jesomil

That is a brilliant little dog in that video you posted. Wow!!

Vickie, great posts, great thread!!

:cool: RIP precious Sophie

I am so sorry to hear that your beautiful Sophie's time has come. I will be thinking of you both at midday tomorrow .

Congratulations MrsD, you guys looked great!! Thanks for posting it.

Years ago I knew a dog who loved to chase a laser light. It turned into a big problem with her always looking for movement. Sometimes she would just be sitting there but her eyes would be darting around still. Its almost as if it affected her mentally. It was quite sad to see. I would never ever do it with my own dogs.

Hi, we train at Warragul. Well, we havent this year due to being pregnant/new baby, but we used to go every sunday and will start again. Its on every sunday morning starting around 9am. It costs about $35 to join I think then gold coin donation every week. They are a really nice bunch of people. Most people that go are involved in yard trials and I have only ever seen working line Kelpies there and the odd border. Great sheep, great facilities. Who have you been trying to call? I can give you another number if the one you have isnt working. The website might be old.

Congratulations on your new puppy. He is very handsome!!

Thanks for all the respones. No roo's in the area. It sounds like maybe it was a muscle tear. The bruising is much better now. I did call the vet the next day but he said that if the dog is in no pain with no limp, he doesnt need to be seen. The vet would have just been guessing what happened like I am.

I have seen it when a dog has been hit by a car too. But there were no cars, no large animals to be kicked by and no fences to jump. Very strange.

On Tuesday, my dog injured his leg. He was a fair distance away so I am not sure exactly what happened but he was running through the bush and then came squealing back to me holding up his hind leg. He didnt put any weight on it for a short while and then about an hour later he was running around normally. There are no cars where we were and there were no puncture wounds. He may have jumped and landed awkwardly. Yesterday I noticed a large area of bruising that runs down the inside of the leg, across the abdomen and over his boy bit. Has anyone seen this before? I am wondering what could have caused such bruising. Can dogs get sprains?

Great pics . Thanks for sharing.

Hi Kavik, I was a member of NSDTC for 15 years before I moved down south. Its a great club with some great people. I really liked their trialling classes. They always had experienced people to help with run throughs etc. When I was there, there were some really good triallers who would help everyone.

Congrats with the trialling, what a clever boy he is. I cant believe your pups have just turned 2!! Time flies.

Hi HG . Good to see you here.

As someone else said, at sheepdog trials in season girls can compete but run last. With my boy, if there is stock around, he will completely ignore in season girls as the stock is of far higher value. In normal circumstances, I can get him to ignore an in season girl with a correction but it is not something I would want to do regularly as he needs to be interested in them sometimes. Also obviously it depends a huge amount on the individual dog as some males simply cant control themselves.

Definately flat collar on a pup or even a martingale if you prefer. There are many methods of training a dog not to pull and you can do it on any collar. You dont need time to praise and reward between pulling. Even the strongest puller can be trained on a flat collar if the handler has the experience and ability.

Congratulations!! Thats a great effort! What a spunky looking boy too!!

Are you training on or off stock? I would be introducing both commands at the same time. You would make it very obvious with either a rake, arm or your body language which direction you want her to go while saying the command. Eg. You want her to move to the right, you walk around the stock towards her so it naturally pushes her right etc. As she gets the hang of it, you start making less obvious gestures to help her until you dont need to do anything at all when she understands the commands. Working dogs off balance is a really good way to reinforce their commands as they naturally want to balance but you really can test how well they understand when you give them commands to work off balance. ETA I am not sure if i am answering the question you are after though as you would already know the stuff i have written. Are you just interested in how other people train side commands or are you after suggestions with her sensitivity.

Sorry to hear Sophie has not had such a good day today CnR. Hope she is feeling better tomorrow.

So sorry to hear about Zed. He was a special boy.

After reading everyones posts i think that they may do it to survey territory. My boy is the only one who has to be up high and he is definately the most territorial. The girls dont ever get on anything. I wouldnt think it had anything to do with backing as mine love backing sheep at any opportunity but only one sits up high in the backyard. Very interesting though.

No theories, but my Kelpie is the same. He is always lying on top of the outside table. He just loves to be on something high, no matter what it is. Not sure why though.

It could also be referring to other sheepdog trials where there are many Champions like yard and 3 sheep trials. Although it probably wouldnt have been referred to as herding. Who knows??

When my silly young Kelpie jumps up, I simply hold onto her feet. No emotion, no words, I just hold onto her feet. After a while she starts to feel uncomfortable. This doesnt hurt her at all but teaches her that it is uncomfortable to jump up. She gets lots off praise and attention when her feet stay on the ground. She hasnt jumped up for a long time now. I would also suggest checking on your leadership status.