TRAINING A DOG

This is an important topic that alot of people have no idea about, but is very crucial when it comes to exercising their dog. Most of us will take our dog out to the local dog park or school field and whip out the Chuck It, a frisbee or your dogs favorite toy and throw it over and over again until your dog is tired and you go back home with a pooped puppy.


Why is this the wrong way to exercise your dog? Think of it as if you were your dog. You woke up, ate, then just started running for 20 mins - 1 hour then stopped, had some water and went to sleep. Your muscles would cramp up and be more susceptible to strains. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with throwing a ball for your dog, but make sure you are taking care of your dogs body.

• 10 minute walk to start on leash, start getting your dogs heart rate up slowly.
• Let your dog off leash and let him jog around the field or park for 5 minutes to allow his muscles to warm up
• Spend 30 mins throwing the ball on and off. Throw the ball for 5 minutes. Take a minute break. Throw for another 5-10 minutes and repeat. Make sure to have fresh water handy (see below for a the doggy bag musts).
• Once you're done, let your dog jog around on him own, leash him up after a few minutes and take him for a 10-15 min cool down around a couple blocks or just around the field/park until the dogs breathing is close to normal.

Just taking less than a quarter of the time to properly warm up and cool down your dog can save your hundreds to thousands of dollars in vet bills.

IMPORTANT : DO NOT run a dog less than 1 year old for more then 15 minutes every few hours. This can lead to severe joint problems such as arthritis as early as 3 years old.

 Doggy Bag Musts:

• Bottle of water, I use just an old coke bottle cleaned out (500ml for winter months and a 2L in  summer months)
• Some sort of container like an empty Tupperware or anything can hold a little bit of water like a collapsible dog dish. If you don't bring a container you're going to waste more then 50% of the water trying to let your dog drink from the bottle.
• More then one toy, I usually bring a ball, frisbee and cloth to play a game of tug.
• Treats in a ziploc bag - you never know when you want to reward your dog for a wonderful behaviour, such as calmly meeting a child.

I'll try and get posts up of previous trials during the next few weeks, but I have a minute to blog so I wanted to get this up. This is our third trial this year and we hadn't trialed since October 2010 due to Devon's heat cycle. I'm pleased with how things are going! Devon is training very well, and her teeter and weaves are solid. She's still having some stress in the weaves at trials, but we have been showing progress.

Saturday Excellent B JWW
Saturday was Devon's 5th birthday, and I can't say our first run, Excellent JWW, was a gift to her from me. I planned the opening so she would see the poles really well, but then I praised her in the poles and scared her to death! My voice was too strong and high and she popped right out. She went back in fine and weaved strong until a hand movement pulled her out and then we fumbled a rear cross on the flat. Poor Devon! She was so confused and stressed, she just stopped and shook herself off. You can see by the video I apologized. What a kerfuffle!

What I really like about this run is how she recovered. She took a couple of wide turns to say hello to the ring crew, but she is happy and fast. We were well under time even with the chaos at the weaves. Devon was still stressed, but she performed well.


Saturday Excellent A Standard
I wondered what Devon would do with the teeter as the second obstacle. She does prefer it early in the course, but it was against the wall and pointed into the wall. Although she looks strong on the video I felt she didn't charge it as she usually does. I was pleased that she was confident, because I think the teeter placement was difficult. It made me wonder what the Open and Novice dogs did with it later in the day.

No surprised after the earlier run that weaves were an issue. I did want her to give them an effort, and she did that for me. The rest of this run was fantastic, including her table performance. Devon slipped on her take off to the table, although you can't see it on the tape, for a split second I feared she might miss the table and crack her chin on it. Thankfully she recovered and you can't tell there was a problem.

Devon handled the A-frame to tunnel ending like a dream even though I had wanted to do a front cross before the A frame. What a good girl!


One thing different for Devon is that she didn't want to tug at this trial. That was unusual for her, since at past trials even in January I was able to get her tugging all the way to the gate. On Sunday I played with getting her more amped at the start. I think this really helped, and I could tell by her body posture she was more up. She also did less scratching before her runs.

Sunday Excellent B JWW
This was a really, really nice run. I was super pleased with Devon's weaves. She did pop the second pole but got right back in and weaved them strong when I asked. I actually got several compliments on Devon's weaves from folks who didn't realize she skipped two poles!

I was reminded watching the video that Devon is super sensitive to motion into her when I pushed her off the jump after the triple. I was distracted by the leash runner's position as Devon came around the loop at the front of the ring and held my position to make sure she wasn't also distracted. Devon did a great job, but I forgot the conversation I had with Kathy about running that line as a push after the jump to the tunnel if the dog was too far behind. I wish I had done the push to see how she would have handled it; considering it worked really well for Kathy and Emma I bet it would have for Devon.


