Vickie

Hi Paul, It seems you have gotten peoples backs up a liitle. I think I can see why. I have read a few of your posts now & honestly they do come across as quite arrogant. However After reading your responses in this thread, I can see that is not your intention. It's great that you want to help people, just try to remember that while you already have more knowledge & experience than some, there are heaps of very experienced & successful trainers here. Perhaps a Starting a discussion rather than a offer of advice might be better received?

My daughter started crate games with peppi & it has been really good for both of them. I have a question. I have looked & asked SG followers but have been able to find anyone with an answer to it yet. How do you integrate crate games with a dog who needs to be managed in a crate when: you go out for long periods of time? you are training other dogs? thanks & hope my question makes sense

Have you thought about contacting the army & seeing if they would be interested in him? We had them come in & assess a few dogs when I was at the pound. Your boy sounds exactly what they are after. It could be a very good match & a great life for your boy who lives to work.

Ditto. He sounds like a great dog for competition in the right hands...however... many of these sports involve training & competing around other dogs. How sure are you that his intense prey drive will not be triggered by someone's toy sized dog? From a prey driven dog's perspective, some of them move very enticingly. Honestly, before rehoming him to a sports environment where he will be around little dogs moving fast & erratically, I would want to be 200% confident that he would not be triggered into prey drive.

Thanks RF ;) When she's keen, she's very keen. I guess like most dogs, she needs short sessions or she can tire & lose drive. She is different to my girls. They never tire before we do, so we often do much longer sessions with them and are able to drill them without loss of enthusiasm. They also don't care whether it's stinking hot or pouring with rain. We have to keep remembering to keep Peppi's sessions short, mix them up a bit more & not train in the heat.

thanks nekhbet all of that makes a lot of sense to me. You are right, we have conditioned the value of both rewards differently. And it makes sense to only use toys when we want the drive she is currently giving

good point seita & that is exactly what we will be doing for now. I only really mentioned it as my daughter started playing crate games with her & there is a step that you use food to touch their collar & then toy to reward. The issue became very apparent very quickly, so I thought I'd share how odd it was on here. The dog trainer on me wants to work through it though I just need to put it all into better perspective the dog in question came out of the pound 10 weeks ago with no trained behaviours or experience in play AND she is being trained by an 11 yo. I am over the moon with how well they are both doing.

At least that's consistent & after all he is a cocker :D They love their food. Pep will literally turn herself inside out for a toy. She will flip through the air, grabbing at it with no regard for her body. She will fly over a jump for a toy & almost trot over for food. So what is she more driven by? Given that she will hardly look at the toy if food is out.

Thanks Corvus, honestly, I'm not sure I care enough to do a heap of readng about it. Seems easier just to fix it :D . I just thought the inconsistency of it all was odd. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that she obviously hasn't been played with much wherever she was before here. If I get some time over the weekend, I will try to have a look at some of it (and hopefully understand it :D ). Thank you.

I've noticed that pep is heaps faster/keener/drivier to train for toys. She loves her food too though. If we were to take her out in 2 separate instances, she will give 110% for a toy & 60% for food on the same exercise. However, if you start with food, it is hard to switch to a toy and she looks for the food. I find it really odd. My girls will train with either, but always prefer the toy. If you switch to food, it's hard to get them to take it after the toy. If you start with food they are more than happy to switch to a toy. We will work on it with pep so she will happily take either, I just think it's odd, since she is much more eager for a toy

WEEK TEN: I haven't posted for a while. Pep started getting a bit too bonded to me & Chloe was having trouble keeping her focus for training when I was around. Chloe lost some confidence for a couple of weeks but they seem to be right back on track now. There are a few things that Chloe has just had to work through...and the last couple of weeks, she has really put some effort in with great results . Chloe, Pep, the girls & I went to Melbourne for 5 days & spent 2 days at a trial. Pep was great! She travelled well & learnt to relax in the XPen & crate. I was really busy, so Chloe & Pep spent every minute together for a number of days in a row which was really good for both of them. Pax has helped heaps by reinforcing a few things I have been telling Chloe & also by offering some new ideas for training & giving Chloe lots of encouragement. Thank you ;) , you're the best!!! Chloe is really starting to understand now that running around obstacles will only get them so far. She has been really working hard lately on some foundation things . Yesterday they started crate games. Pep loves it! It was great to be able to sit Chloe down to watch the video & have her follow it step by step. She also seems to have a sit stay on her finally . It will make ALL the difference!!! Peppi continues to win over pretty much every one who meets her. She's such a cute little thing & still so very smart Secretly I want her for my own but don't tell Chloe I will try to get video of Chloe doing stuff with Pep soon. I just seem to have so much more time when they are at school ;)

Perfectly understandable . I don't want mine jumping off the middle at full height either. They learn to jump off the up ramp or middle of a lowered dw

I don't think they have ever jumped off a dw, other than those first few times I asked them to. I don't train them to jump off, just show them that they can if they need to

RS, I would stop & teach her the seesaw. Problem is, the more DW training you do, telling her it's safe & doesn't move, the more you will diminish her trust in you once she does start the seesaw. I always teach the seesaw before the DW. The girls breeder also taught me to teach my dogs to jump off the DW when we started it. Lots of dogs who are worried about the DW, are worried b/c they are unsure of what will happen if they fall off. By teaching them to jump off, the fear of the unknown is taken away, sicne they know it's no big deal & they learn it in a controlled rather than panickd state. It was a great lesson & one I will use forever.

