Urban Mushing

In February, Porter and I drove an hour and a half to learn more about Urban Mushing. I had heard of the idea before but a bee was placed in my bonnet from Christina Waggoner and her mini talk at Clicker Expo on the subject.

With urban mushing, instead of sleds, dogs can pull carts, bikes, scooters, you name it. It allows those of us who do not live in the snow to have another fun way to let our dogs run their hearts out. This is different from just biking with your dog since with urban mushing the dog is pulling you, not just running at your side. I was eager to learn from someone who has been doing this awhile so I could learn how to do this safely and not injure Porter.

Rancy, from www.urbanmushing.com, donated a lot of time out of his morning to show a small group the ropes. He brought out at least 20 different sized harnesses in a couple of styles and went over all the kinds of equipment we could use and his opinion on the pros and cons of each. After the dogs were fitted with a harness and we walked them around the grass to get them used to pulling, we tried our turn with the scooter.

These scooters (www.diggler.com) are awesome. They are very steady and have great brakes. Porter did pretty well for his first time pulling me down the parking lot but he kept looking back and wanting me to catch up to him. I think if we were on an open trail he would have kept going, but with the parking lot ending he wasn't going to sprint and then slam on the brakes.

Next Rancy got on the scooter and had me walk ahead and call Porter, so Porter could focus on running forward. Man, that dog is fast! I know he will really love this activity!!

Less than a mile from our house are some dirt trails which would be perfect for urban mushing. In fact, one of my friends saw someone out there when she was running one morning. Once I get Porter measured for his custom harness I'll be able to purchase the scooter and we'll be all set. With the weather warming up and summer coming (kidlet out of school) I'm thinking of holding off on the purchase until the fall. You really need cool weather for this since the dogs heat up quickly. If I had a cart I could take my daughter with me, but those are ridiculously costly. You don't want to know how much just the scooter is going to be. Plus, after the summer Porter will be 2 years old and it should be safer on his joints to engage in this kind of fun.

My goal is to mount my Go Pro to get some cool clips. I've been horrible about using it!

I'd like someone to head out with but I haven't been able to find anyone yet...unless I want to drive 1.5 hours each way to meet the group who runs every Saturday morning.

Here's a commercial that Qualcomm created featuring Rancy. Note that he doesn't use a snow sled with wheels to do this, but it was cute for the sake of the commercial.

Flirt Pole

I thought that Porter would be a wild child. I envisioned never being able to sit on the couch and peacefully watch tv but instead playing fetch and going on walks at all hours of the day and night. Thankfully this is not the case! But there are times Porter gets his panties in a bunch and I need an outlet for his energy. I can't always rush him outside for a walk and despite being a retriever he prefers to play keep away with the ball (we're working on this).

The good thing about having a terrier for a big sister is that Indigo has taught Porter how awesome the flirt pole is. In the beginning she would play with the flirt pole and he would attempt to chase her. This usually resulted in him just lying in the middle of the grass watching her and occasionally darting toward her when she came near. As he grew and gained speed and coordination he was able to keep up with Indi and she decided to let him have his fun (lest she get trampled).

So now she watches on the sidelines and occasionally darts in for the chase. But for the most part, it's all Porter's game now. I have to watch the sharp turns since I don't want any injuries to his growing body and if I snap the end too high he'll leap up into the air, which looks awesome, but could easily result in injury on impact with the ground.

I keep forgetting to get a video so after a very tiring flirt pole session today I remembered to grab the gear and have a second round. Porter is already tuckered out here so you can multiply his efforts times 10 or more and you'll get the normal picture.

We are still working on how to end the game. If he's still wired and ready to go he'll leap at the end I am holding. It seems to help if I keep my body between him and the prize but sometimes I become the punching bag. Our starts are much better. I can usually get him to sit and wait and not attack until I am all ready. Walking from the shed to the grass was tricky at first but it's coming along.

Another point of weakness is what happens when he actually gets ahold of the bag. This is his crowning moment of glory and he milks it for all he's worth. He trots along the yard looking as happy as a clam. His favorite part is the tug but as he's grown it's been much harder for me to hold my ground and not hurt my hands. I have not found a reliable treat for him to release the bag consistently. He'd rather play keep away and tug and clamp his mouth shut with all his might. When there's time, I let him play this game and we might be at it for 10-15 minutes. He eventually gets sloppy and tries to readjust his bite too much and I can whip the end out of his reach and start a new game.

Here's the video I took today. I didn't realize how far away it was but you'll get the picture. I try to reverse directions often or I get dizzy. You can see him anticipate it, sometimes incorrectly.

6 Months Old!

Porter turned 6 months old right before Christmas. I'm amazed how much he has grown and how fast the time as flown. It seemed like ages when I was waiting for him to be born and then old enough to come home. My husband remarked the other day how Porter is exactly what we were expecting and hoping for, based on the things we heard about the breed.

I also realized that he is now old enough to compete in Rally (or traditional obedience) but he's no where ready! This gave me a wake up call. I should have been working him more on rally. Not that I expected us to enter a ring this early, but he should be closer to being ready than he is. My main focus is on agility, but dogs cannot compete until 18 months, so I shouldn't put rally on hold in the meantime. Plus I can easily throw in a few rally moves here and there in the house whenever I want and it won't get in the way of his agility training time.

I started working with more of a purpose on his rally moves and was pleasantly surprised at how well he did. He's still in the very early stages and I am rewarding him quite a bit, but he readily completely the moves and stays focused on me. I think all my heeling work as paid off.

So my goal this year for Porter is to get him ready to trial in rally. We will also be working on Nose Work and working towards getting him on birch so we can do his ORT. He needs to be a year old at least, IRRC, so we have some time.

I love the shadow of his tail here with all the feathering

Another goal that has recently come up is to get Porter in the show ring. His overshot is almost gone and I am hoping that by the end of February his teeth will be perfect and he can compete in the Silver Bay Kennel Club show here in San Diego. I don't feel comfortable handling him myself. Who really wants both parts of the team green? Yikes! Right now the plan that we are working on is for his breeder to handle him on Saturday and another local breeder/handler to show him on Sunday. We'll be practicing with his breeder next week since I really haven't worked with him on her stacking or gaiting.

Since the weather has really warmed up in San Diego this week we hit the beach a few times. During our first trip Porter finally swam! He didn't mean to but ended up a little farther than expected while retrieving a stick. He turned around and realized he could touch so he swam back to shore. After that he was smart/stubborn and refused to go past a certain spot and would just level the stick out in the water. Some retriever! :) In this picture he is turning back and was about 2 feet shy of the stick. You can see the tiny ripple the stick is making just past him but he wasn't having any of it. He still happily ran in the water the rest of the trip...just not too deep.

 
On a fun note, Ian surprised me with  a Gopro Hero HD camera which is used to take videos of sports from the first person perspective. You can mount the camera on a helmet, your chest, your surfboard, etc. I *love* gadgets. I love dogs even more and when the two collide I'm in hog heaven. Yesterday I mounted the camera to Porter's collar and we headed to Fiesta Island Dog Beach. Here are two quick clips of his day.


This first video just shows him fetching a stick we found.






This clip show off his recall. It's still in the works, but I was very happy that he left the large group of new dogs and came to be from so far away.






Be prepared for many more videos! My vision is to video tape him doing agility :) I need to monkey with the mount a little since parts of the video (like when he was running full force) are too bouncy and hard to watch. I'd like the camera to be more steady so we'll see what I can come up with.