AGILITY NEWS. April - June President s Annual Report Hi Everyone, The year so far has flown by and we are now in the throes of winter.

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1 AGILITY NEWS April - June 2015 President s Annual Report 2015 Hi Everyone, The year so far has flown by and we are now in the throes of winter. Okay, it may not be that cold, but it is now pretty cold at nights, and as normal, we have seen a slight dwindling of the number of people who turn up to train. But of the people who do turn up it appears that everyone is having a wonderful time and very quickly forget the weather!! All I see are large smiles on pooch and human faces!! We are still seeing people start to train each month although the winter intake is slightly lower than other times, but the new members are all wonderfully enthusiastic people with a genuine rapport with their dogs, making our jobs to instruct them so much easier. The new structures of the early classes we have adopted seem to have been a success, and taken up well thanks to the instructors committee and especially to Elga Enriquez for her constant assistance ea The new purple class has now had a slight change to the structure, it is now in 9/10 week blocks with different skills each week. (So Purple people, please be consistent in your attendance if you can, it is to your benefit). A large thank you must go also to Elizabeth Yuill for being the organization liaison for the Blue and Red class of which I am glad to hear is also going really well and Elizabeth has received a great deal of challenging courses from the many and varied trailing people we have. Please keep them coming. The club competitions have been also been going well with only one rainy day. Cross fingers it remains that way till the end of the year. Huge thanks to all the Judges who take the time to Judge, I can tell you that judging a course and then trying to run it effectively is near on impossible. Also a thanks to Elga again for organizing the judges. In all the time we have been involved in The Agility Dog Club, we have had issues with how the trailers are to be towed and by whom they will be towed. I recall at one stage many years ago we even talked about buying a small tractor. Well I can see that it is about time we have a roster to share the burden equally amongst all the members. So with that in mind I have started putting my mind on how to achieve this. Watch this space!! It seems like only yesterday when Val turned up with her cross corgi Roxy and what a great team they were!! In a short time Val stepped up to assist the club in many areas, even after she injured her ankle forcing her to give up running a dog. She still turned up almost each week to instruct and organize trials and performing different duties. She has been completely selfless and dedicated to the club over the many years. Well sadly I have to announce that Val is also to retire from the committee. I know that her departure will be deeply missed and we will lose a wonderful person

2 from the committee. I wish to say thank you for all the assistance and help in so many areas of the club that you have been involved in, so many areas in fact that it s not possible for me to mention. Thank you Val!! As it is now fast approaching summer seeing I have made letter so long, I wish to say thank you to everyone who turn up each week to help or to in instruct and especially to train. I really do enjoy the atmosphere in the club and the camaraderie we all share. I look for to seeing everyone rug up and take part each week. Remember we all do this for the fun and it is fun!! Yours sincerely Paul Enriquez Club President. ADC Committee as of Oct 2014 President Paul Enriquez Vice President Robyn Jones Secretary - Michelle Oldfield Treasurer - Vanessa Dowson Trial Secretaries Mary-Anne Corry and Dot Drescik Committee -Patricia Walsh - Erica Hockley - Mary-Anne Corry -One Committee position remains open and unfilled Chief Instructor - Vacant Newsletter Editor - Joanne Campbell Office Assistants - Michelle Oldfield, Jo Campbell, Tania King, Erica Hockley Club Shop - Vanessa Dowson Trophy Steward Trial -Bronwyn Dobeson and Catherine Egan Trophy Steward Club Tania King Media Co-coordinator Chloe Kasbarian Meetings are held in the Secretary s room at Castle Hill Showground on the second Wednesday of the month. Meetings start at 7.30pm General meetings are held in December, February, April, June, August and October.

3 New Members as of June 2015 General Meeting Stephenie Cheung Evie Shetland Sheepdog Sue Armston Ebony and Peppa SharPeis Jasmine Riley Fancy Catahoula JasnaZovetic Rory Samoyed Clara Yong Ellie Border Collie Carlya& Natalie Harrold Rosie Border Collie Amy & Andrew Busdon Walker & Axel Shetland Sheepdogs Jennie Young Dan, Tyce&Kyte Border Collies Kathy Ferris Macca Kelpie x Greyhound Wendy Johnston Quit & Sarah Kelpie & Cocker Spaniel Amelia Ash Bea Kelpie Evan & Rebecca Dodds Toby Border Collie Lina, Barry & Lara Salem Noah Poodle x Vera Sadikin Po Mini Foxie x Melissa Friend Maddie & Charlee Cavalier x Poodles Promotions December to June will be in the next Newsletter Fruit and Vegetable Strips Recipe of the Month These strips work as a cheaper alternative to the organic chewy treats sold in pet stores. They also break apart easily, so you can serve smaller pieces as training rewards. Fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamin C, which can help boost your dog s immune system. Ingredients 1 small sweet potato 1 medium banana 1 cup carrots, minced 1/2 cup unsweetened organic applesauce 2 cups of whole wheat flour (white if your dog has allergies) 1 cup of rolled oats 1/3 cup of water Directions 1.Cook the sweet potato in the microwave for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the insides are soft. Set aside and allow to cool. 2.Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

