Are You Serious Jo

You can enjoy showing and keep out of the bitching, and as said above, obedience is the same, as well as any other sport where there is some element of competition. Showing is fun and I really think you need to get your dog out there for people to take you seriously.

Find a mentor who will teach you what you need to know about dogs and do your waiting period. Breeders are just being cautious, you could be stringing them any old line to get a bitch, so show them you aren't by getting involved with a bit of showing as well as obedience. It can't hurt, it's fun and you'll prove your worth.

Is burn the witch too much?

I'm so sorry NM, RIP Kaisie

Learning theory is a pain and it is confusing dealing with the terms, it's not just you.

You said yourself that you don't bother with behaviours that you can't enforce, people can only go by the posts you make. You said you can't catch your dog when he doesn't want you to, that actually equates to him running rings around you. By you only working on behaviours that you know they do consistently you have allowed the dogs to train you. So now you are saying that you do enforce behaviour? Your posts give me a comprehension headache and I think I should give up trying to understand them, they are full of contradictions even within posts!

I don't know what you're asking me. That's a whole new problem, isn't it? If "come inside" is the behaviour, and the dog can't come inside, then it's a different behaviour you're asking for, right? Are you asking me what I'd do if I recalled my dog and he ran away and I couldn't catch him? What does anyone do? Try anyway? Run in the opposite direction squealing and hope the dog is fooled into coming after you? Whatever the case, obviously there's a big problem that needs more training. The anecdote was to demonstrate why I stopped enforcing behaviours. I am mystified why everyone thinks it's why I obviously need to enforce behaviours. I'm not sure how having fixed the problem without enforcing the behaviour makes my dogs disobedient. I'm not even sure what I apparently claimed or labelled anymore. So, yeah, I probably sound contradictory. I honestly do not know what we're talking about anymore. I try to respond to general ideas, but there are always exceptions and when people keep asking about the exceptions we get into these silly discussions about what I do maybe 2% of the time and people think I do it much more often than that seeing as I'm talking about it so much. What haven't I achieved with my own dogs? Reliability? Is 98% reliability not reliability? What have I worked around or not bothered doing? The inability to enforce a behaviour? Why does it matter if the result is still reliability? I kind of resent that. I worked really hard to get that reliability and I continue to work hard to maintain it and improve upon it. You don't have to believe me, but I'd rather you didn't claim that I haven't done it. You don't have 98% reliability though, you have kidded yourself into thinking your dogs are well trained because you only do things that you know they'll do reliably. I don't know why you can't understand what people are telling you? You said yourself that your dog runs away and you can't catch him, then you try and tell us he has 98% reliability, no he doesn't. You get around him not wanting to be caught by teaching him to come in the house, that isn't a recall because you said you can't catch him in the house when you want to. So you have a crap recall with that dog, not 98% reliability. Nobody cares if you can't recall your dog, not our problem, but at least call a spade a spade, you just ignore behaviours that are too hard to work on and stick to tricks that are easy. best not to give advice on training when you can't do it yourself.

Why should you feel ashamed? Even if you did sit back and say I can't train my Transylvanian Ghost Hunting Dog to stay because he has been bred to run around and look for ghosts and it's taking forever and I gave up that is your business and nothing to be ashamed about. But if you said those dogs can not be trained to stay because of their breed then that does a disservice to the breed. Some breeds are going to be a pain with some behaviours but it can be taught depending on how much time is put in. My clingy coolie has selective deafness on recall at times and it's her only fault, but I don't have the energy to fix that, so I just don't put her in the situation where it is a problem. I think there is a balance between working on the behaviour and making allowances for breed, I just don't think it's a good enough to say I never do this because my dog is x breed.

For me it's not about realising different breeds have different training considerations it's the "I won't bother trying because my dog is x breed" excuse that I don't like.

Make sure my jackpot is roast chicken pleasy Going back to dealing with different breeds, you do have to factor in breed characteristics when training but you shouldn't use breed as an excuse for not getting results.

In your situation I would definitely get some maremmas, that is a lot of stock to keep losing. I only know the bare bones about them, but they live with the sheep full time so you'd leave them with the mob between lambing. I'm sure the maremma people will fill you in, but I'd start looking right now.

Doesn't sound like a fox to me either, more like a hungry dog rather than a thrill seeker or you'd have lost more.

I've got it, I'll only ever ask my dog to do something that I know she'll do every time and then her disobedience with recall won't exist and then she'll be 100% obedient

You know, sometimes things really are simple, obedience means doing as you are told, that is all. If your dog doesn't do what you tell it to it is disobedient. I have one dog that is disobedient on some things, that makes her a disobedient dog. It doesn't worry me too much so I haven't bothered to fix it, but she is still disobedient. If you make excuses for your dogs based on their breeds you'll never progress, treat them like dogs and fix each behaviour if it is a problem.

bull s**t. no one has ever told me that and if they have then I haven't read that post? And it isn't yelling, it is emphasising. but i am sooooooo sorry. I will try to italicise everything now just to make you happy. and as said earlier on by someone 'who made you the forum police'. God. Im just trying to get my point across. and I have no idea what that 'not everything' comment was for??? Oh, and I think majority of the time, a lot of people are rude on here. A LOT of the time. you don't see me getting up them. If you want people to take you seriously then listen to the advice because it is considered yelling to use caps. I did actually see you get up someone last week, you called someone a name that I won't repeat. I hope you have taken on board though the comments on dog parks and how risky things can be, especially since your own dog was attacked. Personally if someone told me that their dog attacks others I would have left the park immediately with my dogs on lead, I'm am glad your dog wasn't hurt though. You can learn a lot here but you need to calm down a bit and read what people are saying instead of taking it as an attack.

I have to agree, in a discussion on training that is intended to educate a novice it's important to get things right. Doing tricks is not the same as being obedient, and your quote above actually does outline a dog that is not obedient. If you don't care about obedience and enforcement then it doesn't matter, but you can't claim your methods have lead to obedient dogs because a lot of your posts tell stories that show your dogs aren't obedient. Obedience actually mean comply with the human's command at all times, not just when they choose to. leela has a dog that isn't compliant and she needs follow instructions on how to enforce her commands.

People forget that the number of numpty dog owners outnumber the knowledgeable ones, so it is not a matter of if you dog gets attacked at a dog park, but when. I won't use them anymore as I've seen too much and it's not worth the risk to my dogs.

I'm starting to be in two minds about how much sympathy to give to people who get ripped off through stupidity. Especially those who do it based on greed, if something is too good to be true it is too good to be true.

Don't worry, most people here are capable of weeding out the facts from the fiction so no harm done.

I don't know if she is, but I rank it lower than a full on PETA supporter. I know Kate Cebrano is one and I die a little inside every time I listen to her songs.

Well I didn't know that Ellen was so closed minded, the only thing worse was if I found out she was a Scientologist I'll attempt a Vulcan mind meld but not sure it will work if there is only a few brain cells firing

When I'm more financial I'm going to hunt one of those down or print it myself

did you post that back at their caps lovin arse, because that would be even funnier Even more off topic, I wonder how Moselle is going these days :D

How long you got because I think our Vulcan like logic processes have scared them away

Good luck, I've never been able to get an answer about why they think it is cruel in this thread or others.