Nicole...

Congratulations everybody on your great successes!!!! We had a great trial yesterday and came home with a JDM quallie and a 3rd place, quallie and title for novice gamblers!!!! I am stoked with both of these. We had a massive lull in our JDM quallies - actually got a q on our first run up in JDM last July and then nothing until last weekend, then we followed up with another this week so I am hoping that the JDM hoodoo is over! I'm also super happy to finally get our novice gamblers title. It was our final novice title to gain and the one that I was really struggling to grasp and enjoy. Credit for this has to go to the ADAA games workshop that I attended a few weeks back, I now not only "get" gamblers but I am really enjoying it now too I am also thrilled as yesterday was quite a warm day and I was able to get Lomani fired up to the right amount to get 5 speedy runs out of her, not our usual 2 fast and then the rest very sluggish ;) Here's hoping for a lot more consistency to follow

I had a friend that was being filmed for a segment for his show and he spent the entire time gawking at her chest. She got so over it that she proceeded to bend over and speak directly to his groin in return. After a few replies to his groin they stopped filming to ask what she was doing and she gave it to him in no uncertain terms... she said that once it was all over a lot of the behind the scenes tv people there commended her as not many people gave it back to him like that

I have been truly blown away by the amazing support that the Pacers offer. I don't think we can underestimate just how valuable Jed's family will be finding that right now too, most importantly. Can anyone tell me what the requirements are to join the Pacers? I have made a donation, but would like to do more to help out in these sorts of situations in the future.

I'm used to running my cocker which suits me fine as I'm not the faster runner out there I have run a friend's BC a few times and he is super fast. I find that when I run him I have to time my turns much more precisely or he knocks bars. I've also realised that I can turn my shoulders once Lomani commits to a jump and move on, but with the BC he will pull off the obstacle the second my shoulders turn. I find it interesting as if I run Lomani straight after him, it feels like I have all the time in the world and I run her much better, plus I am more aware of where my shoulders are LOL. My OH has been training Bond as I have been instructing all the time when he trains but I am sure I will find the same thing once I get the chance to do some work with him... and then Lomani will reap the rewards!

Thank you so much for taking the time to update us all Toohey. My thoughts are with Jane and I am sure she will fight through this as she will desperately want to get well for her human and dog families. Jane was a massive help to me when I was looking for my first cocker and I have always valued her advice. If there is anything that I can do to help, please let me know. I'm less than 2 hours from Caboolture.

What a brilliant idea!!!! Definite food for thought... will have to suss this out.

Congratulations!!!! I saw a couple of your runs and was very impressed. Thank you for your lovely comments. I was very very happy with how Lomani ran last night as we had been there for the workshop all day and she is terrible for not sleeping at trials and then running like a slug when she is tired. This is the first time I have ever got good runs out of her when she is lacking sleep... all thanks to the magic ingredient.... CHICKEN NECKS!!! Another cocker person suggested that I try them as they are the only thing that motivate her girl and I can't believe how well they worked. We ended up with 3 q's from our 5 runs... quite a pleasant outcome from our first ADAA trial! I look forward to doing more ADAA trials over the coming months. The courses were very enjoyable! Also got some great tips out of the workshop that I can't wait to get into practice. Can hopefully get that elusive GD title soon!!!

Congratulations Luke and Barkly!!!!!! :) Woo hoo! Go the agility cockers!!!!!!!!!

I also had the same problem with my BC playing in both the water bowls I leave while I'm at work and coming home to them being bone dry. My solution was to buy a clamshell pool which has solved the problem. Not sure whether they care if they're drinking from a pool or bowl, and the pool is more fun to splash your feet in than the bowl but I now come home to both water bowls holding water as well as the pool so problem solved!

Congratulations AgilityDogs!!! I only realised when I heard your dogs names at presentations, that we were sitting right next to you! We had a wonderful night and I am wondering why every trial can't be snooker... it's so much fun! Last night was our first trial up in Excellent and we came home with 2 quallies. Lomani came out firing in the first run and barked her entire way around the course - she usually doesn't listen when she barks and while she was a little more unpredictable than normal, followed my instructions perfectly. I decided to go for the suicide 7's on the second run as I was happy to go home with just 1 q and the weaves were number 7 (Lomani's fave) so I figured it was meant to be. Lomani ran a beautiful course, very steady and attentive, not quite as speedy as the first but defnitely up there for her. I had great fun pulling the 7's off, but was sure we wouldn't make time as the BC's were doing it with only 10 sec to spare... but we nearly fell over at the finish line when we discovered that we made it by 0.03 of a second! Can't wait to do the 7's again!!!!!! Frantically trying to stay still so that she gets some sleep in before today's trial now. She is terrible for not sleeping at trials and I'm pretty sure that after a late night and such excitement, there won't be many speedy runs happening today LOL. Good luck to all on their doggy endeavours this weekend!

