Been some time since the last post on doggy parkour. Here’s Donna perched on a wall. She wants to get down already.
What else has she been up on lately? Artificial tree trunk stone stools, now these are pretty good for canine urban agility challenge.
These come in rows of three to five stools, so she has been slowly hopping from one stool to the next. The most she achieved was three consecutive stools so far :P
It really does test her agility to stand and sit on these stones, given the size of their surfaces and their distance apart. So I don’t really push her to do it when she doesn’t want to.
One day, in the same park, I saw this tiny kitten jumping up and down that tiny ledge along the wall fencing the police station. It’s definitely more agile than Donna! :P
And in the last couple of days, inspired by zeke’s adventures, we went to another nearby fitness corner in an attempt to train Donna to “jump” over these bars. As you can see, she much prefers to put her paws on the bars to help herself over rather than jump over. – –
We went leash-free for a few minutes and she cleared the bar without touching it.
I’m starting to get more comfortable with her being off the leash for few minutes at a time because we have been practising with her to “walk with me” at home and also in the small little secluded park downstairs (usually free of people and dogs). And when she gets into training mode, she can sometimes be quite focused. That is when I am more comfortable letting her off-leash for a few minutes at a time, never more because one never knows when something may suddenly spook her or draw her excitement.
She doesn’t have a strong recall or heel yet, so I’m always paranoid about her running away because she has been spooked or running to scare small children or dogs that happen on us before I can stop her. And when she is restless/distracted, then we just go for a nice, relaxing leashed walk instead.
If doggy parkour is new to you, you can read more about Urban Agility Challenge for Dogs here.
Note: It is illegal for the dog to be off leash in public areas in our country. I will not be responsible if local readers let your dog(s) off leash at your own risk/discretion. I generally don’t so why am I incriminating myself by blogging about this? :P
Julianne Victoria
Oh Donna, you are becoming such a fitness expert! Woooowooooo! Ku
p.s. you can email Mama your Haiku if you’d like me to post it. Her email should show up on your comments page.
weliveinaflat
Donna can do anything for treats!!! (when the mood strikes)
Donna is the smartest local mongrel in the world!! (only because the arian ox says so)
Thank you for putting Donna’s haiku on your page :D (it’s quite an impressive feat for an illiterate dog!!!!! :O)
1st World Dog
Looks like looks of fun Donna.
Disappointing to hear dogs aren’t allowed off leash play space in designated public areas. Off leash dog parks are so good for social interaction and also just a good heart pumping run.
An idea for something that may help ‘entertain’ is teaching to weave. I train for agility here in Australia and picked up a set of plastic weave poles on eBay. They are supposed to be an anchored into the ground but I have used them on hard surfaces. Mentally exhausting for dogs as really the only agility thing that isn’t a natural movement.
weliveinaflat
I think I may have not been clear. I apologise! :O
Dogs are allowed for off leash play in specific designated public areas – fenced dog parks. Unfortunately that is about it, no off leash on the beach or anywhere else.
That said, Donna doesn’t do well in dog parks over here which are generally overcrowded on weekends. Plus she developed a fear of the dog park after being chased by other dogs there on separate occasions. So its not her favourite place to go for social interaction and I don’t feel I am capable to protect her that well there either. I’m not that good with strange dogs. *sad*
I’ve seen weaving videos before but thought that looked like advance stuff that we need to attend training in order to be able to do! :P I shall explore that! Would you mind giving me a link how the plastic weave poles you mentioned look like? Thank you for the awesome pointer! :D
1st World Dog
Hi Donna – apologies for my tardiness in getting the info about the weave poles to you. Here is the link to the ebay ones we have. They are not super special but are easy if we are doing some training on the back deck or other hard surface.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dog-Training-Practice-Weave-Poles-Agility-Post-Set-/390313883462?pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item5ae0853746
Hope this is helpful. I have fun practicing weaving…. not only physically tiring but find this agility training mentally tiring too.
Something else you might have a bit of fun with is practicing the Rally O moves. if you haven’t heard of it… Rally O is a fun way to do obedience. I have competed in it and got my Rally Novice title. Mum often just gets me doing one or two of the moves as we are walking along to make me think. Here are the rules to a whole bunch of stuff but if you scroll down to Obedience you will see Rally Obedience there to download. They have diagrams to all the things and explanations of what you need to do…. mum has be learning the 3 steps back in Excellent… she figures we should start practicing that now as it will take a while. We practice it against a wall so I go straight back.
http://www.ankc.org.au/rules.aspx
Hope this gives you some ideas.
Bodhi.
weliveinaflat
Hello Bodhi,
No worries at all. I’m amazed by the excellent information you have shared! Thank you for taking the time to do so!