Sunday Excellent A Standard
I think this was the best run of the weekend -- of course, if you ignore the weave poles as Devon did! I can't blame her, and I let it go because the run was so beautiful. Those weaves will come. What I was thrilled about was how well we both handled this course. She was very up for the run (again I did different things in our warm up and pre-startline), and I was super pleased with her speed. While this looks like a straight forward course, there were a lot of NQs on it.



Usually the end of February is our last agility trial of the "season" since we usually only do agility from October to February due to field training all summer. However, this year I'm going to focus on Devon's agility career and continue trialing. Now that Devon is pretty much done with her training issues and has a lot of confidence, we are a lot closer to Q'ing. I want to keep the momentum we have going and continue trialing to see if we can't work on those Excellent and Masters titles.

What is really thrilling me is the speed she's working on. Even with our mistakes, she's consistently 5-8 seconds under time in JWW and she was 15 seconds under time in Standard on Sunday. She is faster than Ian was by just a few seconds now, and I know she has more in her. As we relax and become a team, I can't wait to see where we go! Devon is just such a fun dog to run!

Let's Play
This is a classical look at two dogs who are just about to play. The Yorkie is ready at any second to run and hopefully have Oscar chase him.
Body - tails up but not over back, ears half mass, body tilted back indicating ready to run, focussed on one another.
Puppy Licking
Puppy licking is a submissive gesture and you may even see older dogs do this behaviour too as to appease a authority figure. In human words "Don't harm me, I'm no threat."

Body Posture -ears back, squinty eyes, head reaching up, tail tucked sometimes.




                                                                
Fearful 
Luna is meeting sheep for the first time in her life and she is telling me and the sheep that she's not liking this one bit! She's pretending that the sheep are not there, "I don't see you! So you don't see me!"

Body - whale eyes (you can see the whites), ears back, looking away, braced legs, tail low even tucked.

As you can see her leash is very loose, giving her the freedom to run if she chose to. The sheep are pointed away from her face (as face-to-face is threatening especially for a dog who is already scared of the situation).


Caution
After a few minutes, Luna has decided that the sheep may not be a threat and now curiosity has kicked in, she wants to see what they're about.

Body - ears forward, braced legs (incase she needs to run), tail low even tucked (little scared still), eyes and nose forward on sheep.

Concern about Possession
All play has stopped because there is now tension between Luna and Jet (black BC). As you can see all other dogs are looking away, "we're no threat."

Body- stillness, body stiff (tension), orientation of dogs nose, staring at the threat (Jet), tail low or down.

Jet is a bit oblivious at this time (as both BC's are only 6 months old, siblings), he just wants to play, although Luna being scared that her precious wood will be taken.

Guarding - Warning
 Jet (black BC) is coming a little too close for her comfort now, so Luna is guarding the piece of wood underneath and gives Jet what is called a "soft look''.

Body - ears back but not always they can be up and forward, object is usually underneath dog, head may be pointed forward but eyes follow the dog that is too close for comfort, stillness (calm before the storm).

If you look at Jet (black BC) he is communicating wonderfully! Sniffing to let Luna know, "it's okay, I'm no threat and not interested in what you have."

Our dogs are communication with us every second of the day, we just don't notice because alot of the time it's very subtle. Here are a couple other body language tips:


Sniffing - Can mean 'no harm here', calming them self down if stressed, or just a good smell!
Yawning - Can mean 'I'm no threat', 'calming them self down if stressed, calming other dogs or people around if the energy is too high, sleep.
Stressed - Panting, worried look (eye muscles aren't relaxed), sniffing, yawning, scratching, dandruff, sweaty paws, pacing.

If you're interested in learning more about Canine Body Language I highly recommend "Canine Body Language" by Brenda Aloff. This is a photographic guide to interpreting the native language of the domestic dog.  You'll find yourself understanding your dog as well as others much more.

This is how you teach your dog to "kiss".

Langley Animal Protection Society Needs Your Help

Pepsi is giving away 1 million dollars worth in grants to winning ideas. LAPS is going for $100,000 to build a education and training centre where they can:

• Provide basic obedience training classes to the public. This will benefit dogs in and promote humane education. LAPS strongly believes in positive methods training all classes will be taught using “clicker training” as a method.
• Create an educational program for school age children to promote proper care for pets, including spaying and neutering.
• Provide basic obedience training classes for families that are adopting dogs from our shelter. This will help make sure that our dogs are good citizens and will stay in their forever homes. The number one reason why dogs are returned to shelters is because people cannot manage them.
• Educate people about our spay/neuter program for cats and our Trap Neuter and Release program (TNR). The goal is to reduce the size of free living and feral cat population in Langley.

Currently they are in 4th place as of February 12th 2011. We have until February 28th to get them to 1st place!
Vote everyday guys! And send an email to ALL your friends telling them to vote!


This will take you directly to the Pepsi website where you will be able to vote
TO VOTE CLICK HERE

LAPS website