The Spotted Devil

Whoo hoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Scoota (and the rest of the team too ) - that is an amazing night of trialling ;) How much did you "un-bottle" in celebration?

Sheena, that A-frame is WOW!!!!!! What a great OH ;) You should hire him out

Saw this in Training Talk, Seita! Congratulations to you and Ella - fabulous result in trying conditions. Sensational ;)

Now that's A.W.E.S.O.M.E. news ;) Congratulations Ptolomy, bedazzledx2 and Seita on those amazing results Such wonderful consistency from all your dogs Talk about set the bar high for 2011!!!!!

Still thinking of you, horus Hope you're ok, mate.

Now that their digital version is so much more user friendly I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to Clean Run. I can't wait to get my first issue

Well done Nicole and Lomani Wow! Masters Agility is a darn long course! Gorgeous lead out in JDM AD - I could hardly see the weavers in the video and wondered what the hell CK was doing Thanks Bracken - it's been great to see the finished product We were asked to do it by word of mouth - an agent rang someone they knew with Dallies but they were unable to do it for a number of reasons and suggested that they call me as they really needed a Dally that could work off lead. Well done on your baby puppy's new tricks - I love watching them learn how to learn at this age - puppies are so much fun!

They're a very organised bunch - I have no doubt everything will be well under control.

What a lucky girl to have finally landed on her paws

With pup I just say "Emmy!" and reward. Thousands of times. At 5 months old she had a very reliable recall in any situation and at nearly 6 months old I can call her off a bird (or 3!), which being a gundog, is nearly her favourite thing in the world. I don't do any on lead training (apart from a bit of loose lead walking at the shopping strip for socialisation) and am now having to train her to accept a collar a bit more.

FHRP - I know what you mean by the heat! I hate training in it so I don't make my dogs. Do you have a trial you are planning on entering soon - aren't you in All Age now Miss Emmy has finished teething - really happened with a bang and she was quite tender so I didn't do much at all with her. However, as LL pointed out, she knows how to learn and a break does them the world of good. Em has come back more enthusiastic than ever! Oh, and yes I know about grass seeds and have been getting her used to being brushed. She's pretty wash and wear but the ears do pick up everything. I even extracted a grass seed from her nose with a pair of tweezers a few weeks back - our dinner guests were MOST impressed with that party trick

So...a puppy training update! Little Em has just been through "one of those weird puppy phases" - bit tired, bit fearful - you know how it goes! So I stopped all training with her for a week or two and just let her sort herself out. I waited until she let me know that she was full of beans and enthusiasm again. A couple of days ago I took her out on the lawn and threw a couple of dummies - rewarded heavily when she brought them back. Stopped at 3 and went back inside. Rinse and repeat and watched her enthusiasm and concentration grow. Yesterday she was throwing herself into her training so much I decided the time was right to try a couple of walking singles. Mr TSD loves helping out so we went to the local oval in the early evening. The end result was that I was struggling to work out who enjoyed themselves more!!!! Mr TSD was under strict instructions not to "engage" with her and he spent most of the time trying not to laugh at her very funny running and SPRINGing style We only did 8 retrieves and Em was rock solid steady for 7 of those, which was great. She was really fast out and back and was only distracted between retrieves as the local cricket club was training behind us. On one of the retrieves 3 magpies dive bombed her so she took off after them - we both felt like laughing because she was so serious but instead, under my instruction, Mr TSD called her name (she turned on a dime and came flying back) and then "hey, hey, hey!" and threw another dummy. She came to her senses, had a look at the 2nd dummy but picked up the original and brought it straight back to me. Really, really pleased

Oh my goodness Ptolomy!!! Craaaaazy! Before I had Em I couldn't understand how someone could enter that number of trials for one dog....but now I understand. She would LOVE it!!! Cosmolo - sorry, I can't post any footage as it's not mine to post

Teriffic start to the year FHRP Not only multiple dogs but multiple disciplines!!!!

Thanks SG - it's surprisingly hard work but I kept trying to give him breaks from the hot lights and standing still as much as I could. So glad I took his cool coat as it was getting really warm.

LMAO - Josh Thomas has just posted a of the photo shoot

:vomit: Thanks ness - I needed that!!! No, not anyone on this forum or in my immediate training environment. But something very close to home in other ways. Sorry I'm being cryptic!

Oh, absolutely! But I didn't think it was rocket science - good to see how it can be done badly because most of the people I talk to online or at trials use it correctly. I hang out with good trainers :rolleyes:

Well, I've just had the displeasure of watching some training footage that gives training with food a bad name. It is WORLDS apart from how I train and it was so permissive and poorly timed/planned I can understand how some people think we all train the same away. Damn, I feel cranky!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I should start selling Ziggy autographs for $5 a pop ;) LP - I think that dog was an Irish Wolfhound x - he reminded me of the dog from the Harry Potter movies - just a gentle giant. Thanks LP - he is a big striding dog and it feels quite odd running him after watching all the more compact dogs fly around. Yes, it was a well planned trial in terms of heat policy. Can't believe that was Ziggy's cheer squad ETA for huski: The beagle was an ex-quarantine dog

Something I do with my dogs is to wait until they are in the middle of some serious wrestling and playing and then ask for a sit - in the beginning I rewarded with food but now I more often use a release to play again. They both are super enthusiastic about the play and the out. Heaps of fun!

That's very funny I couldn't do that with Zig - if I send him off course I have to look like I know what I'm doing - not easy!!!

I remember Ptolomy challenged us to do a formal recall facing away from our dogs. Easy for a regular recall but not easy for a dog that has been taught a formal front! Try standing on a chair and asking your dog to drop

I simply don't give my dogs the opportunity so they don't learn how much fun it is. If it's hot, hang washing out in the evening and bring it inside in the morning, provided the dogs sleep inside. My washing line is happily out of dog access areas but I have also used portable clothes airers and just kept them out of the way - spare bedroom, deck - whatever works.

I'm not saying this is the way to go but my Dally is EXTREMELY enthusiastic about sniffing and marking. What I did initially was to use that as a reward. So for example - in heel position - a few seconds focus, reinforce with food and then release to sniff and mark. I slowly built that up - he now competes in agility and obedience. Once we exit the ring he has a food reward and I then take him over to a tree so he can sniff and mark and scrape. Crazy dog ETA: With my pup, it is much easier to be the centre of her world because of her breed so I just make myself the most interesting thing around.