We taught rear crosses much the same as Vickie explained. The only thing that I wanted to add is that you need to have some form to your gesture to let them know it is a rear cross you are doing. I really drop the shoulder of the side that I am going to, almost like the action of bowling a bowling ball when I am running towards the jump, which tells Lomani that I want a rear cross from her and she is turning for it from the second she takes off. We frequently get commended on our rear crosses so can vouch that this works well While she isn't the fastest dog out there, I'm certainly not the fastest handler so it is nice to have good solid rear crosses so you have open options if they do manage to get ahead of you on course ;)

Well done Kavik, Vickie and Smisch. I saw Denver's run Smisch and it looked great. You've done so well getting him up to scratch so quickly! We had a great night last night. :D Had a really nice run in JDO and got 2nd place plus our first ever JDO quallie. Had a good but slow run in JDM and went clear but missed out on time, but I was really happy to have my focused agility dog back. Had 4 shockers with her last weekend, with no focus and for some reason she had forgotten what rear crosses were so it was nice to have a dog that was responsive again. Moral of the story - put more training in over the Christmas break next year if I want her to come back firing on all cylinders!!!! Isn't it great to be back trialling again!!!!!!

Agilitydogs - Nice JD run!!! I had no idea that was you either, despite the fact that I was looking at your crates as I need to get a soft one for Bond and now that I see this realise that you even had the dogs names embroidered on them! We will have to meet next time We had a few interesting runs last night, nothing more than what I expected after so long off and has really highlighted what we need to work on in the yard this week Lomani normally has excellent weaves but refused them every single time last night. She also seems to have forgotten what a rear cross is (usually a real strength of hers also) so will be doing lots of rear cross drills in the yard before next weekend's trial. She took off and did the first 3 jumps in our ADX run, then got to the weaves and stopped to sniff the ground so I picked her up and pulled the pin and got 2 good runs out of her after that. I so often persist when she is being painful like that so this has reinforced to me that I need to stand my ground in the future to get the best out of her. All in all, we managed everything that I thought was hard and dubious, and made abnormal mistakes but just stuff that I need to work on, and get her reading things properly again.

We have our first trial for the year tomorrow and I can hardly contain my excitement! We had an informal training session this week after a 7 week break and Lomani was so excited - I swear I have never seen her run as fast, clear the jumps by such a height and hit her contacts like that before. I am sure she will be way too overexcited to get any good results tomorrow but all the same I am sooooooo excited to get back into it. Anyone else?

Ok here goes Lomani - -To have consistently solid contacts -Obtain her JDM, ADX, GD, SPDX & SDX titles -Be well on the way to getting her JDO, ADO, & GDX titles (don't want much do I?) Bond - -Start agility training with a goal to do his first trial before the year is out (he turns 18 months mid-September) -Maybe have a look at some obedience trials... not committing to this one yet though

I'm on the GC so can't help you out with local vet clinics etc that run puppy classes but there is an ANKC affiliated cub at Chermside that would hold classes. Problem is that the clubs generally close down over December/January but perhaps they could advise you on reputable options until they resume in February. It's the Metropolitan Dog Obedience Club - they are at Marchant Park Chermside. I found a website but most of it seems to be not working. Their contact details from Dogworld are [email protected] or 0412 899 086.

Our BC pup looked up one night some months ago, saw there was a ceiling fan there (not switched on) and totally flipped out. We just ignored his behaviour and after about 4 days he gave in and decided it was ok to be in rooms with fans (as seen as he was restricting himself to the hallway, laundry and bathroom where there were no fans but not much fun :D ). After a couple of weeks, once he was totally at ease with them, we turned one on to low and while he was initially spooked, he adjusted much faster to that. He is now happy with them either turned on or off but we have noticed that if he gets startled or scared he will occasionally shoot a look up at the fan to see if that what caused the noise etc. It's funny how they develop these issues isn't it.

