Arya

I would LOVE to hear more about this too. My dog works like a slave for a ball and is getting better and better at tug and works well for food also. She is a GSD. Interesting to read about other people's breeds and dogs.

Great topic! Poodlefan, I like your ideas about a written score sheet. At a recent IPO trial I went to watch, I thought they had some ideas that would work well in ANKC obedience. At the end of the events, the judge called the winners up and spoke about their performances on a microphone - good and bad points. It was really good to listen to, stuff about teamwork in their obedience and the character work too, and even how the handlers conducted themselves towards the judge. Also, in IPO obedience, they seemed to have two dogs on the field at a time, one a good distance from the other. One was doing the stays while the other was doing obedience work, going through group of people, fetching dumbells, running in the 'voraus' etc. It was an interesting day. I liked the ideas with the stays. I think everyone would agree it is SOOO stressful for our dogs to be sat up next to each other in a line of (generally) unknown dogs and then have their handlers walk away from them. Then, if they so much as lift their bum that's the end of it, no matter how good the dog performs in every other aspect of the trial. So my vote would be to change the way we do the stays to something that is more canine-friendly. Could avoid some of the occasional awful fights too.

Huge congratulations to you and Ellie, Rachelle. A terriffic story

Good thread! Good to read other people's ideas and see what other people do. I tried to use positive only for months. I must say it didn't work for me with the dog I have now. Often, as soon as I turned my back to walk away the dog was up and off. Or she'd run right past me. If she had a middle finger she would have been flipping me the bird on the way past LOL! (I can laugh about it now...) In the end, against everything I'd been taught, I set her up to fail on a long line. I took her to an area of high distraction. i was very careful as the longer the line the greater the force on the dog's neck. I wasn't out to be cruel. Then we practiced... For every instant, good 'come' she did she got heaps of praise and rewards. For every glance away before she came (this was a regular thing - check out if there's something more interesting to run to before making the decision to come to handler), or attempt to run, she got a good hard, quick sharp correction (sorry to those who don't like this!). Very black and white. All xmases came at once or all hell broke loose. Her choice. Guess what she chose. After two short five minute sessions, months of struggle were over. I simply showed her the consequences of her actions, good and bad, very plain. About a month later we had another single run away. Back on the long line for two minutes. It hasn't happened again. Now I have a dog who loves the recall. She rockets in like a bullet, ears up, mouth open. Knows a big reward is coming. Purely positive now because she doesn't do the wrong thing. Under heavy distraction she is just as reliable, with or without a food reward. Good and bad, consequences of actions. I think each individual dog is different though and a correction like this would have sent my last dog into a nervous breakdown.

I was there on Sunday too. Last forecast I heard was it was going to be 32 LOL!!! Then someone told me after I got there they'd changed it to 37 but no surprises as it was so hot already by 8.30. When I left the grounds, the thermometer was showing 40.6 in the shade!!! I would have gone in when it first started but it was way too hot and my dog, who is usually an enthusiastic worker, didn't want a bar of it and I didn't blame her. If they'd started up again I would have withdrawn anyway. The dogs are the important things there, not the passes. I felt very sorry for Croydon club. They'd gone to so much trouble and the weather defeated them. But I think it was more than fair to cancel and really, no dog should be out working in heat like that. Not even walking around or standing in the sun. Imagine the stays out there in that heat!

Working setters makes a good point. One dog could be crushed by a disciplinary response while another could just shrug it off, depending on the dog. I'd head to a behaviourist about the aggression problem though, even if you don't perceive it as a problem now. Walking away doesn't always work. Working hard, I'd use a prong collar on my bitch I have now (stand by for the criticism!!!) but my last dog would have fallen in a heap if I'd even raised my voice too loud. A good behaviourist/trainer was the answer for me

She really does like playing with the other dogs, but it is not possible for me to stop her from playing at all (I have quite a few dogs here and nowhere to segregate her completely). I can try what the instructor suggested though and keep her apart from them for a while before having a game with her. Oh, sorry, I see, didn't read properly and realise you have lots of other dogs with her. This would make things harder! Do you walk her on her own lots, or, say, train her at the park on her own without your other dogs? I can imagine it would be hard to do this and still have time for your other dogs though. I only have to train one dog so I was thinking from that perspective.

Okay, here's another thought - uneducated as it may be! How about stopping your dog from playing with other dogs for a while, until you solve your problem? It sounds like she needs to learn you are MORE fun than any other dog or anything else in the world. needs to bond more tightly with you in that respect.

Daisy, I'm only a newbie so I'm not sure how useful my advice would be, but my dog has high food drive and will work well for food, but works SUPER when in prey drive. I mean SUPER!!! However, in spite of always playing well with a ball/tug toy and always being full-on active, it took me some time to hone these skills to the point where I could work my dog using balls/tug toy instead of food only. I gradually swapped. I also made myself the centre of attention by having two balls AND a tug toy and lots of recall games with a little training sprinkled in amongst the games. Recall games could begin with chasing the ball/toy and then calling her back to go for the second one. For me, teaching my dog that I was the centre of all things fun/ hyped/ exciting was the first step. Try tying a ball on a string and running like heck away from your dog in the back yard. Be really energetic! Mix it with food! Hope these comments helped. It seems to me that it is real art to train in play or prey drive, much harder than food but worth it in the end. Hope these comments are useful.

Hi, as another new person to this forum, I think Rom's point was very well made and people shouldn't be so quick to judge. I've used both a head collar and a prong collar and used correctly and wisely, after some instruction from a very experienced trainer, the prong collar was and is a godsend.