flyball at the Ringwood Highland Games

What is it about flyball and bagpipes? Penny seems to have her best days when the pipes are playing. Hmmm...could it be because her "grandmother" (human) was from Edinburgh? Penny never met my mum, who was sadly gone before we adopted Penny, but it must be in the air in our house. Maybe it's the times when I go around humming - off-key - 'The pipes, the pipes are playing', or 'By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes'.

Anyway, she had a happy and successful day. (Thanks, Sue, for taking this photo.)




She did once again think someone in the crowd was dangerously unknown and must be watched at all times, but this only caused her to go around the jumps once, and when she was sent down again - the dog who makes a mistake can run again after her three team-mates - she ran well.

She earned a medal! Here she is standing proud and straight with it:





And I'm not listening to any suggestions that maybe she didn't have a clue about the importance of this medal and that someone was holding a treat above her head!

Here's the medal in closeup. Third place in division seven.



How many sections, you ask. And how many teams in division seven?

Yep...seven divisions in the competition and three teams in that level.

flyball at the Ferntree Gully pet expo

As I said in the previous post, Penny demonstrated flyball at Ferntree Gully yesterday.

She ran well, despite the crowds watching and the excitement of smells and sounds from a variety of animals sharing the day with dogs.

The other animals had a chance to show they too can perform tricks. Here they are lining up for the egg-and-spoon race with their humans.



And another heat...



The sheep and its owner lost their heat and had to watch from the sidelines.



Penny ran clean runs, but she's not competitive. As you can see from her stance here, she's willing, but she's certainly not raring to go.




She would speed down to get the ball - her favorite thing - but not rush herself when coming back to me.



Until I had the brilliant idea of showing her one of the absolutely delicious biscuits we'd bought from a stall called BJ's Organics. She raced back at top speed for the delicious biscuit. I like to reward her with organically produced treat if possible, so this product was a great find on the day.

The Australian Berwick Highland Gathering 2010

As I mentioned in my previous post, Penny and I went to a flyball competition today. It was at the Berwick Highland Gathering here in Victoria in Australia.

My mum was Scottish and this led to a little problem with my running of Penny. If the massed pipe bands played my mum's favorite old songs, I started to cry. At one stage I was yelling encouragement to Penny in a croaky voice with tears dripping off the end of my nose. But probably no-one noticed. Thank goodness for sunglasses.

My mum would have loved to have been there!



At one stage as I wandered around, I had a chat with a woman selling Celtic pottery and she told me that dogs play a special part in Celtic mythology. That got me thinking, and when I arrived home I looked in 'Celtic Myth and Legend - An A-Z of People and Places. Because it's arranged alphabetically rather than in themes, I couldn't simply look for 'dogs', but I did read the entry on Cu Chulainn, whom the author refers to as 'the best known and greatest of all the Irish heroes'. Having killed Culann's dog, the hero, then known as Sedanta, offered to become Culann's guard dog, and this act earned him his new name, which means 'Culann's Hound'.

I've wondered sometimes why the words 'hound' and 'dog' don't mean exactly the same thing in English, and I wrote a post about this some time ago on my other blog.

enjoying flyball?

I came home from last week's flyball practice downhearted, because I was starting to wonder whether it suits Penny's temperament.

We had won a ribbon, though.

Here is Penny with the ribbon she won at the RACV Australia Day flyball competition.



I thought maybe, just maybe, she looks a little embarrassed in this shot. We did come third, but it was the lowest division and there were only three teams in that division. But, hey! a ribbon is a ribbon and you have to celebrate.

But today has restored my enthusiasm, because Penny ran a clean run every time except once, and given that she ran about 21 times, that's pretty good. We actually won one heat and were super happy about that, and then later...da dum!... we won an event.

Which meant that this time, although we once again came third, we weren't last, because there were FOUR teams in our section!

Here's our trophy.



Towards the end Penny was going rather slowly, probably because she was tired.

Or, was she just tired of running backwards and forwards? Magically she came to life after the competition was over and raced around the empty oval chasing the great little squeaky toy she won as a prize. And when she ran into the creek to retrieve it she seemed energetic again.

Very mysterious.

more about the flyball competition on Australia Day

When Penny and I competed in the Australia Day flyball competition last Tuesday, some other members of the club took photos, and they've been kind enough to let me post them here.


Here we are waiting with our team.




Well, I was ready and raring to go, but Penny decided to have a sit down and a rest.




