Tassie

Yes! And the marker is given as the tension comes off the leash .. if the dog is used to being rewarded after she hears the marker, she will come back to you without needing to tell her to. But sounds like she's responding well.

Just to add to what Mrs RB has suggested ... IMHO a key but often neglected component of the stop/change direction method is marking (verbal e.g. Yes, or clicker) the moment the tension on the lead slackers .. pup should already be used rooming in for a reward from the handler. The essence of the skill is loose-leash ... so thst is what is marked .. reward coming from the handler builds value for being near the handler. Another technique we use in puppy class is to teach the pup to hand target ... just stationary, then to target moving hand, then onto sort of food follows. Again will build up a reward history for loose leash.

"Good dog", pats and praise for the better turns would probably be enough... A reward doesn't always have to be a treat, just something the dog likes eg attention. The idea is to prevent the dog gaining its own reward (self rewarding) by pulling where it wants to go eg pulling to the next best smell or dog greeting or to the park... the dog is not getting the reward that it is seeking by pulling. It's not about what treats you've got. If the dog cared about that in the moment - they'd be hanging round your treat pouch - not pulling. Dogs have something called "opposition reflex" like teenagers. Ie if you pull on their collar - they pull in the opposite direction... and get really excited about it. Hence me holding my dog's collar when she's barking and lunging at another dog can sometimes be counter productive (she gets worse). Susan Garret uses a dog's opposition reflex to fire them up for running a course or to a person (ie restrained recalls) etc. PS I personally hate the crazy walk training style. I don't think my dog needs to be totally focussed on me when we're walking to the park or along the beach... I just want a nice loose lead which doesn't require as much focus as tricky healing. We do tricky healing but I cue that. Just to say Mrs RB, that doodling as we teach it is not about total focus on the handler .. if I want that I'll train specifically for that . as in heeling. It's more about marking the moment the dog stops pulling and the lead slackers .. which will happen as the dog looks back at the handler usually. It's setting the dog up for success and marking and rewarding the 'good' choices. Totally agree that the reward doesn't have to be treats .. although they're powerful in the early stages, as you know. ETA for Willem ... I don't require my dogs to be by my side for LLW generally. My requirement in normal walking situations is just that their leads are not tight. It actually suits me to have the two of them in front of me.

Apparently the area has been more defined. Volunteers are doorknocking. Facebook group

The crazy walking/doodling/random turns by handler, with no notice to dog, is even more powerful if followed up with a marker .. Yes or other normal verbal marker or click the moment the dog includes the handler in the picture .. i.e. probably still at end of lead, but head turn back to handler, and/or lead slackens. Dog is then rewarded preferably with food and words .. I usually say something like .."You noticed I was here .. that's clever" close to the handler, walk resumes .. rinse and repeat. We find in teaching people at dog club that it doesn't take dog and handler long to make the association. Handler timing is important, but coached through it, most get it pretty quickly. No major force involved .. handler just changes direction and keeps walking in new direction (we say to people .. as if you've forgotten something and have to go check).

Link Pets in house without care after their pet sitter had a stroke and is unable to remember or communicate any details about where the pets are. Thought to be Summer Hill area of Sydney. Owners are apparently holidaying on the South Coast of NSW somewhere. Saw it first on FB yesterday ... apparently still ongoing. Thought it was worth putting on here, just in case. If I've had someone looking after pets .. or even hen they're boarded, I let my vets know the details, and authorise treatment if necessary .. give them names of carers and my mobile and location. Worth doing it seems. Hope these pets can be helped.

My link

I was thinking along the same lines, Perse, but couldn't work out how to express it as well. :D

So sorry that it's not the news you were hoping for. Sending strength to you and Claudia. It will be a tough time.

Blue for Main Register, Pink for Limited in Tas (well pinky orange now, and with a great big watermark across it saying Not for Breeding or Export.)

Mostly Black Dog gear here, although my current leads are the gripper ones I got from Clean Run ... very happy with them. Only use harnesses for bike and tracking .. Black Dog Y tracking harnesses and I've also used the Comfortflex ones from Clean Run.

Great way to look at it. It's hard, but in a way, it encourages us to enjoy what we have while we have it, rather than maybe just mooching along taking things to granted .. and I do mean us .. experiences like yours remind us all how fleeting our time with our beautiful dogs is.

Happy birthday, Ping! We're loving following your journey :D ETA Especially love that photo of you flat out racing across the grass.

:)

Does that mean we should be feeling sorry for the vet. :) But so very glad that you get to have her home for the moment. Gives you a chance to love and spoil her big time.

So sorry to hear that. Hopefully the steroids will buy her a little happy time.

