More on Equipment Safety

AgilityNerd's recent blog is titled Ban Metal Jumps Now!  I recommend reading it (and the other equipment safety blog posts on Steve's site).  Also check out the stories of incidents that people are writing in response to Steve's blog post and on his facebook page.  Steve said that recently a top dog in agility went to an eye specialist after hitting a jump cup.  The dog came close to losing an eye.   This is very scary.   There is a picture of an eye injury on bcagility's blog. 

As well as eye injuries I personally know of at least one dog that hit a metal jump standard which resulted in a soft tissue injury.  When Nessa was young she misjudged when going over a metal jump and I remember her crying after hitting it.  I didn't have it on video so not sure exactly what happened but I am sure that if it had been a PVC jump it would not have hurt so much.  

My friend's dog's tail got caught in a PVC jump standard that had bolts to hold up the bars.  He ended up dragged it around.  Luckily the dog was not spooked by the experience but other dogs may have been.    

I am willing to pay extra for safer equipment.  In fact if it was allowed I would bring my own safer jumps to events.  

I don't want to see any dogs injured when it could have been prevented if the equipment had been safer.  I definitely don't want to see a career ending injury occur. 

 

Equipment safety

I believe that we should do what we can to make agility safer especially when it comes to the equipment. 

Recently Daisy Peel put up a podcast on equipment safety. Linda Mecklenburg wrote a blog post as well.  Both Daisy and Linda talk about things that I hadn't considered as well as things that I had.  Guy Blancke also has some pictures of some questionable equipment on one of his webpages.  Some of the equipment is so bad that I think that I would have pulled my dog from the event.

I started out with what I now consider to be unsafe practice equipment.  My jumps were the equivalent of stick in the ground weave poles with bolts holding up the bars.  At that time though I had a steady dog and we were not doing tight turns.   We expected the dog to jump near the center of the bar.  Things have dramatically changed since then.  My dogs are running faster and they are turning tightly and slicing jumps.

This is Taari's Mom Angel posing with some of her ribbons.  Note the bolts on the vertical post as well as the horizontal bar holding the ribbons.  This bar was really one of the vertical ones for a jump. 

Nessa has received a cut under the eye from to a metal jump cup.  She was lucky.

Currently most of my jumps have the jump cup strips on them.  I am in the process of buying a couple of jumps that I think will be even safer than the ones that I have.  Once I get them I will post some pictures.

I feel that I should not have to make handling decisions based on whether or not I think that the jump is safe for a tight turn or for that matter because of any equipment safety concerns. 

Before I forget I am very happy that years ago the AAC implemented a rule that weave poll stripes were to be painted on and tape was not to be used.  Dogs were rubbing against the tape and this was also causing cuts on their faces under their eyes. Organizations are making positive changes and I hope that this continues.

I hope to find more time this winter to post more about equipment safety.

Running Contacts and Tricks

It has been months since I have posted and I thought that I would write a quick update on our running contacts training. We have enrolled in a long distance learning course with Silvia Trkman on running contacts. First todo list is on the 25th. We have been doing lots of tricks this winter as we have Silvia's first two tricks videos and I am also auditing Silvia long distance learning Puppy/Tricks class. Too many choices on what tricks to work on but I have been trying to focus on tricks that involve the rear legs (for the running contacts). Nessa is a very fast learner. I helped out Taari too much in the past so it has been more of a challenge teaching her.

Goodbye Spiceman

Lochisle Spice of Life CD HT AGI AGNJS AGNS ATChC ExStSilver ExJBronze Silver (April 21 1996 - - November 17 2010)

I got Spice when he was almost 2 years old through Sheltie Rescue. He was my internet dog as I found out about him via a mailing list - not that unusual now but it was twelve years ago. Spice is not my first sheltie that has gone to the bridge (Taari's mom Angel died of lymphoma at 5) but he was my first sheltie. I got him a week after I started working at my first job after university. I really wanted a dog and was determined to get one even if my allergies were a problem. Luckily I had outgrown my childhood allergies to dogs.

I have made many friends because of Spice, both in my neighbourhood and in the dog world. His best friend was Sheba (my friends's sheltie). I had never seen dogs wrestle before like these two did. They had such a good time playing and it was an instant friendship. My friends's place became his second home. In the past few months if I took him for a walk he would insist on going to visit and if they were not home it was a struggle to get him back home. When I would turn around he would stop and not move as if to say you are going the wrong way.



Together Spice and I learned the sports of obedience, herding and agility. He was a natural herder and did better if I didn't try to tell him what to do. He got his CKC herding started title but we didn't continue on in herding. He didn't pay enough attention to the sheep and they started to head butt him when he wasn't looking. At first I think that he thought it was a game but then he decided that it wasn't a game and he would run the other way if the sheep started coming towards him. He did well at obedience and even won a few prizes at our first trial. I decided after a fun match in which we did both agility and obedience that he enjoyed agility much more than obedience so we just concentrated on agility after that.

He was not big on toys unless they had food in them. Getting out the "magic" Frisbee (one with a food pouch) really helped his speed in agility.




Spice didn't usually get very excited but I do remember that Teo (a Belgian) would usually get him barking in class. It was too bad that Teo couldn't run right before Spice at trials. Spice was a steady accurate dog in agility. He did well at standard courses and it was games that we needed to finally complete his Bronze and Silver Awards of Merit. Spice sped up as he got older and was able to sometimes be under regular course times as a veteran. There have been times lately when I wish we could run together again. Below is one of his later runs where he saved the run for me a couple of times.



He loved puppies and was a great uncle/big brother to all of my girls or his girls as he thought of them when we visited my friends and their male sheltie got a bit too friendly.

I am grateful that we were able to spend so many years together. Thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life.

Spice we will miss you.

Twister and the girls

I bought the Nina Ottosson game called Twister. I have had it out about 4 or 5 times since I got it. Here are some videos of both girls playing with it. Taari is seven years old and Nessa is 9 months.





I can think of a few reasons why they are different when they play it (and why Nessa is better at it). It could be their personalities. Nessa is more thoughtful. It could also have been that I helped Taari out too much when I was training her initially and she hasn't been trained to think as much as Nessa. It could also have been some of the games that I played with Taari when she a puppy. For example the door stop makes a noise no matter how you hit it. Perhaps I should play more of these games with Taari to get her to think more.

Nessa at almost 6 months

New spring agility jacket

Since it is spring I decided to get another agility jacket from Discovery Trekking Outfitters (DTO) in Campbell River, B.C. This time I got a jacket made from a light weight Wind Pro fabric. It is the same style as my black winter jacket. I chose the same features - hood, back pocket for toys and reflective piping.