Urban agility challenge – Last month at the park
I’m a good girl, where’s my treat??
This was about a month ago, we’re still not very good at completing hopping over the full set of park stools with speed.
Tag: dog agility
Nowadays, Donna and I often have our long walk in the night because it’s cooler and Donna actually bounces along in the cool air rather than drag her legs and lag further and further behind in the warm day.
Of course, I could make myself wake up extra early when the sun hasn’t risen yet and it’s still cool to walk her. But considering I sometimes am still up at 3am keeping a trembling, thunder-phobic dog company… I’ll say it’s unlikely to happen.
Have to say though, I abhor trying to pick up poo in the dark grass in the middle of the night in the dimly lit streets. Abhor! … but I still pick it up.
Here’s some of the ways we make the walk more fun :)… and by fun, I mean injecting some variety into the walk so it doesn’t get boring for me… If you don’t like training, it may not be as fun for you :P
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
We did crawl a little bit under a metal rung that was on our way to pee break outside in the haze. :P
We are having a break from the haze today with PSI under 100, i.e. moderate air quality. But it’s not difficult to empathise with our neighbours in Malaysia, who earlier declared a state of emergency in the Muar and Ledang districts where PSI breached 750.
Dogear6 wrote a post on Escaping in the City where she shared some amazing topiaries she found at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I enjoyed that, so I thought I share some pictures of Donna in one of Singapore’s biggest parks.
We visit it pretty often since we live around 1/2 hrs walk from it. The 62 hectare Bishan Park has been renovated last year and fairly suits the “escaping in the city” theme with its “naturalised” landscaping. Don’t tell the other dogs but this park now sports some pretty awesome landscape rocks, cross river stone paths, low walls and other relief that makes doggy parkour a pretty fun game to explore here.
Donna has started to respond to “up-up” and to climb up on rocks, park stools and public structures about 50-80% of the time. And you know what? Doggy parkour is a great skill for your dog if you love to take doggy pictures. Haha!
Masked canine contemplates swooping down Recycle Hill. These ragged rock steps that we stand on were made from the remains of an old canal which was removed to make way for a “naturalised” river, which basically means man-made. :P And we are enjoying the new river plains landscaping because now we can see some bird like herons and other water birds visiting, they who used to look down their long beaks at the old canal! :P
But really, the masked canine much prefers chilling out on her rock in the cool shade over here in the secluded water lily ponds.
And after all that jumping and running, there are sun deck loungers along the footpaths that one can lounge on and rest, if only the weather wasn’t so glaringly hot!
But if it’s so fun here? Where are the other dogs? Well, back in the fenced dog run of the park where we left them!
The last time we arranged to meet up with Dou Dou and her humans before we attempt to drive to the Nat Geo Free Pet Shop event together was a Saturday. We agreed to meet at the dog run but Donna was reluctant to approach once we were near to the vicinity of the dog run, having spied a large golden retriever. Perhaps it triggered memories of her bad experiences in the dog park. So instead, we met Doudou a distance away from the dog run.
I was keen to see if Donna has become fearful of the dog run in general, so after that day we continued to visit the park. The pleasure of consistently training Donna to walk beside me manifested itself then. We were finally able to walk the half hour to the park without having to stop more than a couple of times. When she was less good at walking by my side, we never did make it to the park much since time usually ran out and we had to turn back to go home.
On the few occasions we were there, Donna was able to walk back and forth in front of the dog run without the original resistance that she had displayed. She did not try to avoid the dog run like the last time. When led to the perimeter fence of the dog run, she sniffed intently despite the big dogs in the fenced enclosure. It is interesting how specific a dog’s reaction can be. Donna has encountered bigger dogs at other places without apprehension. It seems like only when the dog run and its vicinity is visited by big dogs that she displays the fear that had her tail tucked tightly between her legs. She has showed improvement. Her tail positions vary from half-mast to down but not curled tightly in between her legs. I did not observe any yawning or lip licking so if there was any fear, perhaps it was mild.
