Reddii

Just wanted to get opinions from obedience triallers on this one. I want to trial with my boy and maybe my girl, but don't really get to obedience club much to get a heads up on what happens at obedience trials so I thought I'd go along and watch one to scope it all out. (Despite going to agility every week I turned up at an agility trial for the first time and had to be told simple things like - 'your dog can't run with a collar'. I've got a perception that obedience is a lot more formal and because I don't know anyone in the obedience world I don't want to look like a goose.) Both my dogs are used to a trial environment (agility) and also run in flyball so they won't cause problems as such, but I also won't be able to crate them because I envisage just having them out for an (on lead) wander with us while we see what goes on. Would any one take offence to us doing this do you think?

I caveat my comments with the fact I have a VERY real lack of experience with my first dogs only just reaching trial level recently. To my way of thinking it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you really want to compete with you dogs and do well at sports etc then don't waste your time in training badly. BUT if you want to spend time with your dog and bond with them then surely it is better to be spending time with them working, albeit in a not totally productive manner as long as both owner and dog are enjoying it? You may not end up with a dog that is at trial standard or even approaching it, but you will end up with one that looks to you for guidance and leadership which really is all most people need from a family pet isn't it?

LOL......I'd love to see that, haven't seen a border lift their rear leg before. (at least not legally in the ring :D ) I had a new experience on Saturday night. My girl is so focussed that I can leave her on a stay and send her with a command if I want to (I won't do it in a comp just in case, but it's a fun party trick at training!). She runs as quickly as she possibly is ever going to given her build, just doesn't get all worked up at the start, it's more a total zen like focus. Until now I've always been a little envious of people with psycho dogs. We ran my boy in his first comp on Saturday night and he is a completely different kettle of fish. He's about 4kg heavier and WAAAAAAY stronger, not to mention he's just realised that flyball is EXCITING and you need to act like every other idiot Border Collie and try and pull your owner off his/her feet so that you can run fast times. (he is a sub 5 second dog in his first comp!) Never again will I wish for a crazy dog! I use a harness for both of them just because it makes it easier to keep a hold of them between runs. Neither lift their rear leg, but both can lie down with one of their front paws off the ground in that 'typical' border collie stance.

IT'S MONDAY!!!! We released our weapon of mass destruction on the flyball world on the weekend. After 2 months of assuring everyone he was quicker than our girl who is a mid 5 second dog, but ultra reliable he has done the business in his first outing. CK is our 17 month old boy and after a couple of runs down the side of the hurdles in a 'sanctioned demo' prior to the actual racing he ran like a seasoned pro all night without one mistake. Best time for the night was a 5.1 with a .4x start time. Once he gets a bit better on the box he will be a mid to high 4 sec dog!!! wooo hoooo!!!! This gives us 2 low to mid 4 sec does, plus CK and the others who all run mid 5's so we should have some fun this year. I have to say it is pretty scary running him though because he is so strong and really clicks into drive AND sits and looks at the dog in the other lane before I let him go - not what you especially want! The team did really well winning division one on the night and beating our other flyball fanatics team in the champions trophy run off - they won div 2! I have to give my gril Xena and the rest of the team a mention - they made a total of one mistake between them all night and that was when one of the dogs went to adjust his grip on the ball and it fell out just before the line. Looks like a good season coming up! Have a good week everyone. Tony

I know they are not kissing as such, but what does it mean?

