Parkour is amazing (or how going to class made our holidays better)

(Blog written by Laura and the Daring Duo)

As anyone who has attended one of our Parkour workshops or classes will already know, I agree with that statement on principle, but given that we were halfway along a footpath deep in the Welsh countryside and, not two minutes earlier, had been talking about what we were planning to have for lunch, it wasn’t really what I’d been expecting to hear.

When I turned round though, I saw this and it all suddenly made perfect sense

The route from our holiday cottage to the local village was a little over a mile and included at least six stiles, two kissing gates and a metal bridge, all of which I hadn’t really noticed because we’d been able to just move past them.

Our parkour practice means that Brian and Seamus are confident about problem-solving the obstacles in their paths – they’ll work with me to climb up on things, wriggle under things, jump over things and are basically happy putting their feet on anything!

If my dogs weren’t confident in exploring and navigating their environments, it could have been an absolute nightmare of a walk (and I’m lucky; my two are both small enough that in a worst case scenario, I can always lift them over an obstacle.

I distinctly remember Laird’s first encounter with a stile being a LOT more challenging and involving two people, a lot of encouragement, a rear end lift and a flying sausage!).

The games we play in a training class are always best when they translate into a real world setting and make our lives easier and more enjoyable.

Classes should be fun, but the things we learn there are often more than just a trick to be saved for that training setting and sometimes they can come in useful in unexpected ways.

The world is full of obstacles for our dogs (literal and figurative) and I’m a big fan of using whatever you have in your toolbox to help your dog work through those obstacles in the ways that work best for them.

I’d love to hear about how you and your dogs have used the things you’ve learnt in classes in your daily lives, especially if you’ve been inventive and used things in ways you hadn’t expected to!

If you can’t think of an example, that’s okay – it’s never too late to start trying out the things you know in different situations and see if they give you new and interesting approaches to whatever challenges you face.

Have fun problem-solving your week!

Laura and the daring duo 

PS For literal problem-solving fun, why not come along for one of our Parkour workshops this autumn. We have introductory and progressions sessions suitable for all types of dogs and we’d love to see you there!



PPS If you’re in a sticky situation with something that you and your dog can’t work out how to problem solve, you don’t have to struggle alone – why not drop us an email at the office and see if it’s something the team can help you with?

Does your dog ONLY come back when you have their kryptonite handy? Laura has a plan!

“Find it!”

My own voice sounds pretty loud in the quiet of the icy field, and I’m pretty certain that the teachers in the school playground next door think I’m a bit strange, but I don’t care, because I have two dogs who are off lead and 100% focused on me and there isn’t a tennis ball in sight.

Why is this important?

Well, my boys have something of a variable relationship with recall – they are both mighty, mighty hunters and the training that works so well in the classroom and in the garden can wobble when it’s faced with the amazingly alluring smells of cat, or bunny, or squirrel, or deer, or…well, you get my point.

Tennis balls are our safety net, because Brian loves tennis balls.

But between moving house and Christmas and everything else the new year has brought, we’ve started relying on tennis balls too much. The problem with that is that when the squeaky is available, Brian doesn’t really care about me (so there’s always the risk he’ll just bog off with the ball, and take his brother with him!).

So, we’re back to using a whole range of other strategies to make sure that Brian and Seamus want to remember we’re walking together, rather than taking the first opportunity to disappear into the distance.

Check-ins and parkour and chasey games and tuggy toys and cheese trees are back to being staples of our walks and we’re already seeing the difference.

More importantly, our walks are already back to being more fun for me, and when I’m having fun, it’s much easier for the boys to have fun as well.

And isn’t that the entire point?

Wishing you happy, excited and engaged walks!

Laura and the troublesome twosome. 

P.S. Need help to get your training back on track after the chaos of Christmas? We have spaces coming up on our three week intensive courses for recall, nice lead walking and manners to give you a real push in building those skills!

