Dog Agility Makes Me Happy

Have you ever heard of the book "Women Who Run With the Wolves" by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes? It would have to be one of my favourite books. I am also a facebook buddy with Dr E - and she loves to write. ABOUT EVERYTHING.

I post this because for me, going to what I would class as my first 'real' agility competition was a big deal. It has been a very stressful year and I would be lying if I said it hadn't taken its toll. Going to these competitions has been a promise to myself, to do something for myself. Khan and I have been practising his 2x2 weavers, with the view that we could enter jumping competitions. Contacts, which are obstacles like an A-Frame or Dogwalk, are terrifying for Khan, He finds climbing our front stairs to be a really big challenge.

I am a shy person by nature, and I often feel like a bit of an outsider in the world. Something I am working on by putting myself out there on an agility course. I do love it though.

However, we went and he was great on his first run, lack lustre on his second run, both of which we ran as not for competition. However, the one event of the night in which he could get a card, with the view to earning a title; Khan was just not up for the game and was over it. WHY - is my next task. Had I dropped his ball into my jacket pocket, and not onto the ground behind him before we ran - I am certain the outcome would be different; he knew there was no reward until the whole course was run.

I told you he was smart.

Am I disheartened? I came home, sat down on the lounge, checked what was happening on facebook and there was Dr E's call of the day: "We do not run with the wibblie wabblies, we run with the wolves"

Me, I run with the collies. They look kind of wolfish.

And did I add that he made his weavers both runs? 2x2 weaving rocks.

(Big thanks to Doidy Durante for these photos of Khan)

Some days are just great. Tiring but great. Yesterday I drove down to meet Kylie from Border Collie Rescue to pick up three great Borders.

Bundy on the left is just fantastic, apart from the need to play his favourite game of jumping on the spot when a car drives past, he travelled really well. I left him with a wonderful foster family, where he was playing ball with a young boy. I think every kid should have a dog. But this dog is the type that coined the term "a boy and his dog". Bundy is a larrikin.

Tyler, well this is where I would love to find his previous owner and leave him somewhere he couldn't get out, drop his food off once a day and ask him what his mental health was like in six months time. This dog is great, but has had no training, input or attention at all. He is as unruly as they come - but you can tell he is extremely smart. I hope he is going to be okay.

And lastly, Maddie, a timid, frightened girl who is just a darling. This world is too full of people who think animals are like handbags, to be picked up and forgotten, discarded to whoever will take them on with a bit of tlc and make them as close to new again. Unlike handbags, they have thoughts, feelings and needs beyond an inanimate object. Why do so many people treat them as disposable? It doesn't make sense to me.

All I know is that it isn't the times when I buy a $1000.00 handbag that give me the most buzz (and I don't do it anyway). It is finding a bargain, that might even have a gold coin hidden in its depths. These are the rescue dogs of the world - I have never met one that didn't have some special quality. Beyond the abuse, the starvation, the neglect, these dogs have a power to make me believe in redemption and the fundamental good that lies in all of us. If we can just coax it out - we all can shine.

The difference a year has made to this event is pretty remarkable. Mainly because last year, while being a great weekend away and sharing cabins with some lovely people and their dogs, I had an experience of a lifetime that I would prefer to forget.

As long as I can remember, I have had migraine headaches. Thankfully they are on the less often than before scale but when they get me, I am a gonner. Last year, I had a great time at the two day AADA training day, and as the evening rolled in, I shared a bottle of very average wine with some fellow campers, all the while feeling like I might, but just not certain, was getting a nasty headache.

The cabins we were all bunked in had no running water, I was about 100m away from the toilet block, and by about 1am, I was in such a state that I just knew it was only a matter of time before I was vomiting and feeling like my head was going to crack in two.

It was around this point in time that I was acutely aware that my dog, the very worried Khan (dogs pick up on these things) was starting to whine, and my cabin buddies were beginning to toss and turn. So I got up - went outside, with Khan, and just as I began to trek down through the trees to the toilet block and its painfully fluorescent lights, it began to rain. Not just the spattering of a few drops of Brisbane drizzle, this was torrential, collapsing rain.

