Vickie

Our next dog will be my daughters to train & compete with in agility. It will likely be a young female from the pound that we will foster first. I am not sure where my next dog will come from. It will be a working Border Collie & is unlikely to be ANKC registered. I would love another dog with the same breeding as my girls but unfortunately I seriously doubt that option will be available to me . I hope when I am ready to look again that I can find a breeding that comes close to being what I adore so much about them. They are perfect for me & I can't help thinking that anything else will be a compromise . DOL has certainly raised my awareness of rescue & the great dogs that can be found there.

OMG I LOVE that clip!!!! Everytime I watch it, it totally cracks me up. Jef is a VERY funny guy (as well as an excellentr dog trainer)! I have a friend who knows him well & she says he's even funnier in person...if that's possible. Here is the clip:

I thought it was hilarious! Saying that, I watch & enjoy his show all the time. There are lots of things I like about him & things I don't too. My biggest problem is the influence he has on the average pet owner with the average pet. He is often dealing with extreme cases on his show & while some of the methods he employs may be appropriate for the specific dog he is dealing with, they are definitely not appropriate for the average joe blow with his average untrained dog. I have seen quite a few people trying unsuccessfully to use Caesar methods on dogs who just don't need them. It makes for very confused dogs! I have also successfully used a few of his methods with my own dogs & at the pound & have found they work exactly as he demonstrates.

I love Roxy's waggy, waggy tail

I wish I could say she learnt it from me, but she has always had an instinctively good sense of what, where & when to do on course...I had to work like hell to get it.

I guess it depends on the dog. My older 2 BC's have tendancies to chase things that move, but neither are suitable for working stock. My other 2 don't really chase anything and both are nice sheepdogs. I found with my older 2 that I could find plenty of other training exercises to stimulate them and this settled them down.

I thought I'd bump this thread back up. Here is Chloe running Trim yesterday at Newcastle. She did a great job running her. As usual I stuffed them up by exaggerating how important it was for Chloe to call her after that 1st tunnel so she didn't take the weaves first time round. I need to just let Chloe do her thing, her timing is naturally good, I have no doubt they would have been clear if I had kept my big mouth closed, rather than making a point of it right before she went in.

For what it is worth I look at it like this. Prey drive is an instinct to pursue & capture (live) animals. Prey drive is broken into components: search, stalk, chase, bite, kill. I have seen Shine in the "Corvus definition" of prey drive. All the above components were used to kill a rat. When I train tricks with her, I often use the search, chase & bite component of prey drive. When I work sheep with her, I use the search, stalk & chase components. When I train her for agility, I use the search, chase & bite components. So is my dog prey driven? or is everything but killing the rat play? I think the reason people use the terms interchangeably is that dogs who tend to be capable of the "Corvus definition" of prey drive, are also generally the ones who are the most easy to reward using one of the above components of (everyone else's definition) of prey drive. I'm not really sure what the definition of play drive is? What I do know is that my dogs seem to put similar amounts of effort & energy into working for a tug or chasing a tennis ball as they will into going after something alive. They are different when working sheep...it is much more serious, but there are reasons for that.

hey whatever works, & it certainly worked! I do a drop in Snooker sometimes. I often find it is quicker for me to run & then recall than to try & run with the dog past stuff.

never mind

I would just break it down more for her. The fact that she's keen to go to the jumps is a great thing and something you don't want to lose. Lots of contact behaviours fall apart at this point in training. By being too harsh in insisting on the stay is what typically starts that slow creeping behaviour that we see in so many dogs coming to their 2o2o. However not being consistent in expecting the stay is what makes it optional for so many dogs. It really is a tough point in training. I'm not a fan of clicking for a stationary position on a contact. It can be confusing for the dog as you then have to swap from a click to a release word. If you are still clicking for position, I would definitely stop that now. Can you ask someone at training to help you? Maybe Prue? It is so hard to explain the next steps in words, heaps easier to demonstrate in person.

I think sometimes what is classed at intelligent disobedience in herding dogs is nothing more than pure instinct. Herding people talk about command over instinct all the time. Those of us who are crap handlers have all been in a situation countless times where we give the dog a command it knows based on what we see the sheep are doing. The dog often knows better, since it has a far better idea of what the sheep will do & will comply with our command, once it has done what it feels it needs to do first. Trim is the master of this, she reads sheep well, much better than I ever will. It is confusing, there are handlers (good handlers) who give their dogs some credit & permission to think for themselves and there are good handlers who insist their dogs do exactly as they ask, micromanaging every move. On the agility field where there is no instinct involved, she is 100% compliant, I don't believe she makes choices out there, she does exactly what she thinks I want.

OMG, CONGRATULATIONS You sneaky bugger, you didn't tell me he was entered. Shine is now even more proud of her brother than she already was.

