Blog Archives
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)
Workout Wednesday – Rest and recovery
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
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
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
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.
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!!!!!!!!!!!
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.
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.
Workout Wednesday – core strength
We took delivery of our first core strengthening tool last week – a wobble board. While the one I bought is good for humans and puppies, there are a lot of others out there with soft plastic on them which are also great to use. I plan to get some of those soon too.
This week was about getting Jaxon stretching and balancing across a range of different exercises.