RubyStar

Do I leave the dog in a sit, watching me walk off? Then I send to find once I return to dog? Would just like not to include any heelwork at the current stage if I can help it! Yep - initially I would just leave her in a sit, or a wait of some description - it doesn't need to be too formal - when we start training baby tracking, and when we did this one with Sue at Camp T, we could have someone just hold the dog. Later when she knows the game, you could just have her in the car, and then just walk her over to where you started the track, and ask her to find. (When we're doing baby tracking, we actually have the dog on a normal collar and lead to make sure they're actually not deviating from the track too much - and of course, heaps of encouragement if they're on the track and working it. Doing this sort of stuff is teaching the game of tracking, rather than a sort of formal exercise - but then it can be built into the exercise quite nicely when you're ready. I think Thanks Tassie This sounds great too and I think I might do some of this as well as I can still make this a game that doesn't involve her heeling with me.

Thanks Seita and caffy. I do like the "findies" game idea and think that will work best for me at the current time. Your idea sounds great too Seita but I just don't want any heelwork involved or anything that resembles the finished exercise right now (ie. walking a track) I think I will play more with this game of find things in the backyard and make it a huge game. Dog knows I need to make things more like a game!! caffy, would I use things I have 2 of so I can show them 1 and send them to find the other so they know what they're looking for? Edit: so caffy, is your command in the ring "findies"? :p

Just looked Ruby's up. She had a 12 week shot and that was her last one until a year later

Puppy comes home next Tuesday! Question because I've totally forgotten.... what age are pups to get their last puppy vacc?

I go back to TAFE Thursday night, so I am going to miss Thursday night agility training I foresee me wagging some more classes this semester I should be at training tonight, but not sure yet if I will actually do any agility Just hate the late session! Well done WX! emery, hope baby emery shows up soon!

Do I leave the dog in a sit, watching me walk off? Then I send to find once I return to dog? Would just like not to include any heelwork at the current stage if I can help it!

I might take up smoking so I can try to quit and claim I need my dogs with me to help me quit

On a very personal and selfish level, it's an annoyance to me that pet owners are taking their dogs everywhere under the label of "therapy dog" because I cannot take my dogs with me everywhere, too. And I'm not prepared to try and abuse the system to do it, either. I've trained my dogs for distraction work outside shopping centres and the amount of people who have asked me if I am training a guide dog, because they are Labs, is incredible. Could probably try and cheat the system based on that if I wanted, but I wouldn't. Jacqui, noone has issues with real therapy dogs. AGAIN, people have issues with PETS being labelled as therapy dogs just because the owner wants their dog with them. As for it creating a better image of dogs for the general public seeing well trained dogs out and about in more places, unless they are accredited, how can we be sure that they aren't actually contributing to the negativity that goes with dogs? If Joe Bloggs believes Fido is just lovely and decides he wants to take him everywhere as a therapy dog, his take on well behaved may not be ours!

Yep, on my say so and only with dogs I know and trust. Not a hell of a lot of "free for alls" for mine, they usually get play time with known dogs after working or something.

I can understand where you're coming from if the seekback IS the reward, but in my case where it isn't, I am still setting my girls up to think crappy heelwork is acceptable. No they aren't being rewarded for it, but they are getting away with it, IYKWIM? I don't believe just because it's a seekback, that heelwork standards should drop. I have my homework from the guru to get heelwork where I want it, so yeah, just wanting to keep it all separate for now. Unless of course it is going to stuff up the actual seekback bit dreadfully, which is why I ask!

Try rewarding every step of the way round the figure 8 for a little bit.

Are there positions in seekback heelwork? Or is it just the one pace heelwork purely with turns?

To get the treat, duh, I own Labradors They don't work for nuthin'! Except Millie, she can go on praise/play with me if in the right mood (which is still a reward) but Ruby it's food or ball or she's packing up and going home! mollipop, I certainly wouldn't let them see me throw it I will go and hide it myself first before the dogs come out, as I'd like them to be able to seek it hopefully by scent and then sight. I'm constantly working on heelwork so they are always getting refreshers, but I just want to keep it separate to this most of the time so I can perfect both portions of this exercise separately and then bring them together. If that makes sense! SLLH, good work with the down stay with distractions! I will watch the video later

Can I please ask people's thoughts on training the seekback sometimes without doing the heel pattern? I know the point is for them to retrace your path, hopefully by scent, to where you so carelessly dropped your article! But in my case where I still find heelwork isn't as sharp as I'd like, I really don't want to encourage sloppy heelwork for the benefit of training a seekback. I've trained it in a small area using the heelwork method, starting with dropping the seekback near the start peg, but on Sunday night I thought I would show the article to the dogs (they want to take it into their mouth instead of scent it!) then head out the backyard on my own and throw the article somewhere. The yard wasn't very well lit and the grass a little longish. Then one at a time I got the dogs out and asked them to "find" it. Both of them went hunting in the dark and found it and brought it back Just wondering if there is any issue with me mixing up the training like this?

