how old to spay

[Rosanne]

I trial my dogs when they know all the obstacles. And because the low-jump training that I do also lays the basics for the handling they will need. If she's not ready at 20 months I won't trial her yet. Most of my dogs are just BARELY ready to show when I put them in.

 

but honestly, Starters is so easy, and if my dogs know the obstacles and can handle (all my dogs can handle by that age, it's just the way I train now) why not bring them out? My youngest is over 20" tall, so 22" is not going to be all that high for her.

 

I am one of the slowest agility trainers I know. Most people have their dogs doing courses by this age

I've also NEVER had a dog need to take time off of agility for an injury, either, in over 15 years of training (and 6 dogs) so I must be doing something right.

 

ETA: On re-reading your post, I wanted to add that I don't expect my dogs to know everything when they first trial. I don't expect my dogs to know a whole lot yet in Starters. I don't "push" them to win until they're ready. If ever. And I pretty much never train any of my dogs in agility more than 3x a week, less when they are pups/young dogs. Because I'm an experienced, intelligent trainer, it doesn't take me a whole lot of time to train a dog to do an obstacle to my satisfaction, therefore I start late but am still ready when the time comes. But I don't get mad at young dogs for doing silly things, I just want them to try.

There are plenty of herding/working dogs out there doing Nursery courses at 20 months of age - would you expect them to be injured as well? They have a lot more high-impact activity on their joints then my dogs do.

[juliepoudrier]

There are plenty of herding/working dogs out there doing Nursery courses at 20 months of age - would you expect them to be injured as well? They have a lot more high-impact activity on their joints then my dogs do.

While I won't go into the merits (or perhaps lack thereof) of running nursery dogs, I don't think the physical side of training is hard on the dogs, and certainly not as hard, IMO, as repetitive jumping, etc., that occurs in agility (maybe not with your training style, but certainly for a majority who push their dogs to perform well early). Where I think the trouble/breakdowns come with these nursery youngsters is mental. That is they burn out mentally from the training pressure, although they are physcially just fine. That's JMO, though, having run just one youngster in nursery (she's now a successful open trial dog, age 5 1/2 and has been running in open since before she turned 3) and considering running the current youngster in nursery later this year (she's now 19 months and is not doing nursery size courses at this point and is maybe worked twice a week, or less, given the heat lately).

 

Really, on the trial course, the dog runs out to gather the sheep and then should be doing something a little slower/more controlled for the rest of the course. Since there's no shed in nursery class, the cutting horse type moves you might think of aren't required of these youngsters. So I really don't think there's a valid comparison between stockwork (nursery) and training for agility obstacles (when training for perfection/winning is commenced early and repeated often) when it comes to the physical "side effects."

 

J.

[Lenajo]

Julie said it better than I could, so "ditto".

 

I'm a baby at agility, but I've seen more dogs hurt, burned out, and permanently injured in agility in the last 2 years than I have in 15 years of herding. Nursery has its faults, and though I've had a very successful nursery dog I've had many more who were not ready, and started trialing well past that age.

 

I respect your success Rosanne, and from what I read you treat your dogs more than right. Which is why I bothered to ask about what I felt was a contradiction. Thanks for explaining. I agree with what you say about the masses of agility. When I came out with Isabel she was 3 year old and nearly fully trained. The attitude that I met with my "old" starters dog was negative, and when she did super well her age was regarded with comments about "wasted time"

[Rosanne]

I completely agree that MOST agility people who get pups, even big names (especially them!) work their young dogs HARD. Way too hard. I just wanted to explain that I'm not one of them!

 

I show them when they're 20 months old, sure, but they aren't training real hard, and honestly, they are only barely up to that level anyway. I don't believe in repetitive jumping, I try not to do intensive jumpwork more than once a week even with my grown dogs.

My Starters dogs do look better than the average Joe's starters dogs, but that doesn't mean they've been trained harder, it just means that since I know what I'm doing and ingrained the right handling in my dog from the beginning (and I can sort of compensate for the lack of experience on their part).

I barely showed my one girl at all last year, and just this year started concentrating on her. She was over 2 before she got out of Starters. And she moved right up, because she's mentally more mature and easier to handle.

 

ANYWAY, I think we've all agreed that 10 months is the perfect time to spay, so that's settled!

[juliepoudrier]

ANYWAY, I think we've all agreed that 10 months is the perfect time to spay, so that's settled!

 

J.