Improvising Your Home Dog Sport Training

Practice makes perfect, and if you're involved in a dog sport, you could really use it on a regular basis. However, in sports such as Agility and Rally Obedience, the sport's necessary equipment isn't always available for home usage. A lot of canine sporting equipment is incredibly expensive if you want a good quality piece, and not everyone has enough room at home for storage. So, if you're unable to have your own home equipment for your sport, what can you do?

Ethel

We're personally fortunate enough to be able to purchase and store some of our own Agility equipment at home for home usage and training. This comes in handy on a regular basis, especially if our usual training classes are cancelled and the conditions are fit for practice. However, we do not own any of our own contact equipment due to the size of the piece, lack of appropriate room for storage and lack of open space to set them up and use them effectively.

At the moment, Ethel requires more training on contact equipment than anything else on the Agility course. Due to her still being quite a young dog, training on contact equipment is something that we haven't been able to do until not long ago, therefore she hasn't had a huge deal of practice. For her to be able to safely and successfully compete in Agility classes at competitions (I'm currently restricting her to Jumping classes due a lack of experience on her young part and possible safety issues at this point), she needs to be able to complete the contact equipment safely and in a controlled manner. Not only could she injure herself if she was to jump off a high point due to lack of experience, but this could dent her impressively shining confidence levels for the future.

So what do we do? We don't have any contact equipment of our own at home; it seems we have an impossible situation on our paws...

... Unless we improvise! Training for dog sports at home is an important part of being successful, especially if you compete. Training sessions aren't always consistent, and unless you're having a one-to-one with your trainer, you don't always get to train what you personally feel you need to improve on; it's a group session, after all.

It's simply a case of being creative and using what you already have in your home and in your garden for training purposes. For example, Ethel and I regularly use the step we have in our back garden to practice her two-on-two-off contacts. Because of the similar slant it has to real contact equipment, it makes a good improvisation that we can easily access whenever we wish, for no amount of cash!

Your home and garden often have more hidden features that you could use for training your dog than you'd initially imagine! All it requires is a creative mind and a will for training. Have fun!

Do you train your dog in a dog sport at home?

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Out In The Open Air

Earl

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A Life Without Celebratory Dinners

Can you imagine life without celebratory dinners? Christmas Dinner, New Year's Dinner and Birthday meals; gone. And, for our American/Canadian Blogging friends, Thanksgiving Dinner. Can you imagine life devouring the same meal day in, day out for the entirety of your life, including on large, important occasions? Now glance at your beloved dog, waiting greedily for his meal, licking his lips as though anticipating a huge, mouth-watering Roast Dinner. In reality, he's waiting for his usual daily meal, of course.

With this in mind, why should our dogs experience any different an occasion on the special occasions we love? As beloved, important family members, our dogs deserve to be included in the celebrations. Although giving our dogs human food can be unhealthy for our dogs and, in some cases, potentially dangerous, they can still enjoy a different and more exciting meal when we do.

All dished up!

I always ensure my dogs enjoy a delicious, exciting dinner of their own when we do. Instead of feeding them unhealthy and potentially dangerous human scraps - or giving any guests a reason to do so - I buy Earl and Ethel Burns Moist Food from the Penlan Farm range (found under the Moist Food subheading on their website), mixed in with some of their normal kibble to prevent upset stomachs. With four appetising flavours to choose from, including Chicken, Brown Rice and Vegetables, Lamb, Brown Rice and Vegetables, Egg, Brown Rice and Vegetables and Fish, Brown Rice and Vegetables, your dog will be spoilt for choice! A delicious and healthy Moist Dog Food, Burns Moist Food is a canine-approved, delicious meal for dogs; especially on special occasions when we're enjoying something nice!

Earl

Ethel

They both thoroughly enjoyed digging into their delicious meals!

Does your dog enjoy celebratory dinners on special occasions?

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Pinch Punch Post - February 2016

Happy new month! The new month is upon us, meaning it's once again time for the Pinch Punch Post Blog Hop! And, this month, we're eagerly searching for new cohosts of our hop! See below our hop's badge for further details*, and, in the meantime, let us commence with our monthly celebrations! February is now upon us, and is an incredibly exciting month for us personally each year. The 12th of February marks Earl's Birthday, meaning my amazing little man turns 6 this month! We can't wait to celebrate another glorious year of the one and only Earl! We also have other exciting plans for February, including the second to final show of the Agility Nuts Winter Series 2015-2016, meaning we only have another month to wait until the top three dog and handler from each league are presented! February also means that we're well and truly settled into the New Year of 2016. And, as I have no doubt that many of us will be hoping, we may start seeing warmer weather and brighter evenings creeping back into our lives; perfect for dog walking!

As for January, we haven't had a bad start to 2016, especially when it comes to Agility competitions! The January 2016 Dog Vegas Agility Show went incredibly well for us, including Ethel scooping up her first amount of Kennel Club Agility Warrant Points and Earl scoring huge, bringing him only eleven points off his Silver Agility Warrant. As for Agility Nuts, Earl and I are hanging on in 2nd place in the ABL Senior League with only two more shows to go, and Ethel isn't failing to impress everyone with her stunning potential!

Have an amazing new month! Do you have any February plans?

*We're searching for new cohosts for the Pinch Punch Post Blog Hop! Unfortunately, due to inactivity in our current cohosts, we're searching for new ones. If you feel as though you can actively and dedicatedly participate in cohosting the hop each month, plus helping to promote the hop when necessary, please email me at borderterriersruleOK@gmail.com, where we can discuss the matter and hopefully add you onto our PPP Team!

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SS - Muddy Paws

... And muddy hands!

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