Get your 3 week super boost booked

P.P.S. If you haven’t yet introduced your dog to the joys of cheese trees, why not come along to one of our Introduction to Scentwork sessions – I promise your dog will thank you!

Scentwork workshops and more

And don't forget, if your dog already graduated from Sniffing School Level 1, you're eligible for any of these advanced modules!

 

Why we want you to trust your instincts around your dog

Say hi to the invalid, everyone!



So, for those who don’t know, Brian has been in for knee surgery recently.  He developed a limp in September (after a wet and muddy walking holiday) which we initially thought was due to sore pads.  We tried lots of strategies to keep his pads comfortable and all seemed well.

Then the limp came back after another walking holiday in March and x-rays showed that he needed surgery.

Poor Brian!

There is a bright side to this story though. 

The specialist vet initially thought that Brian was going to need a full knee replacement (eek!) but when they came to operate, it turned out the damage to his knee was a lot less extensive than they had feared and they were able to perform a much less traumatic operation.

This is good news (both for Brian’s recovery and for my wallet!) but it got me thinking about the importance of trusting your instincts when it comes to your dog. 

When I worked in the NHS, I used to talk with my clients about combining their expertise with mine - I might be the expert on what was in the books (and I say ‘might’, because some of my clients were very knowledgeable), but they were definitely the experts in their own experience, and we needed to pull both together to find the best solutions.

The same is true for us and our dogs. 

Brian never limped at the vets (on both occasions, by the time we made it back from holiday, the limp had gone) but I knew what I’d seen and I ended up vigilantly watching in case it came back. 

As soon as it did, we took action straight away to try and get it sorted.

Because of that, Brian’s knee never got the chance to get extensively damaged and his recovery chances now are much better.

My take home message from this?

Trust your instincts.  You know your dog; you live with them day in, day out and you’re in the best position to spot when something changes. 

You’ll know when something isn’t as it usually is.

And if you act fast, it’s easier.  Whether it’s something physical that doesn’t have time to cause long standing damage, or something behavioural that doesn’t have time to become ingrained, prevention is definitely better than cure.  So, keep an eye out. 

If something changes in how your dog moves, or in how your dog acts, and you don’t understand why, check it out.  Ask your vet.  Talk to our behaviour team.  Find the right specialist.

Your dog may not thank you straight away (Brian says that puppy prison is tolerable, but the cone of shame is NOT!) but in the long run, if it is something that needs working on, you’ll definitely thank yourself!

Have a happy and healthy week!
Laura & Brian




PS If your dog isn't recovering from surgery why not book onto Sian's Introduction to Parkour.

Sunday 8th July, nr York

There's just four places left on this workshop now:
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13187434&appointmentType=category%3AWebinars%2C%2BSeminars%2B%26%2BWorkshops

Just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die

Although as we pounded along the forest track by glimmering headtorches, and our dogs felt that downhill equalled a chance to accelerate, I did question how sustainable our pace was.

Back on 4th Feb, Laura and I headed up to the first Dalby Canicross race with several other keen newbies. We finished in around 32 minutes and felt pretty happy with that. I've been training for the past three years for sustained longer distances (55 mile race in March 2017!), and it's only in the last 6 months that Freya and I have worked on our speed together.

The Dalby Dark Run on 17th Feb was the same 5k route but at night! We ran canicross as always, and this time we finished in 28 minutes. No - not amazingly fast for most folks but a pretty considerable improvement in 2 weeks.

What was different?

1. Well, we weren't looking after anyone else. Keith ran with my Bronte but they have a great relationship and similar preference for speed (slow!), so after checking we did slightly leave them in our dust!
2. It was a course we didn't know well, so still novel and exciting, plus the dark is so much more fun.
3. We both knew we could easily cover the distance, so there was no need to hold back for fear of being stranded on the high moors (as is often the case on our runs and other races!)

Suddenly all the prep work we've been doing for the last 6 months really came together.