She is in a working home. Dasha has 3 other working line dogs at home who are impeccably behaved. She trains & competes with her dogs in 3 sheep trials & does a bloody good job of it. This pup is not mature enough to go into full training right now. The reality is that once that training starts, most of the lessons she needs to learn, she will. It is just a matter of how to deal with her in the meantime.

I'll take her! Oh wait....I already offered that

Her jumping is finished now ...a few more to go in agility. We got an envelope with a $10 voucher to an online dog shop for 2nd and a toy for 3rd. The prizes were quite different in value to our NSW prizes.

Forgot to say, I think using a ball thower or frisbee is easier than tug toy b/c tug is often associated with them looking at you, whereas the other 2 tend to be associated with moving away from you. Will try to video this afternoon or tomorrow

Well it was the first time it's ever happened to me in agility, so I don't think it's that common. Anyway, wasn't the end of the world & as it turned out, by the end of Sunday, we didn't need that win anyway .

Both. When I pat my side & say "here", my dogs will come & stand beside me, facing the same way, kind of like a heel position I guess. Generally they are looking at me. When I say the word "ready", they look away from me & straight ahead. I never release unil they are looking straight ahead. I think of "ready" as a position, they are beside me & focussing ahead. I'm just remembering back to the details of how I taught it. I did it in the park, with no obstacles. Initially I used their collar to bring & hold them in position beside me. With a ball thrower in my other hand, the collar hold served as a restrained recall type motivator. Initially while holding their collar (which tends to encourage them not to look at you...and allows you to help them not to if needed) I used the word "ready", threw the ball & released to the ball with a "go". Once we had done this a few times, I was able to delay the throwing of the ball so it served as a reward, rather than a lure. The ball was only thrown after they looked ahead on ready & then drove forward on release. I then stopped holding the collar & moving into position by themselves was part of the final behaviour to: line up beside me, focus ahead and drive forward. Once I truly had this, I put it in front of an obstacle and did lots of proofing by varying my position and theirs. I can now set them up with 2 obstacles side by side in front & only release when they look at the right one. The whole process was harder with Trim, as I had initially taught her to do so many things while she was standing in front of me, so her focus on my face was such stronger. While doing all the above, I also retaught all her trained behaviours (sit, down, spin, back etc) from the side. I think it helped to do this in parallel. yes, kind of. If you set up a jump upright, you can throw food on either side of it from a stationary position. The reason food is good, is that while they are eating & before they look at or move towards you, you can throw the next bit. The idea is to get them moving through it back & forth by themselves while you sit still. You can shape this or start by luring & move to shaping. They soon work out that going through the uprights provides the reward. I can try to video some of this later to show you. Pep hasn't done it yet, so I can show you with a dog who already has quite a lot of handler focus.

yes, in every day life & some sports, but certainly not for agility or for some other activities. Staranais, I would be teaching her a position first, away from obstacles. It might be better to teach a position you have not already asked for & rewarded for her focussing on your face. Can be done with food or toys. I used a balll thrower & the word ready. In order to get one of mine to focus away from my face, I had to do a couple of fake throws & mark the second she looked away from me. I am sure I could have waited her out but it was taking forever. The other one got it straight away. I only brought obstacles into it when I had a look ahead on "ready" and a full drive ahead on "go" based on the promise of a ball rather than an actual lure with it. Another thing which works is to anchor yourself, by sitting in a chair & shape a lateral movement in front of you.

started off disastrous. I had 6 runs first up in under an hour (often as many as I get in a day here!) I blew every one of them! They were holding rings for me & I was running both dogs consecutively, I found it very stressful Got better though and we ended up winning 2 masters jumping & 2nd in another MJ. Also a 2nd Nq in masters agility, 1 bar :D I had a bit of bad luck in masters gamblers with shine. She did a superb run on what I thought was a really hard gamble but I did not hear or recognize the whistle, so was still in the opening when I was meant to be doing the closing. She still managed 3rd, but nq cause we ran out of time our biggest heartbreak happened at presentations on sat night. Trim had won mj on sat too but they didn't call my name. She did a brilliant run in the fastest time & the judge gave us clear, competitors congratulated me. They had written dq on the scribe sheet, so we weren't awarded the 1st. I wanted to cry but that's the way sport is. You win some, you lose some

PS...I now have about a thousand new things to train!!!

it was great to meet you too TSD Zig has got to be the most magnificent Dally I have ever seen! We had a good time at warragul. Very different to trialling in nsw, but despite camping in a swamp :D we had fun & some successes too. It was great to catch up with the Victorians I knew & meet some new people too. TO, I saw some beautiful Tollers but didn't know it was you

Australia is the only country that restricts border collie colours and the markings you see in the show ring are purely fashion. BCs have to have some white on them but the patern is not important. Everywhere else in the world they can be any colour and most other countries also accept short coats. That fact that the standard doesn't say "any colour or colours acceptable" suggests that colour has some role to play. I'm guessing visibility while working is part of that equation? I doubt it. I agree with Janba, it is fashion & nothing else. The aust standard does not even make genetic sense! If visibility were a serious & valid factor: cream kelpies would be allowed, since they are the same colour as re red BC's (allowable) other countries would have the same limitations of colour there would not be so many outstanding mostly white dogs both here & overseas same with ears, fashion & nothing else. Just something somebody decided way back when & it stuck