Reddii

I'm not into it myself, but I know that Molasses Lass does it with her borders. Maybe mail her.

Delee I put it down to an inability to accompany her aggression with physical body language (if that makes sense?). This makes perfect sense - it's a bit of a vicious circle - either dog makes eye contact, other dog starts to react, first dog reacts etc etc. By stopping the initial contact/body language you avoid the problem all together. I should have added that my goal is to have a loose lead and relaxed approach, but for now I'm happy to have him behaving and focussed on me. My next step - started this morning after yesterday's success is to let him have a little more lead and keep his focus on me, ultimately his focus will be on me and I won't have to worry about the lead at all. We've come a long way towards this - the starting point was having to make him sit at a considerable distance from the 'threat' and wait it out, now we can walk past problems without too much if any hassle. This morning he actually totally ignored a couple of barking dogs. LAB LOVER I should imagine by your post, you have offered diversions, when passing the dogs by the fence, which I should expect your dogs know are contained. Yes, they probably do know the other dogs are contained, but his response is exactly the same whether the dogs are behind a fence barking madly or walking on a lead giving him the eye so the result is a success regardless. My dogs are always food motivated - they are lean and know that they don't ever get food for free. They weave or perform contact behaviour before they get fed morning and night and they don't get treats without some sort of behaviour that is marked either with a click or once the behaviour is reasonably solid a 'yes'. LEEMA Some people have trained their dog that a tight leash means good things coming... Which may you have inadvertently done. Yes, I am one of those people. Trick is to now wean him off the tight lead in much the same way as weaning a dog off needing handler cues in some parts of an agility course so they can work at distance.

My 2 y.o. BC has a few mostly fear related issues with other dogs when we are out walking. At training and in the ring he is fine on lead or off lead and feels safe and comfortable. When we are out walking he is quite tense and on guard when approaching most dogs. If the other dog reacts he also reacts, especially if I pull him away from the other dog (which I try not to do.). I've been working really hard to find a fool proof way to manage this and have worked out that if I give him any lead loose or otherwise he will soon be bouncing off the end of it growling. But.......if I bring him in close on a tight lead he is much calmer, almost if proximity makes him feel safe. To this I have added a 'look' command and click/treat when he does it. This morning we walked past two of his most hated enemies (usually we walk on the other side of the road, but this morning I upped the ante) who rush from behind a fence going nuts. Using this method not only did he not react, but he was actually very calm and ignorning the other dogs and focussing totally on me before we had walked the length of the property. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing with their dog - it almost seems anti text book, but we have come on in leaps and bounds so it seems to work for us. Cheers. Tony

Or you can compete with an association that is not associated with the ANKC like ADAA in Qld and NSW for agility. Obedience might be a different thing though. If your dog is not a recognised breed most (if not all) states will now let you register them on an associate register that will allow you to compete in ANKC events apart from the obvious showing and comformation ones.

