Clean Run - July 2010 - 60

LB: How did you choose this dog?

AD: I chose Zep for two reasons. First, he met my criteria: young, male, mixedbreed, and at a shelter. Also, the moment I looked at him, we had a connection. I could tell he was a special boy. He was about five months old when we first adopted him. He was a stray and had been in the shelter for a week or two. We think he is probably an Aussie/Golden mix, since he herds like an Aussie, loves to swim, and can hold three tennis balls in his mouth. Thankfully, Zeppie is the sweetest boy, and a true gentleman. He fit perfectly into our pack. My oldest female took on a motherly role with him; the younger female befriended him, and my older male was happy to no longer be the only guy in the pack (after establishing his dominance over Zep).
LB: Did Zep seem good for agility at the time?

them too. Since he was literally a growing machine his first year, I hadn’t wanted to start him on weaves too soon.
LB: What were your training challenges?

AD: Zep is a large dog for agility. He stands 24" tall at the shoulder and weighs around 70 lbs. I knew his size would create challenges for us. I also train by myself for the most part. I take classes when I can, but my work schedule doesn’t always make that possible. I also attend seminars and try to have friends come over for practices, but again, my work schedule doesn’t allow for much consistency. I do have a full set of equipment at home to use when I can. The challenges we faced were due mainly to his size, and only a little bit to his personality and the fact that we trained alone. Our first real challenge was the teeter. Zep absolutely hated the teeter, and I tried every method out there to gain his confidence on it. He knew what to do; he just was not confident he could do it. No matter what I did, he would not step onto that moving board (see “Training Notes”). Our second challenge was contacts. With Zep’s long stride he could easily miss either an up or down contact, or both. I wanted running contacts with him because I didn’t think a two-on/two-off position would be good for a large dog on an A-frame. Zep was target trained from the beginning. For the dogwalk, I put targets at both ends. I began by placing a target just above the contact on the up side and at the very end of the down side contact. This worked well to pattern his performance on the dogwalk. I gradually moved the target farther out on the downside until it was about 3' or 4' away from the end of the down ramp. Within a few weeks I removed the targets, and his performance was solid every time. The A-frame was a bit more of a challenge. When it was at low heights, I would put the target a few inches off the downside, in the grass. As the A-frame was raised, I had to move the target far
Clean Run | July 10

Led Zeppelin
By Lisa Barrett
Call Name:

AD: I think any dog can be good at agility, as long as your goals are realistic. When we first saw him at the shelter, I could tell he was smart and had lots of drive. It was hard to tell if he would be a good agility dog when we brought him home since he was so young and frightened. He was also at that awkward puppy growing stage. It was obvious he’d had a family at one time; but he got lost, ended up in jail, then was thrust into a new family and environment. That’s pretty hard to deal with when you’re only five months old. Once Zep settled into the family, he was very active, smart, and eager to learn knew things, so I knew agility would be good for both of us.
LB: What was easy about Zeppie’s agility training?

Led Zeppelin, a.k.a. Zeppie ADCH, Tournament Bronze, Jumpers Champion Bronze
Adopted From:

Maricopa County Animal Care and Control, Maricopa County, Arizona Annie DeChance worked threadles and serpentines with Zep, he immediately followed my body language as the older dogs had.
LB: What was your favorite agility training process with him? Handler:

AD: The easiest part of training Zep was that he learned quickly and had great focus. Everything he learned was a fun-filled, exciting, terrific adventure for him. He copied behaviors from our other dogs. When I trained the other three dogs, he would watch us from his ex-pen. He was much younger than they were and he seemed to learn from watching and wanting to do what the older dogs did. For example, when I first
60

AD: The entire training process was, and still is, a blast for us. I think weave poles were the most fun, probably because I struggled training them with each of our other dogs. Zep was about a year old when I introduced him to the poles. He took to them instantly and knew his job in just a few weeks. I think his sibling rivalry was at play here. For months he had watched the other dogs weaving and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t do

Clean Run - July 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - July 2010