Tassie

at Poodlefan and her crew. Actually, evening time was zoomies time for rory when he was younger - still is a bit. lindiadosa - I would agree with the suggestions about having several short training sessions a day with your baby - they needn't all even be 5 minutes - just a couple of minutes is good. And calmness on your part - and (very brief) time-outs for the pup if she is OTT. Don't know if you've come across this site in your research - the After you get your puppy - free download - ahs some good ideas. link

You go away for a weekend, and look what happens. Well done to all those successful dogs and handlers - especailly Deb and the gorgeous Brooklyn 200 x2 - how good is that??!!! Kirra and I had some quite nice runs at Launceston Show - but in nearly all of them I made one costly mistake. However, we finally pulled together a second place Q in Masters Agility, with a lovely comment from the judge on our run. Our best news was that she did lovely weavers each run, and only missed one contact for the whole weekend.

Oh, that is such good news. You'll be able to sleep tonight - though you'll sleep much better when she's home with you again. What a good thing that you got on to it quickly.

Sent you best wishes on the BC thread - then checked here to see if there was later news. Let us know how she goes, won't you.

In answer to the OP - perhaps one additional aspect which maybe hasn't emerged all that clearly so far. IMHO, we need to consider what bit of training we're talking about. On the one hand we have training in the sense of the teaching of 'tricks' - by which I include most of the performance disciplines, which are essentially tricks - I'd exclude herding from that, tracking to some extent, and I don't know enough about gundog work - but probably that too. These are essentially done in the interests of pleasing us, giving the dog and us something productive to do, and building the relationship between dog and handler. These aren't life or death situations, and for these I much prefer to use R+/P-, and to say, that as trainers, we should be asking ourselves all the time - have I made my expectations clear to the dog? If not, how can I do that better? On the other hand, there are particular behaviours which while they may be instinctive to the dog, we cannot allow because they could result in injury or death to ourselves, or other people or animals, or at the very least make living with the dog unpleasant. In order to modify or extinguish these behaviours, we may need other tools out of our training tool box - which may include P+, almost certainly will include R-, and/or may be addressed by other techniques such as classical conditioning, or management techniques, I sometimes think we muddle ourselves by not distinguishing between teaching rules and boundaries and behavioiur modifications in order to be able to live harmoniously and safely in human society on the one hand, and teaching that great range of behaviours which are not strictly necessary, but are highly desirable, and just fun for all. If I don't successfuly teach my dog a change of position for obedience, or a fast and independent weavers - it really doesn't matter - but if I don't fix or at the very least find a way to manage the car-chasing - that matters. JMHO.

No experience of this - just wanted to say a vet check is probably a good idea. If possible, it would be good to get a referral to a canine ophthalmologist. Do any of the vet eye specialists come out to your area? (Down here in Hobart we have one from Melbourne who comes down every 6 weeks or so, which is great.) And Chuzzy looks a real cutie - in fact al the dogs in your sig look lovely.

Good to hear pup is fine. Aaah yes, Kitty crunchies (or ot so crunchy if they're fresh ;) ) - some dogs love the taste - just shows how weird they are . You'll know if yor dog has ben eating the cat poo when they come and give you a lovely good morning kiss - eeeeeew.

You could try just giving her a chicken wing (or the Chi x equivalent) as you're leaving, so that the play pen becomes a special place to be. Have you worked out how to fix the pen so she can't get out? Make the chew treat something really nice she doesn't get any other time. I wouldn't leave other food in there - give her breakfast early, so that she has time to toilet outside with you afterwards, before she goes into the pen. It won't hurt her to wait till afternoon tea time for her lunch, especially if she's had the wing or neck or whatever. If you were going to leave 'normal' food, I'd put it in a treat ball or something so she has to work for it.

For the 'polite' dogs who are not comfortable initially tugging close up, a good strategy to try is to put a very enticing (furry for preference) tug toy on the end of a long light line, and stimulate the dogs chase instinct/prey drive - many polite dogs will become very interested at that stage, and be snatching and tugging at the toy. Then you can just shorten the lead - in small increments so that the dog realises that what he's doing is fine, even though it's now closer to the handler. All things being equal, this sort of dog will eventually enjoy a game of tug. Don't think anyone has mentioned the susan Garrett article here . A student of mine with a non-tugging GSD that did like to play with plastic drink bottles, tried this with a squashed drink bottle inside a sock. Within a week, the dog was tugging enthusiastically. For a foodie dog, there are also tug-n-treat toys - I have a nice one with a sheepskin pouch, velcrod opening for putting food in, and a nice bungy cord.

IMHO, it's important to treat this differently from housetraining failures - submissive/excitement urination is not really under the dog's control. Like any behaviour you don't want, it's important to ignore it - but at the same time, try to avoid setting up the situations when it occurs - so as people have suggested - keep mornings and homecoming extremely low key - take the pup/dog outside as calmly and matter of factly as possible - maybe even not acknowledging the pup straight away but just heading outside - and then making a huge fuss as soon as pup wees outside. Same thing if pup is a bit scared or overwhelmed - e.g. by visitors - just have people ignore the pup, and calmly take pup outside .....

