Dylan's Blog

I’ve decided to start a blog for Dylan. Dylan is a 5 month old Working Sheepdog puppy, my first proper Collie dog and my first dog bought with the intention of doing agility and flyball in the future. That doesn’t make him any less loved, of course, nor is he missing out on his puppyhood. At the moment he does 10 or 15 minutes of training a day, currently just basic commands. At the moment he knows sit, down, paw, heel, recalls, fetch and has a nice present and finish. Then we have 5 or 10 minutes of what I tend to call “flyball training”, although it’s equally as good for just letting us play by ourselves without the girls for a while.

Flyball training, by the way, consists of one puppy, one tennis ball, one tuggy and me. I chuck the ball across the garden and Dylan bombs after it, currently without much co-ordination but lots of mad enthusiasm. He has to fetch the ball back to me, and then he gets to play with his tuggy. The tuggy is always the reward and I never keep going for too long with him. He’s already got a fair turn of speed, but he’s also a very lanky boy. Patch, Dylan’s dad, is a big collie and has had some injury trouble from starting to run off the box at a) too young, and b) with a slammer’s turn. Because he’s going to be such a big dog, I’m going to do low jumps etc with him at 12 months, both for agility and flyball, but the box will have to wait until next winter. That’s a long time, I know, and some dogs would probably have been competing in Starters by the time that Dyl learns the ropes, but I’m in no rush and neither is he.