My 7 month old BC is quite ill after eating the bulb part of a sago palm/cycad. I have seen so many lists of plants that are toxic to dogs but have no idea what any of those things look like and after raising my cocker spaniel in the yard figured we were dog safe. So firstly I want to say for those that don't know what they look like, do a quick google image search as they are a really common plant. They are a palm but without a trunk, so the bulbous base part is at ground level. If you have any in your dog's yard, please get rid of them. Secondly, I just wondered if anyone knows what the symptoms of liver damage would be. We have him home with us now as he has stopped vomiting and is much brighter, but the vet said that he isn't out of the woods until he has blood tests in 2 days to see if he has sustained any liver damage. Is there anything in particular we should be on the lookout for? And if he does have problems what should we expect?

We put Lomani through 36 weave poles when we took her along to expose her to a trial environment the week before the first trial she competed in and nearly fell over when she actually did them. It was like she didn't even realise there were more than normal, if there's poles infront of her she just does them. I think she came about 5th in time and was less than a second outside of the winning dog (not bad for a cocker!!!).

It's Friday the 13th at Logan, not sure on time but I think it kicks off around 7pm. It's being run by the Qld State Trial Committee as a fundraiser for the Nationals here in 2014 See you there!!!!

I bought a Rainbird spray jacket from the camping store at christmas and it has saved me many times. It's great because it's so light weight that it wraps up small and can just sit in my agility gear so I never forget it. Also good as it has lots of ventilation so you don't get sweaty in it in summertime, but you can wear it over a jumper in winter so suits all seasons. Has never leaked even in a massive thunderstorm!

Yes obedience is a must to get the foundations right for agility. Cockers seem to really enjoy the satisfaction of doing some form of training anyway. I know when Lomani was going through those ratbag stages I would have so much trouble if we didn't do any mental work, but just 10 minutes of training with her was enough to wear her brain out and then she wouldn't be destructive. I'm always at International on Saturdays and GCDOTC on Monday nights so if you go to either, feel free to drop over and say hi. I'm always where the agility is and the only one there with a gold cocker

Hi MsBex - I also have a cocker spaniel and asked exactly the same question on here about 2 years ago when we finished our puppy preschool. I attend 2 training schools still as we are actively involved in agility. Saturday mornings there is International Dog Obedience Training School - held at Benowa State School. We have attended there since Lomani was 14 weeks old and it has a great friendly environment. Only uses positive training methods and has a lot of very experienced instructors plus an animal behaviourist to help you out. Monday and Wednesday evenings there is the Gold Coast Dog Obedience Training Club - held at Alicia St Southport. This is an ANKC registered club and also only uses positive training methods. GCDOTC website There are other classes on the coast, some good, some very questionable... ask around here for feedback on them and go and get a feel for any of them before you sign up. Feel free to PM me if you have any particular questions or want contact details for International. Oh and it's definitely a good time to go straight into more training... these cockers can be little ratbags if you let them get away with it!

Lomani first competed in agility at 22 months. We had a lot of people saying we should be trialling from when she was 18 months onwards but we didn't think she was ready. Her first trial was a games trial in which she got 2 quallies. Her first agility/jumping trial was a triple, in which she got all 3 novice jumping passes to get her JD title so I'd say she was ready then. I'm glad that we did wait that bit longer as we've found trialling to be very enjoyable with steady successes, and have watched a number of people coming through start trialling before they were ready and get very very frustrated with the whole process. I guess every dog has different maturity and different rates of progression though.

Just have a cheapo pair of shorts that you wear for training purposes and then you don't care about the stains. LOL Works for me! I used to use a treat pouch all the time and then had massive dramas getting Lomani to pay any attention to me in the agility ring without it when we first started trialling - to the point where she would run to the nearest trainer with a pouch on if she thought she deserved a treat! I had to teach her that treats come from my pockets instead and even presented her chicken necks to her from my pockets so I think that numbed me to the grossness of it all. She still gets a couple of treats from my pocket before an agility trial and I make sure she doesn't see me slip the treat bag to my OH. I don't think that she needs fooling anymore though as she runs straight to him for me to get the treats when we are done... but i'm not game to give up the practice just in case LOL.