dogdude

Plenty of shade around the fringe of the ground from memory.

My experience is always separate same sex Bull breeds, and feed them seperately regardless of what sex they are. I run my Staffy dog and Bitch together, but they still have minor tiffs every now and again. Generally my dog is happy to let my bitch get her way. Bull breed v Bull breed fights are extremely hard to break up, particulary when your on your own. Things that you would expect to break up normal dog fights generally will not even be noticed when two bull breeds have a hold of each other. Not nice at all.

Hi K9 Would you go as far to say that the methods used in most obedience clubs would be detremental to those used in TOT? I would have thought that they were completely opposing methods. (harnessing drive v quelling it in most cases)

I will be entering Novice, with Brydee. Hope its not too hot! I guess you are T.S Leopuppy? Margaret is my bogie judge. Oscar has failed twice under her. Lovely lady though, just bad luck for us!!

So,.......If you went down to the pokies every day, and were lucky enough to "hit the jackpot",........It wouldn't be a jackpot??

Yes Ernie, like in TOT. What do you class TOT style rewarding?

I have always used a whole jackpot food reward for Oscar, for previously learned exercises. I always completely end the exercise after jackpotting, and only use it for motivation/drive.

Same here Staranais, she works for a tuggie. I also put alot of work into a fast return, which I guess could be taking too much focus off the pickup. Probably every third or fourth retrieve, I will release her to run past and behind me to the drive item, as soon as she picks the dumbell up and turns.

My Girl can be a bit the same, and I have pondered what I could do. I keep coming to the conclusion that I need to lower the drive a bit, but I am reluctant to do so. Most times she will pick it up cleanly, so I am happy to work with the numbers. I guess that you could teach her to run past it by setting up some kind of barrier, which you could fade to get her to do a u turn, but if drive was still high, there would be a good chance that she still may dive bomb it. These kind of problems seem to crop up in drive training, (in my limited drive training experience). Maybe K9 may be able to help?

Two nice passes in the 190s Leopuppy. Must be very happy. One to go for title,...........Southern or FOO?

Oh.........Then why are they changing the judges around? Just read Vic dog which does state that its one trial with two check ins. Thanks Melody.

Is there one tomorrow? What time does it start this season. My car is playing up a bit atm, overheating and stuff, so I will have to beg wife to use her car, and she doesnt like the dogs in it lol.

16th I think. Its on a Tuesday (twilight, 4.30 and 7pm)

At least its probably a nice problem to have (if you have to have one), should be easy enough to fix. (Is she sign tracking for food? Or eye contact?) I think thats often the difference at trials on hot days (high drive dogs v lower drive dogs). On colder days, I would say my boy almost has just as much drive on cold days as my girl, but the differences are stark on warmer days.

Hi Yacket's Mum Now that you know what to expect, the best thing you can do for yourself is to team up with an experienced and successful trialler, and learn how they break down all of the different exercises in practice. One thing that all of the really successful triallers have in common, is that they practice the basic foundations for all of the exercises, even on things previously well learnt. They also continually work on improving motivation all the time. When you have motivation and focus at their peaks, the rest will jump into place really fast, and an experienced person will be able to show you how to achieve that. My advice would be to approach the winner of the next local trial and buy them a beer!! A bit of ego stroking, and they will start spilling beans all over the place!!

Hi Kathg I believe your sweepstakes are for entry level obedience? FOO is runthroughs for all levels. Set up to give the dogs real trialling conditions for proofing. You can pretty much train your dog while doing a mock trial at FOO, including rewarding in the ring etc. There are just as many UD dogs there as there are CCD level dogs.

I feel Brydee is ready to trial, so will enter FOO trial.(as long as she stays off heat) Anyone else going? We have had a huge break from trialling, looking forward to being back, all be it at the end of the season.

If its advanced obedience that you want to eventually aim for, and your dog is ball/toy motivated, then I recommend Ivan Balabanov dvds, (Clear Communication) and (The Game). Not cheap, but well worth the money. (not really suitable for toy breeds though). If you put too much time into doggy play, that will become their excitement centre. You need to be in control of that, inorder to have have a reliable recall.

I rarely have the problem, as most people steer well clear of an off lead bull breed, particulary when we are working, and the dog starts to engage with the prey item. I think they may think that I am attack training or something. Last week I did have a couple sit and watch (had a couple of amstaffs or pitbulls on lead), but its usually only fellow staffy owners who occasionally approach us.

Opening of the mouth by hand is not part of any forced retreive that I have heard of? I can understand your dog shutting down.

Try placing a very low bar jump in the middle of the broad jump boards, to teach your dog to jump with a bit of height, as well as length. This will avoid ideas of stepping on the boards. Oscar learning broad jump

Go Kinta!! Great score Leopuppy! There is nothing quite like a High In Trial!

Huge congrats Seita!!!

This is one I made. My advice though, is to forget a broad jump, as its a bit of a waste of exercise anyway. The BJ doesn't tie in with any future UD exercises, but the change of position does. If you make a bar jump, you can simply hang white linen over it to transform it into a very cheap solid jump. For the amount time I use my solid jump, it wasnt worth the $150 it cost me to make it.

It sounds to me like your dog has a simple lack of motivation. IMO it should not come from the dumbell itself. I would not give up until I had tried all methods, including forced retreive. I have used the method on all of my non retrieving dogs, and all were reliably retreiving within 2 weeks. There is a good "how to" on the subject in Diane Baumans book "Beyond Basic Dog Training", although I advise you learn the method from someone experienced first hand. Alternatively you could raise your dogs motivation and use the Shirley Chong clicker method.