Arya

I would rank Steve Austin as one of the very very few truly gifted animal trainers I have seen. He is absolutely brilliant man and to watch him work with dogs in particular is a privilege. Anyone getting the opportunity to learn from him or to attend a lecture, it is not to be missed. ;)

Okay, we need Erny or Kelpie-i here I think!!! Here is my two cents' worth. Take care at the dog park. I hate the expression 'don't worry he's friendly' or 'don't worry they are just playing'. Without seeing what is happening, you don't want your youngster to be put in a position where she believes that attack is the best method of defence, or dominance is the best method of defence. I'm not saying that's what's happening, I can't see. But my advice would be, BE CAREFUL. Keep your dog on a lead. Then choose carefully who she associates with. Pick older, calm dogs who will take no notice of her behaviour until it gets overbearing and then they won't put up with it and they'll give her a quick reprimand. You don't want her to learn overbearing tactics with other dogs if you can help it. I thought the comment clip her up and take her away from what she wants was excellent, very sound. But don't put her in situations where she can reinforce her undesirable behaviour. I wouldn't. My bitch can be just that, especially to other females... not uncommon. This was partly a learned behaviour and partly genetic. Try to avoid the learned bit. It takes a lot of work to undo it... I should know! LOL. Good luck!!! And don't blame yourself, you can only do your best which sounds like you are doing, by asking others and learning the best way to handle it

How about a Working Kelpie....it will do the exact opposite to what you want it to do because it thinks it knows better GSDs... they THINK TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If only my dog would stop thinking for a bit and start paying attention to ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GSD... BC... GSD... BC Really, they are all dogs in the end I love em all! Yes I agree some of the earlier stuff in MTs articles were useful and fine to people getting into training, particularly the footwork for about turns. It's just I completely disagree with the no-tug and BC only statements and I think that it was irresponsible to stick them in. However, if a dog has dominance issues I believe that a good trainer could probably help a person to learn to use these tools to help actually SOLVE them. So for a general article, I don't think he needed to put these comments in at all! Couldn't disagree with him more if I tried. Not to say everyone will feel the same of course!!! Interested to read all that this thread I started brought out. BTW, I love the DogsVic magazine. Nothing against the mag, just could have had better author or articles on training!

Hey Kaos, ever seen that movie Paws? JRTs are certainly not untrainable at all. I know the guy who trained that dog in Paws was an expert trainer but still. You are so right on the motivators. What have you been using? Food? Maybe you need a tug toy for each of them that only you use when training they don't get to keep. Special The reason I say this is that although I don't take part in it myself I see lots of JRTs and smaller terrier type dogs doing well at flyball working for a tug. They have high prey drive. But food, I would have thought food would be good one. Maybe you just need a new trainer/club to train at? Or perhaps you need private lesson or two to get you on the right track? Good luck! Don't give up!!!

I'm not from NZ but just wondering a couple of things... is the proposed legislation set to ban people from leaving their dogs alone in a car or is it to stop people cooking their dogs in hot weather? If it's an altogether ban that's awful. And another one I was wondering about if remote trainers are under scrutiny, are pinch collars banned in NZ? Just curious even though from Oz!

Okay, I know for sure you can go in Novice without having gone in CCD. This I have done without passes due to my dog's issues and then gone back into CCD. So to go straight into Novice is fine and if you don't get any passes you can go back. In CCD I say again, if you haven't submitted for your title, how do they know you have three passes? If you have paid for the trials in CCD an it is too late to change, if I was you I'd just go in CCD. What do others think? I wouldn't want to pull out if I was you. More trial practice.