I don't check out the 'lineage' of all the dogs I see as 'clients' so I can't speak from a statistical pov. But you could be right, LL. I wonder though, given the busy life styles people lead these days and the restrictions imposed (necessarily) on dogs having to be locked in yards and in many cases restrained on leads, what it would be like for them if they possessed the high drive of the working lines .... drive that would not be regularly satisfied ???? I do see more than enough dogs though who are weak on nerve and without the right upbringing perhaps lead a problematic life at the other end of the scale to a dog with unsatisfied higher drive. My preference is for working-line bred dogs and I like to see working lines out and about, but I like to see them as happy, well-balanced and satisfied dogs. I love that many people are engaging in sporting activities that match the drive for which their dog has been bred for. I wish it could be more but I do think dog sports are increasing in membership. Or could that perhaps be my impression because of the circles I mix in? It would be very sad indeed if the working-line angle was to become completely lost. This is an interesting discussion - working vs show lines dogs. I have 2 BC's - one definite show lines dog (all dogs in his pedigree are show champions or grand champions) and one of unknown heritage but who looks like a working lines dog and has MASSIVE drive and will to work and instinctively knew what to do with sheep, but is mostly calm about it, not the crazy exciteable nature that some have. (She's one of the ones you have to keep an eye one or they will work themselves into the ground, literally.) Xena who is just over 2 (my first dog and I was ignorant of any training method so went with te first I came across) was originally trained very harshly with a check chain ('If you correct your dog twice and it repeats the behaviour you have not corrected hard enough' was the ethos of the 'trainer'.) and responded quite well - she won't dare move off a stay because she is afraid of the punishment that is to come, but has not had her spirit broken and accepts the correction as part of life. That said she responds even better to clicker training and more (not totally) positive methods. I find the clicker is better for marking the correct behaviour, not becuase I can time it better, but because it forces me to very definitely mark the behaviour, rather than maybe mark the behaviour with 'yes' or maybe not. Once the behaviour is sound we then move on to 'yes' and may return to the clicker if we need to sharpen it up. At the moment we are 'fixing' her dodgy contact work in agility - again first time dog rushed through. CK (just under 2), my second dog is the show lines boy and is very soft in nature and while in comparison to many dogs is quite high drive and wants to work once switched on it has to be fun for him or he will lose interest immediately. Any correction or even a lack of reward will shut him down. eg: WiIf my girl gets an obstacle wrong you pull her out and send her again 10 times if you need to (would never do it 10 times, but I have experimented with pulling her out of weavers time and time again just for fun) and all that happens is she tells you off for slowing down on the course, but she keeps trying. If you stop CK twice he gets all sad about getting it wrong and goes away to sniff the ground. There is very limited need for any aversive training with him and the clicker is just brilliant to the point where he starts getting excited when I bring it out. My conclusion - I love my boy and he is a great pet and very easy to live with, but my girl is definitely my favourite, but a PITA to live with if you can't train her enough EVERY day. It takes CK about 4 days without training to begin to get a bit ratty and even then it's bearable. They are definitely not for everyone, in fact probably not even most people, but give me a relaxed, high drive working dog any day.

I have to brag about both my puppies running PB's at our flyball comp on the weekend. Xena ran 4.9, breaking 5 seconds for the first time! and was still running 5.0 seconds after 12 races with at least 3 heats in every one, but more often 4 or 5. To top that off she ran for 4 different handlers on the day - (OH usually runs her when I am running CK, but she was on the timing table for most of the day - I've already had 2 offers for her. LOL!!) At only just over 2 y.o. She's such a good girl and so fit - at the end of the night she was one of a very few dogs still wanting to do more! CK ran a few 4.8 second runs to just edge out his previous best PB. He went well all day as well, running 4.8 seconds in the second last race of the day. He did have a bit of a brain explosion though - for some reason he decided to start running around the last hurdle on the way back. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he isn't 2 yet, we have some pretty high expectations of him. At least we have 6 weeks or so to fix him up and get his confidence back before our next comp. At one point he did 10 heats in one race - start dog and idiot handler (me) must have broken the start by .00x 4 or 5 times! Still at the end of it he was running 5.0 over the full 14 inches! All in all a great weekend and the team won div 1, albeit against a slightly weaker field than usual. Then again we did lose one of our quickest dogs on Friday and had to run 5 dogs in 12 races so it probably all worked out. Have a good week everyone.

Very true - comes back to me being lazy. when we run I use two leads, but otherwise it's just easier. MUST FIX.....MUST FIX......

I feel your pain, I have 2 BC's who on their own are just about perfect on lead. Together they are a complete PITA. They just constantly compete and I have been too lazy to fix the problem - aside from the fact that I can physically manage them if I need to. It's on my list of things to do and we will be using the 'no walk properly no walk' method and then rewarding correct behaviour. With them it doesn't take long to see an improvement, it's just a matter of staying consistent - something I have failed miserably at. (I like to get out of our street!) I really need to get on top of this because we will have another dog at some point in the next few years and I really don't like the thought of trying to walk 3 super fit, reasonably strong, somewhat out of control dogs on lead all at once. Pick a strategy and make sure you stick with it. I don't want to start an argument - I'm not totally against well used check chains, but one thing I did find is that with the two of them on a split lead was that correction collars weren't really workable as you'd end up correcting both dogs or the dogs would correct each other - either way they would be corrected for the wrong (correct) behaviour. I've found head halters (love them or hate them) are a gentler alternative with less accidental correction. cheers. Tony

