. If you want to progress, eventually you will need to understand the basic concepts of dog training. One of these fundamental ideas is “operant conditioning” – the use of reinforcement and punishment to change the dog’s behaviour.

Some dogs love playing chase-the-hose. Others hate getting wet. You’ll need to experiment with your dog to find out his likes and dislikes.
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