OSoSwift

I don't eyeball the Whippets during their stays, but they will flick their eyes to meet mine every now and again, I generally look at their feet in a down stay and just over their head in a sit stay. If they are really sniffing the ground or something silly I do eyeball them and as soon as they look at me I then look away to the normal spot

Oh and Star - excellent work with your girl.

My dogs have brilliant eye contact and their stays are very good, I am not sure why getting good eye contact should interefere with stays???? Honestly I have been soooo happy I gave myself a headache with the jumping around and yippeeing and having a happy high voice - I seriously had to take Nurophen, and on more than one occasion! However I had a very happy dog that was willing to keep going after we stopped training. It is a lot easier to take the bounce out than put it back in! Given the correct motivation and praise she can work MUCH happier than she does now!

Still figuring out the pre-trial routine but I don't feed in the morning and generally we have a large road trip anyway. On the day I do loose lead walking to warm up, a few positions and a little heeling and that is it. Don't generally train the day before, but Lewis quite likes it so maybe a very short training session?? not sure yet.

Generally I would give a NRM and then do the exercise again. If a sit is what I was after it may be one step of heel then the sit again. If for some reason it was going very badly and just wasn't happening I may ask for something I know they can do really well, reward that and then stop training and try and figure out what is going on. I do luring at times, so if the sit was really going to pot and the NRM was stressing them I would lure them into the correct position to help them to get it right so I can reward them. If the sit was crooked I would probably ignore it(with my dogs that can quite often be enough to get them to try harder) take a step or two forward and then reward the next sit(if it was good enough). If the second sit was also not good enough I would NRm and try again. Usually when I do use a NRM they do it correctly, If that was also not go enough I would lure to help them to success and therefore get a reward and then figure why they were not understanding what I was asking. At this point in my dogs training they work for longer periods for one reward and I make sure that reward only comes after something perfect. Is I could be doing a small amount of heeling with some positions. The reward may come after a really fast speccy drop, or a perfect position in the heel.

If they are really lousy they get a NRM such as uhoh or, try again. If I am telling them we have finished work they get given their release word. If was doing say a sit and it was crooked I would heel off and do the sit again. Does that make sense?

I believe a person has to be legally 18 years old to be walking a dog or have a person of that age with them. Not sure if those are still the rules or not. This comes with you have to be 18 to legally own a dog.

Holy crap Steve that would have been very upsetting!

Dog coat and a nice soft squishy warm bed. My Dobes always wore coats. I made double polar fleece ones and also had weatherbeeta ones. When my old girl was very old she wore both They also had hot water bottle - but didn't chew- now I would use a heated bed or a snugglesafe disk.

Ah yep fair enough, I did something similar with Angel's puppy when she had to go up to Perth and Parvo was doing the rounds. Um him shy ....Nope Gorgeous and cheeky and like a land pirahna but shy nope

My cat was off colour one year, then the next got very sick. He was never vaccinated after that. Unless the cat needs vaccinating for boarding or something I wouldn't do it at all. If you can titre even better.

Great to hear

Well with some people that may be close to the truth!

Tis okay I use a 'go on" word such as "good" if they are getting it but I want what they are doing for longer and the click is the end of the exercise. So I guess for me I do have a marker as such that doesn't get a treat, but the click(or the word Yes) always gets the treat and ends the exercise. I build up the duration between command and C/T if doigng stays for example, but they click still ends the exercise. I asked if you want him to not move on the marker word, which is what you are doing, or if you waited until he could sit for longer before using the marker word which would then end the exercise. - I think I make sense now, I have confused myself!

I have the Cool champions ones and they stay wet and cool for quitea while. I will have a look at the chamois ones as well.

Mine get it occassionally but it is either NG or Optimum and it is only a spoonful mixed in with their dry food. I would prefer to give raw meat ontop of the dry but Lewis cannot handle it so either I cook meat which I am sometimes too slack to do or I give them a little tinned from time to time. They also get sardines, yoghurt, cream cheese and other meat and raw meat off cuts and bones.

I always zip tie mine - I thought you had too?? Anyway it is good that it is a deterent. The thought of them having potentially had my puppy out is enough to get my pulse up!

Fantastic news, glad her foot is finally back to normal - well as normal as it can be anyway. Smooched to Daisy

I am interetsed as well Cos and certainly not having a go, but I would have got the sit and given a click and treat with him being able to move after the click as that is the end of the exercise. If I wanted the sit to last for longer I would withold the click for a short period. Do you not mark the sit until he can hold the sit for longer or until he won't move after you have given the marker word?

You might be pushing getting one at this time of year. If you get a large old jumper, cut the sleeve off and then trim as required then that might work.

Hmm a hard one. I guess it would also depend on breed as there is no way I would let say a Dobe eat all it wanted as blaot would be a huge worry. For a BC though if she is underweight and hungry I would feed her. If she can comfortable eat a larger amount (but not a huge sillyamount) let her, but I would also offer food twice or three times daily so that she sould hopefully eat a bit less but get more over the day if that makes sense.

I have always been asked for ID - photo id and had to sign before collecting my dogs from AAE in PErth. Once my Dobe could see me and had started spinning around obviously happy adn I was told I still had to present ID to make sure - I was happy with that. When I picked up Rommi fromt he local airport she came on the baggage cart, however when Lewis arrived I thought he ahdn't come because he wasn't on there. I was just about in tears and when I asked someone I was told all dogs are now taken off first adn put in the otehr luggage room and that is locked as on other flights at otehr airports dogs had been stolen so this was new protocol. I didn't have to show ID but I did have to tell them what breed he was, colour and sex, even though one of them knew me personally. I would be absolutely furious if someone had my puppy out of the crate UNLESS the pup was in distress - then I wouldn't mind. But they should not take out someone pet for any other reason. If something happened to my dog I would be on the war path BIG time.

I haven't for a little bit as I am on a bit of a budget but will do shortly so would appreciate it if you are happy to

HUGE congratulations to you, she is gorgeous

Great to hear My Lewis cannot handle raw Chicken at all. He can handle small amounts if it is cooked but not huge amounts.