Vickie

I will not walk my dogs around here for that reason. Not strays, but there are unfenced dogs everywhere. I saw a lady regularly walking a Beagle up my road not long after we moved in. I went out & asked her if she ever had problems. "not really" she said, "he's only been attacked 2-3 times." That was it for me and I have never walked them down my road or anywhere around here. Lucky for us, we are out & about enough & have heaps of friends with dogs who visit that I don't need to walk them around here...but I wish I could. I will always pick my dogs up if a strange dog that I am worried about approaches anywhere. Right or wrong, it is what I have always done & will continue to do.

Seems like there are a number of registered, responsible breeders who breed to conformation standards on here who don't show. There are also registered, responsible breeders who have other standards they deem more important & choose not to breed to conformation standards. I can't see either group remotely similar to a BYB.

I think there is a fine line here. I don't want one dog to run like the other for convenience. I want the best I can get out of each of them. If I work with what they give me, then how do I ever seek to improve? When I started running Shine, I liked the way she would drive ahead of me. I recognised it as a strength & something I want in a dog. Rather than recognising that Trim is different, I set about teaching her to drive ahead better. She is still not as good as Shine at it, but she is HEAPS better & still improving. Because I could compare them, I saw it as a weakness in Trim & have made an effort to improve it. Same with tight turns. Trim naturally turns tight. Shine does not. Again Trim is still better at it, but Shine is much tighter than she was because I have spent a lot of time training it. Shine has better weave entries. I thought Trim's were good, but knowing Shine's are better makes me realise Trim's still need work. and so on. Yes there are things we cannot change. But I would rather work on a weakness in training than try to run courses differently forever because of them. (not saying you are doing this Bec, just trying to justify why I want mine the same)

Seems to happen a lot. I think it's b/c we handle so much better & stay so much more connected on the hard stuff, b/c we have to to get through it. Our Masters Jumping course on the weekend looked fantastic, very flowing & was a lot of fun to run. Both my dogs took a (different) off course & DQ'd. The Masters Agility looked plain ugly, lots of odd lines & complex bits the whole way through. Shine took a bar :rolleyes: & Trim won it . I took the jumping for granted & had to work my butt off in the agility.

One of the main reasons I am thinking about this is b/c we ran a course on the weekend that had a serpentine in the middle of it. We don't usually have an issue with serps but this one caught us out. Shine landed so that she had no choice but to do it correctly. Trim cut in as she had already committed to the wrong side of the 2nd jump before she took off for the first. I did some training with this yesterday & Trim & I are now getting it :rolleyes: . Now I need to try to get Shine to do what Trim did...just in case that is the course next time. It is so hard to get stuff like this right in a split second on course. They really can't be conscious decisions...they have to be instinctual actions. I'm getting better at being instinctual but still have a ways to go (obviously ).

let us know what you find

It's hard isn't it. Although you seem happy with the way things are so you are obviously not struggling with it as I am. Do you ever lose yourself in the moment & forget which dog you are running?

It sure is. The thing I find most difficult is when I am actually out there & I have to think "remember you are going to do something different here". I don't do well if I have to think on course. I think it would be easier if they weren't in the same class. yes I guess you are right. I owe it to them to be as clear as possible.

I know there is already a training talk thread, but thought I would see if anyone was interested in doing an agility specific one... Question. For those of you who run more than one dog, do you aim to run them the same? I was determined to run my girls the same but think I am finally coming to the realisation that I really need to be running them a little differently. I don't want to change my system/handling rules but I think they are just too different for me to try to run exactly the same way. The issue is with stride & commitment. Shine has a MUCH longer stride than Trim. She covers the ground faster and lands in different places. Their stride is their stride & I don't think I can or should change it. The commitment issue, I think is a bit related to stride but also just the difference between how I have trained them & the way they naturally are. Trim commits much later than Shine. The benefit with Shine is that I can send her & know she will go. The downside is that I have to call/handle A LOT sooner or sh's off course. The benefit with Trim is that I can pretty much call her off anything, even mid air. The downside is that I really need to support her all the way, the slightest twinge & she will take it as a signal to turn. I tend to run Trim silently, but am discovering that it is better for Shine if I verbalise a bit more. So what do you think? Should I try to change their commitment so I can run them the same? or should I just know that they are different & run them as such?

I don't think you'd be human if you didn't worry. I think we all worry that we will make mistakes with each dog we get. As others have said, each dog presents new challenges. None of us are perfect & some mistakes are inevitable. I try really hard to improve things I did wrong with each subsequent dog. You may not realise just how much you have learnt until you start training your next dog.

I have 2 males of similar size & age & 2 bitches of similar size and age. All 4 are the same breed but the girls have the same lines & the boys are bred differently. They tend to hang out in pairs. Boys & girls. My bitches in particular are the very best of mates. I have never seen 2 dogs that get along so well. The sleep on each other, share toys & will happily eat out of the same bowl. We recently added another bitch of a different brred, similar age but different size. Although we have no fights, I don't think, the girls will ever accept & treat her as they do each other.

