Perri Novice Parkour PKD-N!

Perri and I successfully "avenged" our Novice Parkour NQ! And I think now I have the hang of the Parkour association rules.

We did quite a bit of this title at home. You are required to do only three of the fifteen required behaviors "outside with naturally occurring obstacles". (Not placed for the purpose of the title.) We certainly did that with more than three but it was nice to be able to work on this at home. Creativity is the only limit - you start to look at everything and think "How could I use that for Parkour??" 

For Perri's title I started working on it when we drove out to our raw co-op pick up location at the beginning of the month. I saw the cool bench with the two wooden labradors en route and did our "10 Second Wait" on that. We did a nice walk at a park that was loaded with too many people. (And Ein wanted to come along for the ride but he got overwhelmed on our walk. That seems to happen with him sometimes with his aging/cognitive issues.) After our pick up we kept encountering lots of people out enjoying their day, so it was nice to be able to retreat to my quiet back yard and work on our title. What I am saying is, I like that you can do a whole lot of the Novice title at home. Especially with a dog who has environmental and dog reactivity issues, like Perri.

The rest of the title was done at a small local park with a nice walking loop. It is not terribly popular, though people definitely do go to it. I brought Molly along each time since it is smooth walking for her. You can hear her screeching with frustration in the background of some of the videos. <Smile>

This video is all of our behaviors except for "Creativity" and "Three Obstacle Sequence". The "dog getting off obstacle" and "5 second wait times" shortened for the sake of length. The dog getting onto and off of every obstacle is required, and the wait times on the obstacle are listed in the rules. 

Creativity:

Three Obstacle Sequence:

I do not do much training with Perri anymore, other than Nosework. It was a little strange to come back to her pace and remember to respect her time limits and confidence drops. But I also found that I enjoyed working with her, laughing with her and revisiting a goal that we worked on in the past together. We have both come far over the years. There were a few times that a set up did not work for Perri. I am able to recognize that so much faster than I used to. I am able to set up success for her and keep her feeling proud of herself. She has taught me well.