Monthly Archives: July 2014
Workout Wednesday – Rest and recovery
Recovery session at the beach!
Each week we bring you training ideas for you and your puppy. We are 100% believers of short and fun training sessions, and we usually train a couple of times a day on foundation skills, with 2 larger sessions a week for Agility and Jumping. As with any sport, it’s also important to know when to rest and recover.
Workout Wednesday – 5 minute formula
What are we going to play today?
When out and about with Jaxon, I often get compliments at how cute he is, and how very well trained he is. My philosophy is it shouldn’t take long to train your pup, but like any other member of your family, you have to put time in to reap the rewards.
Discovery Monday – back to the beginning
Look at me – I’m so cute!
The lyrics of the Coldplay song The Scientist come to mind after our trial on the weekend:
/Nobody said it was easy/
/No one ever said it would be this hard/
/Oh take me back to the start/
That’s right – Mr. Snifftastic came out to play on Saturday. We attended the Agility Dog Club of NSW (ADC) and started the day well. In RQH Jumping we had one fault – Jaxon popped the weaves at the 10th weave, which was most likely my fault. Otherwise we had a fun run & a great start to a cold morning.
Disaster struck in our second run. Of course it was Novice Agility (AD).
Agility News Friday – Learning the ropes
Going through the tyre! Photo courtesy of Le Hammer.
When people ask me what sport I like, I tend to talk about 2 things – Formula 1 and my love of Agility.
As a sport, it’s a very different road than your average sport on a Thursday night. Touch football, netball, Futsal (which I also love), and such are generally the team sports that get mentioned by the water cooler.
The next question people ask is – What is Agility?
To that I reply the most awesome fun you can have with a dog – ever! But really, what is Agility?
Workout Wednesday – TOTO
We’re not going to be talking about the Wizard of Oz today, but one of the more interesting foundation skills for doggies doing Agility – the Two On Two Off or Contacts training.
Two on Two off. Tippy board in the house.
Having a small dog, one of the foundations skills I just didn’t worry about was the contact training. As Jaxon gets faster and more confident, however, I’m realising that this really is a necessary part of our training, and something we should at least cover the basics of.
June Trial report – TITLE!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you ready Mum??
I imagine it to be like one of those Brazilian soccer callers when we cross the line…..”TITLEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
OK, so it wasn’t quite like that. And our title run came out of a run that could have been disastrous.
Discovery Mondays – Winter Wonderland & it’s good to be back!
It’s been a while since we had a blog up! This winter has been more hectic than other years, so it’s taken its toll.
However – we’re back! As a noob to the Agility world, I’ve noticed that most of the trials for Agility happen through the Australian Winter months.
This makes it very difficult to commit to a lot of things as you want to get along to at least a couple of trials a month to keep the momentum & fun going.
It’s also been good to see that Jaxon has really come into his own for Agility in the cooler months (which tempts me to shave him in summer, but that’s another story…).
His weaves are getting faster, he’s often in front of me, and I’m really getting up a sweat – especially at evening training!
In addition to increased number of trials, we’ve been a bit slower on daily training than normal. I’m trying desperately to catch up on some new skills so that I can then teach Jaxon, and we can use them when we play Agility. I find these sources from all over. At the moment Susan Garrett is a big inspiration for me. I’m going back to a lot of the foundation work I missed out on with Jaxon as he’s my first dog.
I think the biggest discovery over these last few months & trials is that no matter what, it’s all just about playing a game with your pup throughout their lives.
Jaxon is surely the happiest he’s been, and yet the most upset he’s been when he sees I put my ‘work’ shoes on rather than my ‘agility’ shoes.
At the end of the day, he knows I’m coming home to play with him, and that makes me feel warm through the cold winter days!
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