The Spotted Devil

Minimal tug used here, especially at trials, as Zig will start to switch off. I use a lot of (different) food and throw tug/food toys. Have fun!

Even my chooks are written into my emergency plans

If the dog is food driven you could try the tug food pouches - the original one I bought had rabbit fur on the outside and even piqued the interest of my Dally who didn't care for tug at all. If the dog shows any interest in the toy, I undo the velcro and allow the dog to grab a food treat himself. After several months the local possum shredded the toy after I left it out to dry one night. Purchased another and it was shredded in the first attempt so my Dally was clearly more enthusiastic than he used to be We upgraded to something stronger.

Photos please of these strange birds in trees that you all speak of! Love that pic FHRP - just gorgeous Thanks Monah....I think she's P.E.R.F.E.CT of course!!! Such a sweet little thing and bursting with enthusiasm Yes, I'm very fortunate to have LL as a mentor and training partner (and friend!) My head always feels full to exploding with the amount I pick up from each training session but it's the best break from my studies that I could ask for.

CM - I hope Chester is ok. I can recommend a good chiro or bowen or t-touch practitioners if you need them. Hugs and Ziggy licks xxx

Love the worst throw ever story :rolleyes: I posted a description of walking singles here I hope that worked as I'm typing on my phone!

Another great day with LL today. Em was pretty excited at the park and did a few laps chasing little birds before we got her focussed She did quite well, I thought, despite being a bit distracted and we stopped when she seemed to get tired. Did some blinds and marks with LL's dogs and some walking singles with her least experienced girl which was a chance for me to get my throwing arm "in" (threw some shockers on Friday ) Off to the second park and LL did blinds over the lake with her lot whilst I played with Em in the shallow water - bit of swimming and some happy bumpers on land. A couple of walking singles to finish off the day - she absolutely aced these - I think something clicked in her brain about how this game works so we packed up early, finishing on a high. LL gave me a website for dummies....so much cheaper than the Oz site posted but I'm yet to check out shipping. Will do some sums when I have time. Happy retrieving everyone :rolleyes:

Welcome Annie! RS - good to see you are both motivated to train ;) Puppy training update - 17 weeks I met up with Lablover on Friday with young Emmy. She was still a bit overwhelmed by LL's dogs but bounced back much more quickly. The council were mowing 'our' oval so we went on to the park with water first. Em was pretty excited and she danced around on the end of the lead, which was great to see. She watched the other dogs swim and retrieve bumpers with fascination. Then LL tied up her dogs and I waded into a reasonably shallow pond with Em in tow. Lots of silly dancing from me, a squeaky toy and some food and Emmy was soon swimming across the pond off lead. Then it was back on lead for a rest and to watch the other dogs train again. She was really focussed on the bumpers so LL threw a couple for her in short cover, varying distance and encouraging her as necessary. We had a ball! We went back to the oval and were going to try Em on some walking singles but she was tired from all the excitement so we pulled the pin pretty quickly and did some drills with the other dogs instead. A fun afternoon had by all!

Has that changed recently? I used to train at Hastings earlier in the year but on Sundays only - more agility but obedience was held before that.

Is this a new thing that could be associated with adolescence? I'm not experienced in retrieving by any stretch of the imagination BUT I have successfully taught my Dalmatian to retrieve enthusiastically for obedience by breaking it down into discrete parts and then back chaining the whole exercise. If you google Shirly Chong retrieve that might give you a few ideas as well. It's hard with the gundogs as they are very highly motivated to retrieve and it's easy to forget to break it down and add value to the other parts of the exercise. Perhaps using a happy bumper (ie the lure of another retrieve) would help too??? What about a long line to give you some control and perhaps run away from the dog to build momentum and motivation - I would be handling the hooning around and delivery as two separate issues (at least!!!) Build lots of value for yourself too as the source of all things wonderful. Hope you can get something out of my random thoughts!

Hey corvus.....does this help? From a chapter in 'The Inevitable Bond' but not the primary reference... Dominant wolf cubs have higher baseline heart rates than submissive cubs Dominant animals display primarily adrenomedullary and catecholamine arousal, animals that are less dominant but still aggressive experience both and submissive animals respond with the adrenocorticol system only. Thus they use a coordinated series of responses (behavioural, cardiovascular and endocrine) as the means to a common homeostatic end.

That's my other goal for 2011. To make money out of my mind reading skills :D

Hope you enjoy the eggs - laid with love Em's breeder is up that way - Greendale - does that ring a bell? I can't remember where the boys in the litter were going although one was going O/S as a working dog.

