A bad day at agility is better than a good day at work

[Silaria]

Thats interesting you should bring that up Katherine. Our previous trial I watched what the really experienced handlers did with their green dogs between runs, and they all put them in the car. So I did the same this time (had a 3hr break between runs) and it made a difference. I think my dogs feel safer tucked up in the car so they can rest without feeling the stress of the trial. I just took them out with enough time for a toilet and warm up.

The weather hasn't been really conducive to leaving Edan in the car. It was cold, rainy weekend here - temps about the mid-40s. When it gets warm, I hate leaving him in the car even with the engine running for the air conditioner.

What I did do was take his portable crate and put it in the x-pen with him since I know he likes to curl up in there when he wants some privacy. It seemed to help a bit. He really seemed to enjoy snoozing in there. At times during a weekend he was further back in the crate sleeping in a small ball. Others he'd snooze in the main x-pen with the fan blowing on him.

Here's picture of the sleeping Edan from Saturday (cell phone picture but the quality isn't too bad). (The blanket is because we had some really wound up dogs behind us when we first arrived. Turns out those dogs belong to the person judging the TDAA trial I'm going to in late April.)

 

[corbinam]

I just happened to be thinking about Edan not getting "revved up" before the run and had an idea.

Bentley gets really revved up if we push him. I know that seems weird, but I will talk in an excited voice "Are you rrrrrrrrready?!?!" and push him slightly away from me. He comes back and I push him again (lightly, of course!) but I keep this up and he gets really excited.

I actually DON'T like to do it before we go into the ring because he's TOO excitable, but it does help his speed.

I think a lot of people do this with their dogs when tugging, but Bentley isn't a huge tugger, so we just play the push-me game!