The Spotted Devil

My Dally wears a coat 24/7 as soon as it starts getting chilly. He's also indoors and spends his days standing over the central heating vents with the cats My Springer doesn't need a coat for warmth in general but I just bought her one for very cold nights camping or when she has been retrieving training and is wet/cold. It's very handy for stopping her getting filthy dirty and wet when she goes outside as well! She's a bit smaller so dashing up the hill through cover to hunt lizards means a 20 min towel dry otherwise.

A well bred/raised Dalmatian tends to be great with kids but are high energy, particularly for their first few years! On the up side they only shed twice a year...6 months in the Autumn and 6 months in the Spring ;)

That's not easy! Congratulations on your CCD title What is his head position when trialling? In CCD the lead is supposed to be loose so do you know what other cues he was using to hold the heel position? I think videos would be extremely helpful - both on lead and off lead. ETA: Just thinking that you could train him to target your hand/arm and hold your arm at a more formal angle.

I guess it depends where you will live too. I have been a member of Hastings and am a current member of Croydon. Excellent experiences with both - also both focus on the Derrett handling system which suits me.

Well done twoblackdogs! On making the effort to travel and your results I bet it was freezing!!!!

Haven't watched the vids yet huski but Zig was completely NUTS at agility training tonight. Like running an oversized BC with spots It was freezing and I had to rug him between every run. SO much fun :D Em is always nuts so she was pretty normal ;)

Congratulations mollipop - that's wonderful Great way to finish off her title! As for puppy stuff most of what I have done with Em has been posted in this thread. I'm sure the experts here can give you plenty more though.

Sounds like a very nice weekend of training for everyone RS - good to hear you are chilling out on the delivery. I'm sure Ruby will get the hang of it in good time. FHRP - lucky Rogan!!!! There is a lot of bird life at our local lake at the moment. Em is a right PITA to walk on lead down there as she darts after each one she sees. With Zig wanting to lift his leg every 30s it's quite a sight

We have been a little quiet on the training front with Miss Em having an upset tummy. Today she was back to her crazy self so we headed out for some drills at the park and a nice walk around the local lake. My new favourite is the 'in lines blind' drill (same book). Esentially a line of dummies (W W O W O W) and send dog for each one progressively. Teaches dog to take the line. It seems to be helping Em with the concept a little more although I still send to a pile from increasing distance.

Anytime Tim - Diz and Brontë love the day out especially!

Pup uses 3 very different crates here. Wire crate for a few hours during the day in the living area. Very old plastic, airline crate next to my bed at night. Soft crate for training/dog trials. All with different bedding - no problems at all

I've been having trouble with Ruby bringing a dummy out of the water and to me, she always drops it at the edge and it has gotten me really uptight. Today, I totally relaxed, smiled, crouched down to her level with my hands in my lap and she came out of the water and up the bank with it So I'm hoping more of this and the present to hand the first time will just follow :D Yes!!! Dogs are more sensitive to our moods than we give them credit for I think. RS - you would have pulled a muscle laughing to see the antics and stunts I pulled last week to stop Em parading her retrieve item to Lablover. It was a little more than relaxed and smiled. I don't think you'd believe me if I told you But it worked!!!

Em went through a "stage" of screaming the house down once she had finished her food in her crate and wanted to join us again - this is a pup who has a LOT of mental stimulation and sufficient exercise for her age. It was awful but I turned the sound up on the DVD we were watching to drown her out (it was really loud!!!), kept eating our dinner and completely ignored her. I only let her out when she was lying down quietly. She came good, then relapsed a couple of times but came good again. Fortunately her persistence is a trait that bodes her very well in her retrieving training so I don't begrudge it!

Congratulations kathq I found the same - focus on the wagging tail and the rest will follow

Mr TSD leaves it completely up to me....I choose the breed, breeder, pup and if he's lucky he'll help name it. I do the vast majority of the feeding, exercising, health care, record keeping, training, competing and he gets to clean up the mess they make, spoil them rotten and have all the bragging rights 3 from 3 so far (plus the cats) so I have a pretty good track record. If it wasn't for me he would have a Greyhound but only because they aren't as high maintenance as our lot!

Hi Tim I'd offer my cats again but I'm away 20-22nd. Really positive experience for anyone else interested.

