We’re back! After a much needed break following the Tasmaninan election and the lingering chest cold that followed.
Luna and I (with only a few hits on my inhailer afterwards) completed our first “mock” Dog Agility trial this last Sunday. Luna was fairly agile, I was less so, and made most of the mistakes.
All photos were taken by my partner Imogen/myriad. Or in Luna terms “not-the-momma.”
and look at Luna go!
I hope you’re feeling the rest of the way better soon.
The course started with a jump through a tire (which Luna doesn’t like ‘cuz she barely fits) followed by the Dog Walk (shown), which is about four feet off the ground. Dogs must place at least one foot in the colored zones at the ends of the ramps, to keep them from jumping on and off, and potentially hurting themselves.
“Ms. Molasses” just mosied across.
That’s pretty funny that she just ambles over it, no rush.
After the Dog Walk is the first tunnel, which she’s getting better at, followed by the first jump – called a spread because it has a gap between two poles.
And yes that’s me – trying to keep Ms. Molasses moving and motivated (and going over the obsticles – not around them).
Now that looks like a ton of fun! I watch these on OLN when I find them.
After the Spread, came the A-Frame. It’s about five feet high, and again, dogs must put at least one paw in the colored area.
There are three colors: blue, at the very ends of the ramps, for small dogs; red, in the middle of the colored area, for medium-sized dogs; yellow, the largest zone, for large dogs like Luna.
After the A-Frame was the Table, which dogs have to remain on for a count of five (given by the judge). Luna found an interesting smell on the ground near the table and prceeded to ignore me for about five seconds before finally getting up on the table. On her second run, on the way to the table, she left the course to pee in the grass. The judge thought it was very thoughtful of her to not pee on the course.
After the Table came the Chute.
Luna balked the first time because she had only done it once before and the canvas protion of the chute lies flat, meaning that the dog has to push it open with her head to get through it. She went through better on her second pass.
That should read: “canvas portion”, not protion – which sounds like some new sub-atomic particle.
After the Chute was a single jump, which is the same jump she’s going over in this picture, only going the other way. After that jump was the Weave Poles – always our worst obsticle. Luna made about five weaves out of 12, which is a good showing for her. The poles are only 20″ apart, and hard for her to twist around. The trick is to pretty much to run straight through them, bending the poles outward as she goes. She’ll get it eventually.
Following the weave poles was the other Tunnel (the black one in the background of the picture above).
Followed by a long jump (the wooden boards slightly above the ground). After that it’s a straight out sprint over three single jumps to the finish.
The last jump Luna skipped on the first run through, but she completed all of them the second time.
All in all, not a bad showing for the worlds least obedient dog and her owner.
get Bud to do some gymnastics, but all I got was this pitiful/”yeah right” look
I really enjoyed seeing Luna show off her ‘stuff’.
We’ve recently been hiking in southern Utah. Here’s one of two types of fauna we saw while hiking (lizards being the other).
I know they are endangered but not that rare! 😉
I’ve never had anything to post in keres’ diary before, b/c I’ve got a stinky cat. (No seriously, he’s stinky.)
Here are two critters that were in my backyard this week:
Mr. I-kick-squirrel-ass Bunny
Scaredy-Squirrel
Nice to have you back….great series of photos!
Any recommendations on digital cameras? I like close-up…and easy to use…..not too expense.
I’ve been very happy with both the canon’s I owned. Some of the powershot a series cameras might suit.
I think Canon makes the best quality/user friendly digital cameras. I have Nikons, but they are geared towards professional, and spend-y.
It’s hard to recommend a specific model, as they are updated so rapidly these days.
I’d advise yout check out differnt models in a proper camera store just to get the feel of them.
Your photos are great. What pixal are they?
I have my camera (a Nikon D70) set to take photos at 2000 x 3008 pixels, or approximately 1.8mb each. Needless to say, this chomps memory – hench the 256mb memory card.
To post them here (or anywhere on the web), I reduce them to a 400 pixel width.
This may be the best Thursday dog blogging yet — at least as far as pictures of Luna go. She looks great. Although just looking at the pictures makes ME tired.
These pictures are wonderful – thanks for posting them. Although Luna is always beautiful when she’s napping, nothing can beat the happy look on a dog’s face when she’s doing a purposeful job.
I’ve been thinking about agility training for our new Norwegian elkhound who is just bursting with youthful energy. Unfortunately, I am not – how spry do you have to be to get involved in it? I’d be the one you’d call Ms. Molasses, hobbling around the course while my dog races about madly.
It’s sad to say, but I’m actually one of the fittest people in my agility training group – and I’m spectacularly unfit at this point in my life.
Luna is still at the “follow my hand” stage in her training, but the goal is to get her do the obsticles without me having to run right next to her. Handlers of the better trained dogs barely have to move at all – they simply call out the names of the obsticles and use their hands and body position to indicate which way the dog should go next.
If your dog is keen, and fairly trainable, I say give it a try. I had no idea how Luna would do when we started, but it was clear from the start that she was bored with obedience training and this was at least fun.
Looks more like a “Daddy give me treets” look. (dogs are notoriously bad spellers)
if you notice, the tail region of the photo is blurred because he was wagging it so hard it making his whole rear end shake. I ignored him far too long for his liking by taking pictures and he eventually let out a howl.
Needless to say, the photo shoot was over and I was required to give him my full attention after that.
Hi Nag!
These pictures put a smile on my face; I needed that, after a few hours of political outrage.
One of these days, I will get a cheap digital camera and post some pictures here of my playfull cats.