Contact training in small spaces-a primer.

When you have a teensy space to train in, it does help to have small dogs. That is a fact I cannot deny. Team Small Dog might have included big dogs by now if we were living on a ranch with space. We patch together a driveway for the poles, make a tunnel out of a box, and have a modified contact trainer/table thing for contacts. You just do what you can do. I practice anywhere, and everywhere I can. What I would do for a big, flat yard...like one would have if one owned a ranch. A real estate story for another day.


We have dabbled in many contacts. My friends that for whatever freakish reason, don't do agility, you see, they have to run FAST over things made of wood and touch the yellow paint with their feet. Easier said than done. Ruby had a 2o/2o that I modified into a running dogwalk and a-frame, and she runs to the end of the teeter, stands for the ride down and runs off. Otterpop has a 4 on the floor that has been modified into a running dogwalk and a-frame, and she slides into a down on the end of the teeter and holds that til it hits. I'm Super Proud of Otterpop's contacts, and Ruby's do pretty good. Her dogwalk can be dicey when she's really fast. We practice it a lot. Gustavo is learning the same teeter as Otterpop, a 2o/2o dogwalk, and a pure running a-frame at speed. I would love to try teaching a Silvia Trkman dogwalk, but with no space to practice consistently, we're just going with the tried and true.


We only practice the a-frame at top speed, channeling Silvia, with it still super low to the ground. We do this not at my house, where there is just no room for a-frames. So I am like the a-frame slut. If you have an a-frame I can lower and practice on, I am there. I am shameless. As for his dogwalk, he's been over the whole thing a few times, but mostly he practices on running down from the top, or on my thing in our backyard. I want it fast, and a solid, quick set of brakes that release just as fast. I have a modified contact trainer wobbling on a patio table sort of wedged up against my house. Looks great! The game is run over there, up on the table, and down the dogwalk board and slam me a contact.


They all like to practice together. I let them do it. It might be bad agility, but it cracks me up to see them throwing out all their different contacts over and over to see if I'll toss anyone some food. Otterpop usually just shoves everyone else off the top of the dogwalk board like some crazy, drunken pirate. Gustavo is pretty serious about his contacts. He's usually like this little party dude, running around like he's on spring break in Mexico and the vodka slurpees are flowing and strippers are everywhere waving banners with his name on them and he would probably be listening to like, Justin Timberlake and texting EVERYONE! But for his dogwalk stop, he makes this great pause, hits his target, stays there for a cookie, like he is SO MATURE, until I release him off to get a stuffed squirrel or a tupperware and the party just starts all over again.

Do chows like agility?

What can you do with dogs in the rain?

I know there are some people, I read this, that bring their agility stuff in the house. I love reading articles that start out, "I just brought 6 weave poles into my kitchen, and every time I am whipping up nine thousand batches of cupcakes with hand drawn portraits in powdered sugar on each one, I just send my puppy through the poles. Worked great!"

So there are like the Martha Stewards of cooking and phage, and the Martha Stewarts of dog agility. I am neither. I have tried. Sort of. I have wished. But I am no Martha. I sure like the design of her magazine though. We like to look at the pictures. Thanks Martha!

I think it's sort of an overachiever thing. Like, obviously, the Martha people are overachievers. You've seen their Christmas snowflakes. You know who you are. Some of you are my friends. You still love me even though I am sloppy. I know there are a lot of agility overachievers. This last weekend, people were talking about how they are training their puppies. I am hearing how people have their puppies already discriminating scent articles! (My puppy chews on pens!) Their puppy can be on a down stay while 2 border collies are having a frenzied tug game. (My puppy is outside with his head in a hole he dug barking at squirrels under the grass!) Their puppy can speak 3 languages already! (My puppy may not even be a puppy, he is an untrained adult dog!).

I have never been known to be an overachiever. I'm always busy, and I work real hard, but I am also sort of a slacker at heart. Remember the movie Slacker? Some of my friends are in that. Really. I have so many things to do and I have focus issues. I need to work on my website! I need to draw some pictures! I need to take some pictures! I need to clip the horse! I need to sew a purse! I need to rip open my roof! I need to buy a ranch! I need to do all of these things at the exact same time! And then my wheels spin. Somehow the bathroom gets remodeled and the dog gets trained but maybe they don't happen as good as the Martha's. Martha Stewart, you have a nicer bathroom than me! That's just how life is. So I shouldn't complain when I am not the USDAA Rockstar Champion. Perhaps the term is Quirky. I am the USDAA Quirky One with Somewhat Unfocused Dogs.

But look, there's Gustavo on his contact trainer, which takes up much of the backyard. That was his idea to get up there. And we did do some targets in the rain! The weave poles are under a tarp, so didn't do those. I'm sure not bringing them in the house. I did a load of laundry. I figured out how to make crummy little videos. So I have hope. Don't write me off yet.