Rom

Become World famous HR and you can start charging that as well.

Re depressed and obiedient dogs.

There are some dogs (will not mention what state what breed and who they belong to) that do extremly well in the ob ring, but noone has ever seen them wag a tail.

I have seen this myself a little too often myself, except i wouldn't leave it to one breed. I work towards highly animated performances and will sacrifice accuracy to do so. I reckon we won't have our sport for a lot longer if these sad sack performances continue to get marked as they do. if one reads the rules, the space to mark these performances down is already there.

ooooh yeah...but how often do you see it utilized? Have only ever seen one dog marked down for poor demeanour (sp?) in the ring. Should be more of it.

Yep, Still 7 to go...4 on Sat & 3 on Sun. Will PM details to you. Steve is also putting the details up on his w'site if you want to check Here

7 places left and counting!

Moe let me trim his nails today without any nervous of avoidance behaviours at all!

TOT was very different tonight! I think he has finally discovered food drive and is now really keen to do what ever it takes to get the release to eat. He is showing more excitement about life in general...He's sooo sweet and gentle, I can't understand the people who would just not take 5 to understand what he needed, work with him and keep him!

Took Moe to a friends place today...He chose to get out of the car instead of hiding in the furtherest corner that he could squeeze himself into. We just sat on the grass and had a cuppa while the dogs all played together ie, Moe, my girl and my friends 3. He is great with other dogs...has absolutely no problem with them. While he didn't choose to meet my friend, he didn't go out of his way to avoid her either. He happily acknowledged her presence with a 'smile' and wagging tail, but didn't really approach for a pat or anything like that. My friend also did not attempt to try and touch him just yet...just verbally praised him when he was near her and acting confidently.

The whole picture changed though when my friends fiance arrived. While Neil is a soft spoken and gentle soul who wouldn't hurt a fly, Moe spent the whole time that he was there hiding behind a tree preparing to head for the hills. Hardly took his eyes off Neil...Neil was just sitting on the grass chatting with us and also didn't make any move towards Moe. So it seems that our job is gonna be a little harder with the guys than it is with the gals!

Day 3 for Moe.

I'm amazed at how fast this young boy is changing. Today he is getting into the car and crate with first command and showing very little nervousness about it. Also recovery time after a spook has reduced to be almost non existent, and I'm beginning to hope that very soon, he just won't get spooked! Since I haven't had much experience with TOT before and I'm working it with a dog that previously was unknown to me, I'm not sure how much of this change I can attribute to the TOT. Does it usually work this fast?? Or were his problems more associated with the environment that he came from, and the change of environment is enough to see a remarkable improvement?? He is almost staying in a sit when I reach to remove his lead, still kind of ducking his head, but not so much going down into the drop as he was. Thanks for the suggestions on the lead work Erny, it has really helped.

High lights of Moe's second day:

Had to go into town today and tossed up on whether or not to take him...decided to make it a short trip and take him along. Nowhere near the performance of needing to muzzle him to get him into the car this time! Had him in in 3 seconds flat with absolutely no dramas! He is actually choosing to go to the crate for sleep time now and so I have just been leaving the door open for him to come and go as he needs to, unless I really need to keep him confined.

Wondering how much more has been going on in his life that we weren't told about. I gave the dogs both a bone to chew on today and I'm in the bad habit of handing my girl her bone inside and then telling her to take it outside...usually she is pretty good about this, but today she figured she was gonna hang around to see what Moe was going to get. I raised my arm to point to the door telling her to take it out, and poor Moe hit the ground like he was under fire in a sniper attack. There was absolutely no malice in the action on my part...just calmly enforcing the command I'd just given my girl. So had to ignore his nervous behaviour and lure him up into a sit before I let him take his bone. Man, he was sooo happy to have that bone! I went out later to hang some washing out and first up Moe figured that I might be going to take it off him and darted away. But when he saw that I was going to ignore him and go about my business, he come prancing up to me with bone in mouth, wagging tail as if to say...'Look what I've got!' When he is happy and feeling confident, he is such a sweet boy, but when he gets spooked he's a total wreck. It seems that his recovery time from each spooky episode is getting shorter though.

I still haven't come across any aggressive acts from him. However, I think he is a bit of a talker...he groans when he's frightened and I wonder if previous owners have misread this to be a growl and punished him? Regarding his leash fear...I wonder if he was actually tied up when he was punished for 'grumbling' at the 3yo? At the moment I'm going out to him a couple of times a day and calling him to me and just putting the leash on to give him a treat, then taking the leash straight off again.

He has the eye contact thing down pat in the TOT at each meal....but drops to the ground when I reach for the leash to release him....any suggestions...or do I just keep persisting until his confidence builds?

