MrsD

I was only there the Wed & Friday but I had a great time. Yes it was similar to last year, but I still got alot out of it, especially as I took Jarrah this year & he is able to learn alot of the tricks (last year I only had Jonty & he was only a puppy of about 6 months, so we didnt get to get involved as much). I loved everyone getting up & doing some impromptu boogying with their dogs & thought the cabaret/competition on the Friday was excellent . Also love the games after lunch each day, I remembered Wednesday's from last year & no matter how mad keen a retriever Jarrah is, there is no way on earth he would bring me back a frankfurt .

Kathy, doggy dancing/canine freestyle/heelwork to music is choreographed heelwork & tricks to music. I have added some of the more famous routines by some well known people below - hope you enjoy them :rolleyes: Mary Ray & her dogs doing I Don't Feel Like Dancing Liz I hope your boss came back with ots of info & contacts for you, someone that you could contact that's fairly close to you is Val Bonney, she came down to watch for a while on one day & she has in the past offered trick training at her training school.

I can understand the reluctance to get up at that time on a Sunday morning .

I think they train on Sunday mornings?? 8-9am? (or maybe Im just dreaming )

Quobba, do you mean the one at Uralla next weekend? We'll be there with my doggies in my signature & hubby's GSD, come & say hi if you see us .

MrsD, I believe the reason for this happening is probably due to incorrect application and/or lack of, or insufficient instruction regarding progressing to the next step. Probably true for a fairly large proportion of people Kelpie-i.

I do it the same as Cosmolo. Club uses just luring - heaps of dogs never get out of class 1 because the handlers can't do it properly.

Not strictly true. There was the time when Ebony was "vanished" from a picture that then ended up in your signature. Poor old thing - it was a bit like those photos that the Russians were so good at, where some member of the politburo was suddenly no longer flavour of the month and next thing you knew they were no longer in photos. Spot the difference. :D ;) Cheers, DagBoy shutup or you'll vanish too Spoonboy :cool:

Those pics I posted earlier of the waterlillies & the crocodile were both taken with the 200mm lens on full zoom from a boat (no tripod) in Kakadu. I find that sometimes they aren't clear but the majority of the pics I take with it are fairly good. Now Im wondering if getting an IS lens would be a bit of a waste of (a lot ) of money :D . BTW none of my pics are ever photoshopped, all I ever do is crop a bit if I need to & resize them. Depends on what your going to use it for. I take alot of photo's at full zoom of moving objects, and I didn't find that the kit lens gave me really good results, the shots were ok, but never great. The new lens makes a massive difference. I used the kit lens for about a year until I bought my new one. I had planned a trip to Melbourne and really wanted the lens for then, so went and out splurged. It was expensive, but it will be the only lens Ill buy for a long time so that made me feel better ;) Yep, I can see if you were taking pics of moving objects the IS would be much better, most of mine (so far anyway) have been full zoom but stationary objects.

Probably :D I often see really great pics & think "wow, wonder how they did that?" & then invariably when I ask they have photoshopped it ;) .

Those pics I posted earlier of the waterlillies & the crocodile were both taken with the 200mm lens on full zoom from a boat (no tripod) in Kakadu. I find that sometimes they aren't clear but the majority of the pics I take with it are fairly good. Now Im wondering if getting an IS lens would be a bit of a waste of (a lot ;) ) of money :D . BTW none of my pics are ever photoshopped, all I ever do is crop a bit if I need to & resize them.

Water lillies at Kakadu & sunset over Litchfield NP .

Here are a couple of pics that I like that I took in the NT when we were up there. Saltwater crocodile in Kakadu - this was take with the 200mm lens that came with our camera,

Love everyone's shots, very nice! Like Ripley we only have the standard kit lenses that came with the 350D, I was considering a polarising filter & thought I would like either an image stabiliser lens like Wagsalots or a macro lens but have been too scared to go into the camera shops to ask how much money they will set me back . I'll have to look though my pics to see if I can find any to post, like Ripley (again) I tend to take heaps & heaps of shots & usually manage to get a few half decent ones . Can anyone suggest what's best for taking sunsets?

Im not experienced enough to tell you how he will go with a frisbee, but if you want to try it it's lots of fun. To get involved all you have to do is to come along to the next BARK event (which I believe is the 4th Nov?) & have a go. It's really easy (well if you arent too competitive that is :p ), heaps of fun & the dogs love it. Our 9 year old twin boys do it with Jarrah & have a blast, Dagboy & I get out there with Jonty (who doesnt believe that actually catching the frisbee is part of the requirements ) & act like idiots even though we end up with zero points everytime (the dog has to catch the frisbee in it's mouth to earn points). But we don't care, the dogs have a ball & love doing it which is the main thing . Have a look at the website BARK (Bris And Region K9 Disc) or send Molasseslass (who's name I can never spell correctly ) a PM as she is a committee member & on the executive. ETA - I just looked at the video, he chases the disc, catches it (or attempts to) & brings it back - what more do you need? He just needs a few exercises to help him with his catching & jumping by the look of it .

