Agility - what I do when I'm not riding! (pics galore)

[DJD]

When I'm not riding (and, for many years, instead of riding when I didn't have the time/money to own a horse), I am doing something with my dogs. I used to be heavily involved in sheep herding and flyball, but now my border collie is 14+ yrs old and retired (and my other border collie died at age 15-1/2 in the fall).

As of 2006 when I adopted my first rescued Great Dane, I'm into agility!!!

Gracie is a Dane I adopted in November 2006. She is now 4 yrs old. She is a timid wallflower of a girl, but agility has done LOADS for her confidence & enthusiasm. I have another recently adopted deaf Dane, but she's still learning obedience and won't start learning agility until later this summer/fall.

Today was Gracie's first agility trial as part of a team, and only her second trial overall (she started learning agility last September). My agility trainer/instructor runs a training business (Morningstar Dog Academy) and she has hosted a big "Team Challenge" for the past few years. This "Team Challenge" is composed of about ten teams with approximately 6 dogs on each team (I may have those numbers a bit wrong), and each team HAS to be a mix of Starter dogs, Advanced dogs, and Masters dogs.

All dogs run in all events, then the team chooses the best 3 scoring dogs to put forward towards winning that particular event. However, the top 3 scores MUST include at least one Starters dog -- in other words, no team can use their Masters dogs to get ahead of another team.

It was a really beautiful day right til the last event (then it started raining a bit, but nothing major). Gracie was VERY, VERY distracted & also VERY nervous, so she was blowing me off a fair bit (she does that when she gets into a high-anxiety state). However, she was able to re-focus and work through it so that we put in a couple of decent runs, and a couple of really good runs (good for a Starter dog!).

Our Team ("Chute the Moon") won a 1st place, a 2nd place, and two 4th places!!!

There was a professional photographer there today and he took some KICK-A** pictures of the dogs. Here are some from Gracie's first run of the day:

Teeter-totter contact (the yellow part is the "contact"; all dogs must touch this or there are penalty points awarded):

Coming off of the teeter-totter:

One of my FAVOURITE pictures -- over one of the jumps!

Heading to the A-frame -- get a load of that LIP action! LOL

Exiting the tunnel:

Another of my FAVOURITE pictures -- heading to the chute with tongue a-floppin'!

And last but not least, a great chute sequence of pics ...

I'm very happy with my beautiful Gracie-girl. And she seemed pretty happy with herself, too!

 

[stormy's mum]

aww cute shes so pretty. i tried that with my lab but shes too nervous very scraed of the tunnel and teeter totter

 

[veilside Angel]

awwwwwwwwwww yay for danes

Tried mine at agility when she was younger, she loved the jumps... was way too much of a wimp for the tunnel, see-saw and balance beam though

Also need pics of your other dane

 

[DJD]

awwwwwwwwwww yay for danes

Tried mine at agility when she was younger, she loved the jumps... was way too much of a wimp for the tunnel, see-saw and balance beam though

Also need pics of your other dane

Your wish is my command! (but you need to post pics of yours, too!)

This is "Ocean". She is approximately 1-1/2 yrs old now, and was rescued in January of this year in a state of emaciation/neglect. Here is the "before" picture, when she weighed just 71 lbs (which was 40+ lbs underweight for her):

And here she is after being adopted to my home (she came here in April 2009):

Here is Ocean (on the right) with Gracie (sorry about her eyes -- she has two blue eyes so they tend to reflect the flash a lot compared to darker eyes!):

This was another Dane I had adopted along with Gracie back in November 2006 (they came from different homes/situations, but I adopted them together from the same rescue). His name was Dodger, and I had the privilege of knowing him until September 2008 when he died at the age of 8. He was COMPLETELY healthy still despite his age (8 is old for a Dane), but then he fully herniated the first disc in his neck and was in horrible pain and we couldn't fix the problem. It was very sad, and I really miss him. Here he is (on the left) with Gracie, the two of them looking out on a wintery back yard:

 

[Sexy Sietske]

I love, love, LOVE great danes! There is a breeder near where I used to keep the horses and some of them could quite easily pass off as a pony they was sooo big!

Unfortunately my house isn't big enough for a such a large animal, especially when I have 2 collies which seem to take up all the space!

 

[Jessica23]

Oooh, i've never seen a Great Dane doing agility! Fantastic!

I attempted some agility with my lab Riley. Took him along to the local club but he just couldnt get the hang of it. He is sadly quite retarded due to some problems when he was born and although he loved it, he just ran around all of the obstacles barking like mad He enjoyed flyball but was too slow so didnt make any of the teams He now does obedience which he LOVES!

Both of your dogs are stunning (well done with Ocean, what an improvement!!) but Gracie is just gorgeous... Beautiful head! I love her name too, i have a Gracie

 

[jumpingmad]

aww lovely i LOVE great danes..we had one when i was a baby =]

His name was oscar..GORGEOUS harliquin great dane..my dad rescued him and he was as thin as the one in your picture and absolutely covered in oil..he was a guard dog of a junk yard..best dogs EVER they are..oscar used to protect me so well i miss him every day..

it took months to get the oil out of his fur..poor boy =[ he was so thankfull to have a nice home though..dad says he used to stand up on his hind legs and lean on the door frame when someone was at the door XD he had to replace the frame before we moved lol!

i would love another great dane one day..they are so gorgeous

and yours are very very beautiful! ^_^