Vickie

I'd be keen to hear/learn about a method that only takes a few weeks as well. I made this weird deal with myself that I wasn't allowed to attempt to train a dog in running until I had trained my absolute ideal 2o2o performance. Providing my young dogs continue to hold up in competition, I think my next dog may be running :)

And this one is not perfect (I made a bad choice and hesitated in her way on last turn) but its pretty good for a baby dog who would prefer to run everything in full kamikaze extension

This is a good clip to demonstrate the difference between stopping & moving :)

Was thinking about your issue a bit more this week Lia & made an observation of a common issue with students. I notice lots of people are not continuing to move through their turns and/or are not driving out of them. If you stop in the middle of your turn, your dog has 2 options. One is to decel or stop with you and the other is to continue on the path they are on at the point you stop. If they have already committed to the obstacle and you stop, they will often fly right past you. They have no choice. If you stop before commitment to the obstacle, they have no information about where to land.

Actually I don't think there is as much difference in the 2 main systems as people want to believe there is I teach people who use both systems & the really important stuff is the same. For timing of turns, accel/decel etc, the ideal place for me is always based on where the dog is. The turn happens when the turn needs to happen. With experience, we can be mostly accurate in working the spot on the ground out, but nothing beats reading your dog. I find drawing lines on the ground & exaggerating arm signals can help increase dogs commitment and aid the handler in recognising it.

Try thinking of this issue in terms of commitment. If he is pulling off the jump, you are cuing the turn before he has committed to it. If he is making the turn slowly, you are hanging around for too long after he has committed. I think too often we get caught up in what a system says we should do or the latest trend in training at the expense of reading our individual dogs. I see a lot of people stopping short on turns lately as that is what they are seeing the big names do. It's only really appropriate if your dog is driving forward like their dogs are. The problem is that the more people try to copy this with dogs who are not driving forward, the more they are encouraging those dogs not to drive forward.

Been there, done that :)I don't know what's harder...when they have to go everywhere with you...or when they are old enough to not want to go anywhere with you It's a great way to learn skills & help dogs :)

Suburb is Box Hill, north West Sydney. Dogs are mostly working breeds. Will reply to pms shortly :)

Just wondering if anyone is: In Sydney Free on a Tuesday 1-3 Interesting in helping me training agility foundations to rescue dogs No experience required. Pm me if you're interested :)

Actually experience has taught me just the opposite. i have lost count of the number of dogs I have personally used or recommended & supervised the method Nekbet suggests. Many of these have come from situations where distance & extra special gentleness has tried & failed. My unscientific opinion is that so long as you remain unemotional with a tethered dog they quickly develop security in the routine you are creating for them without all the pressure that treating with extra special gentleness inadvertently creates. Not saying your theory/research is wrong...just saying my experience to date doesn't support it.

Looks like a very nice athletic, well trained & biddable dog. Would be even better with more confident handling.

Tassie I teach mine to get on & off the same plane of the table to start with. I don't ask for them to stay on it, just send on with one arm & release back to me with the other, like a front cross. What this does is: Teach them to get on fast Teach them to collect & turn/flip as they get on Teach them that once they are on, they look straight to me in anticipation of the release. Once I have all this, I start to introduce the position & pause.

I did with Weez :) Worked great for him specifically. Ok, there are always exceptions. maybe "cannot" was too generalised. I will change to " it would be very unusual if you could" I did try it once as a joke...I was working Fly, (who is about as ball obsessed as a dog can get) and I said "where's your ball?".I wish I'd videoed it. She flipped, gave me the wild eyes, looked at the ball, then looked at me in disgust & went back to her sheep.

Yes, I think it can go both ways, but depends on how you train. Sheep work requires a level of compliance that is impossible to achieve without some aversives.You cannot reward your dog with food or toys for calling off stock, you cannot shape or lure distance off stock and you cannot flank your dog the opposite way to what it's instinct tells it without some form of pressure. I think dogs are smart enough to respond to the 2 different types of training, but I'm pretty sure there would have to be some overlaps each way.

Back to the original question... I don't have gun dogs. Obviously drive training has no place in working stock, but I have made some observations with my sheepdogs lately. I have 2 two year old bitches from the same litter. One I started on both agility (where I use a form of drive training) and on sheep at a young age. I held back agility/drive training with the other as I was concerned it would affect her sheep work. In the last couple of months, I have spent some time training her in agility. Lately she seems a lot more pushy in her sheep work and doesn't seem as calm & clear headed in her work. She is moving a bit faster on her sheep and anticipating commands. It could all just be a coincidence, a consequence of something else or even a figment of my imagination, lol, but I can't help wondering if my initial concerns are now becoming reality. Both are still great sheepdogs & looking awesome in agility, but I suspect the 2 activities are affecting each other.

I think Ellis prefers luring because he feels its often quicker, allows more precision and leaves little room for confusion.

I don't think Wobbly said its "un"rewarding...maybe just not a useful reward in a training context. One of my dogs LOVES to jump/launch into the dam. She is compulsive about it! No toy required, she just loves to jump in on command.I guess I could use it as a reward for agility since she obviously finds it highly rewarding...but it's not a particularly useful reward in a training context...and since she's highly driven by other rewards that involve interacting with me, it really wouldn't occur to me to use it.

Yep! That's another one! And my other personal favourite...Shove that single piece of stingy crap food at your dog, turn away & ignore your dog & then complain that the dog wanders off distracted!

I'm so tired of people asking me why they can't just train their dog in agility and reward them with pats. I'm tired of people telling me their dog is not food or toy motivated. I'm tired of people telling me that their dog is high drive & doesn't need motivators. I'm tired of people with tiny stingy bits of crap food that they shove so hard at their dog that it has to step back to take it. Rant over! Thanks for listening :)

What a beautiful run Congratulations

I think temperament is probably 100% genetic too. Because of this, I feel the 'basic' temperament variations you see in a litter are directly linked to the amount of variation of temperaments in the first couple of generations in the pedigree. I am lucky enough to know most of the siblings, all of the parents & many of the grandparents in the 3 litters that my 4 BC come from. I am also lucky to have been very involved with the 3 litters from birth and through the placing at 8 weeks. All have been bred for sheep work. As far as 'basic' temperament goes, I have seen very little variation in any of the 3 litters. I believe pretty much any owner could have taken any pup and ended up with pretty much the same dog. Corvus suggested that the fallout rate for working dogs is high because people don't know how to breed for the right temperament.I disagree. 2 dogs can have a very similar 'basic' temperament at birth/6 weeks /10 years but different working traits. Working traits, although probably fixed at birth, can only be assessed with work. They cannot be assessed at 6/8 weeks when placement happens. Combined with different maturation rates (or readiness to take work), you are probably looking at 18 months-2 years before you can really assess what you have. And then there's the environmental factors... It's all so complex...

Well done :)You will be surprised at how quickly things will improve. Can't wait to see more updates :)

Not necessarily Tassie Well, I guess I should have said - in front of in terms of where the dog is going. Or do you have a secret move, Vickie :) not a secret move, but I do have a Front Cross collection cue, and I do expect my dogs to remain in collection until I get to where I need to be. Occasionally (ideally not often) that means that I am behind when I give it & they are forced to move around me to take the next extension cue.

Not necessarily Tassie

Have sent you a pm Emily :)