Yep - trained my two up for ET a couple of years ago - and got it, in spite of me falling off - it was foul weather, wet gravel road, and Fergus shook really vigorously - don't blame him, it was sleeting right in his face! My agility training partner did it with her BC too. We had to start off just getting used to riding our bikes on our own (it had been a looong time, and we're no longer young .) Then we rode with a dog off lead - on her property. Then added a lead while the dogs got used to it (I had to do one of mine at a time) - we were still on her property - couple of hundred metre driveway. Finally took the show on the road - well,not literally - it is illegal to ride on a public road with a dog in Tasmania - so we used bike path/footpaths/private roads in parks. I should add that our dogs were about 4 at the time, and trained and competing in obedience and/or agility, and were under good verbal control. I used a harness for my bitch, since she can back out of her collar very easily. And I used a slightly longer lead for one dog, so they didn't get tangled. They worked it out pretty quickly. We still go for a ride sometimes just for fun. So there's hope for us yet. My two are still under 2 (17 months and 22 months or there abouts). Both are competing in flyball and the older one is competing in agility - both with good verbal control. I think my bitch would be OK pretty quickly, but the herding force in my boy is WAAAAAAAAAAY strong so we'd have to do a fair bit of work on that one! Thanks heaps for answering.

Bloody stupid bloody dog.........grumble grumble grumble We didn't get ot Tivoli on Sunday as we were down at WAAG and it went for a little longer than I expected, but last night we did the novice class at BAD. Nat Kirkwood who is another great trainer took our class and I was talking to her about my 'problem' with CK. We had a bit of a chat and came up with all the things you guys have suggested. We then put him over the midi height - no problems. Then the Maxi regular height - no problems, finally had him going over the full Max height. We did have a couple of refusals, but not a bit concern because he's never been over that height before last night. I swear if he could have he would have done the victory sign on the way over he did it so easily - he's only 520mm and he was clearing 650mm by about 150mm - All I could think was idiot - get rid of that stupid border collie grin. Any hoo, suggests that judgement might be the problem so we'll do a lot of work with jumps at different spreads and heights so he has to work it out. Thanks for all your suggestions. One step closer to our first trial hopefully at the end of June. Tony

I fell for this one........once. Nothing useful to add, sorry.

Has anyone tried cycling with a BC? I'm keen, but have a horrible feeling my two (boy in particular) would end up trying to herd me and it would all end in tears for everyone!

I'd have done the same. Can't say no either. It's hard enough with Mr CK sitting in his crate knowing he is just too young, I couldn't do it with a dog that was allowed to and wanted to have a go! For me it would probably be a good thing - slow me down a little and let me think instead of trying to go at 100 miles an hour. Great work!

Well done all. Ness - are you sure you don't have just a touch of border collie in your brain somewhere - doesn't matter how much it hurts you just keep working........Xena got bitten by an an the other week at flyball, sat at my feet crying and licking, got up, did her flyball run, then went back to crying and licking.....enough said. My brag for the weekend - Xena in elementary agility for her second quali. I did OK in this one, but really ruined it for her in the other two runs we did. She ran perfectly all day, did exactly what I asked of her, but only ended up with one pass.......

My girl was like that for a while until she 'got it'. I know CK is young so I'm not too concerned. He's only been doing low jumps until the last month or so. Just want to make sure I get it right and don't teach him bad things.

That's good to hear. I'll have a chat to Cathy on Sunday night and pick her brains as well.

Thanks for that. Will have a look with him on the weekend and let you know. Free running on rough ground - no. Not really much opportunity where we are. We do run 3 or 4 days a week over rough tracks in the forest, but although it is a good run it is on lead unfortunately. It's an on lead area strictly speaking, but most people don't bother with leads. I can take them one at a time off lead and have about 98% control, but don't have as much control as I would like with the two of them off lead to let them run together. Sadly my body won't cope with running the two dogs on their own - already doing 2 to 3 hours exercise/training a day so splitting them for a run just wouldn't work! I might try and get them to the beach on the weekend a bit more often. Have a good one.

That is what I meant by jump grids (probably got it wrong) - we do a fair bit of them in 'class'. He's fine on the lower heights, say, up to mini, but at midi and above he begins to make mistakes. The varying points of view I get are why I post on here as well as talk to the instructors at the club. They are very experienced (Cathy Slot et al), but it's always good to get other ideas to think about as well - helps me to understand how much I don't know. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll 'ruin' these dogs, but will learn a hell of a lot and have a lot of fun on the way there. Good thing that for me this is about the dogs and not about me!!!

