Teeter and the Rush

We are going to have a competition sized metal teeter soon! :D

It has been cold and snowy so we haven't done a whole lot of training.

I am just wondering what the point of doing agility with puppies is. Why the hurry? Just because you are allowed to start competing with pups around 18 months of age doesn't mean you have to. I personally don't like seeing people put their 10 month old puppy on a full sized teeter. The same goes for people who are running 12 week old puppies across a board. If you do all the foundation needed, then you shouldn't have to start obstacles early. Lay your foundation correctly and the obstacles will come very quickly once your dog is ready for them. Also, why work weaves [even entries!] before the dog is a year? The 2x2 method usually takes under a month to train so if you start at 15 months you will have decent weaves at the age of 16 months...isn't that good enough? Sometimes I wonder why people originally got their puppy...to do agility or because they wanted a dog to bond with and love. Because not letting puppies be puppies and have fun is seriously contradicting of people who claim the latter.

Li is old enough to compete in February and Flick is already old enough. But I will wait for Summer for Li and at least March for Flick. For many of the people [especially novice/intermediate people] who want to trial as soon as possible, it makes it seem like they are excited for themselves, not for the dogs. I also don't really understand planning goals like "Go to nationals" or "make the world team" before you compete with your dog. Some people even set these goals before they get a dog! I am not talking about specific people. I have just run into some people with this thought process and have slapped my little sister on the side of the head for saying such things, haha.

Goals for December/January/February

Flick
-Stand stay
-Left and Right
-Cik/Cap/Out
-Running contacts at 2 feet high
-6 weaves with entries
-Default down on the table
-Away and Swing
-Solid recall

Li
-Left and Right
-Better Cik/Cap/Out
-Contacts at 3 feet high
-6 weaves with entries
-Default down on table
-Solid Recall
-Away and Swing
-Better behaviour around people and animals

Libby
-Left and Right
-Cik/Cap/Out
-Contacts at table height
-4 weaves
-Default down on table
-Away and swing
-Solid recall: Big one for us!

Shadow
-4oTF contacts on Dog Walk and A-Frame
-6 weaves
-Cik/Cap/Out
-Default down on table
-Solid recall
-Away and Swing

Winter

And with the first snow, winter is officially here. Karyn and I packed up some agility stuff today: the PVC channel weaves, a jump, a tire, the chute, the pipe tunnels, etc. I got my winter training set up! In the garage I have a jump and 1 sets of 2x2 weaves for entry work. On the big back porch I have a jump and 2 2x2 sets for weave work. We have a fenced in area I was using as a contact training area. Well, it is so big that now I have some equipment down there to train Libby. She can't work outside that pen because she will take off....it's a husky thing, don't judge us. haha So now we can work on her sliding table and cik/cap/out using a winged jump. I also have an 8' plank and a 12' plank down there for dog walk running contact training. I also have an 8' long, 3 foot wide thing to work on A-Frame contacts with when we get to that point. The dog walk is the only thing left in the original field, haha. It has no up-plank though....we are just using it for Shadow's 4 on the floor training.

The dogs are doing good and I'll be training all 4 later today.