Why don't you try a halter?.

I actually did try the halter on my girl, but when she lunges its soooo powerful and sudden that her head was snapping back towards me in such a way that I was waiting for a sickening crack to tell me that we'd done some really awful damage. Ever seen those movies where someone sneaks up behind someone else and snaps their neck....thats kinda what it looked like.

I use those collars and treats as they just don't react to correction

But I'm a fan of treat training! And my two will do anything for the smallest treat

I'm totally with you on that one shoemonster...our issues started with two separate incidents. First up, when my girl was a puppy, she was healing sooo well, but she started to anticipate the treat. One day she came up to get the treat as I was leaning down to give it to her...she hooked one of her baby canines into the pad of my finger and in one foul swoop I had 16kgs of pup hanging off my little finger. With the sudden pain, I shook my hand rather violently to get her off, and in the process gave her a hell of a fright. She screamed an ran away from me. For a while for her, walking beside me was not safe. It took a little work to get her over this. :D

At around about the same time I started taking her to obedience club where some of my friends go. As she was trying to avoid being beside me by either pulling ahead, or walking wide of me, friends would greet and treat. What I didn't see then was that she was getting randomly rewarded for a) pulling against me and b)staying as far as she could from me whilst on lead and hence relieving her fear of being next to me. I really didn't see where all this was going to head because I was happy that she was otherwise a very friendly and social dog and wanted to meet people and their dogs. Hard way to learn, eh?

Bottom line is, I'm in the position where I have to take another step. She was 4 months old at the beginning of these incidents and she is 19 months old now...whilst she no longer has the fear of being beside me....she still lunges hoping to get those treats. 15 months of work on this has only slightly improved her lunging when she sees another person or dog that she knows.

I'm must admit though, I'm also a little disappointed that those who would make themselves out to know so much about training dogs in obedience could continue to contribute to the problem without seeing where it was heading. I've come to the conclusion to be wary of what people tell you they know as far as dog training at obedience clubs go.

Thanx Erny!

Really happy this arvo...he's coming to me when I call him! Did the TOT with his evening meal and while he was nervous about getting back into the crate tonight, he got in without anywhere near the performance he put on yesterday arvo!

It seems now that if something spooks him, he comes running to find me rather than heading for the hills. Am still careful about not rewarding nervous behaviour though.

Yayy!! Feels soooo good to have him trust me!

I really symathise with you...this can be soo frustrating and when things are like this. Thing is that there seem to be sooo many people around that just don't realise the kind of struggle that you're having and exacerbate the situation by coming too close with their dogs. The choke chain was not an option for my girl too. I had her on a show choke at a show one time, she saw someone coming that she wanted to greet, lunged towards them like a cannon ball shot, hit the end of the show lead, (a short one) flipped in mid air and come crashing down on her back. The jolt she got meant absolutely nothing to her cuz she got up and did the same thing again. She was delivering a check to herself that I couldn't have mustered the strength for, but it didn't slow her down one iota. So I don't use the check chain because I know that she will cause damage if she hasn't already. I'm persisting with the martingale until K9 is up this way to show me how to use the prong. Thing is she is potentially dangerous to both herself and me unless we can get this problem under control, and I want us both to be able to enjoy our walks.

Is it possible that it is too early to start TOT with Moe?

This morning he wasn't gonna come out of the crate. I didn't want to force him, but also realised that he'd need to go out to go the loo. He hasn't made an aggressive move yet...mainly avoidance. When I went to let him out of the crate he just went to the furthest corner and tried to hide his head in the bedding. I opened the crate door and just attached a lead to his collar (used a 10m tracking lead incase he escaped. I have fully dog fenced 2.5 acres, so I knew that if he got away, he couldn't go too far, but he could get far enough away from me that I wouldn't be able to catch him if need be) and put a bowl of tucker just out side the door of the crate. I moved away so that he felt comfortable to come forward to eat. He ate about half of what I put out, and while he seemed aware of where I was, he didn't watch me intently while he ate, just flicked a glance in my direction.

I let him come out of crate under his own steam so he could wander off to the loo. He made as though he was gonna head for the hills. I was wary of his leash fear, so I didn't want to rely on that if I could avoid it. There was no way he was gonna come within 5 meters of me.

My girl had met him through the crate the night b4, and while she was curious, she was more interested if there was any food left around in the car (gotta love a hoover hound :rolleyes:) so she wasn't a threat to him, nor he to her: he didn't seem disturbed by her presence at all. When I first let him out, I left my girl inside. While he was in the paddock his actions seemed to be more about 'How can I escape?, where can I hide?' rather than sussing out his environment. I ignored him and let him be.