So sorry your lovely boy lost his battle. What a lucky dog he was though in having found you when he needed you, and having a lovely life for the last part of his life .. all too short though it was. And a blessing that he, with your help, was able to choose the time and place. All dogs should be showered with love like Toby.

Oh, I feel for you. My main club is on a sports oval, with a walking track and council open space and another oval around. So we do occasionally get randoms. The other club I go to sometimes is now a fenced dog park when not being rented by the club. T's wise to be out of there by noon when classes end, as the dog park users are straight in. So yes .. just chalk it up to bad luck and thoughtless and clueless owners. From reading your account, it does seem that you and Thistle did a good job in the circumstances, so try not to feel too disheartened.

Bummer, Thistle .. though it sounds like she came through like a trooper. So was this still on club grounds in club time? If so, you need to write an official letter to the club, explaining the training your trainer was getting set up to do, and that your trainer had requested the loose dogs be put on lead. Just so it can go on record, and other instructors can be alerted. Our club has a rule that club dogs can only be off leash with the specific approval of instructors on training days.

LOL. From memory -- and it is 12 months ago -- it was somewhere about USCan$1000 .. which sounds a lot, but when you think about it on a per month/per week basis, it comes down to about what you'd pay for one private 1 hour lesson a week . .. and you've got 24/7 access to the extensive materials, and you can ask questions and get help. As TSD knows, I'm loving H360 (even though I'm virtually having to do it on my own .. no H360 trainers near me. It is incredibly thorough, and can be quite overwhelming at first, but it does all start to fall into place. I'm finding that like 2x2, I have to go back and work through things again, until it gets in my head. But it's designed for that. Haven't seen the Shape Up, but I would imagine they'd be good too .. and substantially using H360. Like the idea of rehearsing the verbals in the car, TSD. :D ETA .. that sounds like good progress, sheena. The more clear you are, I think the less frantic he'll be, That's what I'm finding with my Slightly Less Misguided Missile.

That's a great reminder, TSD. I haven't got digadiga in place yet, but definitely something to watch out for. And where's the 'green with envy' emoticon. Could almost wish I lived on the mainland .... no, not really.

The best thing is that you can cue early and get out of there into position - saves running if you are not as fast as your dog. So as soon as my dog has committed to one jump I will tell them check check with my voice, work them with my shoulders and it gives them the confidence to commit to the next obstacle without asking questions. Unless I make a mistake I never have to call my dogs off obstacles - so I stay calm and my dogs have more fun. Also, understanding the turns has stopped my dogs falling on their shoulder and therefore prevents injuries. For example if I want my dog to take a back of jump tight turn I call a na na. When my dogs didn't understand this cue they would take the back of jump but then have to adjust mid air to chase me and consequently land awkwardly. Saves lots of precious seconds on course too. Mine also know a general turn cue (sprinkler or tis tis) AND a 180 cue (digga digga) AND a tight 360 turn cue (check check). They absolutely learn the difference and respond appropriately. Em stopped knocking bars and Zig took 10 seconds off his JDM times and gained his Ag Ch. Basically we are cueing full extension or various degrees of collection. This is a great explanation TSD. And the bit I've bolded seems to me to be very important in terms of keeping our dogs sound and in the game longer. For me as an older not fit handler with a pretty fast driving dog, even with nowhere near enough H360 work, it gives me the chance to send him round the backside still some distance from the jump and check check cues him to wrap tight and turn back to me without me having to be anywhere near the jump. The dogs seem to enjoy that we will be communicating with them through the course more or less clearly .. think that adds to their speed and certainty, and therefore enjoyment.

Thanks sheena. We haven't put a full course out at Club, but we've tried a few sequences. It's always interesting to look at courses and figure out how you'd run them.

I'm loving my la-la for the backside .. that seems to resonate with the Misguided Missile, and wit-wit is working pretty well. Coommmmme is still a bit of a work in progress .. more training would help :) , but in general, we are a much happier dog/handler team even with the amount of H360 I've done .. only about half way through, and the old brain keeps having to go back and re-do .. which is not a bad thing. Another nice thing I'm noticing, is that as an indication that the lad has fewer questions now, his drives to the finish are much more solid .. no head checks before the last jump lately. Of course that can come back to bite too, if there's a sneaky little circle before what looks like the last jump :laugh: , and the old lady can't get the right words out quickly enough. Relating back to sheena's original post, have to say that even with the incomplete H360 we've done, there's much less frustration from Rory on course, unless I get totally lost .. in which case I get him to drop, to give me a pause to regroup (if possible) .. and the verbal drop is much more quickly effective thanks to our practice on verbals. Bummer about the slow/patchy internet, sheena.