I'll just stick to the last 6 years... Undergrad in Animal Science. Discovered the joy of research in my Honours year with a completely self-driven cat behaviour/welfare project in animal shelters. Now doing a self-driven PhD in canine/feline-human relationships in animal shelters. Lecture on cat/dog behaviour/welfare at my own and other Universities. Compete in obedience and agility with my Dalmatian. Dabbled in showing but not enough hours in the day! Train my young field-bred ESS for retrieving, obedience and agility. She is only 9 months old so not yet competing. Sucker volunteer carer for foster kittens (mum "Seven" plus her 7 Deadly Sins at the moment ) Deliver monthly seminars on cat behaviour for the public. Like Staranais - not a lot of free time

I'm lucky that I work from home quite a bit and when I am out it's either for 4-5 hours or Mr TSD arrives home in the meantime. My pup is always crated when I go out - it's a reasonably large crate - she gets food (kongs, raw meaty bones) and learns that it is then sleep time. I do a lot of training with her and she is very happy to curl up and rest when I go out. My Dally has run of the house with the cats but he had to earn that trust. Em is crated so she doesn't get up to mischief but also so she doesn't annoy Ziggy all day. Zig eats his chicken frames outside and has his dry food in a boredom buster in the laundry and Em eats in her crate. They both get quite a bit of food through training. The only thing they eat in the same room are carrots - which is a favourite treat in the evening. Em gets a bigger one to keep her occupied for longer because she is a cheeky pup (and he lets her get away with it!) but Zig is very good and never tries to take hers. I also have to separate one of my cats from the living area when the dogs are eating as he is a dreadful food stealer!

Dalmatians are stupid apparently! Don't try telling my Ziggy that (Yarrowfell High Society CD AD JD) However I must admit I thought that too until I was educated by his breeders :thumbsup:

Whilst my Dally wears a martingale I don't use it for training - merely because he developed a knack for wriggling out of flat collars as a youngster. Thus I don't fit it high up and it's used like a flat collar.

But I've shown in my photos, if she was not wearing a snap around collar, she would be wearing another training collar which is adjusted to fit snuggly - as they should be, high up on the neck. The rules don't state a loose fitting or low fitting collar. My question is about it being against the rules and if penalties are enforced - I can't see positioning of the collar mentioned in the rules. Is there further information somewhere regarding this? Probably the bolded bit is able to interpreted as position and fit of the collar - they can't cover every possibility/type of collar. But you might be better off talking to a couple of judges with rule book in hand.

I think any collar that is fitted so it sits higher up on the neck means it is firmer than a normal flat collar and MAY give an additional cue - which is what the judges aren't happy with. It might be designed so that the dog thinks it will get a correction even though it is off lead. My Dally wears a Black Dog martingale but it sits loosely around the low point of his neck. I would love to have no collar on my dogs during trials. ish, remember that they are not saying you are cheating but it is all about perception. At novice level some judges will overlook some issues but give fair warning that other judges may not be so kind.

Well! LL and I waxed lyrical about getting home before it got dark tonight...yeh right :D I swear we weren't delayed because we were talking too much Interrupted by heavy rain and misbehaving bumper boys! Luckily LL brought a thermos and biscuits to warm ourselves with. Thank goodness also for Mr TSD who not only fed Zig and the cats but all the foster kittens and me as well!!! I was so pleased with Em today - marking really well off the bumper boys, bounding out with ears madly flapping and full of confidence. It was heavy cover for her level of experience - she didn't mind at all except for one really boggy, wet area which required a bit of encouragement. However, we later did 2 sets of walking singles with birds and LL made sure the second set covered that more difficult ground - Em was so excited about the birdies she barely noticed the cover. She hunted hard for the birds which was good too. She is so tired tonight and I am quite happy to join her in an early night!

I can see that from Ems videos, she sure is a goer! Zig is.......magnificent! He certainly thinks so Vickie I concentrate on mental fitness and resilience with Ziggy as that is much tougher for him - however, physical fitness really helps with this. I trial him quite lightly compared to other dogs - I never enter him in 2 days of trialling back to back with 6 runs being his upper limit for one day. I know how good I feel after bowen and I could really see the difference in Ziggy afterwards. I agree that choice of practitioner is paramount!!! He has seen a chiro and another bowen therapist but the results simply did not 'stick' like this treatment did. I travel over an hour to see my practitioner because she is so good.

Agreed Vickie - absolutely! Ziggy has a one hour walk with a free run nearly every day (unless we are training or the day after a trial when he just wants to rest), which is about as much as I can fit in at the moment. We have 3/4 acre for him to gallop on but he prefers to snuggle inside. Once I purchase a bike that will help up his fitness - mine too He also has had a few sessions with my bowen therapist - finally someone who can see what I see I weighed him a few weeks ago and he was 27.5kg with not an ounce of fat on him - I am quite pleased with his condition at the moment. Em is only a baby still but she is very fit simply through her retrieving training. She runs herself ragged with no encouragement so I don't think fitness will ever be a problem!