I then let my girl out and went through a short training session and a game with a ball before I released her to go and introduce herself....she's great in this respect, after the sniffing is all done, she goes straight into the play bow. He took up her offer and they ran and played together for a while and it wasn't until after this that he relaxed enough to relieve himself. My girl also has a habit of grabbing other dogs by the lead if she wants to play, so at one stage she grabbed the lead and they were running along side of each other.

If I made a move to go towards them, he broke contact with her to dash away, but if I called my girl to me, he'd move towards us but stay about 10 meters away.

3 hours later....after patience and treats he feels comfortable enough to come sit beside me if I sit on the ground and is actually wagging his tail...he walked beside me back to the house, even though there was a little resistance the closer we got to the house...we was not sure about that. But have taken your advice K9, nervous behaviour is ignored and confident behaviour is rewarded. While he doesn't try to duck away from me at the mo, he does go down to a drop with his head on the ground...does not roll over though.

Am I right in guessing that I need to build his trust in me before we start the TOT?

OK, Moe has arrived. It seems that the story was very different from the one that I was originally given and I actually picked him up directly from his owner. He is nervous about everything...every noise, every person....poor fella! Stayed for a while talking to his owner and the reason that they are wishing to rehome him is because they don't think that he will be trustworthy around kids. Hasn't caused them any harm as yet, but has grumbled at them. One reason for this was evidently clear...one boisterous 3yo. When we arrived, they were on the verandah and Moe was looking like he just wanted to get out of there. Sat and talked to the owner and just observed what was going on...ignored Moe. If he relaxed at all he tried to get down under a chair or table...but remained ready to flee if need be. He only totally relaxed when 3yo went into another room and then he actually laid out flat on his side. Owner was totally unaware of the effect that 3yo had on the pup and its obvious that the pup had never been given any toddler free time. At one stage, toddler raced up to the pup and smacked him up each side of the head over the ears at the same time, owner didn't do or say anything, pup just about jumped out of its skin. Toddler screaming around verandah with a dolls pram, and pup totally beside itself trying to find safe haven. Even though he is nervous of strangers, he didn't care who's chair he found safety under. I can only guess that this toddler has been the source of much fear and pain for this pup. I feel that she is a dog attack victim waiting to happen because her parents are doing absolutely nothing to educate her.

Come time to put him in the crate in the car, we had to muzzle him cuz he wasn't gonna get in the car without a struggle. Poor fella was sooo nervous that he actually wet himself on the way out to the car....at that time, we were just walking him on the lead. He drooled for about the first 15mins of the 45min drive home before he settled. At the moment, I have left him in the crate in the car, with tail gate opened, so that he can settle and learn that the crate will be safe haven for him. Haven't fed him yet and will start with TOT first up in the morning. He has some water, but otherwise has settled for sleep.

ETA: Seems that they got him at about 3.5 months old....so he was placed into this environment in his first fear period!

Cheers K9, I pick him up on Tuesday so will let you know how we go.

I believe any instructor that makes comments about the trainability of any dog is really making a statement about their own skill as an instructor/dog trainer.

For the Test Qualification Track and the TD1, the first two levels in tracking, your dog is allowed to track you or someone that it knows well, so the initial training doesn't have to involve a helper. At a trial however, you will need someone to handle your dog for you.

I started tracking training with my girl when she was a baby....I'd prepare her breakfast, and let her see me do this, then I'd lock her in the shed and take her breakfast for a walk down the paddock, then come back to the shed to let her out. In the early stages, I didn't put a harness and lead on her...just let her free form and sort it out for herself. You can also drop treats in your footsteps to help them get the idea.

As I gradually increased the distance of the track I eliminated the footstep treats, but introduced scented articles with treats on top. At this stage, she started looking for articles instead of following the scent trail to find them, but I wasn't too worried about this because she seemed to have the idea about following the scent trail to a reward, and she put her nose back to the ground again when I started to reduce the number of articles on the track. Also at this stage, little smarty pants decided to improvise...she'd run up to each article, check to make sure there was a treat there, make her way to her breakfast, eat her breakfast, then back track to eat the treats on the articles :D

It wasn't until after this that I put the harness and lead on. I had been attending tracking trials and helping out as either a steward or track layer for about 18 months until I got my pup, and one of the things that I noticed was the dogs that either lost the plot entirely or lost drive for following the scent trail often seemed to responding to signals being sent down the lead because the handler either didn't trust the dog and just follow it (which basically translates to not learning to read their dog) or they didn't realise what effects their actions had on the dog. So before I inadvertently started muddying up the process, I wanted to be sure that she was confident with the job at hand and that I was reading her well.

