doggy dancing memories

When my sister forwarded me a link to a great canine freestyle routine at Crufts, I enjoyed it immensely, because it was fascinating to see one dog in a routine with two trainers.

And then I looked more closely and saw that one of the handlers was Richard Curtis.

He's the trainer who conducted the sessions here in Australia that Penny and I attended.

The other handler is Mary Ray.



After watching the video, I wondered whether  to push back the furniture here in the kitchen and have  some fun with Penny, as we did when Honey the Great Dane was still with us, and held her doggy dancing competition.

Penny's working for The Man

Well, it was the Big Moment in our kitchen tonight. Due to the fact that our technical help - ie the only person who maybe could press the remote on the iPod and hold a camera steady at the same time - would be unavailable for the next week or so, we realised we'd better get our entry in to Honey's dancing competition.

Penny entered into the spirit of things, soldiering on through myriad practices and dress rehearsals - actually, totally chaotic attempts at the routine - until we came up with this final version.

I'd be the last to admit that Penny added in some moves of her own as we went along, but I guess perceptive viewers might work that out, so I'll come clean. And you might also notice her casting longing glances at the BIG BISCUIT on the kitchen bench, the intended reward for her hard work.

And yes, she did get the biscuit.

Brodie Bodie inspires us to practise our new trick

Honey has posted a YouTube clip of Brodie Bodie the Border Terrier doing a doggy dancing routine based on Happy Feet. And Penny and I are thrilled to see that just at one minute and fifteen seconds into it he does the trick Penny and I have been trying out. Inspiration to keep practising!

And the other thing that's so great about the routine is seeing how effective and striking a simple costume can be. I love the outfit 'Mumble the Penguin' is wearing. And - the idea of using flipper on her feet makes the whole thing come alive.

Penny's dancing routine is sort of almost ready

Well, the fun continues in our kitchen, thanks to Honey's idea for a no-stress doggy dancing competition.

To be quite honest, the competition part of it isn't the attraction for us - rather, it's the fun.

And as you'll see in this sneak preview of a bit of our routine, it's all about laughing and enjoying ourselves together. I think Penny's wagging tail speaks for itself.

practising for Honey's doggy dancing competition

Well, Honey's competition has inspired us to get back to basics and resume having fun with doggy dancing. For a long time after Penny's operation on her cruciate ligament I've been rather nervous about trying out too many moves, because I'm scared of injuring the knee. But it's such fun dancing in the kitchen that I got brave tonight and tried out old familiar moves. Tomorrow will be 'crunch time' when we see whether she is limping.

I dragged out the great video I bought when I attended a Richard Curtis seminar last year - oh, was it last year? Maybe it was the year before, now that I think about it. Last year is a black hole of depression about Penny's increasingly sore knee and then the long, slow recovery. Okay, maybe it was 2009...

No, just checked back and it was April 2010.

Anyway, I sat down and watched it and decided to build on the old reversing trick she knows quite well. (Richard Curtis calls it 'verse'.) We're going to try to conquer a new move where she circles backwards around me. If we get super sophisticated, I'll try turning in the opposite direction as she does it. You can see him doing it in the beginning of this routine.

I'm not thinking we could incorporate this in her routine for Honey's competition, but I thought it would be fun to try it anyway. (Our so-called 'routine', by the way, is pretty chaotic so far, but we're having fun, and I know that's the point of this competition!)

Here we are, back at work... or should I say, back having fun?



This is only the first part of the circling move. We'll stick with this part of it until it's definitely part of her repertoire, then maybe we'll try the next part of the move.

NOTE: My sister just looked at this post and told me that in the Richard Curtis routine the dog is circling forwards, and in the move I'm trying to learn with Penny, she will circle forwards backwards.

practising our routine for Honey's competition

Penny and I have chosen our music for Honey's dancing competition and we're starting to practise. In the kitchen, of course.

Here we are trying out two movements. One is sitting still. Hmmm...shouldn't be too hard, but who knows, on the day it will probably go pear-shaped. The second is picking up something and walking beside me with it in her mouth. Not as easy as I thought it would be.

But we're having fun.

here we are again, dog and human trying to dance together

Excited about the imminent arrival of Richard Curtis in Australia, - well, next April feels pretty imminent - Penny and I have re-enrolled in canine freestyle lessons with Sue Cordwell of Melbourne Canine Freestyle.

For our homework we were set the task of putting together eight different moves, not including forward heeling. Here's our first try at recording our attempt. It went pear-shaped fairly quickly, lol, due to the clumsiness of the human part of the team.



Here's our second try. Penny's attentive and interested. The human looks a bit like a lumbering rhinoceros, but I guess if I'm going to persevere with this hobby - that Penny loves - I'll just have to stop being self-conscious and try to relax a bit.