Yarrowfell, how are they going to know you're not eligible if you haven't submitted your passes and been credited with your title? I can't swear to it but I think it's fine to keep going in CCD until you submit your passes. Obviously they would notice if you 'trophy hunted' in CCD and kept fronting up time after time, winning LOL. But I don't think this would happen in CCD. My guess, others may be able to confirm, is that if you have three passes but have already entered a comp in CCD for the next week or something you can keep on going in CCD. Then submit your three best passes I THINK. Someone else may be able to confirm. I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY

Actually, the person I would love to have comment on this but no doubt because he is in NSW he wouldn't have read the articles, is K9 of course!!! I just was worried when I read : 'Never have a game of tug of war. True, the dog will enjoy it, BUT this can incite the dog to pull the object, whatever it may be, away from you and run off with it. The dog has then become the boss and won't let you have the object.' That is an exact quote from the article. Now: incite the dog to pull the object away from you. So???? The dog has then become the boss. Really???? Funny, thought tug was good predatory behaviour, just waiting to be moulded by the clever trainer into something highly enjoyable for both dog and trainer. At times I have had this comment that it is bad to teach your dog to tug. I have been told it will make dogs 'vicious'. I have seen people turn and leave my area of the park when they see my shepherd standing right up at shoulder height tugging for all her might and pulling against me with her hose, in a state of rapture!!! If they only knew she can't even see them she is in such a good place, having such a great time. And when we stop, we stop. I feel very sad that parts of his article, such as number 2, perpetuate this sort of myth that it's bad to play games like that. And that's what it does, perpetuate incorrect myths and makes dog training less fun for dogs and trainers both who are misinformed. In saying that, each person has their own views on training and if that is his, well, it is kind of his loss imho. Other stuff he says like what Tapferhund pointed out about the meat is motivational. So why has he written what he has written in the article? Methinks they need some other writers for DogsVic mag.

Hey, what about GSDs? Why BCs more popular than GSDs in UK does anyone know? I LOVE wrap style of heeling. I reckon it's just personal preference. Crowding is not right, however they heel. It's harder to stop crowding with wrap but it can be done I love my GSDs but don't get me wrong, I reckon just about any dog can do really really well in Obedience. A friend has lovely heeler cross kelpie in Open at moment. He is going really well. Just picked up medal at GSD open show last weekend. And another friend fantastic MaltxShihtzus. There was a very good little heeling pug around recently too and now even a nice Shar-pei!

Poodlefan, I use a check chain BUT in the ring it's useless for me, you know what I would like to see? Dogs in Open with no collar on at all. It has to be removed and handed to the steward with the lead. I totally agree with your second para. TOTALLY. And your final sentence too. I know of someone who had great success with their dogs in the ring over the years. Hard dogs, great temperaments for Obedience, whatever. Then struck a dog with real nerve issues. The proof of this trainer's ability was to take this hard to train dog with issues and make an Ob and Tracking champion. An excellent achievement, hard won with challenges to find the right training methods for this dog, so different and difficult. Training method depends totally on the dog imho. Some hard-A#$%ed dogs need cxns, sorry that's what I think. But only in a smart way and not de-motivational. Most dogs just don't. And for some it's very destructive. The issue I had was with the articles in Vic Dog.

Hi Dogdude, hope to see you at FOO I most definitely am not a purely positive trainer. But I think in training, you have to motivate the dog as much as possible. And if you look at the article, one of the final lines says 'always reward with sincere praise, not food treats'. Really. Does this person think that 'sincere praise' will be enough for most dogs? Hardly. You'd have to be pretty charismatic to do that without introducing some sort of fairly good aversive in training to make the praise worth it imho. It's not 'purely positive' to use motivational training. It's just common sense. We all need motivators, even if it's a bit of a win in the ring now and again LOL.

Hi Arya, This struck a cord with me. How are you feeling when you enter the ring and get to the start peg? I asking b/c this is what used to happen for me: I would get nervous just before entering the ring and by the time we got to the start peg I was a nervous wreck. This got worse as Faxon's heeling got worse. What I realised was that when I entered the ring I became a different person as far as Faxon was concerned. I went from being relaxed and fun to being stressed and someone he need to calm down and stay away from - hence his heeling getting worse the more stressed I got. These days I attempt to convince myself that this obedience stuff is all a game and I don't need to get stressed about it. One way I have dealt with this is to steward in a different ring before we go in the ring. This way I am too busy to worry about what is going to happen in the ring. I leave Faxon in the car until we are just about to go into the ring - I get him out the dog before us and then do some warm up exercises and then we're in the ring. This seems to be working for us. But then he is an Afghan Hound and we are still doing CCD. HTH Bear. I think Faxonandbear that initially you are right and I may have caused this problem I have myself by being nervous and projecting that to the dog. Now... nope. Too many failed trials, I just go in there to see what I can get her to do LOL. I am not working well in the ring on heeling because it is such a mess with her but nerves, nope. But as I say, I'm sure I've caused this initially. It is one rational explanation for the behaviour when all other excercises okay. But also, it is her temperament. Very soft in some respects.

