Thameswood Veterinary Clinics Ltd

Empi was born in November 2005 and is Huw's youngest Border Collie. These are a collection of reports on her progress from new puppy to fully trained agility dog.

Empi at work! (July 07)

Huw's youngest collie Empi turned 18 months on 28th May, which allowed her to start competing at agility. There are seven levels of agility, and Empi has started at level three pitting her against lots of other young dogs. She has been working very well so far, and already has a big pile of rosettes (but no trophies as yet).

Empi's running quite carefully at the moment, which enables Huw to work on her accuracy and consistency, but as she becomes more confident and experienced she will start to use her full speed and power like she does in training.

Here's a video of one of Empi's clear rounds from a show in Gloucestershire in July. To go clear she had to complete each obstacle in the correct order, without knocking any poles down and making sure to touch the yellow areas at the ends of the pieces of 'contact' equipment (the A-frame, dog-walk and see-saw). She finished 8th in this class out of about 200 dogs, which isn't bad for a little girl!

More results as they happen!

Empi's agility training (February 07)

Huw's puppy Empi is now 15 months old, and is well into her agility training. Since she was a baby she has been taught obedience commands and targeting using a clicker and lots of food and play. Now that she has finished growing she's learning about the agility equipment.

The dog-walk, A-frame and see-saw are the "contact" equipment, which means that the dog has to make contact with the different-coloured contact area at each end to avoid scoring penalty points.

In the picture below Empi has a plastic disc target on the floor just beyond the contact that she is aiming for; when she has touched it with her nose and then waited on the contact she will be rewarded with a click and a throw of her favourite tuggie toy.

Another obstacle that Empi is spending a lot of time learning is the weaving poles. These are a line of 6-12 equally spaced poles that the dog must weave through, starting to the right of the first pole. Here Empi is learning using V-weaves, these can be angled out to the side to help the pup find their way through, and then gradually straightened up as they start to understand the obstacle.

Empi still has lots to learn, but Huw is confident that she will be ready to start competing in May when she is 18 months old; we will let you know how she gets on!

Empi's Agility Training (December 06)

Huw is busy training Empi his one year old Border collie in the basics of dog agility. Empi's parents are both agility champions so Huw has high hopes for his young lady. Empi won’t be old enough to take part in any competitions until she is 18 months old but she has lots to learn before then.

Meet Empi! (February 2006)

Huw, our veterinary behaviourist has added a fourth (and final!) canine member to his household: Empi. She is a niece to two of Huw's other dogs. Her parents are both excellent agility dogs and we have great hopes for her (when she's grown a bit). In the meantime, please be sympathetic with Huw if he seems a little sleep-deprived!