Paulp

It's not a weekday night but it's not Sunday either, Berwick Obedience train on Saturday afternoon.

How did you go? Did Josh qualify? Did he beat the collies?

Are you going to a club that uses treats for rewarding/luring? If so, you could lure her into sits when you halt without a sit command. After you have done this for a while stop offerering the treats every couple and hopefully she will offer you a sit which you can praise physically. Then you can wean the treats away altogether.

At Berwick they can start training as long as they are vaccinated

I'm hoping to get down to the lure racing for the last hour, hope all the drama of screaming, exploding and wobbling isn't finished by then. Hi whatevah, Ebon was so shagged when I got home that Princess could not stir him up into a game of zoomies no matter how hard she tried!

At Berwick we say yellow for flyball and pink for agility which are the intermediate levels. In flyball you basically need a decent off lead recall. For agility I think you need reasonable stays and position commands as well. That is the technicality but the reality is that the instructors will assess the dogs/handlers on an individual basis and people might start flyball at a lower level. Best thing to do is go over to flyball and ask the instructors what is required at your club.

The company is called "Sees the Moment Event Photography" , thier website is here.

I taught mine to walk on the treadmill by luring them on and off with the treadmill off to start with so they got used to hopping on and off. Then I got them on the treadmill and with a bit of food in front of their nose and a tight leash, started it up slowly then stop it. Lots of praise and lots of treats. Do this repeatedly until they are comfortable with it starting to move under their feet and then work on longer bouts of walking and building the pace.. A big dog is unlikely to be comfortable with more than a walk on a standard treadmill as thier stride length is too long. A small dog will usually be happy to run eventually.

Oh - can someone confirm that. That would not work for me given we've already trained the correction technique. At Berwick we encourage people to try a flat collar first but are quite happy for people to use correction chains and head halters (we sell both in our shop) if that is their preference.

BOCD teach loose leash walking (dog can be anywhere as long as the leash is loose) so there is a similarity but we also teach automatic sits so a difference as well. However we do try to be flexible so I doubt any instructor is going to be troubled if you do automatic stands in class.

At BODC we tend to start with luring then phase that into rewarding positive behaviour then cut back the rewarding as practical. It starts out as "good pet training" with some emphasis brought in for trialling at the higher levels. As Staff n' Toller said, it tends to vary between trainers but follows the same general concept. I don't know how ADT trained so I can't highlight any differences for you. A number of former ADT members joined up with us last Saturday and quite a few more have expressed interest.

I trained my second dog on a head collar after attempting initially for 4 weeks on a flat collar (she would not stop pulling long enough to get a word of praise in edgeways). When I was starting to get focus using food and she was starting to get the idea with loose leash walking I went back to the flat collar (after a couple of months). I made the break abruptly, I just stopped using it one weekend. Last weekend she graduated to the highest class in obedience.

I agree with Luke, 1.2m and as light (makes the transition to off lead easier) as you can get away with

I give my labs chuck bones. They are sections of a cows spinal column and with a sharp filleting knife you can cut them into individual vertebrae (if you are willing to go to the effort it is better than the butcher sawing them up). They are big enough not to be swallowed whole but are not as hard as weight bearing bones. They have almost not fat on them and no marrow and a good butcher will leave a decent amount of meat on them. Because they are an irregular shape the teeth get a good scraping. They cleaned up my labs teeth in a couple of weeks.

I had a similar experience with my dog when he was 4 or 5 months old. I tried puppy supercoat and his behaviour went right off the rails. Switched to Advance and he settled down again.

The club has a office/shop that is open on training days (Saturday), I spend a bit of time in there so I'll keep an eye out for you.

I was there tonight but even with the footy field lights on next door it was too dark to see anything. Ebon went for a quick run around the first ring whilst I was disposing of a package and came back with half a tennis ball but no tug toy. It is possible that if someone finds it who is a member they will bring it into the shop on Saturday.

Both my dogs will run on the treadmill. My larger boy is not so keen because his longer stridelength means there is very little room to move forward or back without falling off but he will jump on for a treat. My smaller girl seems to quite enjoy it. I was inspired to give it a go after seeing Ceasar Milan train a dalmation to do it and was quite surprised at how easy it was to achieve, especially as both were a little apprehensive to begin with.

When I first got my second lab (i have one male and one female of about the same age) and they started playing like this it caused me quite a bit of concern but everyone said that is just the way labs play. My two sound like they are trying to kill each other at times. I discourage it in the house but just let it run its course outside.

OK, I am in Berwick so I know about it but not much about the others. I would recommend Berwick but that would be a biased opinion

Frankston Dog Obedience Club would be the closest to you and then Hasting and District Dog Obedience Club . A bit further afield is Berwick Dog Obedience Club. Also take a look at http://www.flyball.org.au/

They are a wholesaler. I don't know if you have to have a shopfront or not (we order for our club which does have a shop). Give them a call, their No is 95552422.

WRK enterprises in Cochranes Rd Moorabbin. We just went through this as well.

My boy is a flyball dog, he spends some time in the offlead areas socialising at our club every training day. Thinking of him as a "performance dog" makes me chuckle....

Doorways I generally enforce except when I send the dogs through in front of me but IMO when a dog is walking on leash as long as it is respecting a boundary placed on it (ie the leash and respecting it by not pulling) it is acceding to you as pack leader.