Well done TN and Jedi. Thanks for the comment on the avatar. That's my little girl Xena. She's a tiny BC with HEAPS of drive. She'll catch a disc like that all day and land squarely on all 4's. (Not sure if she caught the one in the pic, but it was such a cool shot I had to get it from the photographer - Rod Scott).

Great work. It's so frustrating isn't it - at the moment CK isn't getting fed until he does 6 weavers 4 times. We've gone from 'you want me to do what?' to racing over and doing the entry and maybe one on his own. Very jealous of you and Brock!

Rowan has been looking after my dogs for about 18 months now - he is brilliant and combines Vet practice with chiropractics. I highly recommend him. (My boy broke his elbow at 4 months so it has been a bit more than just the 'usual' check up. A woman here at work has known him for about 15 years and initially recommended him to me.) A couple of my flyball friends use Robert and speak very highly of him as well. Cheers. Tony

I use 2 vets - one is very local and we use them for the cats and anything regular and run of the mill for the dogs (vaccinations, recent bout of KC etc etc.). The other is about 3/4 of an our away and is our chiro as well as anything more serious. Both know the arrangement and are fine with it. Vet no 2 does Titre testing for about $60 (plus consultation) for all 3 diseases - Parvo, distemper and Hepatitis, but has actually recommended against it for our dogs in favour of vaccinations - knowing he doesn't and won't vaccinate them. His reasoning is that he's not 100% confident in the test and feels for dogs that are always in the company of other dogs (trial/show dogs) then vaccination is safer. This is a turn around from 12 months ago when he was not an advocate of vaccinations (according to him, I hadn't had the discussion with him at that time.) This guy is very progressive and does a LOT of holistic work as well as a lot of study/professional development in all areas of veterinary practice. Just another perspective. Cheers. Tony

Hi all, My little girl, Xena, had a very lucky moment this week. We were on hols on the north coast of nsw and she picked up a paralysis tick. (Wouldn't you know it - 13 days before I put her back on proban for the summer!) I felt something strange under her chin and rolled her over to have a look, then raced her straight off to the vet when it was a tick that I didn't recognise. They just pulled it off and said that it hadn't been there that long and there would be no problems. I kept her quiet that day and then she was right as rain the following morning. Question is - we were lucky, but how long do they 'have' before they start to show bad symptoms after getting a tick? Any experiences? Cheers. Tony

Hey Maria, i was having the same trouble with Mr CK and have been using a tunnel to get him into the right frame of mind for that. If you like we can catch up at training on Sunday night and I'll show you what we've been doing. It seems to be working over the jumps. cheers. tony

Hi Clare, Good on your for taking on your new pup. I have two thoughts that may or may not be of use to you. 1. I wouldn't worry too much if you are comfortable feeding Pedigree, there are a lot worse things to be feeding your dog. Sure, it's not the best thing in the world in terms of overal nutrition, but far from the worst (you are talking dry food?). Why not try mixing in some other goodies - my guys get their dry food morning or night and then get a bone or raw mince or chicken frame or sardines at the other end of the day. 2. If you only want to feed dry and want to feed a premium food then rest assured your pup won't starve to death. Leave the food out for 10 minutes and if pup doesn't eat it take it away. It will eat before too long. Hope that helps. Tony