At this point, I was tempted to just sit down and cry. But that hurt too much. Instead, I made it back to my car, sat there, feeling like death and in between bouts of vomiting, waited for the pain to pass. It didn't, but eventually the sun came up, I threw my belongings into the Red Lemon (that will be another post) and drove home, stopping occasionally to retch.

One year on - I am home, in bed, after a day that was just sublime. I took my young boy, Harry, he didn't eat anyone and Khan was in a great frame of mind, well mostly anyway, and that is good enough for my dog. The weather here in Brisbane in winter is just fantastic, Mid twenties (Centigrade and no, I don't know how to convert to a temperature that means nothing to us Aussies) and no inclement weather or vaso-constriction in my head either.

Hurray for everything!

There is a great line in an old film I love called Pee Wee's Big Adventure where Pee Wee and Simone talk about their dreams. Simone tells him she want's to live in Paris, but....

Pee Wee say's "But what? Everyone I know has a big but! Come on Simone, tell me about your big but."

How does this relate to my 2x2 weave training? Well, my club, ADCQ, generously hires out their 2x2 Weavers, and as we were quarantined due to kennel cough; I brought a set home and we have been following Susan Garrett's 2x2 Weave Training DVD over the last few weeks. With a lot of success BUT

My big BUT is that I have a dog that is still learning to drive away from me. As you watch this DVD the young Border Collie is gunning for the first two poles. And what I did was build as much drive as I could and I have been careful to vary my body signals etc but what I have found is that while Khan is loving this training - he doesn't want to stop! I may have raised (okay I have definitely raised) the criteria quickly.

Susan Garrett talks about working the arc in her blog and I am wondering where to go now. What I can say is that this training has my five year old collie driving through the poles and flexing his body for the first time ever, he could be faster but he looks HAPPY! Which is a big change from the bewildered and sluggish style he has shown up until now.

Harry on the other hand, is coming along. He is now doing six poles, still pitched at 1'o'clock and 7'o'clock (think angles here people, where 12 and 6'o'clock are the line down the middle), for a dog that is prone to giving up and losing focus quickly, he is doing well.

“I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying.” Tom Hopkins

What makes you forget everything except doing what is immediately before you? I think I have a few, skiing, snorkelling, and training my two dogs. I started doing dog agility two years ago for the sole purpose of giving my poor, abused, rescue dog some confidence.

It worked so well, and now I am thinking it is time to start competing with him. In a fit of 'do or die' attitude, I just posted off entries into nearly all the competitions in a 200klm radius of my home.

I am going to blog my training, my competitions, and how my rescue dogs, that come and go on to their forever homes do. I am a member of a club, that mainly uses Susan Garrett's technique in training and she is awesome. Everytime I watch one of her dvd's, I pick up something new. I just wish she would make one for contacts - they are our biggest challenge so far.

So watch this space!

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” - Oprah Winfrey

Khan was brought into the RSPCA by a kennel where he had been abandoned. I did call the kennel some time later, and was told he came in to them very thin, matted and unwell. When the owner was asked about his condition, he said he had been in a kennel elsewhere for six months.

The owner was unable to be contacted and Khan was surrendered to the RSPCA where OzCollie Rescue took him on. Thank you to Jodi and Karl who rescued this great dog, and Jane of course who fostered him.

khan was so shut down and withdrawn, I was trying hard to bring out that collie exuberance but he was just a broken dog. He proved to only be bent out of shape and we started Agility with BAD in July 2008. 

We haven't been too committed up until now - family and other rescue dogs have meant that we haven't always got to training - and now I have made a blog and committed to getting out there and competing. 

When Harry was sixteen months old he was surrendered to our rescue group after he had become overly protective of his four year old charge. He still can be a bit like this with new situations and hence he gets "Dirty Harry" every now and then. 

Harry was bought from a backyard breeder, at six weeks he was the last dog in the litter left and was put on a flight to his new home. He never left his house yard again. Not for a vet check up, vaccinations, desex, nothing.

Harry is the most high energy collie rough I have ever met, and while slower to pick up on new things, he loves getting it right. He is a gorgeous boy. We have now had Harry with us for almost a year and a half.