Agility Dog Association of Australia Ltd

Handler Profile (August 2005) ~ Elsina Meyer

Where do you live? In Figtree, which is a suburb of Wollongong, NSW

Occupation: Sub-editor for a medical journal.

Describe yourself in 25 words or less: Tall, rapidly becoming middle-aged (aaargh!), independent (some would say arrogant!), control-freak, not particularly patient, perfectionist in areas that matter to me, usually sleep-deprived.

Describe your agility vehicle:  If this means my car, it’s a 1994 Subaru Liberty wagon. Lovely car to drive, but a tiny bit small and I hate those frameless windows – can’t get decent weathershields, and in the half-dark of the garage, I’m constantly clonking my cheekbone, browbone or upper arm causing bruises that lead people to question the state of my marriage. Needless to say, I’m looking for something else.

When did you start playing agility, what drew you to the sport?  We started training late-ish in 2001, pretty much when South Coast Dog Training Club started to offer it. Bella, my older dog was born in February of that year, and I’d been casting about trying different things just for fun and trying to give her a good experience of life in general. I knew we were going to do obedience, as that’s what I’d done with my last dog (a GSD, some 20 years earlier), but that was the only dog sport I knew much about. Bella was still too young to do anything serious, so we messed around with Schutzhund and Flyball and Tracking and Agility. Bella was pretty good at everything we tried, but I got hooked on agility because it was developing rapidly into a sport with fascinating technical and training challenges, which I just loved.

Dogs and their achievements:

Bella (Beljekali Gypsy in Black) is 4 years old. She’s a wonderful, big-hearted girl with a sense of humour, solid temperament and a strong willingness to work. In obedience she gained her Novice and Open titles in straight sets – 6 trials. UD took a little longer (it usually does, I’m told!), but after an early first qualification and 6 months of occasional trialling and not qualifying, we got serious, and pulled off the other two qualifications in consecutive trials, gaining the UD title 2 weeks after Bella’s third birthday. In agility we had a brief go at ADAC, but did mostly ADAA trials, moving to ANKC a bit later. In ANKC she has her JDM and is a couple of quals away from her ADM. In ADAA she has her MAAD and Team Dog titles (possibly others, but haven’t done a card count recently!).

Georgia (Beljekali On My Mind aka [by my husband] Limb of Satan) is a 9-month-old lunatic. In getting her from similar lines, I’d hoped for a similar temperament to Bella’s, but she couldn’t be more different. Soft, sooky, drama queen, flighty, movement sensitive, and no sense of humour whatsoever. That’s my girl! However, she is very intelligent and has drive to burn, and being softer than Bella, she is more compliant. She’s convinced she can do everything Bella can do, only better, and who am I to argue? She’s learning basic agility skills and I plan to start formal obedience work soon, although it’s hard to get motivated as the grass is clearly greener in agility and elsewhere!

Talking of grass, both girls are having a go at herding now that it’s being offered by the RNSWCC. Could have done it with others before, but clobbering dogs with rakes seemed a little too far removed from the operant training I’ve been doing!

Elsina with Bella and Georgia - photo by Tanyia Tuckey
 

Where do you train?  South Coast DTC, Wollongong Dog Sports Club, and independently at the local off-lead area with my collection of makeshift jumps and a few other obstacles.

What do you like about agility?  The fact that every course is different and presents its own challenges.

When did you start in agility?  August 2002, the minute Bella turned 18 months.

What is your favourite ADAA event? (Agility/Jumping/Gamblers, etc) and Why?  I love teams and pairs games because it’s so much fun working with other combinations and seeing the dogs get excited about having other dogs on course; I love games – the weirder, the better – because you just tend to relax and have fun, and the challenges make me laugh; but I don’t like Gamblers and Snooker much because I’M so very bad at strategy for the opening sequence.

What was the most important piece of advice that you have been given about agility?  Never take your eyes off your dog. And can I follow it? Not always!

What was the most difficult training problem that you have overcome?  Teaching weavepoles was a challenge as we were being taught by people who still stuck their hands between the poles and indicated every change of direction! Also, Bella has a fear of heights because she fell down our stairs on her first day home, so if she has a slip on the dog walk, it can take a bit of time to get her confident again. I’m more preoccupied with current problems I haven’t yet overcome, like turning the correct way out of a curved tunnel if I’m still behind it and she can see me either way....

What is your most memorable moment in agility?  A particularly nice run in an ANKC regional qualifying heat at Shoalhaven in May 2004.

What will your next dog be and when do you think you will get it?  Probably another Belgian, but that will depend on how old and infirm I am at the time, and what dogs are around to get puppies from then. It will be quite a long time, as two dogs is more than enough. One was perfect as a companion, which is why I got a dog in the first place. Two are fun to train, and I imagine it will be nice having two to compete with, but I’ll never have more than two.

What is your favourite training game and how do you play it?  With Bella I play “Betcha can’t” games where I ask her to stay focused on something she knows how to do, and throw all kinds of really outrageous distractions at her, or “Can you...?” games, where I’m asking her to work out something, like a chain of behaviours we haven’t chained before, or a known behaviour in a very different context. 

With Georgia, well, I did Susan Garrett and Greg Derrett; we tug a lot!

What is your next goal in agility?  Probably to do a little less and be fairer to my long-suffering husband! He was very ill last year and agility was a great escape from the terrors associated with that. This year I was planning to moderate the amount I did, but we’ve just hit the busy season and I seem as involved as ever.

With Bella, I guess I’d like to finish that ADM in ANKC agility, and to do well at the Uralla Grand Prix this year (if we can find accomodation – I told too many people how good the cabins were last year, and now we can’t get in!).  With Georgia, I’d like to train her well, without some of the mistakes I made with Bella.  It is exciting training a new dog from a better level of understanding, but as agility is always evolving, I guess today’s truths will become tomorrow’s mistakes. It’s lucky that dogs are so forgiving!

Any other interesting information about you that you would like to share with the members:  No. I think I’ve probably exceeded my word allowance as it is!

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