Personally I'd be very reluctant to give a C7 even to an adult dog. Be guided by your local vet, but the leptospirosis component in C7 apparently has a higher rate of adverse reactions than the basic C3/C5. Yes, Advantix is hazardous to cats, so best avoided ig there are cats in the household. Check with your vet about appropriate tick preventatives for a pup in a household with a cat. (Just for info - at least in an adult dog, it's safe to combine Sentinel Spectrum with Advantix - I do it when we travel on the mainland up the east coast - but then my cat is at home in Tasmania then.

There are probably some threads on DOL, but I just did a search for target training dogs on my favourite search engine, www.dogpile.com, and it came up with quite a few useful looking links. e.g. This one and Another one You can train a target using a clicker or a verbal marker - like most things, it's probably "quicker with a clicker" . I love to have a dog trained to target - both hands, and targets on the ground and other places. I find it a very useful tool for a variety of disciplines.

Have you thought about using a target?

Yep - I've always used white zinc - just be sure the dog isn't going to try to lick it off. The nice thing about zinc is it stays on for days , and you can see when it needs re-applying. Can get a bit dirty though - but I figure that's all adding to the sun-screening.

The Black Dog collars should be OK - as long as you don't have the collar on too tight. Nice soft webbing material. Link is here.

As well as a great puppy folder with lots of information, the things I've appreciated most that came with Rory from WA are - the pages with photos of him growing up with his littermates and friends, and photos of his parents growing up, and of all the dogs on his pedigree (nearly all to 5 generations) = so nice to see what's behind him; and - a stuffed toy - which he still picks up and carries round sometimes. (Thanks winpara )

Sounds like you're making good progress with your Teddy. As far as his not wanting to play. .... I always tell people in my puppy class that not all dogs are party animals. Some will play with any other dogs, some are selective, and others really don't care too much about playing with other dogs. MY BC bitch is a bit like that. She plays with my BC boy every day, but usually not with any other dogs - and in fact, is inclined to maintain a little personal space bubble around her. I would just keep doing the sorts of things you've been doing that have been working, and just let Teddy tell you when and if he wants to play. Whatever you do, don't do anything to try to force him to play. Remember, much more important than playing with other dogs, is that he enjoys playing with you.

I'd be taking the advice of Bella's breeder. Is there anything in her puppy pack about exercise? While it can be good to get pups out and about to see the world before their second vacc, I probably wouldn't be walking a pup very much in areas where a lot of other dogs could have been. That said, I guess she's already almost too big to carry around - which is what I'd do with a smaller breed. Leash walking aruond your rard a bit certainly wouldn't hurt.

Thank you so much for sharing Fraser's story with us - and I couldn't agree more with what you say about treasuring every moment with our pets. It's almost 12 months since I lost my 6 year old BC boy suddenly to an accidental poisoning. I am feeling your pain. Your little man sounds like he was a real fighter - he will leave a big hole in your lives, but in time you'll be able to concentrate on the happy times you had with him. RIP Fraser.

LOL - the fun part is when there is control. Sometimes the dog is still having fun, but the control has long since gone out the window!! ;) Ain't that the truth At that point, when the run is obviously going to hell in a handbasket, we just say thank you to the judge and head for the hills (I mean the exit) as fast as we can . And newfsie, the good (or bad depending on your point of view) news is that even Masters dogs will occasionally totally lose the plot.

I think the sudden death in NSW is for Sydney Metro trials. (I know a friend usually does trials outside the Sydney Metro area for that reason ;) .) The Sydney Metro area could be quite large though, I think - it incldues Wollongong AFAIK.

Description of the Novice COP is on p. 26 of the rules - you can get them here on the ANKC site. And what mollipop said - be sure you proof both stands.

One day on the farm where I had the chance to learn to do sheep chores, I had Kirra holding a group of about 30 wethers at a gate. I was asking her to flank around to push the back of the group up a bit - she wasn't doing it, and I was getting frustrated, until the couple of sheep she was concentrating on, who were planning a breakaway, gave up and rejoined the group - then she took my command and bunched them up nicely for me. My trainer was watching from behind some hay bales, killing herself laughing - she said the expression on Kirra's face was priceless - Kirra was clearly saying "For goodness sake mum, watch your sheep!"

Now, I wonder who that could have been. I'm glad other people do that sort of thing too - I've invented a new agility command - something like "No, don't do that, I didn't mean that .... do this instead" - and bless Kirra's little heart - it worked Not at all, Janba. Sounds like Cole is coming along really nicely. And I really think we become too hung up on the things the dogs do wrong instead of celebrating things they've done well. The score sheet isn't the only measure of the dog's performance, IMHO - in any discipline.

Well done ness and Ness - that's really good news - and definitely something to brag about.