Gladstone Dog Agility

24/02/2025

Does your dog need mental and physical exercise? Our next online lesson is now available! 🎉

This month we’ll be teaching our dogs how to WALK BACKWARDS!

Walking backwards is one of our foundation gym lessons that teaches your dog how to use their bodies correctly. It’s suitable for pups from 12 weeks old, right up to our senior dogs!

For puppies it’s all about body awareness and setting them up to use their bodies correctly for life. For adult dogs it’s a fantastic exercise to strengthen their core and front end but really focuses on the rear end muscles - especially those that support the knees. No prior training skills are needed and no equipment is needed.

This method will teach you correct, even steps with no strain on the dog’s neck or spine.

HOW OUR ONLINE LESSONS WORK:
🐶 online lessons are just $25
🐶 join in any lesson at any time!
🐶 your theory notes and video instructions will be emailed to you and you’ll be invited to join our private fb group where you can post videos of your training and get unlimited feedback!

*Last month’s HAND TARGETING lesson is also available to join in at any time. A fantastic focus exercise for all dogs*

20/01/2025

WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO MORE WITH YOUR DOG?

🎉 We are excited to announce our new ONLINE ACTIVE DOGS CLUB! 🎉

This year we will be releasing a new online lesson every few weeks! Lessons will cover a wide variety of topics, such as:

🐶 focus games
🐶 impulse control games
(Life skills to help your dog learn self control, and learn to focus on you in different environments)

🐶 agility foundation games you can do at home with minimal equipment

🐶body awareness and strength exercises to teach your dog to use its body correctly and help to minimise injuries

🎉🎉🎉

Lessons are suitable for all dogs from 12 weeks of age and and will provide your dog with mental and physical exercise as well as creating a beautiful bond between you and your dog.

HOW MY ONLINE ACTIVE DOGS CLUB WORKS:
🐶 A new lesson will be announced on this page every few weeks.
🐶 Message the business page (Gladstone Dog Agility) if you’d like to join in the fun with this topic. A lesson costs just $25 and usually consists of several videos and detailed notes, which will be emailed to you.
🐶 You will have exclusive access to our Online Active Dogs Club FB page, a small and supportive private group where you can post videos of your learning and be coached with UNLIMITED and highly dedicated feedback and support!
🐶 You can join in any lesson at any time and learn completely at your own pace!

🎉🎉🎉

Our first lesson is how to teach your dog HAND TARGETS!
Hand targets are:
- A really simple focus game you can use out and about when your dog’s distracted
- A lovely reset instead of always getting your dog to sit
- A foundation game for more advanced agility handling
- A lovely active game that will provide mental and physical exercise

This lesson consists of 3 videos and detailed notes and will take you from the basics of teaching the game to your dog, to a more active and exciting version of hand targeting.

Send me a message if you’d like to join me for this lesson and have some fun with your dog! ❤️🐶 Please share this opportunity with your dog loving friends, I currently teach students all over Australia and America and we have a lot of fun with our dogs together!

16/01/2025

Wide open spaces like the park are such a great place for Chippie’s reactivity training. For the most part I can control his distance to other dogs and keep his excitement levels where I want them.

I was thinking today he’s like water on a stove top at the moment! We get around the park and the waters are pretty calm. When we see another dog at a distance he can play focus games with me really well now but boy you can feel the excitement and adrenaline in his little body build and build.

My job is to recognise this and well before he’s too excited that he can’t focus we turn and go in another direction, decompress and reward calm behaviour. This way I can avoid his excitement boiling over and him reacting. This way he learns that he sees other dogs, only good things happen and it’s not overwhelming.

Well done Chippie! Thank you for sharing your journey with me ❤️

10/01/2025

IMPULSE CONTROL - one of the most important life skills for our dogs!

Here is Porky Chops doing a little more advanced version of the it’s your choice game.

When I present my hand with food in it, instead of trying to get the food - he knows to move away from the food. ATM I’ve added in a new rule that he also has to LOOK away from
the food! You’ll see his understanding progress in the footage.

At the moment we are working on increasing duration with this! He also has to hold his position while the dogs in the peanut gallery also get a treat! **So disengaging from the food is what gets the food. **

So cute 🥰 but I put a lot of work into Augie learning to control himself around food as he’s been a severe resource guarder since we was 12wks old (perhaps earlier).

We believe it is linked to the part of his brain that didn’t develop and we’ve had to trial medications and see specialists about it. It’s such a challenging behaviour but I feel like anytime we can help him learn to have more control of his emotions it’s going to help him.

I love his little excited sound effects. I’ve certainly never met a dog that tries harder in his training! Bless him ❤️

Here Porky Chops is working on a more advanced version of the it’s your choice game. So if I place my hand out with food in it, instead of trying to get the ...

07/01/2025

Blessed to have some time in the arena with Bonnie! I’m working on some longer sequences with the big kids but trying to handle them from all different positions around the sequence with limited handler movement.

We’re making progress with single and double layers of obstacles and the big kids are confident to double layer the 6 weaves now. With the less experienced dogs I’m breaking the sequence down to suit their own confidence levels.

I love the independence Hayley Laches training system is teaching me, and the dogs no longer depending on my body to run with them around the course.

I’m loving the journey of putting all the pieces together and the challenge of learning distance handling.

Here Bonnie and I are working on about half a full sized course! My goal was to handle it from all different positions around the sequence with minimal handl...

19/12/2024

Today was definitely Christmas Day in our rehabilitation journey with Ziggy Zag! (Zig was severely abused for the first 7months of his life and he was a dog that couldn’t be touched, couldn’t be in the same room as me and couldn’t get out of the car even in an empty park.)

I can’t express the joy it was today for him to finally be ready to go to east shores cafe with Link and I (and support doggie BooBoo).

I spent some time with him on the grass outside and waited for him to tell me if he was ready or not. To my surprise he actually walked to the entrance by his own choice and pulled to go in! We sat in a quiet corner but a few times he actually wanted to have a little walk around and explore!

We had to be mindful to protect his confidence and really monitor his body language in case he needed to leave. Bonnie taught him how to eat a PupCup in less than 0.1 second and he definitely enjoyed lots of treats under the table! I think Lincoln even shared his steak!

It’s so nice to achieve a milestone I never thought would be possible for him. The proudest mother in the world today is me!