But really, once we left to explore the rest of the park and were some distance away from the dog run, her tail sprang to life!
So yes, this park is great for doggy parkour.
As for the dog run, I would be cautious. If we were to go in there again, I would make sure we move to a far corner to avoid dogs that charge in at the entrance. Otherwise, we’ve met some friendly people there and we didn’t have much trouble with the dogs yet, once they finished charging in of course. :P
If you are interested, Dr Sophia Yin has a great poster on Dog Park Etiquette that can be downloaded for free as well as tips how to train a dog to prevent him from being part of any unhappy situation that may escalate in a dog park in the dog park. Southslope.org has a nice Dog Park Etiquette Poster with lots of useful tips for adults and for parents with children on how we can help make the dog park an enjoyable place for all humans and dogs and also what to do, if a fight breaks out.
Furkids living in urban cities do not have the luxury of their own backyard to romp around in. Nope, they have to fit themselves into the tinier by the day public housing flats or condominium apartments that their friendbeasts bring them home to. We are kind of lucky to have gotten a flat in a development that comes with a small fairly enclosed rooftop garden above the multi-storey carpark. This is where we train our sit and stay and put to use the public installations into an urban obstacle course for Donna.
We never take our hands off Donna’s leash anywhere else but here. This is an area that is fairly secluded, almost zero traffic so we can be sure that nothing happens to spook our dog and lead to a flight and lost dog incident. Donna would not have been able to get any good at sit and stay outside of home if we didn’t have this convenient place downstairs to train between 1 to 2 sessions a day. But if anyone were to ask me, I would say never ever take your hand of the dog’s leash. A risk is still a risk no matter how small but I digress.
So anyway, coming away from the digression of what a bad friendbeast I am, Donna really hasn’t caught on to the concept of sit and stay on urban obstacles yet. What she does downstairs is really just motion that she goes through everyday that she has internalised very well. Take her out of that setting and you’ll find the human on the obstacle, not the dog! :P
Still we try now and then when the mood strikes. Sometimes it makes for a good photograph, like the day the dog put her little paws politely on the root of a big tree.
For a lark, we tried a little doggy parkour on some huge landscape rocks in the park, nothing as incredible as TreT wahahaha!
When you have one hand on the leash and in the other hand your camera phone, the only orientation that you can ever easily take is from above down. Luckily for me the “exertion” of clambering up some fake landscape rocks was too much for Donna, especially since we have already been out for an hour already. She had to lie down and rest. “Stay” is pretty handy with a tired dog. Ho ho ho~
What we see from above, is different from what she sees from below.
Say hello to Donna and her photoshop clone Donna-02. Ho ho ho~
Urban Agility is a method of exercising your dog using public structural components and park furniture. Training with your dog to sit, trot along or jump over obstacles found in the urban environment helps with improving the dog’s agility and providing positive mental stimulation for the dog. When trained positively, the dog should gain greater confidence with navigating these obstacles. Conversely, a bad experience such as suffering a fall can possibly take away a dog’s confidence and engender fear.
We typically do simple trotting along low wide walls or sit and stays, things that are safe to do with a dog on a leash. I’m not sure if the mental stimulation does tire out our dog but I did read that some people use this as a method to tire out their dogs more, especially when they are time-strapped and unable to take their dogs for longer walks. I like that it helps kill the boredom of just walking along sometimes.
When having fun with dog on an urban walk, it’s also good to remember:
– Urban dog etiquette
– Only attempt what is safe for your dog’s health, size, fitness and confidence level
– Always pay close attention to what your dog is telling you, some dogs may not be comfortable with certain platforms that they perceive as unstable.
– Reward your dog and make it fun.
Sources:
– seizetheleash.com
– how to turn a dog walk into a dog challenge via life in the dog lane
– how to fully exercise your dog with shorter walks
