A Beautiful Day in Colorado

It seems the more you get into agility the more certain things start to happen:

• You drive by an expansive field with beautiful green grass and you think "that field needs agility equipment"
• You see a huge barn in the winter and want to move your equipment in
• Your backyard gets filled with your "toys"
• You pay attention to exactly how long your dogs legs or torso are
• You can describe in detail how your dog moves
• You learn more than you wanted to know about K9 rehab
• You have tried every treat or toy ever made for a dog
• You have more film footage of your dog than your child or spouse

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day here in Colorado, high of 62.  Deciding that we needed to be outside I took the dogs for a run.  Light warm breeze, light layer of clothes and three border collies all racing nowhere really fast to see who could win not sure what.

Not really wanting to go back inside to work, I decided to get some slow motion video of the dogs.  

I have been intensely curious how my dogs move.  I am trying to understand the mechanics about how each of them runs a little better.  I want to glean a little more about what they do well physically and where they need work.  So, today I started with ground speed.

I overlaid the three dogs and then showed them individually, first Tangle, Split and then Tip.  

Things that were interesting to me:

• Tip uses a ton of energy when she is running, watch how her head moves
• Tangle, of all the dogs has the smoothest top line when running
• Split won the race, today he was faster.  This surprised me since Tangle usually does.
• Tip and Tangle both have uneven reach when comparing their right and left front legs.  Need to stretch and help them with that.

Yep, took video of myself as well, but that isn't going public :)  I have a few things to fix in my stride as well.

Obstacle colors on agility equipment

Warning...short rant

I was at a USDAA trial this weekend.  The club had a break away tire--good for them.  However, the tire was striped, dark red and dark blue, with a dark red frame. 

The design of the tire started to get my attention when I noticed a large number of dogs faulting the tire.  So, I watched the ring that had the tire in it.  Depending on where the tire was placed, the faults would rise.  When the dogs were jumping through the tire and the tire blended with the background colors, the faults were even higher.

From a dog's point of view red is seen as brown'ish, blue can be seen in a truer form. So, next to the indoor arena dirt, is this tire really standing out enough for dogs to be able to judge what they need to judge?

Now, I am not a trouble maker if I can avoid it, nor do I want to get involved in political battles, but this became very important to me when one of my dogs head planted into the bottom of the tire (when it was against a non-contrasting background).  He saw it too late!!  He has never crashed a tire in his life.

I do believe that it is the handlers job to train the tire, and I have done that with all my dogs.  None of my dogs typically fault the tire and I tend to handle very conservatively around the tire.  That is to say, no blind crosses, no front crosses if I can avoid it.  So, this commentary isn't about handling the tire.

I am trying to bring this issue to the club's attention!  Put contrasting colors on your tire!

In researching (to make sure my facts were straight) dog's vision I came across several articles which you may find interesting. 

Interesting articles on what dogs see…
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200810/can-dogs-see-colors
http://www.vetinfo.com/dogsee.html
Several articles in Clean Run, Jan 2009 and Feb 2009 on dogs and their vision.

What I also discovered and found a little disturbing is that at least in the "bigger" venues (USDAA and AKC), none of them have color or contrasting color requirements on the tire (or any other obstacle).  Really?  Interesting and to their credit, DOCNA did

 Now most clubs and tires that I have seen tend to be contrasting colors, but there is no regulation to govern contrasting color hence making this tire illegal.  Are we confortable with dangerous?

"It should be wrapped in several contrasting colors to make it very visible to the dog"