Patch rehomed Silk from Wiccaways, you can follow their progress here in 'Silks Diary'

update 12th October 2006
Silk has been doing very nicely, getting more experience of the atmosphere of show venues,and she soaks it all up with great enthusiasm.

So, her training……. (not that there has been time for much), so I`m very pleased with what she has taken in and retained so far.

She has not had too much challenge to date, so this session was a bit more for her to concentrate on – I had pulled a muscle so was unable to train with her myself, so an ideal opportunity for me to have another handler work with her.

The benefits of this were not only for seeing how Silk would concentrate for someone else who she knows well but had not done training with, and for me to be able to observe from a better view for which elements of communications Silk found understandable for any tweaks I could offer her in my own handling style.

The handler for the session was Suzanne Morrison who has worked with my other deaf dog, Defa, so is very well practised in giving super-clear signals and knows the importance of body language and movements for a deaf dog, especially one still so new to agility, so I had complete confidence in Silk being able to `understand` Suzanne.

The main exercise was a curved sequence of jumps plus weaves and the Open tunnel. First go at the jumps was on lead to get her focussing on Suzanne, and then off lead. Her first go started well until Silk spotted Suzannes other half who she decided needed greeting, but then she went straight back to Suzanne which was a good start for her realising she should return to continue the task, then on getting re-focussed she saw me with the camera and broke away from the jumps to see me, but followed the cue nicely to return to Suzanne. After that she focused fully on Suzanne and the jumps and got it just right, being handled both on left and the right.


Her weaves are improving, though she does not focus every time, but when she gets her rhythm she does them very well for the stage she is at so far. Her speed is improving in them and she is getting better at not going so wide of each pole. I am confident that she will be doing them very consistently and much more tightly before long. Happily, her weave entry is nearly there every time now.

On to what seems to be her favourite piece of equipment at the moment, the Open tunnel. Suzanne has Silks cue for going in perfectly, so that was ideal for boosting Silks confidence about the `dark place`which she could`nt see through as it was curved to a C shape, for one jump to lead to it and another on exiting, and Silk was not phased by that at all – if anything I`ll have to make sure I can pull her away from tunnel entries in the future or I can imagine a lot of E`s because she likes that element so much now.

updated 23rd July 2006

Its still hard for me to see how Silk could measure in to Large, she seems so little compared to my other canine crew. However, large she will probably measure so that’s what she needs to be able to do. Her weight and muscle development have come on extremely well, so while her training may seem to have been slow, I felt it absolutely necessary not to rush her as she had been so  malnourished for her main growing time but now I consider her easily in good enough condition to let her do more and, in this instance, that means jumping full height. It was also a time to have her doing a full sequence which she has never done before.

She started well enough, going over a jump then to the A-Frame ? No surprise there as the A-Frame is her favourite thing to do ! Going toward the next jump was fine too, as that was in a straight line from the A-Frame, but then she had to turn to the next. She got that one very nicely, but the one after apparently was not as interesting as the newly cut hay she wanted to sniff. I got her focus back and on we went to the See-Saw. Silk seemed to have forgotten it moves ? I’m glad I had her on long lead for this go as I could steady her a bit but when she went back on the See-Saw again she was much better, realizing herself that she needed to think a bit more about what she was doing. I really had to work at getting her attention for the next two elements, a jump and the Longs, as a layer of the newly cut hay was in a pile running along side which she really, really, wanted to play in but luckily a treat *just* had the edge for her when she finally remembered I had one in my hand!

Next were the hardest two jumps for her, involving a tighter manoeuvre than she has done before. The first couple of attempts she went nicely over one but under the second, then it `clicked` so she found her stride and did them very nicely. After that was the Dog walk which she raced along with a bit too much exuberance, missing the down contact the first time as I was much too far behind her so second time I kept up and she did a very nice contact with a little wait ? Not bad considering she has only had a few goes on it before and a long break since the last time she did it.
She flowed very nicely over the next two jumps which had a gentle curve approach, but they were heading back to the A-Frame so again no surprise that she was keen to do them to get to it.

All in all, while a bit disjointed through me not having her focus quite as well as was needed given that she had never done so many elements one after another before, had not done much angle work, and had only previously tried one full height jump on its own a couple of times - and then with a second pole to encourage her to not go under, which she did not have the benefit of this time - I was very pleased indeed with how she got on. It’s always hard to see how a dog is moving when running alongside, but my helper who took the pictures is extremely experienced in agility, and as I trust her judgment completely she kindly watched Silk very carefully for me. She was pleased to report that Silks movements were all very easy indeed, no struggling for getting the height, and very importantly that Silk was able to get her stride effortlessly once she knew which way she would be heading from one jump to the next, then jumping with good clearance but not so high as to be wasting energy or time.
 
I still hope for the unlikely outcome of her measuring Medium, [ I can’t help it, maybe it’s still a bit of overprotective ` awwww she’s so ickle` syndrome on my part, ahem ! ], but she has proven to me that she can do the new lower Large heights, and with her typical gleeful Silky-smile too, so that’s a relief.

Next time in Silks Diary, I will up the ante a bit more by introducing her to box-work and pull throughs.

28th March 2006

Part of Silks training is to introduce her to the atmosphere of agility shows, and the perfect opportunity came with the Orchard events show in Ipswich.

