The Days of Johann - an agility dog!

Posted by Animals at 4:05 AM Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Days of Johann - an agility dog!

'Secrets of Russia' from Svetlana Tumanova!

Posted: 24 Jul 2009 11:30 AM PDT

The nice folks at AgilityVision.com sent me a couple of DVDs the other day to test out. They have a new service they are providing to the agility community - DVD's and Video on Demand's of some of the great seminars they have been holding recently.

Last night we watched "Secrets of Russia: Foundation" by Svetlana Tumanova (with translation from Olga Chaiko). And we had a great time learning some new tips and tricks on foundation work.

I have to tell you that I love watching European agility competitors, and I love learning from them. They just have this desire to build drive, motivate, create distance and have a lot of fun with their dogs early in their foundation work. Silvia was our first introduction and we weren't disappointed with Svetlana.

We understand from reading that Svetlana doesn't teach agility, she instead concentrates her time training her own dogs. And this is the first time Sveltlana has shared her secrets for building a strong foundation in the agility dog with those in the US.

Until just last year, no large dog from the United States had ever won a medal in individual competition at the FCI World Dog Agility Championships because Svetlana has been on the podium every single year since 2001

So what did we think of the DVD? We thought it was great! We learned a few things I thought I'd share to give you a taste:
  • Like Stuart Mah, Svetlana teaches her dogs to be very obstacle focused from the early stages.
  • She concentrates on teaching the dog to constantly work ahead, building drive and confidence for the dog and she does this by throwing rewards.
  • The video shows working a dog on 1, 2 and 3 jumps in a row, 180's, 270's, how she handles front crosses, serps and threadles.
  • Her main focus during the seminar is helping you and your dog best communicate with body, hand and verbal signals; in a very easy to understand manner.
The video isn't your 'basic' foundation work video, it starts right off sharing info on helping your dog learn to work away from you, learn the obstacles, and learn some handling moves and sequencing at a low jump height. It breaks down every single move to help you learn how to teach these things from the beginning.

We think Gracie (and I, even though I'm a pretty good distance dog) will really benefit from some of the things we learned from the video. We've been wanting a way to help her be faster, work away from Mum more, and build her confidence. The info we learned will definitely help.

The VOD from AgilityVision.com is $14.99 for three days of viewing. The video is about 2 hours long, so it gives you plenty of time to watch it a few times and take notes. The DVD is $49.99. And we hear that they may have a Masters level DVD with Svetlana coming out soon.

Here's a trailer of the DVD, enjoy..oh, and we think Olga did a great job of translating!

Look-a-likes from all over the World!

Posted: 24 Jul 2009 04:59 AM PDT

Mum and I love going through my mail everyday. We get some of the most interesting emails. Lots of folks wanting us to try out a product or two, lots of folks just wanting to say hi, lot of folks who send us pups looking for homes for our Rescue Me blog.

Every now and then I'll get an email of a pup that saw my pic on the Internet and about fell off their chair! Why? Because they thought I look just like 'em.

We really like these emails because for the past few years, my brother from the shelter is always on my mind. Some day we hope one of those emails will answer our big, big question; where is he?

In the meantime, it sure is fun to see the pics from pups all over the world who look a little like me :)

This is Jody, who's Mum found me on Facebook, just the other day. Jody's bigger than me, but we definitely are collie like :)

This is Cable Girl. Her Mom sent us her picture in February of 2008. They found her as a homeless pup in Kyrgyzstan and brought her home to the US. Lucky Dog!

This is Ace, who's family sent his picture in January of 2008. Ace is now enjoying his retirement after an amazing agility career! Way to go Ace!

And this is BunnyBell, one of my buds on Twitter, who lots of our Twitter buds think we may be bro and sis from another mother, BOL! But BunnyBell is much smaller than I...

...and of course there's my buddy, Cosmo. When she lived here we used to hang out some :) This picture was taken in October of 2006. Now Cossie is enjoying an agility career just like me.

So looks like I've got some look-a-likes out there, and some new friends! Some day I'll find my brother from the shelter. Some day...some day...

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