Core Stability – AKA Any Excuse for a bit of Fun!

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Susan

Beanie and Biggles keep themselves fit with all their rough play and chasing. They also take part in lots of sports. They tend to really ‘push the envelope’ so we like to do some gentle activities specifically designed to build core stability and protect the joints.

Both have had a monthly swim session from a very early age. They’re both very comfortable in the water so we’re starting to introduce some little tricks and drills to keep it interesting and to really work their muscles in all directions. Today we practiced some of our basic heelwork to music moves in the water (just spinning left, right and swimming around me in both directions) and next time the hydrotherapist is going to see about getting some weave poles in the water!

We have a little gym at home and we both find that gym balls are great for building core stability. We figured if it’s good for us that the dogs would probably benefit. I was very surprised at how quickly and easily they jumped up onto the ball. They make it look easy but if you look closely you can see their muscles quivering with effort. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with them now they’ve learned to get up there but I guess we’ll just see how it goes.

In His Own Special Way

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Susan

It’d been a long, long time since we’ve done any agility practice – several months at least. But as our lawn recovered from the builders and the weather got warmer we started getting the agility equipment out and trying to remember how it’s all done!

Today we decided to work on weaves with Beanie. We set up a little course with just six weaves and a few strategically placed jumps so we could practice entering and exiting the weaves from various directions. She was a bit sluggish but didn’t do bad at all given that this was her first time in almost a year!

Next we tried 12 poles and the most difficult thing for Beanie – entering the weaves after a jump. The jump gets her a bit excited and she tends to make mistakes. This took a few practice runs but we got there eventually.

Finally we added in a couple of jumps and a return pass through the weaves.

As you can hear in the final clip, Biggly Boy was now getting a little vocal about it being his turn.

Now in many ways Biggly Boy should be easier to teach. He tends to stay close and gaze up into your eyes with his tail wagging (unlike Beanie who initially would spend training sessions zooming around the course completely ignoring me!). But progress has been surprisingly slow. I think the problem is that he doesn’t enjoy flying over the equipment just for the sake of it the way Beanie did. For him it’s only about the reward at the end. Nevertheless we have high hopes for him as he always gets there in the end – in his own special way!

With the hard work out of the way it was time to get down to some serious business.

Noisy, who us?

We finished off with a game of fetch. True to form, Biggles retrieved his ball a couple of times and then took it off to his lair where he guarded it jealously whilst systematically destroying it.

Beanie was a lot more interactive.

It’s a hard life for a puppy.

Wasps & a near death experience

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Paul

For the last week or so Beanie’s become increasingly obsessed with catching insects, or more specifically, wasps. Sooner or later she was going to get stung, so we kept trying to shoo her away from her favorite wasp hunting location on our deck. Then it dawned on us that there did seem to be a lot of wasp activity around the house – far more than in the garden as a whole. Susan sat and watched the wasps for a few minutes and saw them disappearing into, then re-emerging from, the ventilation holes in our walls and our patio doors. The area around the patio doors was covered in tiny white PVC shavings, and on closer examination it became apparent that the wasps were actually going inside the door frames. A quick google session indicated that they were probably establishing nests inside our walls and the doors, and for the sake of our dogs we had to do something about it. The most commonly suggested course of action was to get some ant powder and cover the wasp’s preferred entry/exit points with it. The idea is that the workers get covered in the stuff as they go about their nest-building activities and eventually transfer some of the powder to the queen. Once she dies, it’s all over.

We gave it a go, and it worked astonishingly well. We kept the pups away from the treated areas for 24 hours or so; the powder is supposed to be child/pet safe but what’s betting Beanie would’ve been snorting it like cocaine if we’d let her near it! By the end of that period all visible wasp activity had stopped – problem solved!

So much for the wasps, now for the Near Death Experience. After this morning’s walk we put the pups in their beds and headed out on our bikes. We had intended to just go up one of the nearby cycle tracks for half an hour then head back, but we ended up up doing pretty much the whole “New Town Trail” around Irvine, stopping off at Eglinton Park for a coffee.

We’d had a break from cycling over the winter months but my recently acquired riding ability hadn’t deteriorated at all – in fact on today’s ride I accomplished a number of highly demanding manoeuvers:

wiping the sweat from my brow
prolonged nose scratching with either hand
extracting a Kleenex from my pocket and blowing my nose whilst still turning the pedals

I was especially proud of the nose blowing. I’ve occasionally watched footage of the Tour de France and I’ve never once seen any of those so-called expert cyclists whipping a snot rag from their shorts and purging their nasal orifices. Admittedly they do go a bit faster than me but still…

Anyway, it turns out the old adage about pride coming before a fall is true. My fall happened as we approached an uphill bit in Eglinton Park and I tried to switch gear. Somehow I messed it up and parted company with my bike. My life didn’t exactly flash before me but during the fall everything slowed down – just like “bullet time” in The Matrix. When I recovered my wits I realized that I had severed my left arm at the shoulder, but being such a hardy mountain biker I just pulled the laces out of my trainers and sewed it back on. OK, that last part is a slight exaggeration, but my injuries were truly horrific – just look:

That graze on my little finger is the worst. It could cause me considerable discomfort if I try to access the lower 30% of a packet of salt & vinegar crisps (“potato chips” to our US friends). It’s going to be hard going, but I figure I’ll make a full recovery eventually.