Looking forward to more fun in 2011! Ziggy - enter a Novice obedience trial and get that final pass card - work on Open obedience - specifically more duration heeling, drop on recall games, retrieve (over a jump and neat fronts) and out of sight stays. - confident see saw for agility - tighter rear crosses and change of arms for agility/jumping - distance handling in agility/jumping - especially weaving poles - relax, have fun and run HARD - ET title is high on the priority list too Emily - retrieving will be our major focus in 2011 as foundation work is critical - will include training to the whistle - obedience - lots of fun, small projects that expand on what I'm doing with her now....we've been doing focus, informal recall, sit, drop, steady feet game, heel position, fronts, hand touches and free shaping - jumping/agility - simple exposure to equipment like the tunnel and maybe some puppy foundation work if we have time

Typical! :love: We joined our local club (a lot closer since we moved!) which I have been meaning to do for ages but haven't had many agility sessions due to the poor condition of the grounds. In the limited training session we both had a hoot, Zig worked really well and we learnt a LOT Ziggy now has two passes in Novice Jumping (2nd place, 4th place) and one pass in Novice Agility (1st place). Could not be more pleased with how he is going. Both of us are starting to get some real confidence and speed up! Handler still needs lots of work. Agility contacts are seriously cute, funny and very reliable - he just scares the sh!t out of me by sprinting across the dog walk pretty fast for a larger dog When he's feeling a little silly at home there's nothing like playing nose touches with the piece of timber on the deck! Weave entries are really coming along at home - I'm really pushing his independence and he is loving the challenge. Can't wait to do some training at club so we can practice coming off other equipment instead of using the old stone BBQ as a table ;) I can't see him getting his Novice title unless I start entering trials :p Two passes down and one to go Just not enough time to get myself organised.....need to buy a decent bike... Definite highlight of the year....had a fun time camping and caught up with Ziggy's breeders who were so proud of him. In one day of competition he came up with a first place, Q in Novice Obedience (& Highest Score in Trial), first place, Q in Novice Agility and second place, NQ in Open Jumping. Still proud ;) My aim is to stop enjoying my busy weekends around the house and enter some trials!!! Very happy with 2010, particularly being so busy and having not many opportunities to train over such a wet Winter!!! Didn't enter another Novice trial....always a reliable way NOT to get a pass ;) Finished the year with a bang with more quallies than we needed for JD and AD plus our first JDO pass Very much enjoying playing and training with Miss Emily too

Just wanted to thank Staff'n'Toller for lending me her weaving poles I tried borrowing equipment through a few clubs but the policy was to hire out the whole trailer at a cost - completely justifiable but not what we were after. (And thanks Mr TSD for dropping the weaving poles back to S'n'T )

With Satch, it's pretty difficult because he is really hard to motivate. Sometimes he decides that lying on his bed inside is a better option than ANYTHING else we could offer him. Another example... I reward him 100% of the time for recalls, generally with "high value" food (he's not highly food motivated, or remotely toy motivated) yet he finds it MORE rewarding to sniff and pee on things, so often he doesn't come. You can call out "Satch, come!" and he'll turn around, look at you, look at the food in your hands, sniff their air and determine it's good food but... then he'll blow you off anyway Ava is a different kettle of fish. She was born to please and does anything that is asked of her. She sees a chance of working with her human as a reward in itself. Anyway, I know this makes my dog sound like a monster, whereas in reality he is a super easy dog to live with. 90% of the time he does what you ask without complaint. He needs firm handling at times but a dog who lies on his bed all day is the dream of some dog owners (Sorry, hope I'm not hijacking the thread, just hoping to give some perspective on differences in personality!) For sure - I have a Dalmatian You can use a lot of that to your advantage though.....favourite thing in the world is sniffing, peeing and running free? No problem - come to me when you're called, you get a fabulous treat and then you are released to do your favourite thing. Don't come to me? OK - well, back on lead and no sniffing or peeing for a few minutes (a long time in a dog's world ;) ). Release and try again. It took a lot of commitment and consistency (and ALL food came from me for doing something for a few weeks at his absolute worst adolescence phase) but his recall is pretty darn good (I never say 100% because there is always something like a bitch in season that could be his undoing). At Dogs Day Out I was doing an obedience and agility demo on the Dally Club stand. I actually let him get really, really distracted on purpose so I could demonstrate how I have conditioned him to switch on when he needs to. He did not put his nose to the ground once and did everything asked of him....although he did take a jump on the way back to his crate for the pure fun of it You have to build value and you have to hold the key to it!

kathq - Lablover is going to give me the website and I will post it up here. I was hoping a few newbies would like to share shipping costs ;)

My Dally had a very looooooong adolescence period. He tested me every single step of the way and I just did my best to be consistent and persistent. Oh, and to remind myself that "this too will pass!" At 18 months he transformed into a different dog and all the hard work I'd put in paid off. He's now 4 and an absolute delight to live with.....not to mention having a ball with dog sports with CCD, JD and AD to his name. Be patient. Put in strict boundaries and teach lots of self-control!

