wuffles

Gosh, I don't take much I take a chair, soft crate, blanket to put over soft crate (for shade), treats, leash, water bottle and water bowl. SLLH, remember to take something to pin your number on with.

Just wondering whether anyone could help me out with how you taught out of sight stays. I have never taught this before and I need a training plan I have quite a clingy Little Miss who also loves to have a sticky beak in her stays at everything happening around her.

Oh no, not great news ness Hopefully you find some answers soon. Get better soon Kenz!

It's also probably worth thinking about what is important to you competition-wise. What dog sports are you interested in? Obedience? Agility? Tracking? Flyball? Different sports require different skills of both dog and handler. Do you want to be competitive? Just have fun? Be the fastest one out there? Do you want high scores or are you happy just to scrape through? My goal was just to have fun but hopefully be semi-competitive without getting in over my head. I ended up with a medium drive dog, who is very forgiving for a novice handler, is fast enough but not super speedy in agility, is extremely reliable but not particularly flashy in obedience (ie she is perfect for me). But that's more about the individual dog than her breed.

Something's gone wrong with Hoover. I think he thinks he's an Australian Shepherd. I do love Mr Hoover :D :D

I've been told I need to paint the ends of my wooden dumbbell so that my dog can see it. Have you guys painted yours, and what type of paint did you use?

I find all four breeds quite different in temperament and I'm sure that anyone who had spent time with each breed would agree. I'd choose the one whose personality traits appealed to me most whether that be to live with or as sports dogs. I like the clowns, the jokers, the quirky ones, which is why I have an Aussie.

It's not the end of the world if you are not ready for the trial - you aren't obligated to go If I were you I'd just go about your usual training at home, go to class when you can, and see how it goes. It's nice to have a goal to work towards but you need to do what's best for your dog and if you feel he's not ready on the day there is no shame in waiting a bit longer!

There are a few other minor differences other than Novice being off lead and the extra exercise. The total points are different (200 vs 100) so there are more points for heelwork (and more to lose) as well as more in recall. Distances are longer in Novice. Recall is (at least) 15m vs 12m. SFE is 2m vs 750mm. Stays 12m vs 10m. The down stay is 3 minutes rather than 2 minutes. There is a finish required at the end of the recall. We gained our first two Novice passes faster than I thought we would so we are trying to get ready for Open now. This is my first obedience dog so I am suddenly realising what everyone meant when they said you need to train for the level above Everyone in obedience land is constantly teaching new things!

Note that in KTB's video above, my Aussie (the one with the white face) is featured quite prominently in the 'eating' part. This seems to be a large part of Aussie play and usually happens at high velocity

Aussies are the most versatile dogs that I have met, and they also wrote the book on rough play. Mine lives to please and will just do anything you ask - we often jokingly say 'Ava, go wash the dishes' or 'get your own dinner' and she will look at us and run around the house like she knows we want something from her and she wants to do it, she just can't work out what Regarding shedding, I think there is a difference between individuals. My (desexed) girl sheds all year round, not an excessive amount but you do find the white fur on EVERYTHING. My other dog (GSD x) sheds less in general but when he goes through his 6 monthly coat drops he is way, way, worse than the Aussie. I only brush her probably once a fortnight, but she doesn't have a huge coat for an Aussie.

I do U turns but have lost points because they are not tight enough. I retaught them and now have nice tight ones. The only problem I've had with them is that if the dog doesn't have full attention on you (OOH BIRDIE!), they tend to crowd or you bump them in the head. Then again the same thing happens with left turns. I did teach my girl both turns but have found her U turns are much nicer. She naturally wants to stick in heel position so gets confused with pivot turns. We have always done a finish around the back but once we get out of Novice I am thinking of changing to a flip She can do both but has improved her flips over the past few months so we might give it a go. Thankfully I have quite an adaptable dog

I worry about that, ReadySetGo. I don't think I could ever send my dog to a place where I have to pay just to see them leave their runs. $8 to take them for a walk? Yikes.

puddles, you wouldn't believe how common a problem this is at my local trials. There are a lot of people who passed CCD quite easily but have done a number of Novice trials with no or limited success. I do expect my dog to flatten a little in the ring because I act differently (nerves), and I haven't done enough ring practice with rewards. One thing that has really helped us is to use remote rewards - ie. sending to a foot pot. My dog is shown her stinky jackpot food before going into the ring, it then stays in her crate and she gets it when we leave the ring if she has done well. So she knows she's still going to get rewarded if she does a good job.

My understanding is... 'left about turn' is the generic term that you are asked to do in a trial, you can choose to do either a 'pivot turn' or a 'u turn'. A 'pivot turn' is where you turn towards your dog and they go around behind you. A 'u turn' is where you walk in a tight u and the dog comes around with you on your left.

I think this is true to an extent, but it can really be an uphill battle doing obedience with a low drive dog. It's a fair amount of time they have to work without rewards in a trial. At trials I see lots and lots of dogs that would just prefer to be at home in bed... it can be painful to watch. They may 'go through the motions' but few seem to enjoy it or get high scores. My older dog much prefers staying at home eating a bone so that's what he gets to do when I take my young girl to trials

I think I wanted something similar to you, Mason2009. We had an older, placid dog. We also have a small yard and work full time, so it wouldn't have been fair to get a really high drive pup. I asked our breeder for a middle-of-the-road puppy... with only 5 pups in the litter, she had to work with what she had, but we ended up with the perfect dog for us. We are doing really well in obedience. We're not going to be the ones that wow the audience with her drive and focus, but she is super reliable and easy to train, and also great to live with as a companion If you want a submissive pup, be sure you mention this to the breeder, but make sure you don't compromise on confidence for a dog sports pup

I don't know whether this is valid because Ava didn't come to us until she was about 12 weeks old, but one thing I noticed from the moment she arrived was that she was super interested in training and learning. If you got some food out she would work her little butt off to do the right thing and get that food. Some puppies at puppy school wanted the food but didn't really have any idea how to get it except jumping up at it, whereas Ava was always thinking and offering behaviours. I would think at 7 or 8 weeks old puppies would demonstrate that kind of behaviour?

I trained mine on different nights at the same club They had both Thursday night and Sunday morning classes so that worked really well for us. I attempted the crating/leaving in car thing but mine screamed the whole time so I gave up on that pretty quickly

I agree with the Look At That suggestions We were having issues with my puppy getting very anxious about barking dogs behind fences. She still doesn't like it but now her first reaction is to look up at me rather than whinge/lunge/run. I still carry food on most of my walks but only use it occasionally. I would prefer to 'distract with food' than let a behaviour continue to occur which is self rewarding. With regards to obedience classes, as time goes on you should feel less like you are bribing the dog as your relationship improves. I aim to make ME the most rewarding thing in my dog's life and if that means shovelling food into her mouth to start off with, that's fine! I never stop rewarding my dog for doing the right thing - the key is fading and randomising those rewards so they don't know when to expect them. There is no point fading rewards until the dog understands what is expected of them.

Oh no, what sad news Thinking of you, run free over the bridge Cindy

The last pass is hard, I do agree on that. For our CCD, we qualified in our first two trials, then failed two, then got our last pass at the fifth. Novice we have passed our first two so we'll see what happens for the third :p I think the first pass is the most stressful because you don't really know what's going to happen. You can breathe a bit easier once you know you have achieved something at least once in the trial setting.

Don't say that when I am sitting on 2 passes

YAY murve! The first pass is the hardest, onwards and upwards from here!

I really wanted a video of this trial but forgot my camera :cry: Not ready for OOS stays yet and probably not quite for retrieves either so thankfully a while until our next trial...