Month: September 2008

Swimming – Graduated from Baby Class!

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Today Beanie completed her first 10 session swimming course at the pet therapy centre and therefore was due a review with the vet. Now this isn’t a normal vet, but rather one that specialises in pet rehabilitation and sports therapy.

The focus of Beanies first 10 week course had been to build foundation skills (i.e. learning to swim) and to build a foundation of strength and fitness that will allow her to SAFELY lead a full and active life as an adult. She has progressed well during her course and everyone has been pleased with her progress. Two months ago she needed a life jacket to swim and was managing perhaps 16 laps of the pool. By last week she was swimming without a life jacket and managing:

  • 10 warm-up laps
  • 4 resisted laps (swimming against resistance on her harness)
  • 10 double laps
  • 4 tripple laps
  • 10 cool down laps

This week we just had a little fun session.

At the beginning of the course in July the measurement around the tops of her legs were:

  • Right Fore Leg : 16 cm
  • Left Fore Leg : 16 cm
  • Right Hind Leg : 24 cm
  • Left Hind Leg : 24 cm

She weighed 9.5 kg

Today she measured:

  • Right Fore Leg : 17 cm
  • Left Fore Leg : 17 cm
  • Right Hind Leg : 25 cm
  • Left Hind Leg : 25 cm

She weighed 10.2 kg

So she’s muscling up nicely in all the right places!

Beanie was just over 9 months old when she started swimming. We asked the vet what age was best to start Biggles and she said 6 months – after the fast growing stage was over. It’s a little bit costly, but we think well worth it as it gets a pup off to a really good start by ensuring that it’s building adult fitness on strong, stable joints.

So what next for Beanie?

Beanie’s now a year old and has a green light to start really having some fun and trying her hand at some doggy sports.

We hadn’t planned a second swimming course for Beanie. We just wanted her to be able to swim and to develop strong joints ready for when she starts getting seriously involved in doggy sports as an adult. However, Beanie thoroughly enjoys swimming, and we’re so impressed by the staff at the therapy centre and the results that they get that we’ve decided to take Beanie to the next level and see how she gets on.

With so many people hell bent on keeping their dog’s as couch potatoes and spreading daft scare stories and old-wives tales about the perils of exercising your dog, it’s well worth the money just to have the peace of mind of having a highly trained medical expert involved in planning your dog’s training.

We had a chat about this to the vet today and she tells us that they’ll devlop a training program that’s tailored to Beanie and her chosen activities. At this stage it looks as if it’s going to be competing in racing and agility (We know she adores racing, and whilst it’s early days she seemed to really take to agility too). And of course, we also want to make sure she has a nice foundation for daily activities such as crazy high energy romps in the park and jogging and road racing with us. Also, when Biggles is older we’ll all go hill walking together, so in the meantime one of us will probably take Beanie out for a few hill climbs on her own while Biggles does his thing with the other!

But during the course of the conversation she gave us a few little useful tips that others might be interested in.

Firstly, she told us that one of the things we really need to start working on with Beanie is proprioceptive training.

Also, when we told her about the racing she said “Do you give her a good warm-up first as it’s very important from an injury prevention point of view?”. Whilst we always get to the racing early and have a little wander around with her we’ve never specifically set about getting her warmed up. She’s given us a few ideas for Beanie’s pre-race warm up.

More Biggles Pics

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Sheriff’s Mum just sent us some more pics of Biggles! Apparently he’s the most adventurous pup in the litter, often letting his curiosity get him into trouble. That’s exactly what we want (gluttons for punishment!) – and it sounds just like Beanie – her breeder Liz described her as the escape artist of her litter.

cat toys arghhhh

Playing with a cat toy

smart biggles

On his feet and ready for naughtiness

caged

Caged! But for how long?

Agility

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Beanie’s first class with Clear Run Agility was due this morning, but we were doubtful about going. She’s definitely bouncing back from her illness, but is still pretty fragile. The course instructor Carol assured us that the introductory class wouldn’t be physically demanding, so we took her along, and I’m very glad we did.

The class was held in a corner of Bellahouston Park – a reasonably safe distance away from the gates, and in any case leads are allowed for the first few lessons. A selection of agility apparatus was set up: some jumps, an elevated, narrow walkway and a tunnel. Beanie knows all about tunnels – we had no concerns about that one – but before the dogs got to try anything out, Carol gave us a quick primer on the obedience skills required for agility.

At first sight, there’s nothing too different from the “classic” obedience found in regular training clubs. The core commands are “down”, “wait”/”stay”, and of course recall, but there are some important tweaks for the sake of efficiency as well as form. For example the “down” should be done directly from standing – there’s no time for an intermediate “sit” stage, and the dog should stay in the down position reliably until given another command.

Another key difference from regular training is that the dog has to be used to responding to commands while at the handler’s side and facing forward, instead of facing towards the handler. That last point quickly reveals whether a dog has truly learned to respond to a verbal command, or to the combination of verbal and visual cues that he/she receives when facing the handler. In Beanie’s case, it was obvious she was relying on the visual stuff (like pointing a finger at the ground for “down”) rather than command itself. Definitely something to work on! Anyway after all the theory, it was time to try out the equipment.

The narrow walkway (I dunno what its official name is) was set at about half normal competition height, and because it was so narrow, it tended to be easier for small, narrow dogs. No surprise then that it was a breeze for Beanie:

Likewise for little Emily…

But their larger classmates Islay and Kiera also coped very well:

Next came the jumps. Just a single barrier on the lead at first..

..but once that was mastered, we progressed to three consecutive barriers off lead!

After looking through the photos, I’m getting the idea that Emily, the toy poodle, is the acrobat of the group!

Finally it was time for Beanie’s favorite – the tunnel. She didn’t disappoint, and came flying out the other side like a bullet:

Emily and Islay also did well.

Kiera – the largest of the group – wasn’t too keen at first but with a little coaxing she came through just fine:

So that was it for the first lesson, and as promised it wasn’t too physically demanding. Nevertheless Beanie slept soundly when we got her home. I think it’ll be a few days before she’s fully recovered from her bout of flu (or whatever it was) which sadly means no Beagle Racing tomorrow :(