Well done guys! Xena completed her AAD title on Saturday night with a clear run in the starters agility and then followed it up with a blistering run in the starters jumping for her last starters event. :D (We got eliminated in Elementary for a wrong course ;) my bad.) She also ran really well in her intermediate course with just two faults - one hers and one mine, then went SOOOO close to getting her gamble, but missed the weave pole entry - given we haven't done weavers at distance I'm not too sad about that. Then yesterday we ran flyball all day and neither of the puppies made a mistake in 12 races between them. We played with CK's starting point and took him back to 53' instead of 36' or 37' and picked up .5 of a second because he is now going incredibly quickly when he hits the start line instead of not quite being up to speed. At the end of the day when most dogs are slowing down CK went within a whisker of his PB over 9 inch hurdles in one race and would have run a 4.4 second pass over 14" hurdles if I hadn't gone to sleep and botched his start by almost a full second - d'oh!! (he's never run under 5 seconds over the high hurdles before!) This morning I have two very tired puppies who still walked like crazy dogs, but really didn't want to be kicked out of the house when we went to work - they wre just too comfortable on their beds. LOL

My dogs have both had it in the last month. Only mild and only lasted a few days each, then a few more days of lethargy. We had both of them on anti-biotics as a precaution against secondary infection. I don't mind doing it to myself for respiratory infection so treated the puppies the same way. Personal preference. Once they were off the AB's I put them on a course of pro-biotics to settle down their tummies.

:D Well said.

I don't think the OP is suggesting she leaves her boy outside, rather when she gets home he gets a bit over excited unless he can see her. I don't have a problem with dogs being outside as it isn't always practical to have them in the house every single minute you are there. So long as you have established youself as leader they should be able to accept your decision and await your return patiently.

For me I wouldn't bother. I have a girl who sounds similar to your boy, she gets SOOOOOOOOOO excited when I get home it would be pathetic if it wasn't such an ego boost to think another animal is that excited to see me!! :D As long as she is not barking and will sit at the door before I open it that is enough. I'd rather spend my time training/worrying about other things than controlling her excitement at my home coming. As long as she is quiet while I am out and the whining/whimpering behaviour doesn't begin to escalate it doesn't really bother me.

What a week!!! After 3 weeks in quarantine there are so many things to brag about like a gloating Daddy....... Saturday - Flyball, the team got beaten, but all the dogs ran perfectly all day, just not fast enough. CK ran a PB of 4.8 secs, Xena ran a PB of 5.0 secs and our worst start (if you discount the 1.1 seconds when I went to sleep) was .109 seconds with a best of .001 secs!! woo hoo. The best bit though was that we ran the two dogs in the team together for the first time. OH did brilliantly with Xena and Xena did brilliantly with OH - good news! Sunday - Frisbee competition - Xena won and got her first leg towards her FDE title with 15.5 points in her second round. CK came third with his usual workman like performance. Last night - CK ran REALLY well (for him) at agility completing a course with no faults (including the weavers) and sticking every one of his contacts when we were practising. The best bit though was when another dog ran over to me while he was on a start line stay and he didn't move a muscle, except for that BC neck stretch when they really want to move. This is pretty good for an overly friendly/somewhat reactive puppy!! Let's just hope he can do it again on the weekend in his second trial!

I haven't read any one else's response just yet, but for what it's worth if one of my dogs really hates something or even just doesn't enjoy it then I'll stick with it for a while and try to find the 'key' and if that fails then I'll just give it a miss. My girl was pretty good at obedience, but just didn't enjoy it - she was purely working to please me, not because she wanted to. We don't do it any more and do agility, frisbee and flyball instead. On the flip side my boy isn't all that good at agility, but loves it when we do a free flowing course/run and is getting better all the time so we stick with it. To me it's about what your dog enjoys and whether you can live with them given how well trained they are, not about what you want to achieve.

I started a reply along these lines this morning, but didn't get there. Of the 3 injuries my dogs have had that have required vet assistance (because I'm paranoid and have them at the See you Sunday with MY puppies this time!

I suggest you hurry up coz the new 8 week course starts this Sun. (and yes I train there and I recommend it highly) I haven't been for a couple of weeks - how have you and your puppies been going?

www.adcq.com.au Just contact the club and someone will get back to you in a day or so. Otherwise Kerry Lovell is the course coordinator. Her phone number is on the site. Cheers.