In the beginner agility program I teach, the 2nd session of classes is devoted to directional skills and crosses. It’s the class I start hearing references to dancing and having two left feet from the students, and is is where…
Your Dog’s Need and Your Want
Agility (or any competitive dog sport) is generally considered a want. A human want. The competition piece of it at least. Enriched environments and mental activity is a need and want for many dogs, and agility training in generally can…
What Does Your Dog Do for Fun?
What does your dog do for fun? When left to their own devices, what activities or behaviors does your dog initiate for enjoyment, relaxation, silliness, fun? Why does it matter? I think it matters what our dogs do for fun…
Lead Outs
In dog agility most folks are familiar with the concept of a lead out. For those uninitiated, a lead out refers to the stay that you ask your dog to do at the beginning of the course, before the 1st…
DIY Automated Puzzle Toy Dispenser
A number of years ago an amazing product came onto the market. It was one that allowed a user to put into the machine a bunch of stuffed kong puzzle toys, then it would dispense the Kongs on timed intervals…
8 Years
When I think back to how much life has changed in 8 years, I think ‘where has time gone?!’ I’ve been lucky and privileged enough to share the past 8 years with Tom. And hopefully will get to share may…
NADAC Agility trial recap
Yesterday morning we stopped in at the local NADAC trial for a few runs. As my life this month has been swamped with things other than training my dogs, we entered only 4 (out of 8 offered for the day)…
Get Earth Friendly with Your Dog!
It’s Earth day and seems an opportune time to bring up a subject I love chatting with people about: eco or carbon footprints. Footprints are something left behind after you’ve traveled through. So an eco footprint refers to the impact…
Happy Spring!
The flowers have sprung! I do so enjoy tulips. So do the deer and other critters so the backyard ones are the only to usually make it to blooming around here.
Name Silliness
I was recently listening an interesting, thought provoking podcast called Namesake. And listening to it combined with a couple of encounters with others reminded me I had wanted to do a post about dogs and names. I’ve posted about dogs…