Tassie

:D pf I found the Susan Salo jumping method helps to build a lot of value for jumps - and/or SG

:D Lovely story CaseyKay

Great selection, westielover - I especially love the Moe Strenfel DVDs Foundation Training for Agility and the Focussed Puppy is good too. You're in for lots of fun onsntillnflash

Where's the evil laughter emoticon?? And so another addict is born Seriouisly, huski, that's great - think you and Daisy will really enjoy it. She is already hooked - not to mention in love with a certain Winpara puppy. ;) ;) But of course ... what's not to love Not that I'm biased or anything ;) Wish huski and you could meet Wikki's big brother Rory too ..... maybe one day. Huski, :D on the hand targeting - it is such a great tool to have in your toolkit.

If you look through the OPs posts you can see why. Nothing sinister. Snap, janba - for instance http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...=168878&hl=

:D + 1

How are things going with the baby now? Hope the tum has settled down.

Where's the evil laughter emoticon?? :D And so another addict is born Seriouisly, huski, that's great - think you and Daisy will really enjoy it.

+1 to what wuffles said. She's too young to be reliably knowing when she needs to go out, and letting you know. And the change of diet may very well be upsetting her system - especially since the accidents were poo as well as wee. Just wee, and I would suspect a possible urinary tract infection (UTI).

OK AD - you and Wiki shamed me into it. Did some stays with Rory (and Kirra) this evening - all good - then got a few jumps out and did a few grids and a couple of other sequences with them - and some start line practice with Kirra .

Interesting to read people's journeys. Having grown up with family dogs as a kid, it was several decades without a dog before I had a house of my own with an anre and a quarter of land. First dog was Jess - KelpiexBC cross - lovely dog. I took her to the local dog training club because I thought it was a good thing to do. Little did I know where that would lead me. Got introduced to obedience trials, but in Tas in those days, you couldn't compete with a cross-bred (yeah - I know - don't get me started). So having thought I would have a Golden Retriever (my aunt used to breed them), decided that what I really wanted was a Border Collie. Sam was my first pure-bred dog - a lovely big boy, who got his CD, CDX and one UD pass (but lots f fun trialling), and got TD. He was too big to compete in agility until he was an older dog and the heights came down, but we had fun playing arouind. When Sam died unexpectedly at 12 and a half, I got 2 new BCs - Kirra my current bitch, and my poor goofy anxious boy Fergus ( :rolleyes: ). We did basic training at club, and played around doing some obedience trials. Kirra made it clear obedience was not for her - but she did like agility, thank you very much. They both did some tracking, and both got TD on the same day :D . Both got ET in the rain and sleet. I did start doing some ANKC herding with Kirra, but we deviated into learning farm sheep work - and had the chance to do that for a while - magic. Kirra has gone on to get ADM2 ADO3 JDM JDO4 GD SD SPDX in spite of my unfitness and clumsy handling ;) , and has also got her Tracking Champion title, and is now able to have fun doing Track and Search, which she really likes. Along with Rory, we are also dabbling in DWD. When Fergus died as a result of an accidental poisoning 2 years ago, Kirra and I needed a new pup, and I was lucky enough that winpara had a boy who was just meant to be my boy, and so lil big man Rory came into our lives - and with a friend's help, I started to show him in conformation (to have fun while he was growing up ). At the same time, I was doing some much more scientific foundation training with him - thanks to the help I've got from various seminars - to say nothing of the WA gurus on here . Now that he has finished his show CH title, we can concentrate more on his 'proper' stuff. For all of these almost 20 years, I have been instructing at local community dog clubs - and enjoying the transition to positive motivational training - so much more fun as a way to work with dogs. What an amazing journey my dogs have taken me on - literally (as far as Queensland and WA) as well as in learning terms. And what a great bunch of pppeople we've met along the way - virtually, and IRL.

Is that the one that comes with the 'point and pray' contacts RS?

Hey we all started out like that at one stage, nothing wrong with that at all, but beware...... it's very addictive. One minute you just want to mess around with it for fun, next minute you've sold your house, moved to acreage so you can have a set of equipment and more dogs, plan your holidays around what trials you want to enter, own more agility dvd's than any other topic plus have a handling system to boot KC - ain't that the truth. On the other hand, you meet such a nice class of people at the seminars and the Nationals you've mortgaged your house to get to - or in my case, you've given up retirement and gone back to work to pay for ....

