Are We Really Looking Out For Our Dogs?

Really ??? Are we???
I know it seems like a strange title but after Saturday night I left a trial feeling completely awful that I put my dog in a position that became extremely dangerous for her. And I'm soooooooo thankful that she didn't break anything and will hopefully not have any lasting fears, other than some bruising.

Any equipment has the potential to be dangerous, but I think contacts due to their height as well as the width of the dogwalk are particularly so. I won't mention adding a bit of rain but I'm sure you can imagine it doesn't get any safer.  We as competitors, as well as the judges who design the courses really need to look at the approaches to these obsticles. I'd like to make it clear that I DO NOT want a smaller / wider dogwalk, nor do I want to be expected to slow my dog down, what I'd like is consideration taken to the dogs path and how it will approach these obsticles.

Liryk is quick, she can do an ANKC or ADAA dogwalk anywhere between 1.2 and 1.4 seconds. Her ability to do an obsticle at this speed still blows my mind, but to expect her to hang onto something that is barely the width of a ruler from an angled approach is just scary. Yes I should have straightened her up, but things happen in a blink of an eye and to put that possible risk into the scenario, is just asking for an accident to happen. And one that I will be EXTREMELY careful NOT to do to my dog again.

I didn't see her fall, but the thud that I heard and the rush of people into the ring, let alone the horrified look on her poor little face still upsets me when I think about it. Thankyou to everyone who asked or came to see if she was okay, but most of all thankyou to Jules who came and calmed me down and walked Liryk out, so glad you were there buddy! And to Dr Deb Nook who made sure she was okay.

Our dogs trust us, I think it's only fair that we look out for them and keep them safe.

It's Over Already!

So a month off seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye :-( I still feel like I've accomplished things though with all the kids, but mostly the baby dogs, Liryk and Edge, who I felt kind of needed more "skills" under their belt. Well obviously Edge as he's only a puppy still, but with Liryk even though she's done no contacts or jumps, we still worked on "body cues" she will see on courses and the beginnings of blind cross training.


Edge is now 6mths and has grown taller, longer and stronger. His body awareness skills have become much better thanks to Silvia Trkmans puppy class, and we are lucky enough to be continuing into the next class thanks to the generosity of Silvia, as he fell behind quite a bit when he had to have his surgery at the end of Dec. I REALLY, REALLY like this puppy, ALOT! I LOVE his attitude, and enthusiasm for learning. He's all cute and cuddly, but will turn into a crazed beast the minute you start to wind him up :-D He's just FUN! And I'm having a ball with him!!


This weekend we had Daisy Peel come and present a seminar. The nights were LOTS of fun! I was a little worried that Liryk, being in the advanced class, may not have had the skills to be able to deal with some of the sequences, but OMG I honestly have to say, I was REALLY stunned and SUPER pleased that Liryk dealt with each sequence better than I could have hoped! On the first night I learnt I have a tendency to flap my arms around a smidge to much! And I need to focus more on what my shoulders and my legs are doing. And the result was amazing :-) Now to just make a habit of it!!

 I was also able to do a private lesson on Liryk's running contacts and got some ideas of how to use her obsticle focus to help with handling her on turns and teaching her that just because there is a jump in front, I may just be calling her off it :-)

Speaking of running contacts..... I've signed up to Dawn Weavers running contacts course. Just to get a different spin on things I guess. Turns are H A R D! And if there's someway to make the learning of them easier for the dog to understand, then I'm all for it :-) Liryk doesn't seem to get that she can complete the dogwalk AND turn on the flat and thats obviously a flaw in my initial training. So I'm going to try something different, because what I'm currently doing just isn't really working for her. I also wanted to make sure I have as much information available to me before I start Edge's contact training. That was one of my mistakes when I started with Liryk.... I pretty much went in blind. And I have to say I REALLY like the turns that Dawn gets with her dogs! You can check them out at www.dawnweaveragility.com and click on the running contacts tuition link.

Well the R & R is over and it's only another 2.5wks before the next trial. I'm excited but I must confess I kind of liked blobbing in front of the couch the last month in the evenings, rather than chopping up treats and organising dogs into the car before shooting out to training. Oh well the 2012 year of trialing will be a load of fun I'm sure and once I get back into the swing of it, I'll wonder how I took 4 weeks off!!