Dark Thoughts

I've recently started taking my dog down to agility at our local dog training club.  She's a pretty good dog when it comes to obedience training, but agility is something different all together.

Satin (that's my dog) absolutely loves agility.  I'm sure it's the highlight of her week.  She's not quite as well behaved at agility as she is at obedience, but maybe that has something to do with all the fertilizer they have just spread over the oval.

Anyway, what's making agility much harder for her than it needs to be is me.  Satin is great at going over jumps, through tunnels, over the walkway and A frame, but it's me that's forever in exactly the wrong spot, which slows her down and frustrates her.

I'm quickly realizing that agility is more about training humans than it is about dogs.  It's as much a sport for the trainer as is is the dog, and I certainly come away from every session with a healthy sweat.

Some of the other trainers spent some time last night showing me how to do the serpentine and the threadle.  The threadle is really really tricky, especially for the trainer.  Once you work out where to stand and when to change stances, and point, and dance, and try not to trip over your own feet, the dog just does what she's meant to.

Here's the threadle...

And here's the serpentine...

It all looks so simple when you see it in a picture, but it's really really tricky. 

Anyway, we got to where we wanted to in the end, so I'm all happy about it. 

Labels: dogs

# posted by The Puppeteer : 2:15 pm  0 comments

Well the time has finally come to kick the renovations into high gear at home.  We've had contractors through to quote on the pergola, car port and air conditioning system already. 

I've been down to the shire to work out what's allowed, and what's not, and it's quickly coming up to time to spend some serious money.

One of the immediate problems we had was what to do with the fish.  The fish pond was exactly in the wrong spot, where the pergola needed to go, and the option we were initially looking at was putting in a new pond right next to the house, though this was a bit of a nightmare scenario, what with all the waterproofing etc.

My lovely wife came up with a different suggestion which was just to buy an aquarium to put outside under the pergola, so that's just what we did.

Here's the result.

Labels: Renovations

# posted by The Puppeteer : 4:30 pm  0 comments