MrsD

Hope someone can help with the way to teach the "surprise" command, both of the things you described are in this fantastic routine (beginning & ending) by Richard Curtis & his BC Jazz .

His handler isnt 97 years old , but there is a dachshund competing up here in DwD & by golly he's a great little performer too .

OOOOO Steve's going to buy Camp Tailwaggers and we are all moving into the cabins for permanent training ;) Ohhhhh stop teasing me :) . I think you are way too hard on yourself about Chook BTW, you forget just how much he (& you!) have improved in the short time you have been doing DwD. I know you are frustrated that he works well at the club but not at trials, but the reason for that is that at other places the history of reward isn't there, at the club he has been there hundreds of times & has a huge reward history, at the RSPCA, he has almost nothing, that's why he thinks the smells etc are much more rewarding (that & that his brain is between his legs - sorry guys ;) ). You need to take him to every place you can think of, get him out of the car & do what Steve Davies taught us to do, reward reward reward & make him shake his booty! Then when you have done it over & over & over at dozens of different places the next time you take him somewhere you'll stop the car & he'll be thinking "yay, I get heaps of rewards when I work in a strange place straight out of the car, well I did last time & the time before & the time before that & the timre before that ...blah blah blah"- you know that practice makes permanent thing ;) . Anyway that is my take on the situation, I'll shut-up now :p .

Thanks Maree, I am so excited that he qualified , I wasn't sure if we would scrape through or not but in the end we got through with a reasonable score & I know where he lost most of his points (I have to learn to keep my hands to myself!!! ;) ), so it's something to work on . Don't worry about Chook being distracted, you weren't the only one there to have a dog that wasn't quite with it & just remember you havent been doing it long, I think you are doing a fantastic job with him ;)

Exactly - I'd be a DOL superstar! (Michael, if you are reading, Im only joking! )

Dagboy & I were just discussing this at dinner - some of us are more limited than others . Was it the guy with Spotty? Yep, sorry he wasn't actually next to me I realised, Staffordlove was between us . MM, I know that he's actually not like his online persona IRL, I've been told that before, but I still wanted to know it was him - not that he's ever annoyed me or peed me off, I just wanted to be able to tell everyone on DOL that I had whacked him one ;) . (actually i would have said thank you very much for the crate that he gave us last year but shhhh, don't tell him that, make him think Im scary )

OK, I am most peed off, apparently I was sitting next to Midol & I didnt even know it - he wasn't loud obnoxious or opinionated & I didnt even get a chance to clip him around the ear .

Great explanation of the sport Maree, geez anyone would think you were a judge or something :p ;) . I have only been to one trial this year (the Ekka) as I was away for the Petacular & sick for the Gold Coast, so we only have 1 qualifying score in Novice. Good luck for Chook's title tomorrow :cheer: :D ;) . We had what's known as a "wardrobe malfunction" today when I realised that I have absolutely NO idea where my cane is so I have had to done a quick change of plan on the outfit & clothes for tomorrow & make myself a new cane as well . Miss Monster the pics are fantastic, there are some really good ones in there . Ok Im starting to get to work out who more & more people are who were there. AussieVee, I hope you found them (or at least some of them).

no problems, I just pretty much switch off to anything like that after a couple of minutes anyway, the joys of having twin boys who never shut up , so it didnt really bother me that much . Just the same as I only heard Daisy bark once or twice, I certainly didn't hear her if she barked all day like Huski says she did . You should have said you were from DOL, or were you worried that you'd be labelled a crazy too?

Ah yes Maree was telling me about the DwD trial tomorrow! Whereabouts is it, MrsD? He looked great at the workshop It's at the RSPCA superstore at Slacks Creek, just off the highway, they have a big indoor training centre next to the shop, that's where it's being held. I think it starts at 1pm for anyone who's interested & wants to come down. There will be a huge range of dogs there from Starters to Advanced, so it's a good place to see what sort of standard you need to start off if anyone is considering training.

Sorry, but do you think that any dog wouldn't touch that if they found it? Jarrah would have them quicker than you could say Jack Robinson so I guess he must be evil too . (so would Whisper or Jonty , hang on, I think you are right - they are all evil ) I know I know, but she was just so quick dammit! It was zipped into the pocket that's on top of her crate and she had it unzipped and eaten in no time at all - I found the empty packet in her crate Lucky she's got a gut of steel I've had Jarrah do stuff like that before, he's by far the worst of my lot, you can't trust him for 2 seconds where there is food involved, so don't feel that you are alone . Staffordlove, were you the one with the staffy sitting next to me?

Thanks spotty & Huski, I have a Dances with Dogs trial tomorrow & yesterday made me realise how little work I have put into him in the last couple of months .