Go Kenz JD and ness - nice work . And sounds like you had a good night AD. It is amazing, isn't it, where our dogs lead us. I sometimes say to my little Kirra - what a journey you've led me on - to sheep work on a farm, agility, tracking and DWD - travelling to seminars and comps - and originally it was just going to be obedience and maybe agility. My little brags for the day are - Rory did a down stay in class this morning , did some nice work in a rally O round, and did some sequencing when we had a chance to join in the intermediate agility class - and did the DW. Hmmm - think I need to start doing some serious work with the boy and think about trialling him next year.

Aaaaaw! Great that you're having so much fun with your lil man. He sounds like a smart lil man too - as well as being amazingly cute.

Great blog post A lot of what was said made me think of me, too Except I don't aim for top level in stuff, I just want to try a bit of everything (hmm except maybe DWD ;)) The only exception would be obedience, I would love to compete in top level in obedience one day Next year I am adding tracking to my list of sports I am also requesting an 8th day of the week Agree RS - it was an interesting read - and applies to me too. Jack of all trades and master of none - that's me - but having fun on the journey. I was apologising to Kirra's breeder in Melbourne about not being able to fully bring out the potential of my little bith, and the wise breeder said "She doesn't care about titles or cards or ribbons - she just wants to have fun doing things with you." It was such a nice thing for her to say. I love learning about dog training stuff, and I try to apply things I've learned as best I can. to the 8 days a week - just when are you waving your magic wand to make that happen?? Then I'll be able to spend time on the tracking and DWD that I'm adding to Rory's cart along with obedience agility and conformation - and TSD and DWD for Kirra .

OT - who mentioned Clean Run in this thread??? Of course with the A dollar as high as it is, and free shipping on quite a lot of stuff, I had to go there . Among other things, bought a couple of the flippy floppers - like my dogs really need more toys .

Mine like the Chuckit Flying Squirrel as well. :D And every now and again. Woolworths/BigW have some great soft rubber frisbees - fly well, fold up to stick in a pocket - and tuggable - at least by BCs . Having said all that, haven't seen them for a while - I tend to stock up when I see them, but so far, haven't had to replace one.

+ 1 :D

Another 2x2 fan here. Taught my little big man in an amazingly short time. Haven't done much follow up - he hadn't seen weavers at all for about 2 or 3 months until the other week, when I had the chance to try him out on a jumping open course that was finished with in the lunch break at the Hobart Royal - complete with major distractions of a big horse warming up right over a cloth fence. Anyway - once he got over his astonishment at the horse - he got into his weavers and did some nice 12 weavers - not huge speed - but in the circumstances, I hadn't expected speed. It really does teach them to just put their head down and weave to the end, as far as I can see - and when we were practising a bit more, he was getting quite difficult entries. Huski, I reckon you could use a Tug n Treat sort of tossable food toy. Oh, and wait - wasn't Sue H using a bait plate with Dennis in the vids she had up?

Yep! I have a cat who I'm sure would excell at Schutzhund lol. He's VERY prey and food driven. And he already likes leaping up and grabbing my arm He can sit on command too. Seeing as Schutzhund is banned in Vic, we'll start a new sport - Schutzkatze!

I tend to encourage my puppy class people to get the behaviour (and establish a version of the hand signal) first, and then put a verbal on it. It's mostly because if they do use the verbal, they will very often use a cue repeatedly, without getting an appropriate response, and this can be confusing for the pup. I love it when I'm teaching them to get from their pup a behaviour that they don't 'know' the cue for - they're always amazed that their smart puppy can figure it out. It's so funny to hear nothing until they give their marker/bridge word. It also helps to teach the handlers to be patient, and to really think about the components of the behaviour.

Another here who's not a fan of "pass the puppy" in a puppy class full of unknowns . A couple of other people who take my puppy class when I'm away at a trial or something, will do it, but to me it goes against my idea that the foundation of training is the relationship between handler and dog. (Of course, I will in the right setting, hand the puppy off to trusted and savvy friends, so that they do get used to being handled by someone else - but not in a random puppy class.)

Rory started doing that to Kirra when he came over from Perth - and still does it 2 years later - and in spite of the fact that he's taller than her - he ends up lifting her up off her feet - then they start play wrestling and/or she humps him. She loves it. Aaaaaawww at the sofa phot - well all of them really. He's a cutie.