Great to see what the actual product looks like on eBay, is it sturdy enough when you use it? i.e. they don’t flip over as they weave through them? Cos Donna has this fear of unstable things that she perceive as likely to fall on her.
I’ve not heard of the Rally O moves but I’ve scrolled though the pdf and that is a lot of stuff to read through and understand!! :D Hope to get through it tomorrow morning when my mind is fresh! :D But thank you so much! You are an absolute treasure! Would love to see you in action with your mom! :D
Thanks again for taking the time to put this links together for me. I really appreciate it!
Have a great day!!
1st World Dog
My pleasure. Happy to help another pooch.
On the weave poles stability… They have little “feet” that if you were out on the grass you would peg down. On the deck we never did anything and they moved around but never feel. Maybe if you used some little weights on them of some sort (picturing making little sandbags with old socks or something).
Something else that might provide some helpful tips is the blog and Facebook page of my friend Shellbe’s mum. Her website is on my ‘Friends’ page. She is an awesome trainer who really strongly believes in positive reinforcement. She does lots of work with the Animal Rescue League helping to rehab dogs ready for rehoming. While I’ve been lucky enough to have had my family since a pup and hence my very cosy life, mum has still learnt heaps from Barbara.
And yep Rally O heaps of fun. Just skip to the pages that have the little diagrams.
Have a great day!
Bods
weliveinaflat
Awesome, thanks for the tip on the weave poles :D Shellbe’s mom’s website is goodog isn’t it? Will check it out. ;) You have a great day too! Glad you’re getting along with the tweety bird :D
Sonel
Wow! Donna will be giving us humans fitness lessons one of these days. I can see her as a personal instructor for sure! Great shots Mrs. P. She is so gorgeous!!!
Simba and I didn’t read that last part so you are not inciminating yourself at all Mrs. P. We don’t even have a dog park here. Thanks for sharing a lovely post once again and *big hugs* to you and Donna. xxx
weliveinaflat
We have to give her an aerobics headband then! Except that I read Arian dogs get headaches (not sure how true that is!!! from a horoscope o_O :P) Thank you for your jokes and humour :) *giantsaurus hugs*
Buddy2Blogger
Donna looks cute.
B2B.
weliveinaflat
Thank you :D Cuteness wins! We need more people to think mongrels/mutts are cute over here ;) It’s a small/toy dog or golden retriever country :3 Appreciate your kind words.
rubytheblacklabrador
She looks very happy being queen of the castle! btw – I incriminate myself every day as dogs are completely forbidden in the ponds in our park and Ruby seems to ‘fall’ into them every day. Dogs aren’t allowed off leash in our area on the streets or in any place which isn’t designated ‘off lead’. AND then off lead is usually between 4.30pm to 8.30am. For a country bounded by ocean, most beaches are completely forbidden to dogs unless you go vv early or sneakily. Council rangers can zap the dog microchip at twenty paces so if you’re on the beach and they see you they’ll get your details via the microchip and send you a nice letter (fine) in the post…The beach on our holiday was voted ‘best dog beach in New South Wales’ as it’s vvv dog friendly which is of course why we went there!
weliveinaflat
Wow, 20 paces that far away!! :O you guys are stringent, complete with technology to enforce!! Although I keep saying it’s against the law here, I suspect the most we get is a verbal warning from the coast gaurd (if at the beach), plus the dog back on the leash again. Nobody really polices the streets or parks for off-leash dogs. And I suspect that’s the same for you so Ruby is able to incriminate you without a worry. That or, Ruby is one expensively fine canine lawbreaker :P But at least you have a best dog beach in your part of the country :D
The good thing about the photos is it really helps catch the nuances. She looks a lot more relaxed in picture #2 because that is more recent and she is feeling more comfortable with the stools, vs #3 which was taken a longer time ago and her smile looks more nervous. I may or may not notice without the photos I think.
1writeplace
Love that b/w pic with the kitten! Fun romp with your dog. Hi, Donna.
Patti
weliveinaflat
Hi Patti,
It was fun :) Glad you like the kitty picture, though it’s not very good quality. It was actually pretty far away so that’s the best I could manage with a camera iphone :P and a dog in tow! :D have a great day :D
1writeplace
Well try it again, please, it is a great shot.
Patti
well minded
Never heard of this, and I love it! It also makes me giggle! Fun!
weliveinaflat
It’s pretty fun :) Try it with your dogs next time! :D Thanks for dropping by and leaving me a comment :)
littledogslaughed
Great shots of Donna-especially that top one-it looks like she is inviting everyone to come play-agility is great dogs-it can really wear them out, especially if you have a couple of high-energy ones-
weliveinaflat
Thank you :), though in actual fact she was just getting tired of standing on the wall there :P
weliveinaflat
Oh Donna would love to sniff and send pee-mail to these guys!!