wuffles

Fair enough! So much little stuff to learn/find out when just starting out...

Thanks ness, us Canberrans are a bit soft when it comes to rain, after all until late last year we had forgotten what the stuff was! I would actually prefer for it to go ahead even if it's raining, it's just water after all. I don't know whether Ava agrees, though.

I went to watch one a while back and it was postponed because of rain so I was wondering if that was the norm Our trial on Saturday is at the same club and rain is predicted so I was just wondering what usually happens. Little Princess Ava doesn't like the rain

Do obedience trials usually go on through inclement weather (eg. rain) or do they get cancelled/rescheduled?

Does Cindy understand exactly what heel position is? Does she ever get rewarded when she is lagging, or even afterwards (for example, lagging in heelwork but catches up on the halt, then gets rewarded)? Can you get her excited about heeling? Ava isn't a lagger (she is either in beautiful heel position or completely out of position) but I had to do a lot of work strengthening her understanding of position and making it fun for her to be there. Good luck for Sunday! ;)

Thanks bedazzledx2... I was wondering what you were talking about but I rewatched the video and my hands did drop a bit after my recall command :D No-one has ever pointed it out to me so you may have saved me some points in the future :D

Great work, LL... what great little mismarks we have! Your heel pattern was a lot harder than ours, is that a QLD thing?

What a nice round Wuffles you should be tickled pink. Yep your dog does lose focus on about turns - so put those on your homework list, but all the rest looked great Have to also comment on the SFE - its sure was't easy with the judge going over the top of the dog from almost front on - not sure if he had done more patting whether your dog would have stayed there or not - but at CCD level I thought that was a bit tough by the judge ;) Something for you to try for your next training session ...and then you can write back and say yep I tried it and hated it ;) Carry your lead in your left hand. You can still give stand signals with the lead in this hand and it looks sooooooo much neater. back in my box again......but you should be stoked ;) and you will do well in novice ;) Thanks Ptolomy. She never breaks SFEs so I was surprised! I was certainly glad he only did a quick pat, that's for sure ;) Thanks for the hand advice... believe me I have been told MANY times to hold my leash in my left hand I tried it for about a month and was still struggling (Ava was fine, it was me getting frustrated) so I went back to the right hand One more pass and I can scrap the stupid leash :D Edit: She got full marks for SFE in the afternoon trial and the judge gave her a long pat and even on her pants

Here is our video - sorry, technical mishap and missed most of the heelwork!! You can see the problem I am having with right about turns - near the start. She seems to get distracted as we are turning. Unfortunately the judge is in the way in the video so I can't see my footwork but I'm pretty sure it was alright. We have been working on it in training this week and she has actually been very good but obviously not great in the trial. Her first one was actually alright from what I remember. I was very happy with her figure of 8 as it has been a problem for us in the past and lost us a point at our last trial for going wide.

Interesting discussion going on in here guys, keep it up! ;) We just got home from our second CCD trial (a double). Did alright in the morning trial with 94 and first on countback. Her heelwork wasn't bad but it wasn't as nice as our last trial - but it was a new and difficult ground to work on so I'm quite happy. Considered pulling out of the afternoon trial but as there were only 3 CCD competitors everything went quite fast and Ava seemed quite enthusiastic still. Anyway, she was a little off with the fairies in the ring, actually kept position ok but forgot what a halt was! With 10 seconds to go in the down stay she decided to stand up - never done that before - just stood there until I returned. At least now I get a chance next week to get a better score than the 88 we would have got if she hadn't broken her stay

I think I'd go crazy without my dog training friends It's happened by stealth but most of the folk I spend time with have dogs and do some kind of activity with them. There was a 20% off everything at Petbarn last night and the queue was like a who's who in dogs in Canberra. My dogs stay with folk I met through the club too! I also meet lots of people just walking my dogs. Usually they're the responsible ones walking their dogs every day before the sun rises, so I enjoy socialising with them I haven't made it to the who's who list yet either... maybe one day

I think I'd go crazy without my dog training friends :p

Front fences aren't allowed around here, so that makes it a bit easier. I know where all the neighbourhood dogs live now, so avoid any houses that I know will be trouble.

