My 5 Rules.

Where to even begin...
    Now at a year old, I've been going back and watching videos and awing at pictures from when Strike was younger. Do I regret anything? Not one bit. Some people have asked what my plan was with Strike. How I went about "training" him his first year and what my thoughts were on everything.
This was basically my rubric, if you want to think of it that way... My five major rules in "training" a puppy.

1.) ALWAYS FUN NO MATTER WHAT!
 Training rule number one of course also. Never get mad at or scold the puppy. Never instill fear into him. Be his best friend; the one he can trust. Positive reinforcement, playing, and letting him be a puppy (in other words, let him play and have a puppy brain. Maturity will form eventually).

2.) LEARN THE BASICS FIRST.
Of course I would hope anyone would follow this rule... It would only make sense. Teach them basics while they're young. In a fun and appropriate way, of course.

3.) STIMULATE THE BRAIN.
Self explanatory... Tricks, making them think, get their brains to start functioning. Shaping is especially a great way of doing this!

4.) FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION.
Puppies have so much coordination, body awareness, and basic knowledge to learn before anything big. Running around a cone, walking through a ladder, building muscle, strength training, etc. -- all vital to building a performance dog. (Has a lot to do with #5.)

and now for the big one...

5.) BIG DOG EQUIPMENT CAN WAIT!
First of all, you can't compete until the dog is 15 months old at the earliest. Please tell me why in the world you would stress this equipment early on in a puppy's life? If it's muscle you're looking to build, putting your puppy on a full size, lets use the a-frame as an example, is not the way to do so unless you want to risk injuring the puppy. Remember, puppies, like human babies, are not fully developed. There are things called growth plates. Disrupt their growth plates or damage them and well... The outcome may be devastating later down the road. It's a scientific fact, you can't say it isn't true. I just can not bring myself to understand how one can think that performing these full-height obstacles at a young age is healthy. You know that puppies are growing and developing. How can you not see that high impact training like this can damage your growing teammate?

 Plus there is SO much more to do, why rush into things? I really stress this factor in my own training because I want my puppies to be healthy and able to form and have their growth plates close before ANY jumping, weaving, climbing, etc.
So you say that waiting too long will result in undesirable obstacle performance and difficulty for them?
Okay, so clearly my young pup will get no where in agility because he started/will start these obstacles once his growth plates are closed... This is what foundation is for. Build your muscle and drive in foundation training. I find it extremely offensive that people think that younger is better for everything, because it scientifically, is not. You may get lucky and your dog may not develop any major problems, but the risk should be scary enough. We all want our canines to last as long as possible as well as being as healthy as possible.
Strike is a powerhouse. Probably the most muscular pup I've ever met. And he didn't get this from obstacles. Oh no... He got it from **foundation** training. Living on a farm also gave him an advantage, but mainly the foundation. The learning how to run, coordinate his body, and build muscle. /end rant

So, my five rules. What I follow for training puppies. (Yes, I have more "rules" but I just wanted to share 5 of them.)

and some photos for no reason!!

(I mean really, he can fly... and run extremely fast. Some say it's the freckles) ;)

My Puppy is already ONE?!

I am just mind blown by the fact that my sweet little innocent Strike is already 12 months old (as of September 8th). Honestly I thought he would be a little taller. He just seems so small to me, but I'm probably just so used to seeing and being around monster collies.
 So...What now? What are our plans?
Well, I am living in the city during the week to go to college, and I come home Friday afternoon- Sunday afternoon, so my training time and availability is literally cut in half, plus it also depends on the weather.

I STILL need to get the rubber on my contact equipment (I know, I'll get it done soon).
So where is he in terms of contact training?
1.) Dog Walk - On an elevated plank on the ground. About a 90% Jackpot rate right now. Wanting to get that higher before we raise it (or get him on a short dog walk, because I am adjusting my current to do so).
2.) Aframe - Waiting to rubberize my aframe before we get any further in to training with it. Thinking about adding a box, because he's kind of a maniac and likes to two stride the aframe. We'll see when the rubber gets put on!
3.) Teeter - We've been playing the bang game for a long time now. He loves it. I'm very pleased with how he is driving to the end of the plank also (not at full height, obviously).

I raised his jump bar to 14" recently. We're going to start working more on grids, wraps, and all that fun stuff as we build the height of the jumps. So far he is doing excellent!

I have him on channel weave poles that are still almost completely open. My stick-in-the-ground poles are pissing me off and it doesn't help that the ground is hard as a rock right now. So I'm not sure when we'll be able to actually get real weave pole training done soon. Oh well, it can wait!

Mostly we've just been working on handling and reading my body language better. He's a crazy pup, that's for sure.

Trialing? I don't even want to bring that up! Sure, he COULD debut the weekend he turns 15 months, but I'm going to work on taking my time with him and molding and shaping him into a great, prepared dog before I throw him on course. (Not to mention my contact training will most likely NOT be done, and I won't be able to get much practice in during the colder months!) It's NOT a race. Many people sure do act like it is, but screw that. I'm taking my good ol' time and will debut him when he and I are both ready to start our agility journey together. I think we may just debut in ASCA first if there is a near-by trial when he turns 18 months. Ah, I love ASCA.

Can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!
And here is a picture I took of him, drooling from excitement, on his first birthday!
Happy birthday, you crazy little ball of insanity!