Category Archives: News
Workout Wednesday – Conditioning
About this time last year, Jaxon decided that he really wasn’t interested in Agility anymore. I couldn’t understand why a puppy who had loved going to training & playing on the equipment now had no interest whatsoever. At every occasion, he decided running away would be a better option. I felt pretty sad for him, and guilty that I was trying to get him to do things he didn’t want to do. Then it receded to a point where he wouldn’t jump at all, and then I clicked something was wrong.
We’re Back!
We’ve had an extended leave of absence from the blog, and now we’re back!
The exciting news is we haven’t stopped Agility – we’ve just been hard at it.
The back end of the year saw us focus on European handling techniques, and start to get really confident and fast!
In 2015, we will return with a full schedule to entertain and inform you.
In the meantime, Thank You to all our faithful fans who have been awaiting our return!
Here is a little something to celebrate our first year of trialling in Agility – 2014.
All the best for a very Happy New Year!
The AgilityPap team – Frankie & Jaxon (aka SuperPap)
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?
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!
Post Goulburn Trial report
We went back to trialling on the weekend. It was a 2 day event with the Goulburn club in country New South Wales.
While the weather was slated to be freezing cold and wet, it was actually beautiful. We had cooler weather than Sydney, but not freezing. The rain held off until Sunday afternoon, and wasn’t too bad when it did arrive.
Are we there yet?
Discovery Monday – New Shoes!
Mondays come around quickly, and we’ve lots to share again!
This week I feel happy thanks to my new agility shoes that have been absolutely fantastic.
Gortex waterproof trail running shoes from Innov8
Over wet and soggy agility trials, humid mornings and the days after rain, I found that my old shoes were really starting to wear thin, and my constantly wet feet were not making me a happy handler.
So I went in search of some trail running shoes that would help keep my feet dry & give me some stability.
Discovery Monday – neat tricks
Embarrased me you have. Pee in your shoes I will.
There are a lot of talented puppies on the Internet. I’m sure you spend hours looking at them and their kitty friends for a good laugh. When it comes to pure talent, it’s such a joy to watch the elite levels of our sport when they are working.
Last week we talked about doggie friends overseas who are currently participating in various competitions and they are running with out their normal team mates.
Discovery Monday – Running with other dogs
We’re quietly anticipating the upcoming World Agility Open Championships in Italy. There’s a great team going from Australia, and I was wondering how they were going to get their dogs all the way to Italy, then back again with Quarantine times etc.
agilitypap 