Vickie

Mine don't choose the time they get fed as I vary it, but once I set the wheels in motion, all the silliness happens . I generally use this time to train at least one or 2 of them. Seems such a waste to have all that enthusiasm & not use it for my own purposes :)

Sounds like they are predestined to be awesome :)

Surely that depends on the dog & what & how you train. I'm not in a habit of overworking my dogs & they may tire sometimes, but I can't remember the last time I ever lost their attention when I wanted it.

Depends on the dog for me too. Formal training for us requires agility equipment set up or access to sheep. Neither of these things can be trained for incidentally. I always have a plan for both agility & sheep, but am always prepared to break that plan if I see a hole in what is considered foundation for my plan. When we are working on something specific, i like to train it intensively for a few days at a time and then give it a break for a few days before coming back to it. Intensively may be 10 x 5 min sessions in a day or a 30 min block...depends on the exercise. All of our agility training is play based, so 1 min training may result in 2-3 mins play. There are days that I don't train at all, and days where we train all day. Depends what's happening in our lives.I never set deadlines for things, they are trained when they are trained...no rush...

I haven't measured them Sheena, but pretty sure both pups will be 500, definitely not 400. They're bigger than Trim & smaller than Shine who are both 500. :) I suspect Cricket will be out of Novice by the time they start to trial, judging by the few clips ive seen of him. We may see you in Excellent :)

I don't don't anything about Labs or retrieving, but looks like a pretty awesome pup to me! Plenty of sheepdogs are put out in the paddock at this age to have a look at sheep, lots of running, twisting & turning. Doesn't seem to do them any harm, but they certainly don't do it every day until they are older.

Thanks Lia . It's going to be a big year for the pups next year with sheep & agility. I'm exhausted just thinking about it

I'm having fun with Fly. She's 18 months now & I hope to trial her sometime next year. She's not quite ready, but not too far away. We had a bit of a hiccup when she came into season & our training was a little unpredictable, but she seems back to her normal self now . Here is a clip for a couple of weeks ago. She's really starting to connect with me on course now.

Sounds like You & Elsie are doing great . video???How old is she now? I forgot about this thread. Thanks for bumping it up

Great thread, there are some funny names listed Trim is Chow Pup Shine is Mama Slime or Pig Fly is Chuppa Chup Peppi is LeShit Lass...she doesn't have any yet...

You may want to repost under tranng/obedience/dog sports. M not sure how many people go into this sub forum. I am sure you will have people interested.

If that were the case, then there's be no point in selecting dogs from parents with working or sporting ability or the ability to race around a track. There's be no point in breeding from dogs that are calm, dependable or even bidable. If what you say is true, then there'd be no need to breed from dogs with drive or "working lines" as you'd be able to make a dog whatever you want it to be. Once you've had close contact with more than a couple of generations of dogs, you can see just how much a sire or even a grandsire can influence a litter. Well said!

They can not only inherit from parents but from grandparents as well.

That's pretty funny

Just curious...but why can't you use this time to get her interested? Especially if you are considering agility in her future... I'm never going to use her for agility. I'm going to eventually compete with Maybe my rescue kelpie. Torque is just for working. She hate the agility equipment (and kinda sucks at it lol) and would rather herd the chickens all day. Ok, no worries :) Lol, I have one just for working too :) except that somehow she seems to have taught herself agility by watching the others And seems hellbent on doing it...with or without me!

Just curious...but why can't you use this time to get her interested? Especially if you are considering agility in her future...

Yep. It'd be nice to have a higher drive/faster dog for agility but to be fair to my dog, I didn't get her with the intention of competing in dog sports and I think she probably had very high potential for her intended purpose as a guide or assistance dog if it weren't for her health issues. I still love her and think she's the perfect dog for me even if she's not the best at agility or other dog sports :D Oh that's not what I meant at all. I'm talking about dogs that stiil are asked to and struggle to do things despite physical limitations like age or injury.And dogs that are miserable or truly don't want to do it, but the handler persists because it's the only dog they have. You don't even remotely fit into either category .

Sometimes I think a low potential dog in a high potential home can be harder. Plenty of those around.

I often use a mix of both too. I frequently start new behaviours simply by using the daily meal. Putting a bowl of food on the ground seems like a wasted training opportunity to me. Living in a multidog household, my dogs get pretty excited about mealtimes. Sometimes the meal is a bowl of kibble, sometimes it's fresh meat or a nice big bone.I find that after a few days repetition of luring a behaviour, my dogs very quickly transition to offering the behaviour, and because of the anticipation that exists at mealtimes (and despite the fact that it may be boring kibble) they do it with a lot of enthusiasm. It's kind of interesting because the meal makes the training more exciting and the training makes the meal more exciting. Win win situation. I also use the "reward experience", but for many behaviours, this is introduced in the proofing phase rather than the initial learning phase.

Lol, very cute!

Way to go Barb & Kirra

Agree :) X 3

I think that there are dogs born anxious & dogs made anxious. There are 4 possibilities Born anxious, made worse by owner Born anxious, made better by owner Born without anxiety, made anxious by owner Born without anxiety, not made anxious by owner. It is impossible to say identify which category any dog fits in without knowing how it started as a pup & observing the dog and owner in their home environment.

In order to eligible for Sporting register, the dog/s in question must first be registered with one of 20 odd ANKC recognized bodies.The criteria/eligibility for registration with these bodies vary, but most require a working pedigree. It is probably possible to register non working dogs on some of them, but I doubt they would take kindly if they found out that people were planning to use them for non working purposes.

2nd vote for Cazzies creations. A very special friend had portraits commissioned for me of Zeus & Noah by Cazzie. I know what you mean about your heart jumping Teebs. They are not just an accurate representation of how they looked, She has captured their personality in each portrait. It is uncanny, everything time I look at them I am blown away at how perfect they are.