As we set off Freya was keen to stretch out, and that meant passing (we started at the back as usual). Once we started passing I had to up the pace and then I realised we were sustaining it. Brian loves to race with Freya, so Laura was along for the ride no matter what she wanted. 

Ten minutes in, and despite ourselves we weren't dying, so I figured sometimes you just have to suck it and see.

I don't usually race hard. 

• Partly it's not what I train for.
• Partly I still feel like I'm not built for it!
• I don't like being super competitive, because frankly I don't think anyone likes losing, and I'm no exception. I've never been good at sports, and I've lost a lot with some fairly unkind comments.

But my dog was running her heart out.

And we have been including sprint and faster pace training in our sessions.

And it was only a 5k with no serious hills.

So, we went for it.

We raced together as a team and she gave me everything she had. Perfect pacing, responding to every cue, encouraging me to speed up on the descents and passing beautifully. That line never went slack in 28 minutes.

I have a lot of work still to do before I can be an equal partner for her.

But I am more than willing to try!

Could we have done it earlier in our racing career? Maybe,  but we needed the last 6 months of training and preparation so that we didn't just run one fast race and then suffer the next day. We ran a great race, and just kept on going with our training.

My heart and soul will always belong to the ultra distances, but just maybe I can be a decent 5-10k canicross racer too.

We're so looking forward to seeing some of you on the February workshops, and we will be releasing the details for the Canicross Skills Adventure sessions next week. 

If you've not started your canicross journey yet, the next intro workshops are on 22nd April (morning is solo sessions for reactive dogs, afternoon is a group intro).  http://www.wellconnectedcanine.co.uk/events/canicross/

Happy racing!

Morag & Freya the UltraCollie

PS the title was shamelessly stolen from one of my very favourite Pink songs that has gotten me through more tough races than I can remember https://youtu.be/pPtlSF4TlJE

PPS if you want to make sure you find out first about workshops, events and races in the North Yorks area, plus training tips please sign up to our new mailing list: Show form

Rebels without Recall (from Laura & Brian)

I had to trespass into someone’s garden this week to get my dog back.   

Brian had slipped under a fence, couldn’t get back, completely lost his brain and managed to tangle his trailing line around a garden planter to leave himself completely and utterly stuck.

It got me thinking about recall.   

Because we often think about recall as our dogs coming back when they’re “told to” (be honest - how often have you ground your teeth in frustration as you call and call in vain, while your dog blithely ignores you and tears off after yet another bunny/squirrel/bird/tennis ball/other dog/person/leaf/bit of fluff?).   

We think about it as a decision-making process that the dog is entirely in control of, and then we get cross when it feels like our dogs are ignoring us.

Sure, sometimes our dogs do make the choice not to come back when we call them.  Sometimes they’ve found something more appealing than we were offering them, especially when we’re still building up our recall.   

Other times, it isn’t that simple.  

In the garden incident, Brian couldn’t have made the choice to come back even if he’d wanted to.  By the time I reached him, he had had a complete brainfail.  His head was one big tangle of excitement and frustration, and there wasn’t any room left for making good choices. 

We all know what that feels like, right?

The thing is, when we can’t think to make choices, we fall back onto habits and our dogs are exactly the same.  We don’t want our dogs to think about coming back; we want them to have already come shooting over to us before it occurs to them that they might have been able to make a different choice.  We don’t want recall to be a choice; we want it to be a habit.

Obviously, Brian and I still have some work to do on that, but my suggestion for everyone this week is to do a little recall review.   

Check out your recall habits.  How often does it work?  How quickly does it work?  Does your dog come flying over or do they take their leisurely time?  Is there anything that reliably breaks your recall every single time?  What do you need to focus on in your recall training?

And then have a happy week of law-abiding walks!

Laura & Brian

P.S. If you’re stuck on how to make the step from choices to habits, or your recall is turning out to be more “really rotten” than “really reliable”, then drop us an email! I've just booked a training plan review with Morag to get us back on track.