New Pictures!! :)

[Smilla]

Wonderful! I think the one going in the yearbook is great.

[Foam]

Thank you, Smilla.

[ParNone]

Hiya Foam!!!

Lovin' the pics!!! Just look at that nose and those cute lil'
paws.

He's just too adorable. Oh gosh now I want another Collie puppy.
Has he given you any Collie nose nudges yet?

And Darlin' is looking especially cute with her new do too!

Okay here comes the mother hen in me. You need to be really
careful about jumping with the larger breed dogs like Collies.
He's got a lot of growing left to do, so you need to try not to
put a lot of strain on those bones. I didn't do any training
of jumps with Oz until he was about 8 mos old and I kept the
jumps to 8 inches and we'd only do maybe 5 repetitions a day.
Now at 15 mos, I'm only letting him jump 12 inches and I
probably won't start increasing it until he's at 18 mos.

The same goes for weave poles, that motion puts strain on the
joints too. I didn't do any weave pole training with Oz until
8 mos old too and even then I'd do like maybe 2 reps a day.

There's no hurry. Collies are extremely smart, so he'll pick up
jumping and weaving like *that*, even if you wait. Socializing
right now to things that he might be timid of is going to come
in reeeeaaaaalllll handy. Oh and major focus on basic
commands too. I'll tell ya, a solid "Come" is invaluable in agility.

Again you might want to check out the Clean Run yahoo list.
These are the people that compete competitively in agility.
They've got tons of experience and they can give you some
really good advice on raising an agility puppy. I wish I had
known about the list, when my Oz was a puppy.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CleanRun/

Okay end of mother hen routine. Just remember the hare is
not the one that always wins the race.

Par...

[Foam]

Thanks, Par! So..you think I might be damaging his joints by starting him so early? I had no idea!! I'll definetly cut down then..whew.
Thanks so much, Par! You're always so helpful!
I joined cleanrun a while ago too.

[ParNone]

Oh kewl, you're on CleanRun. You might want to check out
this thread:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CleanRun/message/13165

They talk about mini puppy obstacles, they've created to help
socialize their puppies. They're all related to climbing and
movement and tunnels and getting the puppy use to different
surfaces.

Oh and check out this Buja Board. This is like the thing for
movement training, for future help with the teeter totter.
Really wish I had known about this for Oz.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CleanR.../Buja%20Board/

Par...

[RubyMutt]

Those were wonderful photos! I love the one that you're going to put in your yearbook. It's very cute Darlin looks so beautiful w/ her new hair cut! Well, she always looks beautiful! And Ozzy! So adorable! Looks like it didn't take him to long to catch onto the agility Thanks for sharing all the pics

[Crikit]

Graet pics, the pups look so cute.

Have to agree with Par here about the agility stuff, it's not wise to have a puppy his age doing any form of jumps for agility, after all you want a healthy happy puppy and a dog that will be happy doing agility later on. He might be taking the jumps but there is a chance that it could lead to complications later on in his life because of all the early stress on his joints.

At the centre that I go the puppies have their own class for agility, and even when we get the odd pup in our regular agility class the teachers do not raise the jump over 8" and that's only when the dogs are over a certain age, when the dog is under that age even the 8" is not done they just go over the regular jump.

Also please I beg of you do not take him on the bridge, teeter or a-frame until you are under the instruction of a teacher in the know. He might be taking it now but unless he is taught to do it the proper way complete with contacts it could become an issue later on. He could either rush over it or decide not to take it and the competition heights are much higher then the one at the park.

I guess what I'm trying to say is please hold off on the agility training until he's older. For now why don't you work on getting him socialized and obdience trained, because believe me you'll need that obdience training when starting agility because it is a heck of a lot easier when your dog is under control and will listen to you when it's needed.

[ParNone]

crikit writes:

I guess what I'm trying to say is please hold off on the agility training until he's older. For now why don't you work on getting him socialized and obdience trained, because believe me you'll need that obdience training when starting agility because it is a heck of a lot easier when your dog is under control and will listen to you when it's needed.

I gotta give a major Ditto to this. Oz and I didn't do any agility
training until 8 mos when we joined a class. Before that we
spent 5 mos socializing and learning basic obedience in puppy
kindergarten and obedience classes. Worked on our off leash
"Come" too. So that when we started the Basic agility class,
we were the only team that was able to just focus on having fun
and learning the obstacles. The rest of the teams were too
busy trying to control their dog, to be able to just focus on agility.
And there is sooooooo much to learn, it boggles the mind (and
let me add, 7 mos later, Oz and I have only reached the tip of
the iceberg). If your dog knows the basics, it's just one less
thing to worry about.

Par...

[pitc9]

What awsome pictures!!!!!
Oh they both are SOOOOOooooooo cute!!!!!

[GSDgurl]

Great pictures of Ozzy n' Darlin~!! They are both cuties~!


Thanx for sharing~!

[Foam]

Crikit and Par:
Wow..thank you guys both SO much!!
Crikit, I was going to build him a teeter but now I'm definetly NOT!
All we've been doing is just the tunnel, and jumps really. The jumping board we go over is 5". The dog walk picture was just one time. He doesn't want to go up it, so that was the only time he did it.
I'm so happy you guys have shared this info with me. I probably would have ended up ruining his joints without you!!!
This is my first time too, so I still have much to learn. Feel FREE to PM me with everything you want to share with me...PLEASE?!
I really want to know how to do this right, without hurting Oz.
I guess no more agility for Oz until about what age...8 months? It's all socialization (sP?) from now until then.
Yes, Par he has his first obediance classes in January. January 7th to be exact. He'll be 4 months old then, and MUCH bigger.
So just socializing until when?

Thank you guys SO much!!
**hugs**

[Foam]

Thanks for the compliments too, everyone! I appreciate it!

[Dakota's Mommy]

Great pics! Thanks for sharing all of them!

[Foam]

Thank you, Dakota's mommy!