The Days of Johann - an agility dog!

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 09:14 AM PDT

The 2009 Agility Association of Canada National Championships were held in Ottawa, Ontario, July 30 - August 2, 2009. A draft of the aggregate final results are up. Courses and class results here. YouTube vids here.

At the July 09 board meeting of the Agility Association of Canada 24" weave pole spacing was approved. Here's more info from their site:

As of September 1, 2010, weave pole spacing will be changed to 24" on centre. The long implementation period reflects the need to replace equipment and allows both host clubs and individuals the time to do so. Because of concerns about dogs having to adjust back and forth between sets of poles with different spacing, there will be no period during which current and new requirements will both be acceptable. That is, 24" poles must be used after September 1, 2010, but are not acceptable in the trial ring prior to that date. Further work is underway to develop a plan to subsidize clubs purchasing new weave bases and to investigate the possibility of working with suppliers to manufacture and provide new bases to both clubs and individuals at a favourable price.

If you haven't stopped over and visited Jesse's (the JRT) YouTube channel, it is so worth a look. 20 year old Heather trains Jesse, quite an accomplishment! Lots and lots of tricks.

The USDAA NC Regionals were held this past weekend in Crystal Lake, IL. We don't have the results, but have heard that Angie Beniquisto & Dylan kicked some dog agility butt, winning the Team (with Judy Schor/Moxie and Jen Crank/Blast), 16" GP and SC. Angie and Duncan also won the 12" SC. Nice job Angie! SC Regionals will be the weekend of the 29th of August, SW Regionals will be held the weekend of September 5th.

The Border Collie Classic Open European Agility Championships are taking this weekend in Bettembourg, Luxemburg. You can see results from Friday, and we expect other results will be posted soon. Thank you to aurea.userworld.com for keeping us posted.

Thanks to our friends at Just Agility, who dug up another good site to help you build your own agility equipment.

Dates for Karen Pryor's ClickExpo 2010 have been announced and registration is open. Bios of presenters are here. Dates and locations are:

ClickerExpo 2010
January 29-31, 2010 — Portland, Oregon
Doubletree, Portland

March 19-21 - Lexington, Kentucky
Griffin Gate Marriot Resort and Spa

Here's a nice little vid of Bernadette and Zen (O'Bay Shelties) at EO 09, 4th place in Ind Jumping. You can read their blog post about the event here.

There's a new K9 athlete online community run by Ron Watson, a disc dog fanatic and dog trainer in Michigan, you may want to check out. Not that new, I guess, since about January or so. Don't know what the plans are for the site, but so far they have a few agility articles from Susan Garrett and Bud Houston. There's also a forum, although it looks like it's used primarily with the disc dog lovers. There are now over 900 members, including Mum and yours truly.

For all of you wanting or needing info on dog agility injuries, one of my favorite resources is Dr. Stephen Canapp at the Veterinary Orthopedic Sports Medicine Group in Annapolis Junction, Maryland. He has written often for Clean Run about dog agility injuries; including the iliopsoas, rotator cuff, shoulder and cruciate ligament injuries. You can see some of his articles here. And now you can follow him on Twitter.

And last but not least, the system I utilize to keep track of my agility runs, placements, times, titles, etc., is Agility Record Book. Love it, love it, love it!!! We see today that they released support for Mac OSX! Nice work! They also have a Yahoo Group with amazing service to help you along.

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To view past dog agility blog-o-sphere articles, click here!

Tricks, tricks!

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 05:44 AM PDT

You know how much Gracie, Mum and I love tricks. So we were excited when Mum met Kyra Sundance and Chalsey on Facebook the other day, and Kyra was kind enough to tell us that our pull off the socks trick was #102, BOL!!!

They are the authors of 101 Dog Tricks - Step-by-step activities to engage, challenge and bond with your dog which we've seen around. And last year they came out with a new DVD. The other day they posted a little YouTube vid trailer of the DVD and we wanted to share with you!