Luke W

AFAIK you can buy tickets at the venu on Sunday.

4 runs so far, no passes. Barkly is doing awesome, me not so much. My best effort was getting a tricky distance challenge in open agility, only to drop 1 bar. There's a few more runs yet. Some awesome dogs, lots of cockers (even more awesome). Quite a variety, from chihuahuas to great danes and everything in between. Gratz to The Spotted Devil for heaps of passes!!

A decent night's sleep. Enough sleeping bags and doona that we didn't need the heater a kind soul offered (thanks Dot :)). Ye north truck camping area is a bit soggy underfoot. Nearly bogged my car this morning. We are going to be pretty feral by the end of the trial!!! I've got the day off (first run is indoor after 5pm) so we're sitting in a very melbourne cafe in Parramatta waiting for breakfast. Barkly loved sleeping in the tent, snuggled up on our pile of sleeping bags after spending a lot of time crated while we got here. E heads up to central coast to see her mum () this afternoon, then it's just me and Barkers.

Cool!! I arrived tonight, set up camp, checked in and headed out to get some food. The indoor arena is amazing!!!! I'm going be so nervous but excited.

Wednesday through Saturday is free. Sunday (finals day) you need tickets ($10). Even on the non-finals day, there will be lots of amazing dogs and handlers! http://www.agilitynationals2012.com.au/

Competing Smisch!!

I'm packed and ready to go. The leisurely trip (with a few stops on the way) starts in about 30 minutes :) If you see a guy with a dog that looks exactly like Barkly or a handsome man (:p) with a big camera and a big white lens, it might be me! If I'm hanging around your ring with my camera and you want some photos, point out your dog to me and I'll do my best. Have a great Nationals everyone! Good luck and have fun. :D

You guys are awesome! Steve, you're a gem.

Do I speak the language of my breed's country of origin? Only just :)

yeah - I hate the leash too. Barkly's been agility trialling for a couple of years so I don't think being off lead will worry him too much.

I think I'll probably go straight to CD. Only because I'm a title junkie.

Oh yeah. I didn't mention the automatic sit! And I assumed hand signals were a given. :) I've done some practice ring work and will do more before I enter a trial later this year.

I haven't obedience trailed (yet) but AFAIK you can give verbal commands to you dog. Single command, in English.

Barkly's NRM is broken. I probably need to start again. I use his NRM 'Uh' outside shaping (often inplace of "leave it") I've probably rewarded anxious behaviour, but I try to only reward slightly anxious behaviour (). If a session goes longer than a minute or so and he's very eager...whine whine bark bark. If he doens't get rewarded quickly enough...whine whine bark bark. I kinda know I should break it down into tiny sessions so he never has the opportunity to get frustrated - but that's hard. "nxiety usually means a scattered brain, the dog is not focussing on the task at hand but on something else (probably just getting the food)" Yes! I need to get someone to video me too!

A little (true) story... A brother and a sister owned a dog. The dog's name was Harry. The sister gets married, moves in with her husband (the dog stays with the brother) and has a child. The sister has always loved the name Harry and decides to name her child Harry. The brother and sister agree to rename the dog "Fella". Some months pass, and despite the vain attempts by the sister to enforce the dog's new name, the whole family (mother, father, brother, other brother, other sister, brother-in-law...) can't stop calling the dog "Henry". Only now they called the dog "Henry...(pause)...the dog". In the end, the dog got it's name back and the child had it's name changed by deed-poll. The moral of the story. It's easier to change a child's name than a dog's. :p

Fergus used to do this too. He would also re-do the "trick" in an exaggerated manner and then glare at me ("did you see THAT?"). I don't see it as a bad thing, it is all part of learning. He believes he is doing the right thing and isn't being paid for it, I'd be angry too. I just kept calm, and ignored him (in a really relaxed way). The second the tantrum stopped and he did something - anything - I'd click and treat. That is, I didn't worry about teaching him the extended trick, rather I focused on teaching him persistance. Once he got this he'd start to try different things rather than throw a hissy fit. I now have the problem that he tries too many things too quickly - I can't keep up. Barkly does that as well! He'll glare at me AND bark. I think the concept of teaching persistence is a good one. Maybe my initial focus should be on teaching him how to deal with free-shaping rather than using free-shaping to teach him something else.

Watching with great interest... That must be a cocker thing Penny is getting more and more like that, throwing random behaviours and being very whiney. The fact that it drives me bonkers and I'm not very patient at the best of time probably adds to her stress level. I was talking to someone at agility who's been in the dog scene for a long time. He's also had spaniels. He told me cockers where a bit like that.

I really struggle with free shaping. As soon as I delay a click (when I'm trying to change the criteria) Barkly starts getting frantic, barky and whiney. I don't know why and I don't know how to make him more relaxed when training. He's very high-strung.

watching with interest...

I'm not very good at distance challenges and I haven't trained for layering for ages and ages. I wasn't entering many Open courses because Barkly's problem was making time in Master and I thought confusing him with layering would slow him down. What I did do, ages ago was to teach an "out" command. I set up two jumps, side by side with a barrier between them I would drive at the two jump and just before he reached the barrier, I would rotate my shoulders toward the outside and throw a toy so that he had to take the far jump. Eventually I added the verbal queue. It works sometimes on the course I've got 1 pass to get his JDO and 2 to get his ADO.

I'm pretty disorganised and a bit random. In theory I've got agility classes on Monday, Thursday and Friday nights. Sunday morning is Rally-O and obedience ring training. If the weathers good, I'll usually turn up to at least 3 of these. I maybe do 10-15 minutes of some sort of training when we are out on our daily walk. Anything from agility waits, circle work, healing, stays, retrieves or even just some tug or ball to build drive (I'm building his play drive). I also do lots of sessions throughout the house. A quick sit, drop stand, heel and we're done. A couple of nose touches or a left about turn, etc, etc, etc... 5 seconds tops. At home, I've got 4 jumps and a set of weave poles. But I don't spend much time training at home. I mix it up heaps. At the moment I'm training for RallyO so we've got quite a few things to learn. A new exercise - I usually train sepqrately but for no more than 5 minutes at a time.

I drop my shoulder and start to turn my head a fraction before I begin the turn.

"Grubby mitts"? I'll have you know my mitts are usually pretty clean. Why do you have so low regard for Mr and Ms Pubic and their 16 screaming children? :laugh: Let's eat some greasy fried meat on a stick followed by some fairy floss and an icecream, touch interactive stuff in the government pavilion, feed some straw to a goat, stick our fingers through the bars on all the cages of the fancy chickens, and then go into the dog pavilion. And run our fingers through all that lovely soft white fur. That's what I like to do at the ag show, what do you do there? :laugh: I always carry around a pocket full of brown chalk. and I talk to the general pubic who comment on Elspan Barkly "oh look at his tongue" Blue.

"Grubby mitts"? I'll have you know my mitts are usually pretty clean. Why do you have so low regard for Mr and Ms Pubic and their 16 screaming children?

That's interesting, maybe I should try minimal warm-up.