She obligingly set off over the jumps when I pointed out there was a tennis ball at the other end. But once she got down there she visited a few people in the crowd to see whether they had something for her in the way of pats or treats. After a while she noticed I was at the other end screaming and going red in the face, so she wandered back the long way, around the jumps.



I guess we're never going to be flyball champions. Luckily, we joined a club whose motto is, 'We run for fun'.

But later she did amble over the jumps and saunter back over them with the ball. At least it was a clean run, as they say, even if not fast.

World Dog Games in Sydney 2009

Yesterday I watched a video of the recent World Dog Games in Sydney. It was great to see the agility, the frisbee chasing and the dock dogs, and, of course, the flyball.

Here are some clips on YouTube of agility, flyball, dock dogs and frisbee catching. If you click on one of these links, you'll see many more video clips.

I loved the dogumentary about Spike's journey to fame at the Sydney World Dog Games. (I don't know how the journey ended!)

I loved the fact that every dog in every sport looked happy. The tails were wagging!

teaching a dog to play tug

Penny loves playing with tug toys, but not as much as she loves chasing balls. When we run in a flyball event, she comes back to me, but she's not motivated by the game of tug. Other dogs race fast to their owners with the ball so they can have a rewarding game of tug. Let's just say Penny doesn't over-exert herself once she's got the ball from the box...

So when I noticed an advertisement for tug toys pop up when I clicked on my free map (the one that tells me which countries the readers of this blog come from), I decided to buy some, and to try to get her more 'psyched up' about playing tug-of-war with me. The company is called Dman Tugs and they're based in Australia.

The new toys came in the post today. Penny loved the one with rabbit fur woven into it. In fact, she loved it so much she started chewing on it, which she's never done with her toys before. The tug came with instructions to make sure the dog only plays with you, never unsupervised, and to keep sessions short, so I put the toy away after a couple of minutes. The other point that was new to me, but which makes a lot of sense, is to only play tug so the dog shakes her head from side to side. Never up and down, as that motion can hurt the dog's neck. (I was impressed that the tugs came with the same warning attached.)

There was also a link from Dman Tugs to a Karen Prior lesson on how to calm your dog by playing tug. How much is there to know about playing tug, I wondered. Well, there's plenty to know.

First of all, the principle behind the tug lesson is back-chaining, in which you teach the last movement first. In this case, the lesson is to give the tug toy back and calm down.

So we tried it today. As instructed, I played whilst sitting on a chair, to keep the excitement level low.

With the clicker and a treat in one hand, and the tug in the other, I rewarded Penny for giving up the tug when I said, "Mine!"

It's going well so far.

flyball at the Nillumbik Pet Expo

At the Nillumbik Pet Expo in Diamond Creek today we had a fun-filled day, with lots of different activities. (Diamond Creek's name reflects its history as a place to fossick for semi-precious stones, but it's misleading to think anyone found diamonds, as far as I know).

When we arrived, I was fascinated by a display of lovely furniture that would look great in anyone's living-room.



They reminded me somewhat of the elegant crates that I posted about almost exactly two years ago, the Hardwood Hideway, in that the standard of construction looked wonderful. I heard the man say that there are no nails in these locally made Lyrebird Pet Furniture products, it's all made with clever joints - tenon joints, I think he said, but I forget the exact name of the joint he mentioned.

But as I was looking at this display, Penny tucked her tail between her legs, crouched low to the ground and headed back to the car, dragging me. I can't believe how strong she is when she's determined. I couldn't figure out what was scaring her so badly, and didn't know whether it was a sound or a smell, so I picked her up and carried her to the marquee where our flyball club was set up, hoping she would settle.

I thought it might have been the smell of the ferrets.



Or something about the reptiles.



Or the farm animals.



There were also rats, so I thought perhaps it was them. Anyway, she settled enough to have fun racing, though she stopped in the middle of her run to stare in the direction of the scary thing, before finishing her turn. (Lucky it was only a flyball disply, not a race.)

Then we headed off to have a turn at her all-time favorite thing, lure coursing.

And the scary thing was right there, so that she had to bark loudly to scare it away, and head off, tail between her legs and belly to the ground once more. I haven't got a photo, because I was too busy convincing her she still wanted a turn at the lure coursing.

And the terrifying thing?

Teensy tiny ponies! (Big compared to Penny, of course)

practising for flyball

When the dog is returning over the jumps in flyball, bringing back the ball they've fetched from the box at the end, you want them to run as fast as they can, so most people encourage them by waving a tug toy.

Penny likes playing tug, but I thought we'd better try to make it even more exciting, so we've been racing around the house with the tug toy today. Penny won the last round (I let her) and here she is keeping a paw firmly on her prize.

