Jaxx'sBuddy

To add to that bedazzled, once a male is sporting trained, well controlled and obedient by 18 months to 2 years old and entire, apart from an accidental mating, desexing IMO is no longer a behavioural factor of benefit at all once sporting obedience is established. BB what do you think of the school of thought that it reduces/eliminates the risk of testicular cancer

i have a small/medium breed dog and i would have preferred to wait until 9 - 12 months to desex BUT she had an inguinal hernia that needed operating on. after discussion with the vet on the urgency of the hernia op i made the decision to desex her earlier and fix the hernia and desex in the one operation so i left it as late as i could and the ops were done when she was 6 months. there are equally a lot of opinions on when to desex bitches. some say that if the bitch is desexed prior to their first season it reduces the risk of mammary cancer and desexing male dogs removes the risk of testicular cancer. in the end all we can do is to do what we think best for our dogs

i reduce my dogs intake by 1/3 to 1/2 and use cooked pumpkin as a filler. it works for her.

i use the unley road vet at unley

my dog had this as well. tummy bug according to the vet. take her to the vet if you are worried though and maybe get some probiotics from the vet for her

i know this might be an odd question but what sort of heel do you want? casual walking heel or totally focussed heel?

that is soooooo cute!!!!

Would you always make that conclusion? Frantic offering of already learned behaviours is not necessarily a sign of stress. true but it can be stress as well

So for your dog, perhaps guide and place training might be more successful and less stressful? I'm not a big fan of "hands on" training but once again, you've gotta use what works for that dog. i have managed quite well by teaching her by luring under little distraction then increasing the distraction then using the guide and place when she gets too stressed with distractions and between them both she is reliable and happy and none of us are stressed.

It pays to remember that it's not only aversive methods that can stress a dog. I've seen very stressed dogs trained using free shaping. Frantic offering of already learned behaviours is one side effect of this method used badly. Personally, I don't care for it. I don't like my dogs to have to guess what I want from them. I prefer to communicate clearly what the desired behaviour is. Others swear by it. There is no doubt that used well, it can be very effective. this is my dog. she so wants to please she tries everything. i stopped using this method because she grew less confident when i was using it. she needs to know what i expect otherwise she stresses. and so many people are surprised because she is a very calm dog for her breed

That's ok then, so long as you realise that I do not and was not denigrating any one's method. I actually concur with you. I think perhaps in part that negative comments to "positive training" methods aren't really negative to the method itself, but is negative to the people/groups who have pushed it to the point of ad-nausium and who have also, over the years, tried (and in some ways, for some time, succeeded) in making out any one else who believed differently, to be cruel, harsh etc. So please don't take it to heart and be assured that I was not running down positive training. I love positive training . totally agree. it gets my back up when people have only one way to train and put people down if they use another method. i will use whatever method that will work best for the dog i am training at the time. if it isnt working then i look further, research and/or ask a professional trainer for advice. i never know enough to say i know it all

Steve from k9 pro has distance learning packs http://www.k9pro.com.au/categories.php?cat...-Learning-Packs

My dog eats his own shit, how does Delta feel about that? ;) ;) thank you for this sensible post...too true

maybe you need to buy a few cheap cameras and hook them up to catch them. i think you can get them to hook up to a PC then the PC hard drive captures the video