4 3.Mash the banana and sweet potato in a large mixing bowl with a hand masher until smooth. Add in the carrots, flour, and oats. Slowly add in the applesauce and water while mixing. 4.The ingredients will form a soft dough. Roll the dough on to a lightly floured surface until the dough is 1/8 inch thick. 5.Cut the dough into strips. 6.Cook on a baking sheet for 25 minutes. 7.Store leftover strips in the fridge for up to two weeks. Pro Tip: Do not worry about overcooking the sweet potato. Softer potatoes will mash easier When you are leaving the grounds please have your dog on lead. We also ask that you always have your dog on lead in class until your instructor requests otherwise.no thongs or bare feet in classes. Closed shoes are preferable and safer. To make it easier for the office ladies please try to bring the correct money. Don t let your newsletter become boring with only need to know information. Maybe you have an interesting story, anecdote, personal experience or joke that everyone would like to know well here is your opportunity! The newsletter comes out bimonthly and is available to read online at a hard copy can be picked up at the counter on training nights. We encourage you to contribute. See Jo at the counter. We have a club competition. Why don t you check out our web site on have a look under the Results tab then We hold the club comp on the 4 th Thursday of the month and members of Blue and Red Classes can compete. It is always fun and our judges set great courses. Please remember to wear your badges. It is important to wear them so the instructors know you have paid and for insurance purposes.

5 Training may be cancelled if the weather is bad. You can call if in doubt, but please do NOT leave a message. In bad weather we still may have modified training either on the ground or under cover or we will watch a training DVD. You can also check the website or check Facebook Scoring for ADC Club Comp Scores are allocated as follows: All clear rounds are 5 points First place, 5 points possible 10 Second place, 4 points possible 9 Third place, 3 points possible 8 Fourth place, 2 points possible 7 Fifth place, 1 point- possible 6 Clear round, 5 points 1-5 faults, 4 points 6-10 faults, 3 points faults, 2 points 26 plus, 1 point Disqualification, 0 points Some Interesting Facts Seeing eye dogs pee and poo on command so their owners can clean up after them. (The command is usually Get busy! and pups will pace back and forth until they do their business.) Male dogs are also trained to do their business without lifting their leg. Two stray dogs in Afghanistan saved 50 American soldiers. A Facebook group raised $21,000 to bring the dogs back to the US and reunite them with the soldiers. Recollections of My Introduction to Agility By Pat Walsh It is so long ago now that exact dates are not really clear in my mind but in 1979 I acquired a Throw Away Crossbred Dog and decided that I would like to teach her some Obedience as I had always enjoyed watching Obedience at the Royal Easter Show and in videos of the Crufts competition in England. I joined the local Obedience Club (Western Suburbs) and was soon hooked on this wonderful Canine Activity. It was at this time that Agility had just been introduced into Australia courtesy of Graham Elven, Henk Plancke and Terry Szafner who were involved in composing the first set of ANKC Agility Rules. My first impressions of this sport were from watching videos of Crufts Agility and playing around with the equipment that was appearing in many of the Obedience Training Clubs in Sydney. I was immediately hooked on this Sport and have remained so for over thirty years. I joined the Agility Dog Club of NSW at the Inaugural Meeting of the Club in 1989 and have been heavily involved with this Club ever since. Unfortunately for me, I was unable to actually trial in the Sport of Agility because my dog was a crossbreed but I did compete at fun trials held by the R.S.P.C.A. in the early years. There were

