The Spotted Devil

Wow! I step away from the Brags thread for a day and return to find it full to overflowing Congratulations to everyone - the WA crew, little Rory, some awesome UD/OC passes, more agility results than you can jump over and anyone who I've unintentionally missed. Nice work DOLers ;)

So....what a blessing to have put the time and energy into Em as a baby puppy. She has suddenly realised what she was bred to do and would happily swim to the end of the rainbow, as long as it was for a pot of duckies I gave the dogs an off leash gallop after Em had some retrieving training and had a swim - the little rascal still had energy to burn (and birdies to chase!) She bolted 100m away up the top of the hill in about 5 seconds and I thought I'd put her puppy training to the test. I yelled loudly: "SIT!" and blow me down she spun on her heel, sat beautifully and wagged her tail madly waiting for her next instruction. I was gobsmacked Time I bought a whistle!

Sounds like a plan I guess as long as she doesn't do her feral sounding play growling that seems to accompany it I was doing it last night in the UD ring between exercises - pushing Moo away with my leg - and yep he enjoyed the game.

Both my dogs are inside - but between us, they are not on their own for extended periods of time. Pup is in a large-ish crate with a couple of kongs or RMB. Dally has the run of the house with the cats....unless pup has an RMB and then I have to shut the cats out so one particular foster failure kitten doesn't harass pup. Both dogs have plenty of age appropriate exercise and training on a daily basis so, when I leave the house, they breathe a huge sigh of relief and catch up on some sleep

I used to consider myself a bit of a breed tart but am currently very happy with my chalk 'n' cheese combination of a Dally and a working ESS. I do have a huge soft spot for the Tibetan Terrier and mini/standard Poodles but I'm not prepared to do the grooming. Perhaps another working line dog from the gundog group one day

Tent - check Car - check Mentor - check Crazy dog - check Madness - in spades

Caught the retrieving illness bad eh? Fun times for all. But is there a cure????

Got a few theories about this from affective neuroscience. My hunch is pushing games might turn out to be a good alternative to tug games. I've started teaching it as a secondary reinforcer with my dogs. It does interesting things to them, particularly cuddly teddy bear Kivi. Hey corvus - thank goodness you have time to read this neuro stuff because I don't have the energy at the moment Do you mean body contact games where you push the dog around with your hand??? If so, I would never dream of doing that with Zig as he finds it quite aversive (he's an odd fellow but very interesting!) but Em just goes nuts for it. It's something I do before we start obedience training and also might be a good warm up for agility.

Sounds exciting rubyroo! Good luck in restricted - it's hard enough to handle a dog in restricted (thanks to LL for throwing me in the deep end - how much fun can one person have in one weekend ) let alone train for it We are training nearly every day. Just very short sessions of puppy blinds, some quasi marks/blinds as described earlier and finishing with some "happy" bumpers. She is swimming several times a week at the local lake....keeping her OUT is the challenge now ;) Em is really growing in confidence and I'm having so much fun with her. We are taking obedience nice and slowly but she is giving me lovely focus. If LL and I can match up our timetables we'll catch up soon for some training. Oh, and I SO my new dummies!!!

Call me crazy, but I bought a Dalmatian specifically for dog obedience and agility. My previous dog was an incredibly athletic and intelligent ACD and I wanted a quite different dog so as not to compare them. A challenge! And, whilst to compete at the highest levels of retrieving I could have bought a (more suited) working line Lab, I chose to get a working line ESS. I love the personality traits of these dogs, not to mention their looks. They are dogs that I enjoy living with, first and foremost. How dull the world would be if we all liked the same things! And no, I don't complain when we are beaten by Border Collies in obedience and agility. But nor do their owners complain when we beat them

What a great night Way to go WA DOLers

The nature of the (human) beast is that they want instant solutions with minimal effort. I think that is why I have such an issue with these dog training shows. It doesn't matter how many times you tell someone "don't try this at home", they just latch onto one aspect and apply it without consideration. A family that we know got a new baby puppy (Lab maybe?) I was very open to giving them any assistance they needed. But nope. They just "alpha rolled" it anytime they decided it needed to learn it's place corvus - definitely confirmation bias!!!

Hey huski! If I had a dollar for every person who's said "Why would you bother training a Dalmatian?" I'd not be relying on my post grad scholarship Best thing I ever did - one of the more challenging, mind you, but one of the most satisfying. I'll definitely have another "unconventional" dog. They certainly keep you on your toes

OMG that's priceless Vickie

This thread has made me realise how incredibly EASY my dogs are to live with Even Em has an excellent off switch!

I think sometimes they go hand in hand. Perhaps work ethic is more about how we harness the drive???

I think that the vast majority of Ziggy's work ethic is trained. As I've said previously he seriously couldn't give a flying sh!t and once I got him working for food it was very ho hum and for a few seconds only. I've tried to find things to reward just so he could get in a pattern of reinforcement and he's now cottoned on to the fact that he controls whether he is rewarded or not. He really blew me away last night at obedience training - so keen and enthusiastic and slightly scary lol. I think the multiple but short agility/jumping runs in competition have really improved his confidence and resilience. I take no credit for Em's work ethic. She would have worked for her first suck on the teat if she'd had an option! ETA: Just to add that Ziggy has always been incredibly self-confident and has never been bothered by novel environments or people. This "whatevah!!!!" attitude has made him both very difficult and very easy to train if that makes sense.

Well, I know my Dally is keen to sleep-in when I can't get him out of bed until lunchtime the day after a trial I knew Em was keen when the initially unattractive activity of swimming became her reason for living once she saw a live duck on the lake!

Very cool! Let us know how it goes please?

Vebo pet supplies I think is the name? Even with shipping from Sydney it was heaps cheaper than buying locally and they are great quality Very prompt service too.

I like it! Could you start in a sit first so she learns the rules of the game?

Set him up for success - literally a few seconds in stationary heel position for example, click, treat and then run over to the designated area and release. If he starts sniffing you are moving too quickly. If he is doing it during agility training you may well be not engaging with him because you are learning too. Try practicing on your own first, getting your hand signals smooth etc and then bring your dog out, rev him up and do it right the first time. Yes, it's a lot of work but my Dally is now really focussed in the ring - works his Spotted heart out - he knows his time for sniffing will come! At a trial he is on lead until after his last run - then he gets to have a good gallop and blow out all the cobwebs.

I also meant to add that I always say "coming in!" when my dogs come inside. I find myself saying it when we go into the petshop or an unfamiliar house/building. Maybe it's another cue?

Not sure what to suggest, JulesP - the gurus will come along shortly and solve all our problems Yes, tugging is interesting and it's such a fun thing to do with the dog. I agree that running after the tug (food filled in our case) is probably more important but I do notice that Zig is SUPER focussed and wired if I can get him to tug before we go into the agility ring. ETA: Just thinking about Amber again....can you return to her in a sit?