Yep, that's him Kelpie-i and boy, you are not kidding!!! I was thinking about it today and I reckon a good name for this type of training should be, instead of motivational training, SUBJUGATIONAL training. Let's squash the joy out of the dog and force it to do it. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad :cool:

I thought about writing a letter too but like you, they certainly wouldn't take any notice of me LOL. I wonder how the person who wrote these got this job though? As I said earlier, so many wonderful trainers could have done better imho.

Wow, JeffnCel, sounds fantastic! Mine is good but I can get it off her simply by offering food treat or second bit of hose, preferably. But she is now at the point where after a play she'll give it up anyway as the game begins immediately again. It is great, isn't it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JeffnCel, you need to let the dog WIN WIN WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is like playing one on one basketball with someone. How would you like it if you never got a shot at the goal? How sad. Hey, though, I have come across people who have said to me not to play tug with my dog because it will 'make her vicious' what a stupid joke that is! I use two rewards so we both win. Great for IPO people, great for ANKC people but best of all, a great fun thing for the dogs. :p

Yes, that is what really worries me. That some people WILL treat it like a bible and create all sorts of problems for their dogs and what's awful, is deprive their dogs and themselves of so much fun! That kind of training is so against the Gina O'Keefe training I have just been reading about it's like 'chalk and cheese' LOL. What I can't understand is why Dogs Vic didn't employ an UP TO DATE trainer to write a series of articles. Someone like Gina O'Keefe or Steve Austin or several others I can think of. Or run a series of articles containing tips from some of our best winning Obedience/Agility trainers in recent years. Wouldn't that have been good!

Wow, I'm truly jealous i wish I hadn't missed this!!! That two food game - I know she derived it from the two hose game, which I play with my dog. She has some GREAT ideas from what I've read of her work. I have one of her books Hope she comes back soon!

Hi just got me latest copy of Dogs Vic magazine and read the article on dog training. What do people think of these articles. I have found several things in them that made me cringe to be frank. Last month it was the comment that people in the UK have found they need a Border Collie to stand any chance of winning Obedience tests (what are all their other dogs stupid or something over there?LOL). This month, I was surprised to read the totally negative attitude towards motivational training, both with use of food rewards and also use of tug toys. It actually states 'never have a game of tug-o-war'!!! I hope nobody takes any notice

I think everyone in ANKC should go and watch a Schutzhund Trial at least once to see how it is conducted and what happens. Character work always a spectacular sight and excellent to watch the Obedience too ;)

Emmala, imho I would get far away from that clicker and use your voice. A voice marker is just as good and I think better in many instances. Why do you feel you must use a clicker when the dog finds it aversive? I would not use that sort of aversive in training when the dog is trying to learn. That is my advice. In saying this don't think I am anti-clicker. I use what works best for each animal. For me, I would not use a clicker for most of my dog's training at all as I prefer the bond of using my voice. I just work better that way. BUT... I have just used a clicker to solve a stays problem with my dog that has worked brilliantly!!! The clicker can be a great tool and I am not anti-its use at all. But if your dog doesn't like it then steer away from it, at least in the short term would be m y advice ;)

BC, don't laugh at you and Cooper??? NO WAY! You will do fab. Laugh at ME If I do go, you can bet that she on my avatar will end up being frogmarched out of the ring at some point :rolleyes:

Boy, do I agree with this Lablover. Give me crazy high drive dog any day. The madder the better cos then you have a super action dog LOL. I guess it just depends on what different people want but I reckon you can channel a high drive dog but much harder to bring a low drive dog up a bit.