She's practising even in her sleep!

Penny is now a flyball dog

Well, our first real flyball event was an eye-opener to the human part of the team!

Who would have thought there would be so many rules?

Who would have thought that the team has to provide stewards, who have to sit by the side of races and make sure those rules are obeyed? And that everyone, no matter how new, has to take a turn?

Above all, who would have thought you get into big trouble if your dog wees or poos in the ring? (Penny didn't, but I was on tenterhooks all day, and I don't think I've ever spent so much time convincing her she wants to wee - before we went in each time.)

But, horror of horrors, we were late for our first ever race! I was nervously hanging around the enormously complicated-looking list of events, trying to work out when we had to go over to the start, when I heard the nightmarish announcement that our club's team would have to start with only three dogs. I thought, 'Oh, please, don't let this be my event!'

And then our captain came running, shouting, 'Where's Penny? Where's Penny?"

Thank goodness I had her out of her crate and ready to go. We ran full pelt into the ring, just in time to run in third position in the team. No explanation to Penny about where the ball was, just shove her in the general direction of the box. Of course she ran in circles and our team lost the heat.

And this is where our captain showed me what a great club I've joined. No recriminations. Just 'Settle down, it's okay, that's past history, forget about it.' In the rest of that group of heats (best of five) we ran with the team and all went well.

Not one person told me off. No-one blamed me for the loss.

What a great team spirit.

The rest of the day was tiring but enormous fun - I think, for Penny as well as myself. She got lots of runs and also lots of nice pats from junior humans in our club.



And now Penny has letters after her name. She is Penny, FDX. (Hmm... I'm such a beginner I don't even know what it means. But it sure sounds good.)

Here's a shot of another dog going over the jumps, just to give an idea of the day. (It's taken with my phone, so it's not very clear.)

flyball and the continuing crate saga

Well, what a fun evening!

Penny ran for the first time in front of a crowd of strangers. The first time, she forgot it's all about the ball and came racing back without it!

But the second time she did it beautifully.


And then...she ran in a team for the first time!



And as for the vexed question of the crate? The super expensive large one we bought was so heavy we couldn't get it out of the car!

Luckily someone let us use their spare crate.

And the kind lady who sold us the eBay one may let us exchange it for a larger one - a LIGHT one that we can carry.

flyball at the Royal Melbourne Show

Penny's going to take part in a flyball demo at the Show tomorrow evening! As far as I know, we're only expected to do what a beginner can do, which hopefully won't be too demanding.

But the big issue has been the purchase of a crate, in case Penny needs to be in it whilst waiting her turn.

What a business it turned out to be! The first crate I bought was not only huge, but had a manufacturing defect, so that one went back to the shop.

Then I bought another, online - too small! (The problem of what to do with that one will have to wait.)

And finally, another crate - it looked enormous, but when Penny stretched out inside, it only allowed a small amount at each end, so I don't think we could have gone smaller.



The great thing is that she moved in happily, as soon as I tossed some of her toys inside, and almost immediately went to sleep in there - I left the door open.



Anyway, she's happy and we're happy, so I guess we've just got to hope she's used to it by tomorrow night!

practising flyball

Seeing Penny seemed okay today, on her first day of antibiotics, we thought it would be okay to go to the park and practise some short flyball runs.

I'd been told that it's fine to keep up her interest in tennis balls, necessary, in fact, if we are to succeed at this new sport; but it's better to throw the ball behind us rather than in front, so she gets used to running away from her human.

Here she is running away from the camera.



I think the idea is not to look where she is running, because in the actual sport you run away from her to encourage her to come over the jumps fast in order to catch up to you. (We've only been to three sessions, so I'm not quite on top of technique yet, as you can imagine.)

Here's a shot of her coming towards the camera. I think human number two is doing a great job of not turning to watch her.




And, as it was getting towards sunset, the flash on the camera went off, so don't be scared by the 'devilish eyes' as she races toward the camera in the last shot.

a dog practises flyball techniques

Penny did well at her first ever flyball event, last Saturday. She's keen to chase a tennis ball (too keen, in some situations!), she loves grabbing a tug toy and she flies over jumps with great enthusiasm. So I guess the main issue for us will be whether her human can learn to play her part, and also to make sure Penny plays this new sport safely.

At our first session we learned that it's most important to conquer the turning technique before participating, so she can turn efficiently without any strain on her joints.

Here we are practising at home. Of course, as soon as I left the venue I forgot nearly everything the teacher had told us, so maybe our technique isn't too good.

But I think we got the basics right.