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.
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?
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.
Getting back into club has been fun after a long break for both Jaxon & I. I’ve found that it’s given us some time to settle down our training, and approach it from a different attitude.
I’m also loving the One Mind method, and how much smoother this is in the run. Jaxon has been learning the new moves with me for a few months now, and I can see that is starting to pay off.
While rain didn’t help his distraction cause on the weekend, we did have a lot of fun doing some foundation work on obstacle focus.
Bubble wrap obsession
This week we’ve been challenging ourselves with lots of foundation training for agility. While that’s fun, I’ve really wanted to put some variety into our daily sessions to give Jaxon lots of fun and keep him challenged.
This week we’re training on a different surface everyday. With our daily training, I like to keep it short and fun for Jaxon, keeping it to 5 minutes at each end of the day. I train these sessions at mealtimes so I have Jaxon’s attention.
tug-o-duck
One of our challenges in Agility & Jumping has been connection between Jaxon & I. So this means keeping a good basic training schedule of foundation skills.
For me, I like to do 5 minutes at each end of the day – high energy quick sessions that end on a high, and keep Jaxon interested and wagging his tail.
Along with our One Mind Dogs trend this week, here is a video of us trying out some OneMind Dogs method – the Jaacko.
No where near great yet, but you will notice a couple of things if you’ve watched some of our videos before.
We are getting speed with motion!
I’m not tripping over Jaxon.
Some work yet on flapping arms and flying arms, yet it’s a good start.
Jan 14
Jaxon was the cutest puppy I’d ever seen. I couldn’t walk past that cute fluff ball another day without bringing him home! And what a great decision it was!
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