Sorry, but do you think that any dog wouldn't touch that if they found it? Jarrah would have them quicker than you could say Jack Robinson so I guess he must be evil too . (so would Whisper or Jonty , hang on, I think you are right - they are all evil )

OK I am only now realising who all these people were that were sitting near me, Spotty, I didnt even CLICK that it was you & the dally . Sparky, which dogs did you have, the 2 frenchy's? Wildatheart, thank you , unless I actually have my routine to do I really struggle to just make things up on the spot & ad lib in dancing so it wasn't as good as it could have been . So what sort of dog do you have & where were you sitting so I can work out who you were? It was only a short distance, a km or 2 at most from memory, certainly not very far. I think the biggest problem might be that it has blown away since there was a bit of a breeze, but then it was getting late in the afternoon so the breeze may have dropped a bit. If it's any help, as you are going UP to CT, it would be on the left hand side of the road near a bit of a right hand bend, I have a feeling it may be near the school (not the one in the village you go through, but the one right up near CT). I have been to dozens of doggy seminars at CT (I'm what's known as a Camp-o-holic ) & I think the first one I went to I sort of felt the same & came away thinking - "Hang on - I don't have a list of steps 1, 2, 3 that will train my dog to do A, B, C." But as you said, it's not about being sat down & being "talked at" about it being 1, 2, 3, it's about learning to manage your dog (or train your dog for obedience or train your dog to dance etc or whatever depending on what sort of seminar you went to). As almost every trainer I have ever been lucky enough to train with says (including Steve yesterday) - they aren't there to train the dog, they are there to train you to train the dog. :D It's amazing how much of it will come back to you when you are put in a situation that Steve described or demonstrated with one of the dogs, you'll see something like an aggression trigger & you'll think "Ohhh I remember Steve said to do this" or "Steve said never to do this". :D I'm so glad you "got it" , & I'm sure Steve will be too, I think a trainer's greatest achievments are often having students who can say "I got it!" & then go & apply it to your own pack :D .

I think I really only spoke to 2 people from DOL (Seita & Huski cos they are the only 2 I recognised), it's really hard cos you look like a right d*ck going around to everyone saying "Are you a DOLer?", most people must look at you & think "Are you one of the crazies?" ;) . ETA - Ohh & of course BC4Me is from DOL, but she doesnt count cos she's crazy and a DOLer :rofl: ETAA - it's easier too when you have an easily recognisable dog ie Daisy being a Beagle & Jarah being a kelpie, also when you are made to get up in front of everyone & do something (Daisy's demo & our dancing routines ).

Ohhh no! When I was driving home there was a red clipboardy folder with stacks of sheets of paper blowing around on the side of the road not too far from Camp Tailwaggers!! :rofl: Is it possible that you could have put it on the roof of the car or something? I really hope that wasn't yours & that it was left at camp & someone picked it up for you.

Well I am probably first home (a combination of getting away quickly & living on the southside of Brisbane), I had a great day, Steve was very informative & of course I was impressed by Ella's work, how could you not be? It was lovely to meet the people I did & Huski, I don't think you should ever call Daisy the Evil Beagle ever again, she was so well behaved & did some great work in drive .

Well some stupid bugger in the UK did & look what happened! Half of the sheep & cattle population of the UK had to be destroyed. :D On the topic of vegetarianism for dogs, I don't agree with it (unless it's for medical reasons) but that's just my opinion. I do have to disgree with you chuckandsteve when you said that you didnt think most dogs would be able to hunt for food, let a mouse go near a dog & see the prey drive kick in . We quite recently saw an interview with Alicia Silverstone & she feeds her dogs a vegetarian (or maybe vegan, I can't remember now) diet, very strange.

LOL nothing wrong with wanting another Kelpie ! There is when you already have 4 dogs & you aren't allowed anymore . Can't wait to see pics of the new puppies when they are born :wave: .

Ohhh Leanne, he is absolutely GORGEOUS :D :) - you make me want to have another kelpie you bad girl :D .

Being a DWD & HTM competitor I teach both left & right side heeling as well as a whole heap of other heel positions. Any of the DWD/HTM teaching videos like those from Richard Curtis (as someone mentioned), Mary Ray, Atilla etc will all have sections on right side (& other position) heeling, but to be honest it's quite easy, you teach them in exactly the same qway that you teach traditional heeling.

I never ever had a problem with either of my dogs stepping on the broad jump as they were taught with something that they couldn't stand on. I made a broad jump from 4 pieces of weatherboard cut to length & 8 bricks. Put 2 bricks (lengthwise) in line with where you want the first part of the jump to be & prop a piece of weatherboad up against it, continue with the other 3 boards. Looks almost identical to the dog from the front, but pretty much impossible to stand on. We didn't have a choice back then of what exercises you wanted to do except in UD, so teaching the dog the broadjump was an important part of Open training (& one part where alot of dogs made a mistake).

The simple answer is that the reward isn't high enough. I don't know how you've been training it, but I would go back to the beginning & use a clicker & the highest value reward you can get for her.

To join the DWD Australia yahoo group go to K9 Freestyle Australia & click on the blue button that says "join this group". Bub, I have emailed my contact in NSW, I will pass on the current contact details as soon as I get them .

All states have the same rules, you can find them here 3rd link down, under Dances with Dogs Are you a member of the DWD Yahoo email group?