I know she is terrific with other dogs but so many in one place, and her watching them competing along with so much else going on would be totally new to her. Her experience of being surrounded by yobsbeating her in the street was something I was very aware of and usually at competitions there are groups of people close together, often quite animated if talking through their runs, bearing in mind a deaf dogcan`t hear that people are just talking and laughing without intent to harm her the way she had suffered, so I started her off with a walk through the venue away from the rings initially so she could take it all in comfortably. I needed not have worried though, she took it all in her stride !

She loved meeting so many people who offered her a friendly stroke, and her lovely manners to other dogs really helped make it very easy going for her to just enjoy being there. Although her being deaf can be a draw back in that she can`t hear if a dog gives a low `give me space` grumble, it also means she doesn?t get spooked by it either, and I am so used to listening out for it for my other deaf dogs, as well as reading other dogs body language as much as possible before my deaf dogs might be in their `space`, it was a lovely time throughout for Silk.

It also was very beneficial for her to start letting used to being in the travel crate at the times when I had to be in the ring with Defa and as it was only a two ring show where I was able to park very close by, I knew from her lack of noise that she was not concerned at all, so it really was a good first time venue for her. The weather was not so friendly, with freezing sleet, rain and snow, so I took the opportunity to get Silk a nice warm coat which was a bonus !

At one point I was needed to queue for another handler. As I had Silk with me at the time, and she had been coping so nicely with everything going on, I decided to queue with her rather than take her back to the car.
It was a good opportunity as it turned out, to see how she would handle it and to see how much I could keep her focused on me rather than wanting to play with the dogs running in front of her, and she did me proud yet again. Her two days there have given me a very beneficial insight into how she will cope when she isready to compete herself. It’s a huge relief that she felt so at home with it all.

So, the following week, it was back to training and introducing her to another piece of equipment, this time the tyre.
I have a specific signal for Defa to do it, finger and thumb circled, so it was natural to do the same for Silk. Some dogs can be a little uneasy going through the first few times, so I let her look it over while starting to give her the signal to identify with it. I placed her in front and got ready to pass her lead through, the idea being to calmly and confidently give her the signal, then be ready to help her through. Silk decided however, that she didnt need any preparation to get her confident with it so she just took herself through, with a gleeful expression of wheeeee, look at me mum!

So, now that Silk has been introduced to the various elements, all of which she has approached with wonderful confidence, I will be stepping things up for her with some basic jump sequences and introducing her to Large height jumping for the first time, which will be her next Diary entry.

Training day came around again, very chilly, but Silk was hot to trot and ready to try out more equipment.

Today it was the turn of the dog walk, and depending on how confident she would be, the see-saw as well.

Just to warm her up a little in readiness, I had her go over the A-Frame a few time, as a reminder of going up and down on something solid and wide and of my signal for the contact for her. She happily went straight on again like an experienced pro, but then the A-Frame has been her favourite thing so far !

So, the dog walk.
First couple of steps then off she popped, like most dogs do initially while getting a feel of the narrowness of  the plank. Just for a bit of encouragement, I placed some treats every foot or so the whole length of the element while she watched, then I took her to the start point again. I had a helper on the other side for safety in case she fellor tried to jump off  - it’s a long drop for a little girl !

As soon as she got to the bottom of the up contact,she spotted the first treat, and then, well she literally turned into a Labrador style hoover-dog all the way along !  After that, I had my helper hold her lead so that I had my hands free to use a treat as a lure for her instead of just putting more on the planks, so that she would think more about her feet as well as have her head up more for a better view of what she was doing and true to her character, she was fearless, willing, and perfectly comfortable up there.

So what about off lead ? What can I say ? Steady but fast, and she loved it !


Of course, the contacts are so important to get right as early as possible so I did the same as with the A-Frame with positioning myself for her to get a clear signal, and she was spot on – dream contacts every time, what a natural !

Time will tell if she maintains the contacts she is doing so well when she may be ahead of me on a course,
but thats for a future training session to find out.

Silk was so happy on the dog walk I decided I would definitely give the see-saw a try.

One advantage for a deaf dog of course is that they don`t hear the bang when it tips which can spook so many hearing dogs, but the motion of it tipping is the same whether they can hear or not so the disadvantage for a deaf dog on that side of it is not being able to hear encouragement or reassurance from the handler.

So far, she has tried everything with a happy air of wonderment so I hoped this would be the same for her. With my trusty helper again, she was on lead so she could have a good look at the element which I tilted first with her watching then off we went. Treats again to start with, and my helper and I either side of her we carefully led her to the tilt point and I supported it for a slow tip down.  Was she phased ? Not at all ! Is there nothing this little girl is concerned about ?!

Each time she went on it, she stayed nicely centred, both on and off lead, did the slight crouch verynaturally at the tilt point to tip it just right, and covered the down slope without making it bounce at all and again, lovely contacts.  Hopefully I will be able to instil in her to keep to the same steadyness on contact equipment for good, regardless of how fast she may get to be on the elements between contacts.

Having a helper for her on lead introduction to the equipment really does make a difference with regards to her deafness as it leaves me free to concentrate more on my positioning, movements, and signals for Silk right from the start, rather than what my deaf  boy, Defa, had to put up with, having me do something one way on lead only to move differently when he was off lead. It`s something I had not really thought about before but I will in future when instructing new handlers. I`m very lucky to have dogs who teach me as much as I teach them !

Next time, Silk visits a competition venue !