Full-sized contacts for a smart little girl

Gaylan's Golden Retrievers has one of the best puppy raising systems around. These puppies come home knowing all their proprioception (knowing where their limbs are in space) and their edges and ledges. How many adult Goldens don't know they have back legs? Well, Page and Devon before her, knew exactly where their legs were when they came home at 9 weeks, thanks to all that woods walking they did. 

While the puppies are still sponges before they are 16 weeks old, we try to expose them to everything they will see in their adult life. It makes the first few weeks of puppy raising very busy, but it's well worth the effort down the road. 

Three years ago when I brought Devon home, I stuck with the advice of not introducing full-height contacts until she was 1 year old. That was probably the single biggest mistake I have made with her. Devon could have done all her contacts well before she was a year, and we probably wouldn't have gone through the teeter fear we had to overcome.

With Page, the advice I sought out (and I fully agree with) is to get these puppies on full-height equipment in a controlled experience before 16 weeks. I won't drill the contacts or repeat them every day, I just want Page to have a good experience at an early age. 

Monday night was Page's first trip across the full-height dogwalk, teeter and A frame. She had no problem and trotted across all of them. I had friends here to spot her on the equipment, so she was very safe. Today my friend Holly came over to play agility with her Golden Retriever Ripken. Before she and Ripken played, she helped me take Page over the equipment one more time before we lowered it for additional training for Devon. Holly also manned the video camera for us.

Page says, "The dogwalk is fun! And look, I even tried to run! And I hate my leash!"

My teeter is full of water, so it tips very slowly!

The plan was to put her on the top of the A frame and go all the way down it just like we did on Monday. However, Page had different ideas. She did a 180 and climbed right back up and over the A frame this time! 

So we decided if she wanted to do it, she could do it again. The first time up was better than the one we actually got on video.

So, that's all the full-height contact work there will be from Page for a while. Hope you enjoyed it!