ausdogsx6

I rescued a kelpie from the Albury area also. She is just like your little brown and tan one. The bloke that had her reckoned that she was too small to work sheep. Didnt make any sense to me but I am really pleased to be Chelsea's mother. I wonder if they have come from the same place. Chelsea is probably about 8 months old now and a real joy to have in our pack. If that bloke only new what he has lost.

sorry, my mistake

BODC is on Saturday so I think its the 3rd but yes see u there

Hey shoemonster, it must be the name, Ive got 6 dogs and my Molley is the naughtiest by far as well! by the way, I am from Berwick ODC. Great club! Here is Molley (b/collie). She has just opened all the chrissy presents from under the tree, and she has got no intention of shareing.

Hey, thanks bullykat, Our settlement date for our Snake Valley property is 9th March. I am certainly very interested in joining the Ballarat club. My oldest dog is almost 2 yo. He (Zac) is a kelpie and more than ready to start to learn agility. we have had a couple of goes at Berwick club but mostly concentrated on obedience until now. I did start him on flyball at about 14 months old but it made him really crazy so I decided to wait until he was a little bit older. I would like to give him another go now. I have 5 other dogs but 4 are only 7 months old and the other one (Canda) has HD so she cant jump. I hope that Ballarat has their classes at different times as it was very hard to train them all at Berwick as all classes were on at the same time apart from the beginners. also I helped out with instructing and that meant I couldnt train my dogs. I joined up with alpha dog obedience to try to get my dogs out more. They are very good as long as you dont want to trial. They strongly believe that the dog should be behind the handler in a heel. Its about leadership and while it is good, especially if your dog is the dominant type, it is important to train those dogs to see handler as leader of the pack. Things like heeling behind and handler, walking through doors first all that kind of stuff works well. However if you want to do obedience trials you need to train your dog to heel further forward and looking up at handler and that is something that is not allowed at Alpha. I am going to enter Zac & Canda in the o/trial at Hastings and I see that Ballarat is having a trial later in March. Might as well enter there too. The trouble I have entering more than one dog is that they are all in CCD and I can usually only put one in the stays unless they have a lot of entries and have 2 groups of stays. I will have to try and find someone else to do the stays for me. I would love to have any info you can give me about times etc at Ballarat club. I cant wait to move and get training again and everyone seems to be very friendly in Ballarat. I have tried to post a photo of zac & Canda but not sure if I have done it right. regards, Lois

Hi, we start training again tomorrow. Alpha dog training only has 3 weeks break. I cant wait to get back to it again. I think I am having training withdrawals and my dogs must feel the same, they seem very bored. I also train at Berwick Obedience Dog Club but they are like most clubs and dont start until Feb. We are moving in March so I dont know if I will get back there except to say good bye. Can you tell me about your home made flyball box. My oldest dog is a Kelpie named Zac. He is almost 2yo. and I would like to start flyball with him. I thought it might be good to teach him a bit at home first. My other dogs are 7 months old so we are still doing obedience for the moment except for one who is 18 months old but unfortunately has HD. So, out of 6 dogs, Zac is the only one that I can do dog sports with for the moment. I would love to make a flyball box at home though if you care to give us some hints. I wouldnt worry about taking a break if I was you. a change is as good as a holiday and that goes for dogs as well as their humans. regards, Lois

Hi, I am interested in finding out a bit more about assistance dogs for disabled and I noticed the link on your posts. Our sweet Canda has recently passed the VCA test for therapy dog. Hopefully this year will be a chance to start visits. she has also passed a similar test for the school responsible dog ownership program. I still have to do a brief training program for that some time this year. Canda is a border collie x kelpie. My husband, Ian, is in a wheel chair and I would like to teach Canda a few tricks to be helpful to him. Do you know if there is a test that she can do to qualify her as his assistance dog. He would like to be able to take her with him when he goes out some times but unless she has some form of official qualification she is not welcome in many places.

Aww of course we do . I have been scanning the streets for suitable height dogs, found one the other day but the guy walking it was realy old. ausdogsx6 do you have any photos of your dogs?.. would love to see them . I have positively millions of photos but I am dumb when it comes to computers and cant work out how to put any on here. I dont know how to make them small enough!

Sorry 'LilBailey' we are new kids on the block but didnt mean to take over. I am sure we will get on great because I see that you are a flyball nut. Maybe you can teach us flyball stuff when we get up there, if you can handle my kelpie (he is a full on smarty pants when it comes to balls) lol. Look forward to meeting you all. from the whole pack at ausdogsx6

Thanks to all you guys from Ballarat that replied. We are so excited, its official now that we are about to become Snake Valley residents. We cant wait, it seems to be such a friendly area and the Ballarat Dog Club sounds perfect for us. We are comeing from the Berwick Obedience Dog Club which is a great club too. The property is in Mortchup road. Its a couple of acres which will be good. We have 2 cats, (Cash & Visa) 2 kelpies,(Zac & Chelsea) 2 border collies,(Sally & Molley) a red ACD (Chilli) and a kelpie x border collie (Canda), plus 2 horses (Hope & Bandit). All the dogs but one, will be happy with room to run. Unfortunately Canda has severe HD and we try to keep her away from the other dogs as much as possible as they tend to play rough, especially the kelpies. I am really keen to do some agility and flyball and I have always wanted to have a go at herding but there are not many clubs that do herding. It all sounds like a lot of fun and the dogs will really enjoy the dog sports there, especially Zac who is really full of fun! Our settlement date is the 9th March. Cant wait! Lois

Thanks, we are making offers on a place at Snake Valley, so maybe I will catch up with some of you when we move up that way. fingers & paws crossed we get the place!

Hi, I have 6 dogs, all working dog breeds. We have been training at an obedience club but now we are soon to move to a small town near Ballarat. I would really like to learn how to do agility, flyball and maybe frisby and maybe some day join in competition in dog sports. As my dogs are all such energetic dogs, kelpies, Border collies and ACD, they are also very smart and would be great for any dog sport. Can anyone tell me where to start because while we have done obedience we have never tried any dog sports. Sounds like a heap of fun though.