Welcome to my world! My girl is one who struggled to learn targetting. She is confident and reliable now, but boy did it take a while. I actually had to start with me making the target move to contact her nose and rewarding her for that - otherwise we would just sit there forever. I think that there is a large difference in dogs that have been trained positively, with free-shaping and targeting from the time they were pups and older dogs who haven't had any training at all. Yes, some of the older dogs will still pick up things quickly and think for themselves, but many won't. My "girl" has this attitude of "why bother", I'm quite happy sitting here. The first two animals I had trained to target were cats and they picked it up very quickly, but then I tried it on my adult, traditionally trained Golden and it took me literally two weeks before he got the idea. Since then I've trained a lot of dogs (and cats, horses, rabbits and random animals in petting zoos) to target and worked with all sorts of dogs in various emotional states and levels of drive and motivation. I've since realised that what I do is the most important predictor of success, rather than the animal's learning history or temperament which has only a very minor bearing on the outcome. The reason my Golden took so long to learn to target is because targeting is deceptively simple, but teaching it is a skill which must be learned and practiced. Most importantly the target must not be left 'out there' or you will very quickly teach your dog to just sit there, and then you'll have to use a different target. The next piece of advice is not to click for touching the target at first (unless that is what is offered). If the dog makes any attempt to move, sniff or look at the target you click and treat then, don't ask for any more than that. Given the extreme cases of shut-down, fearful, anxious or aggressive dogs that I have taught to target I really cannot imagine that there is a dog that I could not teach to target now; but I was a slow starter with this particular behaviour! It works very well in classes too, one of the better things you can teach in a class situation (unlike free-shaping). yep i agree. i am just a normal punter who needs to train my dog to be a good citizen so i am sure i am not training correctly. what i try to do is get my dog to behave as i need her to making sure there is as little frustration on both our parts as possible. i also need this behaviour to be reliable so i try to make it as solid as possible. seeing i have had many dogs over many years and they have all been well behaved and happy i cant be doing too much wrong.

Really? How come? The only thing I've ever changed when I up the distractions is the reward rate and the criteria. The method stays the same. I find reliability to be a function of reward history more than anything. I don't think I understand this idea of using two ways to train one behaviour. If you need two ways the first one didn't work? I think I'm going to go crawl back under the rock I have apparently been living under. This thread is doing my head in. because the puppy under distraction lost her food motivation and shut down so i needed to use another method to get her to drop

that is exactly what i found and it went off very quickly. thats why i dont buy from there.

for hoses that dont stay on the taps, i go to the auto store and buy hose clamps then use that to tighten onto the hose and tap. works well for me

yep, my dog has really reliable drops and was taught this more than 2 ways. because sometimes when i upped the distractions i needed to train her differently. she is rock solid with drops and most other things that make her an easy dog to be around. i think dogs are like us, they are different and one learning method will not work for all of them. if you educate people say with many pupils in a room, you will need to deliver the information in about 4 different ways to ensure everyone in that room has learnt that info. i think dogs are similar and need to be taught in the way that makes the information "stick"

Futuredogtrainer - you have acquired valuable knowledge at the 'paws' of your two dogs. IE That one method does not work for all dogs. Some people who have experience with only a very small number of dogs might use a method that they prefer and because it works for them, they are unable to imagine the different dogs (and different problems) there are around where the dogs can be very resistant to "a" particular method (or even some particular training tools/aids). And so they herald their preferred method (and/or tool) and often actively resist, argue and pooh hoo other methods (and/or tools) which are less to their liking. As a "future dog trainer" you will learn that the (IMO) best approach is an open-mind and to explore each dog for the individual that it is. And you've already learned this by such a small sample of dogs. They teach us much, heh? agree with this 100%. this is what makes great trainers stand out from ordinary trainers IMO.

fantastic news thank you toohey

How can any organization in their right mind be aiming to stop people from owning pets? That is preposterous. And why would they be against purebred dog breeders? Surely that would also include BYB? If they don't believe in pet ownership it would have to involve all breeders. If that is what they are all about then maybe they should keep their heads deep in the cavity that allows no ray of sunshine! indeed.

they might not pick it up quicker but they will remember it for much much longer. it tends to stay with them if they learn by doing

yep luring and shaping. i feel that if i use placing too often then all i am doing is teaching the dog to wait for me to put my hands on them. this takes a lot of undoing unless i am doing it the wrong way.

Of course it does JB. She should be aware that people's attitude may change once she starts winning though. I've seen some people treated so well while they have a crap dog or a puppy that doesn't look like it's going anywhere. Then things can change once they start taking the points. You can "watch" who you get involved with all you like but you don't know how people change when the circumstances change. <snip> Of course there are lovely and ethical people in the sport who are there for the right reasons and are totally respectful of others regardless. It would be great if there were more of them. i agree although has been winning quite a lot i do wish there were more lovely and ethical people i have toyed with becoming involved but this does put me off.