The Days of Johann - an agility dog!

Posted by Animals at 4:03 AM Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Days of Johann - an agility dog!

New AKC Fast & Mixed Breed Titles approved

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 03:16 PM PDT

The AKC Board, at the July Board Meeting, approved new Fast Class titles effective January 1, 2010.

Here are the details from the AKC website:

FAST Agility Class – New Advanced Title

...it was voted (unanimously) to approve suggested changes to Chapter 9, AKC Regulations for Agility Trials, to add a new advanced title past the Master FAST title. The new title will be called Triple Q Excellent (TQX).

In addition, the regulations correct the Titles chart to show the right number of Qs required for the MXF and MFP tiles. Complete regulation changes are attached as Appendix B. New wording is as follows (underlined):

Chapter 9.

Triple Q Excellent = TQX

Requires the XF title. In order to acquire the Triple Q Excellent Title, a dog must
receive 10 triple qualifying scores obtained from the Excellent B Standard Agility
Class, the Excellent B Jumpers With Weaves Agility Class and the Excellent B
FAST Agility Class on the same day.

Triple Q Excellent Preferred = TQXP

Requires the XFP title. In order to acquire the Triple Q Excellent Preferred Title, a
dog must receive 10 triple qualifying scores from the Excellent B Standard
Preferred Agility Class, the Excellent B Jumpers With Weaves Preferred Agility
Class and the Excellent B FAST Preferred Agility Class on the same day.

The Board minutes also include approvals of titles and trial procedures for the addition of mixed breeds to compete in separate classes and earn separate titles in AKC trials beginning April of 2010. You can read the full minutes of the meeting here.

Edit: Rumors are indicating that the TQX will be retroactive back to Jan 1, 2007, when FAST first became a title class. (unconfirmed)

Walkin' the walk!

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 01:23 PM PDT

Mum, Gracie and I have been walking a lot lately, mostly because the weather has been just amazing, nice and cool in the evenings. Mum decided to take our Palm Centro with us the other day and get a few pics, so we could show you some of our neighborhood. We thought for a phone camera they came out pretty good :)

Here we are waiting somewhat patiently for Mum to get movin'.

Awww...finally we are off!

First order of the walk, checking peemails since yesterday's walk.

And we always have to sit at the curb before crossing the road. Safety first, Mum always says. I don't think I've crossed a single street my entire five years of life before sitting. Gotta watch out for those cars and hid lights and look right and left (or is it left and right :)

Then we're off again, here's one of our nice walk views, sidewalks everywhere, new trees planted between the sidewalks and the road, lots and lots of look a like houses and overly fertilized green grass, that Mum doesn't like us to be on too much.

Every time we turn this certain corner, there's a house with a bunny in the yard. Shhhh...Gracie still thinks it's real, silly girl! She pulls and tugs and squeals her fool head off everytime we get near it. BOL!!!

Then we turn another corner to see one of four retention ponds in our neighborhood. Gracie loves them!!! Me too!!! But Mum doesn't let us go there much, lots and lots of duck poo, yum! And since they are retention ponds they are basically the run off from the streets and everyone's overly fertilized lawns, nasty stuff! We thought once we saw a two headed fish in theres.

Every other house has these utility boxes in the yard. The nice thing is that all cables and lines are buried in our neighborhood, so we don't lose our electricity very much, or our cable during storms. The' in' thing is to plant perennial grasses around them to hide them from view since they are in lots and lots of front yards. They are also very nice places for little critters to hide.

Sitting at the curb again, and we sat and stayed too, for treats of course! Nearly home after a couple of miles...

Of course a 2-3 mile walk just wasn't enough for us pups! We had to get our zoomies on after we got home.

And of course Gracie had to have her time in the pool. Wait...the pool's dry!

Not for long!!! Super refreshing!

Hope every one and every pup had a pawsome weekend! We sure did!

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 5:26 PM Monday, August 3, 2009

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Animal Assisted Activities and Therapy- The Pet Partners Program

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 06:29 AM PDT

Interaction with pets has proved to be beneficial in a number of situations in human health care. The Delta Society has a very successful program of Animal Assisted Activities and Animal Assisted Therapy called the Pet Partners Program. Purina is the sponsor of this program.