Dagboy has been training our GSD Ebony, she has her HIC & is going for her HT in a couple of weeks. However she's not the sharpest tool in the shed & probably won't get much past HT. There is a lady up here in Qld who now has her Started A Course title on sheep with her GSD.

Score = 0 There are 3 possibilities ...... You are only allowed to use the dogs name at the beginning of the exercise. Failing to sit in front would be a substantial & maybe the judge decided that the dog wouldnt have done the finish if you hadn't said it's name, which would be another substantial. Although that may not have added up to 0. Another possibility is that the dog anticipated the command & moved before it was supposed to. I see heaps & heaps of people all the time who don't give their signals & verbal commands at exactly the same time & guess which one the dog moves on? Yep the hand signal - you only have to move your arms a fraction of an inch & a keen dog will see it & respond. Lots & lots of novice handlers do it & don't even realise what they have done wrong, but a good judge will spot it straight away. Anticipation will earn you a 0. But my bet is that the dog lifted it's bum after it had been left & you didnt see it as you were walking away.

Go the sheltie!!!! Not that Im biased of course . My boy is outgoing, very friendly with everyone, people & dogs alike, full of life & courage. You couldnt ask for a better little dog .

See what Janba said. If the dog is eligible for the title (CCD, CD) ie it has 3 passes then you can't enter that class again unless your last pass was after the closing date of the trial that you want to enter. So if you had 2 passes in CCD & trial A was coming up on the 7th of the month & trial B was coming up on the 14th of the month & both had closing dates 2 weeks before you are eligible to enter & compete in trial B even if you get a qualifying score at Trial A. Does that make sense? The rules have been the same for ever & a day, it's always been like that, the only difference as someone said earlier is that now you dont have to compete in CCD before going into novice. Of course it doesnt apply for CDX as you can stay in Open as long as you like once you have your title (but you can't enter UD until you apply for your CDX title).

Where abouts are you located Liz? There are a few clubs & individuals around who train, if you let me know where you are etc I may be able to point you in the right direction. If you are serious about it, Mary Ray is visiting Camp Tailwaggers at Cooloongatta next week & doing 2 days of doggy dancing, if you are feeling rich you could come along to that , I will be there with a friend I train with & there will be other DOLers there as well. If you can't make it I can ask around for anyone who's close to you for some info. Or as Steph has mentioned VIP do doggy dancing, but they do set classes & courses as far as I know which may or may not suit you. I havent been, but friends who I train with have & say they are pretty good. ETA - the last course that my friends went to was on Sunday mornings which didnt suit us.

As the subject says, which lenses & filters do you have & which ones are the ones you use the most/are favourites? And any pics you've taken with them .

Typical, there has to be one coward in every bunch :rolleyes: .

Husky, just out of curiosity, can you tell me what the protein & fat levels are for the RC you feed?

Maybe because I have tried most of the "better quality" brands before & have found that the Optimum is actually better for my dogs than the others? Guess that means I "downgraded" to get a better result :rolleyes: . And sorry if you get offended, but it is the "same old same old", if only every dog in the world could be fed according to a specific pointscore table published on a website what a wonderful world it would be. Unfortunately, they can't, like I & plenty of others have said so many times before, feed your dog what they do best on, not what everyone else thinks they should be fed on . Blossom, don't be sorry, you are only trying to find out information, try him on other foods & if you get a better result then stick to it, but don't let someone else bully you into changing brands because they say they know what's best for your dog . But that's exactly my point, MrsD!!! We're saying the same thing, you just don't like the way I'm saying it and you think I'm a bully!! (by the way, that's the first time in my life I have been called a bully! ) It's all trial and error, and research, BUT it does help to know what the ingredients are and what the differences are between the foods and the quality of the foods... I don't know what is best for any dog other than my own. What I do know is what brands use better ingredients than others and what I do not want to feed my dog... We tried Gomez on Natural Balance, a food I consider to be superior to Eagle Pack Holistic (better ingredients, no beet pulp, etc..) BUT Gomez had pasty poos on it, so back we went to EPH... If you're happy with what you feed, and your dogs do well on it, then you're done, plain and simple. But when someone comes in and asks questions about dog food, I think it's only fair they get all the information they can, the good and the bad, and some of the means available to decide what you want to feed the dog, and that includes things like the "rating" system on the Dog Food Project... that is just a tool, a guideline, not a bible on how to feed your dog... Unless you don't agree with having as much info as possible? Info is fine, but what it comes down to is how the dog does on the food - I've tried lots of different brands, I don't care if it has corn in it (which seems to be most peoples pet gripe), if my dogs do better on it than other brands then that is what Im going to feed. You've made your choice based on what you think your dog should eat, taken the only 2 or 3 brands that fit your criteria & have chosen the best one for your dog out of those. To me that isnt the same thing, but hey, who am I to argue .

No dogs allowed inside cabins at Mylestom, but we camp so it doesnt make a difference to us.