He's so cute & such a livewire :rolleyes: . I can't wait to see him start to run, I have a feeling he's going to be quite something, based on his attitude & on your ability as a trainer. Shine thought he was gorgeous ...well right up to the point that he humped her head

My post was simply in response to the question Staranais asked. She asked why the reduction in reward was not adversely affecting performance. I am suggesting that the performance has become self rewarding enough to provide as much incentive as the external rewards she started with. I believe this is possible (for some dogs) & I believe this has occurred to an extent with my dogs in agility. A few years ago I spent 6 months training Trim with no food & no toys. Despite the fact that all her foundation ha been dne with toys, I saw no decrease in her enthusiam for agility. I reverted back to toys because it gives me finer & more precise control over what I am rewarding (aned because it seems to make seminar presenters happier ). Despite the fact that she is a food motivated pig & loves her treats for rewards for tricks, it took me ages to get her to take food in agility. Once I got her to take it, she would spit it to the side & remain focussed on the next obstacle. Eventually I got her to actually swallow it. The only way I could do this was to teach her that agility stopped if she didn't take the food. In training now we run 3-8 obstacle short sequences & she gets rewarded heavily. In a trial, she runs 24 obstacles & gets rewarded with her lead to tug with at the end. She will still often pull off the tug & try to get back into the ring if she possibly can. I highly doubt I could ever get her to take food or tug in the middle of a trial run. She has been trialling for 4 years, she continues to give me a better performance in a trial than she does in training. Same with Shine, she loves to tug ( :rolleyes: sometimes a little too much as Kavik will tell you after seeing the blood dripping from my hand on Saturday after her run) but I still struggle to get her to tug once she knows she is going into the ring. She will only tug when we're done. Trying to reward either of them on sheep, with anything other than the chance to work, would be ludicrous. I see this as similar except that they are much more serious/intense about the sheep than they are about agility.

what she said

Extinction? huh? What I am trying to say is that once a behaviour becomes self rewarding, it is possible to reward less with no detrimentral effect.

I think depending on the dog, it is possible to substitute an external reward with the self rewarding nature of the activity with no visible extinction of behaviour. My dogs don't get anywhere near the reward in a trial that they do in training...and yet they continually give me noticeably MORE in a trial.

Thanks guys. It seems a lot paler than the pics I saw online so wasn't sure it was the same bird. Certainly matches behaviour description though. I have never seen one before but now am thinking I have probably seen heaps from a distance & assumed they were willy wagtails.

pushy towards other dogs? or towards you?

sorry to keep asking for bird ID's but you guys always get it so I keep asking. Crappy pics but the best I could get at the distance it was away I'm pretty sure it's a Flycatcher, Restless or Paperbark? But the colouring seems a lot lighter than the pics I can find online. Maybe a juvenile?

I LOVE it . I'm on a downer stage atm. I see my stages as this... Take millions of photos of EVERYTHING, pretend the bad don't exist & tell myself the good ones are fantastic Realise the good ones really weren't that good, with an occasional fluke Start to get better, think I'm pretty good again Try to get technical & realise I am good at a few things but crap at heaps of other things Start building some knowledge & really improve where I'm at now...uninspired because I never seem to be happy with what I get. Some of it is probably pretty good, but I seem unhappy with anything less than excellent. Hopefully there is another stage to come...I used to want to spend every spare minute with my camera & lately I just can't be bothered.

Mine seem to be happy with just about anything. So long as they can get their mouth on it & it's big enough for me to hold it too...it's a tug! I do have a few toys that people have bought for them, but I rarely spend money on a tug toy, unless it's a lead as well. Some of our more obscure "tug" toys...garden hose, old towel, various items of clothing like socks, sleeves & knitted hats, old handbag, lots of outgrown kids toys, paper towel rolls, paint rollers etc.

I know heaps of koolies & would have to agree with this. There are variations of temperament within most breeds between different lines but the thing that concerns me about koolies is the variations within the same lines. I know a few sets of littermates who are VASTLY different in temp...all with great upbringings & good handlers & trainers . I also see a lot of variations in working ability too within the same lines. This tells me it is genetic, rather than environmental.

The 3 boys who live next to me have a Foxie & a JRT. Both dogs go everywhere with them, we live in a quiet semi rural area. The Foxie never leaves their side, she is a wonderful dog. She reminds me of the dogs we all had growing up, extremely loyal, basically uncontained & has great body language with other dogs. We see HEAPS of Foxies in the pound. Some are very timid, but many are not & would probably match this family perfectly. I would love one myself except that our fencing is not secure enough. I suspect the reason we see so many in the pound is that they are escape artists & easily go under fences & gates. I think they really need to be with their people & don't cope well at home alone for lengthy periods. The little one next door often comes to hang out with us for the day if her family goes out. She just comes & goes as she pleases..under the gates.

makes perfect sense . I just walked into the backyard...it took precisely 2 seconds for a ball to be dropped at my feet