6 however very few of these maybe a couple every year although we could attend fairly regular training sessions. With the introduction of the Supplementary Register, Crossbreed dogs were then allowed to compete at R.N.S.W.C.C. Official Trials however some Clubs did not hold an S. R. Class in conjunction with their Agility Trials and even if one happened to be scheduled there needed to be (under the rules at the time) at least four dogs competing in order to programme the Class. Consequently with the small number of crossbreed dogs registered, S.R. Agility was not regularly held but numbers did gradually increase and the Sport was soon Up and Away for any canine. My first dog was a small 500 dog and the equipment at the time was EXTREMELY Testing, physically, for the dogs competing, with the Spread Hurdle measuring 1.25m in length and the last bar set at 700mm. This was unfortunately too big an ask for my small dog and she rarely if ever cleared this jump but we had fun competing together. I continued to enjoy competing with my subsequent dogs in Obedience and Agility and managed to gain their UD Titles in Obedience and the only Agility Title that was available which was AD. With the final Onslaught on the Rules for Competition governed by the Canine Council (now Dogs NSW) and a GREAT DEAL of hard work by many people we finally managed to vote in a Motion at a General Meeting to have the S. R. dogs (now referred to as Associate Register Dogs) compete against everyone else, so now all of our dogs compete against each other in Trials. This has given us our current Agility Arena. I have had some wonderful experiences with this sport and my dogs. Annika, a small 405mm Keeshond/Sheltie Cross was one of the most successful dogs in NSW during her long career in the ring. Her ring career was not easy as to qualify under the rules at the time a dog had to be placed in the top 25% of all entrants in the trial. Annika would often be denied a qualification as she would place second to Barry Macdonald s magnificent Patch and there would often be only four dogs entered. She had some phenomenal wins but her career was no easy accomplishment. After starting her career as a small dog jumping 380mm the Rule Change in 1997 pushed her into the Medium Dog Height Range and she then had to jump 570mm. At this height the dreaded Triple Jump (a Bar Hurdle followed by a Solid Hurdle followed by another Bar Hurdle) caused us MANY problems as Annika only saw the Solid Jump and often ran under the bar of the first hurdle. For the same reason the Lollipop Tyre caused us difficulty as Annika would not see the tyre because it was too high. It took a lot of retraining and perseverance but eventually she managed to perfect the Triple Jump and the Tyre and continued to excel in this sport. A back injury just prior to the Nationals in Melbourne in 1998 forced her to rest for about 6 months but she returned to Agility with a vengeance. During this year the Agility Club was involved in the International Agility link (a world wide Agility competition) and Annika placed first in the World in the Midi Class (107 participants) for 1998 closely followed by Liz Yuill s Teddy in Second Place. When S.R. dogs were permitted to enter the Royal Easter Show (after another prolonged battle and some newspaper articles in relation to the fact that these dogs were not permitted to participate) Annika placed first in Master Agility for the first appearance of the S.R. dogs.

7 Up until 2006 Annika was the only NSW dog to have won the Balder Trophy six times (five times consecutively. She won this trophy one year on a perfect score of six first places and I believe this record still stands. Annika represented NSW seven times as a member of the State Team in the National Agility Challenge (being the fastest dog at the Inaugural Bayer-Drontal National Event held in Adelaide in1993). Annika retired from Agility to live until the ripe old age of seventeen and a half but loved nothing more in her old age than to enjoy a run through a tunnel or over a very low jump. She was just as addicted as I was! During her career Annika amassed over three hundred qualifying cards and considering how restricted her access to competition was in her early career this is an achievement of which I am VERY proud. My next dog, Kaisha (another crossbreed) also excelled in the Sport of Agility and trialled in Obedience. Kaisha placed Third in Master Agility at the Royal in 2003 the same year that my subsequent dog, Tianah placed Second in Novice Agility at the Royal. Both of these dogs had fairly distinguished careers in this sport. One of my current dogs, Venus, has also reveled in Agility and has achieved some amazing results. Venus represented NSW at the National Agility Trials as the 400 dog Team Member in the National Team Challenge (Adelaide) in 2007, (Melbourne) in 2008, (Sydney) in 2012 and (Brisbane) in She was also selected for the State Team for the Nationals in 2010 but I elected not to make the trip to Western Australia as I felt that it was too far for me to drive on my own. At the tender age of 12 years Venus loves nothing more than to get out on an Agility Course and enjoy some fun. Her enthusiasm for this activity is boundless and as long as she remains healthy and is enjoying her runs I will allow her to continue to compete. I continue to enjoy Agility with my Keeshonds, Angel and Pixie who have both made their own mark on Agility and as long as I can run (perhaps I should say attempt to run ) I will continue to participate in this highly addictive sport partly, I feel, because it gives me the opportunity to share some fun with MY GIRLS who love this sport as much as I do!!!!!

8 ADC s Winter Trial Don t forget members, our Winter trial is on 11 th July. Why don t you come down and see how much fun you can have with your dog and other agility lovers. If you are available on the day you can also help out as there are plenty of jobs to do and we need as many people to help run the trial as we can get. To run the trial we need the members to do jobs such as stewarding, lead steward and time keeping. You will be provided with drinks and lunch on the day and by watching you learn a lot about trialling. It is a fun day so come along. ADC would like to thank our Sponsors SR Tuggies, Tuff Rock, Love em Treats, Sassy Treats and Pods 4 Pets for sponsoring ourwinter trial. Always remember to enjoy your dog he/she is your best friend! Jo Campbell Editor