It's great fun!

lovely rain, blue-tongue lizards and doggy dancing

The sun shone warmly all morning and I should have taken Penny for her walk. But I didn't. And in the afternoon it rained. Hooray for the lovely water! Yesterday both major newspapers ran frightening predictions that next summer will bring even more danger from fires than last summer, and today there were articles about the fact that Melbourne is now the driest capital city in Australia.

But, at least it's raining this afternoon. And we're so unused to rain now that I've chickened out on a wet walk, so we had to entertain ourselves with some doggy dancing in the kitchen. Here's our first little routine:



Then we tried a longer routine, and Penny did very well, despite the fact that her silly human mixed up the verbal commands for clockwise and anti-clockwise circling! But... the wonderful thing is that, for the first time, we conquered the sideways step - at the end of the routine.




And then, to make the wet day even more interesting, we had a visit by a blue-tongue lizard at our front door. I don't know what it was doing out in the middle of winter. After we had a look at it and took some footage, I put it in the bushiest part of the front garden (where Penny's not allowed to go, and hopefully no neighborhood cats will find it).

training for cane work in canine freestyle

Sue, at Melbourne Canine Freestyle, has been teaching Penny and me the early stages of working with canes in canine freestyle.
We started with Penny going 'around' a pole.

We moved to making a figure of eight around the pole and around me.

Next Penny wove around me and around the two poles. I confused her a few times with my poor hand signals, but she's used to the fact that in canine freestyle she's smarter than I am, so she coped.



After a while I tried putting my hands on the tops of the poles, because if I were to work with canes I'd be holding them.



Here's a clip of Richard Curtis using an umbrella instead of a cane in a routine.

doggy dancing in Melbourne

Penny has passed level three of canine freestyle! As I posted when we passed level two, Penny is somewhat (actually, heaps) better at it than I am, but that's okay, because it's all about having fun together.

Last night we set off to Melbourne Canine Freestyle, in Dandenong, in a borrowed car that doesn't smell of petrol fumes, and Penny hopped quite happily into the car.

We had lots of fun, as usual, because the atmosphere is relaxed and non-competitive, and during the session Sue, the teacher, filmed each of us. I hadn't prepared a routine, so the movements were a bit repetitive, but I was pleased at how well Penny did the reverse heeling. Here we are:

a dog focuses on her back legs

At one of our canine freestyle sessions we learned it's important for dogs to be aware of the movement of their hind legs, so I thought we'd practise that today. Here's how I set up a ladder in the backyard:



I put the table and chairs alongside so Penny might go back rather than sideways, but the first attempt didn't work. She just turned away from the ladder. But we persevered, with me clicking for any backwards movement to the ladder and in a susprisingly sort time she got it.



I completely forgot that I've been told not to keep saying 'back' as she goes!

I added a piece of timber on the left to stop her sneaking out through the legs of the chairs and then I had the bright idea of putting a treat behind her so she'd go back faster. Silly me! What right-thinking dog would back slowly towards a nice treat when she could turn around and go quickly?



So, back to the first method...

doggy dancing or canine freestyle?

Penny doesn't care whether you call it doggy dancing or canine freestyle, actually. But she certainly enjoys it.

And she has passed level two!




We are having fun with this new sport at Melbourne Canine Freestyle in Dandenong. Sue, the teacher, took a video of Penny's very first routine, so I hope I can post it when we go back to class and get a copy. (The human was pretty terrible but Penny was good.)

dancing dog Mutley on Australia's Got Talent

Penny and I have just voted for Mutley and Maree to go through to the Grand Final of Australia's Got Talent. We enjoyed their routine so much that we'd like to see them perform again. I can't find a clip of tonight's performance, and I guess that's expecting a bit much, but here's the previous round.

I've always loved canine freestyle (or, doggy dancing, as I guess I shouldn't call it) and at last Penny and I have found a class. It's at Dandenong, at Melbourne Canine Freestyle. So now we aren't limited to practising in our kitchen, copying the routines we find on the Internet!

Given that I've got two left feet, no sense of rhythm and a memory that's shot to pieces, I wonder why I'm doing it. But actually I know - it's because Penny enjoys it and I'm a believer in the 'use it or lose it' school of education for humans and canines. If you want an intelligent and alert dog, you have to give her mental and physical stimulation.

Our homework is to find a piece of music about thirty seconds long so we can develop a routine. As far as I'm concerned, the last person to write popular music was Mozart, so I'm going to have to ask around for something a bit more modern.

I sometimes feel a little old to be taking up these new-fangled ideas, but now that I've seen Trish on her walking frame dancing with Snowy, I know there is not limit to who can enjoy this sport.