Thanks for explaining, I thought it looked very nice. Ava works a little forward as well if I rev her up too much beforehand (or use a smelly reward like sardines, as I found out the other day) but IMO that is better than lagging. I loved your about turns

:p Thanks for posting!! Can I ask what you lost the points for? It all looked pretty good to me :p

Mine get all kinds of stuff plus BH. Sardines, chicken frames/wings, beef soup bones, some Natures Gift tinned, meat offcuts, an egg, a range of training treats. They probably get about 80% dry. I use BH in our treat toys (great size to go in treat toys, btw!) and my little one goes nuts for it. She put down a rawhide today to go get some kibble out of her Squirrel Dude :p My dogs are eating the same amount as they did on our previous food - Royal Canin - I haven't noticed a difference in their look (they both have nice shiny coats), but the poo is much smaller and this is kinder to my wallet and is locally made!

I grew up with a tricolour which I loved but I think my favourite is black and tan

I'm not a showie, but I use Fido's White and Bright on my Aussie girl with lots of white and am very happy with it

It took me a little while to bond with our rescue boy and in the end it didn't happen through training (he is not much fun to train). It just came through spending time with him. I took him to dog parks, even when there was no-one else there, and just let him be a dog. He sniffed and peed and ran around and then came back and sat with me. I walked around, he generally followed, I gave him pats, we met another dog, they played, he came and leaned on me for pats... We went for lots of walks all over the neighbourhood, or drove somewhere and explored a different neighbourhood. We'd stop at lakes and he would have a swim and watch the birds, we'd meet children who fell in love with him, I would people watch and he'd just sit with me. None of these activities were chores like making his food or teaching him manners... it was just a fun, relaxing time.

You may be doing this already but I would also make sure you spend some time teaching her to calm down/sleep/be quiet

I think tracking would be a lot of fun! Both my dogs love to sniff so surely they'd like it, right? Alas no tracking in the ACT, we would have to travel. Winter training is a bit crazy. Will just have to run lots

I have been so slack with taking photos lately, I will need to take some soon! Hopefully we will get someone to video our trial this weekend although it may not get posted if something goes wrong Welcome to the thread Diesel&Ryder! I always think of the colour in BCs as ee Red because I have read so much about colour genetics due to having a mystery colour dog I think the colour in Aussies is called yellow :D We have our first real agility lesson tonight which I am very excited about! ( KTB are you excited too?)

I retrained our heel so that Ava is always watching me as I was having focus issues. You can give subtle signals about when you are about to turn, like when you generally slow down before a halt. Some people look in the direction they're turning but I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) most people move their feet in a certain way to cue the dog that they are about to turn. I'll leave it up to the more experienced trainers to describe this as I'm not even sure the way I do it is correct :D Filming is a BIG help even though, if you're anything like me, you'll be horrified by your body language at first My aims for my next trial this weekend are... 1) walk in STRAIGHT LINES and 2) get my footwork for turns correct. I don't think I really have aims for my dog as I trust her more than I trust myself Edit: Does your dog understand the heel position rather than just walking beside you? I do a lot of stationery work with turns to make sure she understands what position she is meant to be in.

You could try getting him to do it on some kind of box/platform. If it's just big enough for him to lie down on, he should scoot his back legs back slightly to allow a drop from a sit.

Good to see you here and we want to hear how your training goes over the next few weeks - maybe we need a Sunday check in session to tell us about the week :D Thanks guys! Ive been training each afternoon and yesterday there was kids soccer training happenign while we trained. A few things I need to work on are his right turns, he goes wide and his automatic sits. I have been a steward at 4 trials but now as a competitor cant for the life of me remember if you can give them the command for turns. I know you can for sit, drop, stand etc etc but with left and right are you meant to just turn and the dog follow or can you say the command? Also need to brush up on figure of 8..Need some posts to work with first Hello, I am a new competitor too! We have done one CCD trial so far and have a few more coming up over the next few weeks. So many newbies in this thread at the moment, I am loving it :D You can't give a turn command no. I feel for you because I have a similar problem, we lost 2 points for wide turns and 1 point for going wide on the figure of 8 in our first trial. We are working on her face being glued to my leg during turns... I rarely get to work with actual human figure of 8 posts but I have found that most of it is my body language anyway so doing figure of 8 around trees or markers or our other dog () seems to work well enough!