• 18Sep

    A nice tunnel training video here. What I liked best about this video is how slow the handler is taking it with a very fast breed. The handler, Tia, is showing a lot of maturity in keeping her whippet slow to start. Notice how they shortened a long tunnel to make it less daunting.  I would have liked to see the tunnel not sagging, maybe held up with a couple of braces.  But for the whippet it worked out okay. Most dogs like the tunnel and it doesn’t take long before you can stretch it out to full length and watch them charge full speed ahead.


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  • 17Sep

    You’ve heard the term enough; you even see that you are on one now. But what are they exactly, and how do they fit into your busy lifestyle? I thought I’d take a few moments today to help unravel some of the mystery of blogs.

    What is a blog? A blog is basically a ‘journal’ of posts that are written by someone, usually on a theme. At AgilityFusion our theme is agility and life, combing both into something less technical and more fun for the everyday agility enthusiast. I write some posts, but I also draw from multiple sources and even other editors to bring interesting posts and videos together in one place that I think you will enjoy.

    How often should I visit? Some blog websites are neglected. You might visit them and there hasn’t been fresh content in ages. At AgilityFusion we have been working hard to keep this from happening. You may have noticed that there have been a lot more posts lately.

    How do I move around a blog? On the ‘home page’ of a blog the most recent blogs are shown.They may show one or more of them on the page, depending on how long they are. After that they sort of ‘scroll off” the page into other areas. They are stored for you to find in (1) categories (2) tags: which are sort of sub-category trails you can follow, and are located below each post (3) by month(4) manually searching using the search bar. AgilityFusion also has a “master article” page where all our popular posts are stored.

    How can I remember to read the blog? Here are a few suggestions for blog-tracking in a busy life:
    Wait until you get a Friday email from us (register to make sure you get it!) and then read the week’s worth of posts.
    Set AgilityFusion as your home page on your web browser.You’ll then be able to read the daily post as they come.
    Use a RSS Reader. If you have other blogs that you’d like to read, instead of visiting each one separately, you can add the blogs to a “reader” and read all the fresh content in one place.
    Google’s Reader is one that I use. Other popular web-based ones are My Yahoo, Bloglines, and netvibes. You can also get free ones to download to your own computer. On most blogs you will see a little link that says “RSS Feed” and a little orange symbol. By clicking this, you will usually be taken to a page of html code. Copy the URL and then paste it into the “subscribe” area of your RSS Feeder. Sometimes you will be taken to a page where you click on your reader instead. (Note: you can also subscribe to RSS Comments as well, and view these in your Reader too.)

    What else is a blog good for? Community! Helping one another! This is all done in the “comments” area of each and every post. There, people will read and answer any questions you may have.

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  • 16Sep

    “Layering is an advanced skill and can come in handy at trials providing you practice it often at home. At a trial in Columbia I had a nice opportunity to do the very exercise I set up this week for class, the judge tucked the jumps and tunnels in the corner of the ring, very difficult to run to the jumps with your dog, but alas, we had just started in Open and Ruger did not have the skill set to handle it, so I had to wedge myself between the tunnel and jumps and get Ruger where I needed him to be. I was not alone. But there were several folks who layered it, and it was beautiful!

    Basically, layering is where you will have an obstacle between you and another obstacle or sequence of obstacles your dog must perform. You need speed/drive and distance control in order to master this skill.
    When beginning to teach this skill its a good idea to back-chain the sequence your dog will be handling. Once your dog patterns the sequence, you can move yourself away from him and get in a nice layered run.

    Below is a picture of a handler layered with a tunnel between her dog, ”pushing out” her dog over a jump.”

    layering11

    ~ Thanks to Linda Freed at http://agilityteamair.wordpress.com/ for the above entry~

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  • 15Sep

    Agility Vision and Clean Run will be providing streaming video (live and video on demand) of the 2009 FCI Dog Agility World Championships taking place on September 18-20, 2009 in Dornbirn, Austria. The main site is located here: http://fci2009austria.agilityvision.com/  For just $29 you can witness one of the greatest agility events in the world. 

    Austria is 6 hours ahead of New York, and 9 hours ahead of Los Angeles. Meaning 9am start is midnight in LA and 3am in NY. If the event finishes at 5pm that is 11am in NY and 8am in LA. Hope that helps. But don’t worry about oversleeping and missing something- in addition to Live Video Streaming, your puchase includes 7 days of Video on Demand streaming.  Of course, there is something about watching it live.

    To get into the mood, here is a short video highlighting some of last years’s event:

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  • 14Sep

    Popup kennels are a joy forever. No, really.  I showed my All-American big girl Nova at the New York State Fair in obedience, and having to take a dolly with her crate even from the exhibitors entrance was exhausting- remember, this is a 110 lb girl handling a 90 lb ball of furry energy that was just introduced to the wonders of dropped fried dough!  I had help bringing her petsafe, of course, but setting it up and taking it down was so impractical we decided against it, and left it in the car.  I spent the day being dragged around (but she was FINE in class, I swear!), and staring in envy at those lucky people (all agility people!) who had pop-up kennels.  I asked my 4-H leader how much they cost, and she told me over a hundred dollars.  That was out, for me.

    Working at Affordable Agility introduced me to a pop up kennel I could afford.  Believe you me, I jumped on it.  Nova can now go to shows, parks, and around town with me, without me worrying about needing to hold her leash the entire time.  She’s gotten better, yes, but I know there’s that rest if she or I need it.  (~by Brittany Welch)

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