The first time I put her on the track away from her own yard with a harness on she flushed a hare....followed it for about 5 paces, but then returned to the job at hand without any encouragement or input from me. She is a RR with moderate to high prey drive....breaky drive is much higher though

When I started to age the track before I put her on it, I had to move away from breakfast bowls and treats on articles because they attract ants. The last thing you want is for your dog to get bitten on the nose or mouth and create a negative association here. I started to use cans of sardines....she soon started to recognise the can and know what was coming up whenever I took a can of sardines out of the cupboard.

She passed her TQT easily, and got an excellent pass on the TD1 at her third attempt. What was most thrilling for me though was seeing how hard she tried on her second attempt. After the track layer went out, old mate farmer decided that this would be a good time to go get that dead cow out of the top paddock to burn it, crossed the track with his tractor, bought the dead cow back across the track then figured since he had the tractor out anyways, he might as well take a round bale of hay out for the other 150 head in the paddock. We had 150 head on the end of the first leg, first corner, and second leg of the track eating hay. So she lost the track, but she did not stop trying to find it. I was so proud of her, at one point she stopped for a split second, looked back at me and yawned. I figured that at this point I was going to pull her off and reward her anyway..but she put her head back down again. The judge had failed us and left for the next track before this point, so I got the steward to show us where the track was and we continued on.

Next we really needed to polish up on article identification and this is a behaviour that I've shaped with a clicker. We have this article identification game where I put a bunch of scented articles on the ground and I started by clicking and rewarding every time she picked an article up...don't have to reward for this anymore...she just tears around like a lunatic, picking up articles and shaking them then dropping them to 'attack' the next article. You'd figure that the way she plays this game would make her lose the plot on the track if she comes across an article, but her drive is sooo good for the track that picking up the article is almost something she does as an after thought...she just picks it up, carries it in her mouth for a few steps and drops it without really losing focus on the track. I initially did play with trying to get her to drop at an article....but this did seem to kill her drive for both the track and article identification. So I give up on that and went with her picking the article up.

I also never have to give her any commands on the track....soon as I put the harness on and show her the start article she knows what to do. I guess that since I started following her off lead as an observer to see what she was going to teach me(after all, she instinctually knows a helluva lot more about following a scent trail than what I could ever teach her...all I had to do was provide the motivation for her to follow a trail that I chose)..I never really got to the point where I introduced verbal commands. I do however give her heaps of verbal praise on the track when she identifies an article and finds the track layer. At a trial, can of sardines is waiting in my car for when we get back after we are finished the track.

I'm a relative newbie to the sport and this is the first dog that I've trained in it....resources are hard to come by and the best way to learn is to offer to go along to help at a trial. I've met plenty of people who don't have training partners who are quite successful, so this doesn't need to be a limiting factor. I'd say about 95% or more of the training that I've done with my girl has been just with the 2 of us.

I also found some links on DOL...do a search on tracking and you'll find some links to w'sites with some info.

Also, apart from going topless and cracking whips, what can us women do to help out?

Hmmmmmm hang on ............ nope - thats all most men would want! Men would be at dog training all over the place then! :D ;)

;)

Yeah, but they'd probably forget to bring their dogs

I am picking up a foster next week who it seems was fine as a baby but now at 8 months old is apparently displaying fear aggression probs and is a very nervous boy.

Owners have done the midnight flit and abandoned the pup who is currently being cared for by a neighbour until he can be collected. Information is scarce ATM until I pick him up...purebred ridgie boy.

Would love to be well prepared for his arrival and any suggestions are welcome?

NOOOO the other left!

I must admit though, the only reason that I remember left from right sometimes is because I go to obedience club!

Interesting point about gender and drop out rates etc, for the K9 workshop here in Gympie, of the 22 places that are filled so far only 2 are men (pickings are grim for those gals who are on the lookout :D and if you're coming you'll see what I mean...sorry Bob and Neale! Can't yet comment on K9 though ;) ). I wonder if its harder for men to admit that they need help? Also if doggy activities are mainly populated by women or instructed by women, do men have a hard time taking instruction from women??? Also, apart from going topless and cracking whips, what can us women do to help out?

So far there are 10 places filled for the Saturday, 7 of whom are DOLers.

So you all gonna fess up or do I have to dob you in?

8 places left all up

9 places left

Whats an orbee ball?

ignorance used to be biss but there are no excuses anymore

So long as there remain instances where ignorance can be a defense for cruelty I think there will still be problems!

Thanks to everyone for their replies.....I wasn't as ignorant on this subject as I originally thought!....Knew some of the stuff, just hadn't pigeon holed it under the tag 'anthropomorphism'.

Bump ;)

Cheers Erny

;) in any time you like ;)