Tiggy

Why don't you feed the sardines in oil? Soft poos maybe .

I was wondering what everyone's preference is for about turns. I've always done the u-turn type. The pivot one with the dog going behind you looks pretty flash. Is one better for trials?

I've just started training the dumbell with Banjo to. He's the same will take it from my hand but not off the ground. I'm just happy that he actually gets excited about it.

Rock steady stand for exams. Yes please .

Who's this guru :rolleyes:

Yay Tonka . I that dog.

I just bought two books from Dogwise to. I'm also glad Wagschoolbooks don't sell them because that would have beeped me off .

I agree you should be a member of a Club if you trial and volunteer at trials to . I'm going to start training back at my club when we're ready to be in the trialling class.

Can you buy the Sheila Booth books in Australia? I've been googling but no luck. Otherwise I was going to get them from Dogwise.

Stand for exam .

Too bad you're in Esperance, we could be training buddies .

For me I'm on the fence because I have learnt alot from training at a club but at the same time I find an hour too long to keep my interest let alone the dogs. I'd much rather train with a small group who are also wanting to trial or already trial.

I thought I'd post a new thead on this topic after it came up in another post. I hope dogdude doesn't mind me posting what he wrote below. An obedience club focus on their bread and butter (pets), and their programs are not designed specifically for trialling (through the grades) What they do,.....is train you to train a well behaved pet, then the people wanting to go on to trial, find out that what they have actually being teaching all that time,was how to bore the hell out of their dog. Then you find you have to almost totally retrain your dog to compete with the top trialling dogs, that had their drive nurtured from an 8 week old pup, and have never done 10 minute block heeling let alone almost an hour.(obedience class) They are first trained "how to learn", then focus, then the rest. They have been carefully socialised with a few known dogs, but rarely aloud to romp around with other dogs ad lib at off leash parks. When they do go down to the obedience club, their owners don't let just anybody aproach them to "say hello" (a constant danger at clubs) Their owners generally work them outside of the mainstream classes, to protect their dogs drive levels, and the general boredom of sitting around waiting for a clueless novice to walk up to them with a known aggressive dog, wanting to see if their dog still has agression issues. Their owners do not practice block heeling at home, and only tend to tie all the part exercises together during a ring run through (trialling class normally) or a trial. The only reason they go to club is for the distractions (not necessarily in a class) Their owners know that their dog just needs great focus in a trial, and is not expected to work shoulder to shoulder with another dog (as in a class), except during the stays (probably the only other reason why their owner is at the club). If you really want to train a high scoring dog, you need to use methods that the top triallers use, and you will rarely see them on display at a club, because the top triallers never expect their dogs to ever learn anything new in that enviroment. This is why I recommend hooking up with the most sucessful trialler that you can find. They are not always easy to find, but most are very approachable, and will often take you under their wings if you stroke their egos a bit. Not all clubs have highly decorated triallers, so be prepared to look outside your club. Go to a few of the local obediece trials of a weekend, and look for yourself who is doing all the winning (normally the same select few). Strike up a convo and away you go.

Very interesting dogdude. I know what you mean about the block heeling. It's boring as hell.

I fed mine lamb tounges yesterday for the first time and they loved them.

Sophie did her cruciate about three years ago(she's four now) and only this winter did she start pulling up sore with arthritis(she hadn't ruptured it again like I though thank god), she had a steroid injection into the joint and she's sound again . Sophie's very active and the leg holds up fine but I don't play fecth with any of the dogs anymore because the twisting after the ball is a real risk.

I'd be getting the one with the $500 excess.

the accident and illness plan from BWM is much cheaper - $135 per dog per year That's the one I'm looking at.

Does your dog have white nails? Banjo has the same thing and he's got white nails. I'm not sure what it is but it's never been a problem.

What do you mean by if your dogs are not on a pass you don't do stays with them . Is that in the ring or you don't compete until they have solid stays. Sorry I'm not up with the lingo .

For a 10kg dog it says 2 scoops. It actually only has the feeding guide for medium and large dogs on the bag but the Ziwipeak website has the small dog feeding guide. I bought mine from Pookinuk which has a delivery charge of only $5 but I've heard Better Pets and Gardens can order it in for you which I'm going to ask my local one about because you get reward points with them. I bought the 5kg for $129.95 which sounds expensive but as I said you don't need to feed much. http://www.pookinuk.com.au/pet-products.asp?categoryID=118

I've been wanting to try my dogs on the Ziwipeak air dried food for ages so I finally got a bag this week and they love it. I haven't noticed any soft poos and they haven't been farting any more than usual . I'm only feeding it as a backup to their raw diet but I'm very happy with it. The only reason I haven't tried it earlier was the price but I've just worked out for my dogs it says to feed 3 scoops daily and the scoops are tiny only 2oz so that's only about 3/4 of a normal cup a day and when I was feeding dry food I was feeding 2 cups a day so it actually doesn't work out to cost that much more. Just thought I'd post this for anyone elso wanting to try it on their doggies.

If you want an outside dog maybe look at another breed that doesn't feel the cold/heat like the Stafford does. The Stafford has a short single coat and being all muscle with little body fat they don't have the insulation from weather extremes. It's easy enough to teach a dog to stay on it's mat inside if you don't want it having free run of the house. My two Staffords have free run of the house but the big dog who drops alot of hair has been taught to stay in the family room.

Poor Trixie .

You can buy Pet Custom Diets from Better Pets and Gardens which is Camel and Sweet Pototo but I think that's WA only .