Adult dog has a frozen chicken frame every other night. Pup has a couple of frozen chicken necks as part of dinner or a lamb neck to chomp on if I have to leave her at home in her crate. Cats have chicken necks every other night. All were supervised to begin with out of the corner of my eye and they are always separated. All of them love their food but are very sensible - even the food obsessed cat chews the necks with care. Pup strips the lamb neck clean then falls asleep without touching the bone so I don't have a problem with leaving her alone :D

Well done everyone - what an awesome weekend of trialling :p

GG85 - I'd start like I would a puppy. Sit quietly at home and just put a cardboard box (or anything novel) on the ground. Make sure you have some awesome treats, the dog is relatively hungry and all distractions are put away (including other dog). Click and treat for ANY interaction with the object. ANYTHING. A look, a paw, ANYTHING. Once the dog has tried a few different things with that object, put out another novel object. Rinse and repeat :p Don't shape anything particular - just shape ANY interaction with the object. Have fun!

Puppy Training Progress Report I had a lovely afternoon with Lablover today. We took 2 of her dogs and little Em out for some training. Miss E. was a little overwhelmed by the Labs at first but she gained confidence as the afternoon went on. First stop was an oval which was flat with reasonably short grass. MY first lesson was to make these early retrieves lots of fun and easy with lots of 'wins' for puppy. I gently restrained Em whilst LL did 'walking singles'. For the newbies to retrieving, this involves the 'thrower' (in this case LL) standing a distance from the pup+handler and getting pup's attention on the retrieve article by calling out excitedly 'hey, hey, hey!' When pup was looking in the right direction, LL threw the bumper in a smooth arc to my left of field. When it hit the ground and Em was straining towards it I let her go. She raced out and after looking slightly confused, picked up the bumper. With a little encouragement she was soon racing back to me to deliver the bumper and get a treat (boring dry biscuits would you believe!) LL then walked to my right of field and repeated the exercise but always throwing to my left of field, so it was essentially the exact same retrieve but repeated in different positions. This is so the pup doesn't fall in the habit of hunting where she has already found a bumper, although LL said that if she had trouble initially she would have repeated retrieves in the same position to get pup's confidence up. We had a nice mixture from Em....some of her retrieves were "oh, this is SO what I was born to do" whilst others were like "oh, there's a butterfly! Oh look, some egg shells on the ground! Hmmm, I wonder if bark is what I'm supposed to fetch" :p Basically just a 16 week old puppy being a puppy! The great thing about training with LL is that as soon as Em got a bit distracted or stopped hunting or lost confidence she would get her attention back by calling 'hey, hey, hey!' and/or throwing another bumper. We tried a few things like having a very short lead attached to Em's collar so I didn't have to crouch on the ground and she could run with it, but it distracted her so much she tried to pick it up and bring it back to me. Neither LL or I can recall what distance the retrieves were but they were several times more than I can throw with a soft toy so I was very pleased with her first attempt. It didn't take long for her to be quite tired after all the novelty and brain strain so we gave her a break whilst LL trained the other dogs, which is always great to watch. Then it was off to a very large park (grass was too long for baby puppy retrieves) with lots of water - so the Labs got to swim and retrieve bumpers (it's their favourite thing in the world and not like work at all) whilst I got to roll up my jeans, take my boots off and wade into the water to encourage Emily in for a paddle and a play. I kinda wish LL had a camera as I was dancing around like an absolute idiot, playing come catch me games with Em, covered with mud and water and came very close to falling in on several occasions ;) Once Em got the hang of leaping about in the shallows I took her lead off and went a bit deeper. I was yelling at LL: 'She can swim! She can swim!' and LL was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes because Em was NOT swimming but just splashing in deep water and I was getting carried away, like the proud Mamma I am ;) Anyway, she DID eventually swim a tiny bit and found her way back to the shallow part with more confidence. We finished with a playful game in the shallows and then all traipsed back to the car. I came away from LL's with a couple of bags of light reading and viewing Emily slept all the way home and is pretty tired even now. Hopefully we will do it all again later in the week

This little pup is such a fascinating learning curve. After spending all my time working out what makes my Dally tick, building motivation, trying different treats, using tug and toys with discretion, watching the temperature, monitoring exercise levels....suddenly I have this pup who will work enthusiastically just for her dry food. Anywhere. Any conditions. Any distraction. Ag show, agility training, agility trial, local shopping strip, off leash at the oval (allowed) whilst local footy team train. I keep waiting for her to break

PF is correct. corvus, are you talking about perhaps the threshold required to activate the HPA axis??? That, to me, would indicate different coping styles and you certainly see it across a population. Which is why it can be difficult to get a physiological response to stress that is statistically different between treatments.