Hey there, Some good food for thought. First off - he's at the chiro/vet every 2 months and is not sore. One of his front legs is about 98% of the other, but not causing him pain. He can do either. If we are doing one jump stuff it is often his hind leg that he will knock it with, on a series it will usually be his front. I have a feeling that the last sentence in your post PF is the problem. He jumps beautifully - we were practicing the tyre at home the other night at his height and he looked just magic and didn't touch it once. But, he knows it gets ugly if things go pear shaped. I'll get the guys to have a look at him on Sunday night at training and see if one of them can pick anything up. They usually rave about how good he looks over the jumps though - it's just as I'm picking up the jumps he doesn't 'want' to jump any higher - it's too slow for him. You know how with most high drive dogs they just do it at 100 miles an hour regardless of the handler - CK will do it at 100 miles an hour if I can keep up, anything less than 90 miles an hour and he just loses interest. LP, I like your idea. From now on we stop as soon as he hits a bar. Flyball will be a bit different, but we can work on that too.

My boy is a 17 month old BC. Competely nutty, not in the really mega high drive way, just in a doofus, teddy bear kind of way. He's really eager to work and gets 'that' look when in drive, but is really controllable and doesn't lose his head like some seem to. That said my problem with him is that it seems he's in too much of a hurry to get over flyball hurdles and agility jumps and can and does run into them. We don't have him at his full maxi height yet because he's still coming to terms with the whole jumping thing. He knows the jumps are there, but just doesn't jump high enough to clear them because he prefers speed to clearance. (Not good with flyball hurdles!) I'm not sure if this has anyting to do with it, but he broke his elbow at 4 months and was kept pretty much on lead and confined until about 10 months, but he was still goofy before that so it might be a combination of the tow. Aside from jump grids and lots of them does anyone have any thoughts about how to help him 'learn' jump heights and spacing? I don't reward for sequences where he hits hurdles/jumps and do reward BIG time for success. (increasing the reward to try and help at present) Cheers. Tony

For tablets I know they will take I will just do it as part of their treats in training. For their fish oil and Ester C every morning we use this method with an 'open up' command. They get their tablets just before food and know not to touch their dinner until they have had their tablets.

anyone? Is it the one in Oxley? If yes, Christal & Zorro (DOLer) go there and they recommended it to me a while ago (http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=107751&hl=oxley) Thanks for that - that's the one.

anyone?

Thanks all for your replies. All back to normal this morning - not sure what it was, just glad it's gone!

nah, no daylight saving - we live in brisbane.

Wormed every month with advocate - just done on the weekend.

I hadn't thought about it in detail, just that I feed morning and night. I've probably been feeding about an hour or 1.5 hours earlier in the evening for the last few days so perhaps that could be the problem. I've just started feeding them from puzzle toys rather than their bowl and it can get a bit noisy on the deck so i've pulled it forward. I'll move the time back and feed him somewhere else.

I'm trying not to be paranoid about this, but it's happened 2 morning in a row so I thought I'd ask if anyone had any ideas or if you think I should just give him another couple of days. CK has thrown up for the last 2 monnings just before wake up time. It's not normal coloured, but it is yellow like a urine colour and a bit more viscous than normal bile type spew, although this morning it had like VERY finely grated kibble bits in it. (Dry food for dinner last night). (Sorry for the graphic description.) His diet hasn't changed, and neither has anything else in his life. He isn't off his food and is as crazy as usual, he's also drinking normally. This mornning we ran/walked for 20 minutes, played frisbee for 20 minutes and then ran for another 25 minutes to get home. When we got there he went an picked up a toy and wanted to play. He then settled and ate his usual breakfast in the usual no time flat. At this stage I'm thinking just a bit of a tummy bug or he's found something new in the back yard during the day, but it seems strange that he only throws up just before we get up (I heard him). If he does it again tomorrow I'll get him off to the vet, but in the mean time does any one have any thoughts as to what it might be? I know there is a bit of KC around at the moment, but don't think this could be part of the problem as there are no accompanying symptoms.