As indicated above the Pet Partners Program has two components; Activities and Therapy. As explained in detail in this Delta Society handout each component has distinct activities and goals. For instance, Animal Assisted Activities (AAA), involve largely unstructured visits to health care facilities. The emphasis here is on simple interaction and the health benefits that can accrue from simply being around animals.

Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) on the other hand has more specific therapeutic goals. A therapy pet may be used to encourage physical recovery from a stroke or injury. A patient may be encouraged to stand to pet or groom a therapy dog or to take brief walks with the therapy dog. Apparently people try harder and focus better when a therapy dog is involved.

Both activities can be helpful in Alzheimer therapy. In many cases Alzheimer patients show improved cognitive and verbal skills and improved social interactions through the involvement of AAA. Interactions with dogs facilitate better moods and fewer behavioral alterations and increase the verbal interaction among patients.

This is an area near and dear to my own heart. I've written before about my father-in-law and how his two dogs are such a big help in keeping him active and engaged. It's a wonderful relationship.

The Pet Partners Program can train interested volunteers in both areas. Having been around since 1990, The Pet Partners Program really has it act together. They can take you and your dog through evaluation and specific training and in the end, hook you up with a network of care facilities around the country that need and appreciate the benefits of AAA and AAT.

I'd seriously encourage anyone looking to get involved in this area to take a look at what this program has to offer. It's a prime example of the value of the human animal bond and a demonstration of why we have pets in out lives.

Lots About Dogs

Posted by Animals at 3:07 PM

Lots About Dogs

How to Deal with a Jumping Dog – Part 4

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 06:00 AM PDT

How to Stop your Dog from Jumping Most trainers agree that the most effective way for you to weed out unwanted behaviors (like jumping) in your dog is also the easiest: all you have to do is simply ignore him whenever he jumps up. The idea is to give him the cold shoulder: withdraw all attention, [...]

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 5:12 PM Saturday, August 1, 2009

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Puppy Pees When Me He Sees

Posted: 29 Jul 2009 05:24 PM PDT

Nothing can spoil a homecoming greeting between human and canine more than a pool of pee. We vets call it by the clinical term excitation urination and most pet lovers just want it to stop.

Fortunately in most cases it's a puppy problem and as the pup matures the unwanted gift goes away. In some cases it can persist into adulthood and may indicate a genetic predisposition to a weaker than normal bladder control.

Most dogs and people are able to turn urination on and off by relaxing and closing the bladder sphincter. The bladder sphincter is a ring of muscle around the neck or narrow opening of the bladder that empties into the urethra. Bladder sphincters are very useful during interesting long movies or when your owner works a normal job. In some cases though things don't work out so well.

With some puppies they just get so excited to see you, they just let go. The muscle tone of the sphincter may just be weaker than other dogs. In any case, there are some things to do to help prevent the problem and hasten resolution.

The main goal is to remove any reinforcement for the unwanted behavior. First and foremost, that means no punishment. Punishment will only serve to confuse the pup and more often than not they won't associate the punishment with the behavior. Instead of thinking, "My people don't want me to pee," they will think, "My people don't like me at all." That's not what anybody wants.

The other important point is to not make a fuss when you get home. If you really want to open the flood gates, get all gushy and offer up all kinds of baby talk, petting and soothing. The pup will think, "Wow, she really likes my pee puddles."

If you have a peeing pup, try to greet them like they're the vacuum cleaner salesman at your front door. In fact, don't greet them at all until they have completely calmed down. This will help them control things until they grow up a bit more. Even if the problem persists into adulthood you can control it by controlling initial encounters.

With some puppies, they will let go during play too so try not to get too rambunctious until they are better able to handle it and don't punish or make a big deal out of it. Just ignore it as best you can.

Let friends and neighbors in on the plan, too. When they come over they are to ignore the pup at the initial meeting and not make a fuss or offer up a pat on the head until things have calmed down.

Like most things in life, with time and maturity, things will get better. At least for the pup, they will.

For many of us humans, me especially, time and maturity have brought a little patience and wisdom and a lot of baldness and arthritis.

Search

Visits