It is so interesting to speculate on their thought process. A couple of years ago, Trim & I put all the sheep away after training. Walking back from the paddock, about half way back, I realised she wasn't with me. When I looked back to the paddock the sheep were running around. I was mad as it was out of character for her. Before I got back to the paddock, she ran to me, then back & forth, very distressed, I think she even barked a few times, also out of character. LOL, she reminded me of Lassie, trying to tell me something. When I got closer to the paddock I saw a terrier in amongst the sheep. By the time I turned to her to tell her to bring the sheep to me she was behind them & brought the sheep (along with terrier who was exhausted by this stage). We grabbed the terrier, found it's owner & went home. I will never forget that day as long as I live. I can only assume she knew it was wrong & that we had to fix it.

I have to disagree with this. Agility people used to think as you have written above, they used to teach a behaviour & then reward to make it fast. Now we just start fast. Dogs can & do learn in a high drive state. I have had so many people come with dogs who have moderate motivation for food. When they see a ball their eyes nearly pop out of their head. It always goes the same. Me: why didn't you tell me your dog loves toys? Them: oh, you can't train him with toys, he can't think. Me: give me 5 minutes Them: OMG, I'm going to train him with toys all the time. I find the higher their drive for the toy, the easier they are to train & the quicker they learn the behaviour. Same with sheepdogs. A keen working dog is on just about the highest drive there is. There IS no opportunity to say, hang on, tone it down & learn & then you can get back in this state. They learn in drive, they have to.

Here is what I saw: 0.03 Startline, she is releasing on movement 0.06 You gave no turn cue and wited till she was landing before you told her to turn 0.07 You bent over, touched her & did not move through your cross 0.09 You bent over and waited for her to come out of the tunnel (this would have been a good spot to get ahead a bit to prepare yourself for the next bit). 0.11 no turn cue till she had landed 0.11 bent over, very jerky arm movement 0.13 over rotated + very jerky arm movement (which is what imo pulled her off) 0.15 another very jerky arm movement 0.17 Jerky arm movement causes bar to drop. For some reason, you chose the dropped bar as your first opportunity to reward her. 0.21 If I wanted my dogs to take the tunnel, I would give them the exact line & body language you gave her 0.27 bending over + as above OK, I can't be bothered doing any more. At this point she had lost a lot of confidence & you had given up so it is hard to analyse objectively. I think that you need to recognise that at least up until this point, I can't actually see Kenzie doing anything wrong. All of the points I have made above relate to handling, not to building skills in a young dog. I am almost certain that in this exact scenario, my dogs would make the same choices as Kenzie did (well I hope they would). I was hoping that when you analysed the course, you would have recognised at least some of the above. You saw all these things as a training issue, I see them as a handling issue.

You should go & look at that clip again and make a list of each thing that you don't consider your ideal performance & then tell us why you think it happened. I think your answers will surprise you & you will learn a lot from the exercise.

You will find that a large percentage of discrimination and distance is about setting the line correctly before you attempt it. For many challenges, the challenge all but disappears if you set the correct line first...and then there are ones that are just downright impossible without a good set of trained skills ... and sometimes there are ones that are impossible even with trained skills .

well next time you feel like that, slap yourself & stay at home! . It is very easy in a club situation to do what everyone else is doing & focus on being able to get from obstacle 1 to obstacle 20. I used to see it week after week, so long as people could complete the whole course in some manner they seemed happy. Not only does it not improve your overall performance, it builds no skills & can cause damage to your teamwork. Training is about training. Much better to train/build to a brilliant set of 6 obstacles than a crappy 20. I am also fully aware when I train that I am usually training myself more than I am training my dogs. I have made sure my girls have a good solid foundation, so when something stumps us, it stumps me. It is my responsibility to think ahead & work out exactly what I need to do to allow them to perform as they have been trained.

I can see a few issues here. You know I am blunt, so I will just be my normal self & tell it like I see it...am happy yo edit if you feel it is inappropriate. 1. she is nowhere near ready to do a course of that length & complexity. 2. she seems to understand her contact position but I question whether she truly understands the release. 3. each time you make her go back and redo a part of the course that "she" got wrong, her confidence in your handling is reduced. 4. your frustration is evident at times & she reacts to it with stress behaviours. 5. you need to reward A LOT more than you are. The reason she is offering contacts is not because she loves them so much based on a reward history. Each time she offered a contact in that clip it is because it seemed like the easier option to her. She is defaulting to what she knows b/c it is safe. If I were running her on this course, I would be breaking it down a lot. 3-4 obstacles at a time & heavily rewarding for enthusiam & confidence. It would also allow you to be more timely in your handling & get in better positions to give her the best possible opportunity to successfully do the more complex parts.

If I didn't start it, I don't think it would happen, if I didn't end it, it probably wouldn't end & if I didn't control it a bit, I would have holes all through my hands.

I think tug is a brilliant idea/game for the right dog & handler. I think it is a dreadful idea/game for the wrong dog & handler. I think we have the power to become the right handler and choose the right dog.

Awww how gorgeous! Both of them!

I love it too! and can definitely see it hanging in a cafe.

Any news today Sue? Fingers crossed for a good result & hope she will be back with you today.