Yes, all raw meat.

Happens here too, although to a lesser degree. To me the principle of having your pet called a 'therapy dog' for your convenience is no different to taking a disabled car space because that's convenient to you. Some people need a wake up call. Sorry I don't understand at all why this is the case, and did not expect this reaction from the people here. What harm does this do to anyone or anything (ie the dogs)? It's not like a capable person taking the spot of a disabled person and thus depriving them of the resource... Therapy dogs are trained - perhaps not professionally by an accredited association, but if they all had to be, then many more people would have to go without. The fact is there are lots of studies that demonstrate the positive effects of dog ownership, and if you're a little more sensitive to certain things for whatever reason (genetic or due to experiences), having that extra confidence and support from the dog can make the difference between a person being able to live a relatively normal life vs drain our gov systems for welfare etc. I won't go into detail, but I went through some pretty horrible things a while back, and my dog was like a black hole who could just absorb everything negative and still miraculously pump out positivity. I was refered to professional help by my GP because I didn't want to go on medication, and she quickly realised that the dog was a massive help. She wrote me a letter that meant I could have my dog in lots of social situations where others couldn't - for example at uni etc. We also had a guide dog on campus - there's a huge difference but dogs are amazing like that - they can perform a variety of tasks for their humans. It was not a guide dog, it was a therapy dog, and it stopped me from needing to go on medication. Time heals most wounds, and sure enough, I have mostly healed, but my dog just bought me that extra time, stopped me failing uni and kept me on track. Trust me, I understand the emotional and mental healing powers of a canine companion. I got Ruby in a very low point in my life. She was my saviour, but she had to stay at home while I worked The OP was talking about a woman who conned her doctor into thinking she had severe anxiety that she needed her dog everywhere, and admitted that it was basically a con. That is not right! Assistance dogs should be accredited (whether it was trained with an association or not I have no issue with) and be for people who actually do need them. Not saying you personally didn't, I am talking about the OP's friend.

The tennis ball works but I am not a fan of interrupting the dog's meal. Pick the bowl up often enough while they are trying to eat could result in a resource guarder! I can take food off my dogs if I want, but I'd rather slow them down with methods that don't involve me physically interfering in their meal time. I'd hate having my plate taken away from me and would get very shirty very quickly to whoever kept doing it

As much as I'd love it if we were allowed to take our dogs more places, I don't agree with the practice your friend has taken part in (and now her sister)

Overnight. Maybe I'll try some veges too.

My dogs like to inhale biscuits too so a couple of times a week I will mix in a tin of sardines or an egg and swish it around so the biccies are covered, that slows them down. I also soak the biscuits the times I don't give them anything extra. They get bones so still get something to crunch on. Soaking tends to be more of a "puppy thing", but I would prefer it to choking to death!

Really??? How much are you feeding them? I find a 20kg bag is lucky to last me 3 weeks at present. Ivy a total of about 1 and 3/4 cups a day and Badger a total of about 3 and a half cups a day. They also get raw meat etc. No idea about the itchies as my two are fine. I bought my first 20kg bag about 8 weeks ago and I still have about a quarter bag left. I feed 2 adult Labradors on average 2 cups each a day, sometimes a little less. Ohhh dopey me, I just remembered we won 7kg of it so I had 27kg to go through But I'd say it would definitely last us at least 6 weeks.

Hope not either because I seriously need to do some obedience work! And I need to up the distractions. Agility night is awesome for distractions.... not so awesome though for the many offlead zoomies that occurs at the end of the oval I want to use!

I think that's pretty damn impressive, Tassie!!!! Much more effort on Rory's part went into that than our effort yesterday so well done!!!

Great work, RV!! I'm sure as you both gain confidence you will become stricter with your criteria I'd like to share my two positives for the day. At the obedience trial today, Ruby's SFE and Millie's drop on recall were just lovely! The reason I found these so lovely is because these are probably one of their worst exercises. Ruby has always been too friendly to stand still while someone approaches her to pat her! And Millie's DOR has been a bit broken lately where she will anticipate the drop. She is confused about not knowing when to drop so will drop before I ask her or she will do it when I ask and then drop again on the final stretch. To fix this, I haven't done any DOR training I've done a few straight through recalls, but admittedly haven't even done any of those in the past couple of weeks. Today, the girls pulled their "worst" exercises off and rather well I think