Agility Dogs

Good plan!! Just wondering though - I think the plank between two tables more about the movement and having the dog confident striding along a moving plank/driving to the end than it is about actual see saw performance? ie: Once you get full speed along the tipping plank then it is time to move to the wee saw concept.

LOL. Someone needs to tell my boy he is not desexed! Personally I'll be keeping future dogs entire and bitches entire until they have come into season for the first time. (Because I trial I don't want to have to deal with entire bitches when I have no intention of breeding.) The more reading I do and the more research comes out the better it seems to be for them both from a temperament and a developmental point of view.

Agree with this!! Or if you wanted to put your toe in the water with ADAA you could always try the Brisbane Agility Dog club. :)

From what I have seen most of the obedience clubs are still using check chains in their obedience classes - the ones on the southside anyway. (One in particular I won't trial in agility at because I have to watch their obedience classes if I go there on a Friday night.) It might be worth looking to one of the private providers or the RSPCA training centre. Then you could always try the agility clubs or the dances with dogs classes at Redlands for a bit of fun.

AWESOME. Good luck for the weekend!! T

Guide, don't race......easier said than done!!

Very proud of all my 3 puppies at the moment. Xena has recently had to retire from agility at just 7 years young and has started her herding career. She achieved her HIC and PT on the same weekend. Now off to the Started a course. :) CK got his HIC on the same weekend, but only had one try at PT and found the sheep a little less than cooperative. LOL. Then on the weekend just gone he made the ADX final at the state titles and came third in SDX, GDX and SPDX. (Plus finished off his ADX title.) Wikki, the baby of the bunch also passed HIC, but hasn't had enough time on stock to pass PT just yet (and I didn't enter her in HT thinking it was harder than PT. D'oh! She too had a fantastic weekend at the State titles. Third place in SPD and made the finals of ADO, ADX (came second in the final) and JDX. This was my favourite run from the state titles - even though it was an elmination CK was growling at me from the third hurdle. LOVE LOVE LOVE this boy when he is in this mood. He's never going to be at the absolute top of the sport, but he is an awesome boy and heaps of fun to play with. :)

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!! Not enough people get it - reward and placement of reward. What it's all about. I think the best explanation I ever got was from (love him or hate him) Greg Derrett. If you reward your dog every second it only takes two seconds to deliver a penalty (no reward) if you reward every 30 seconds it takes a minute.........

:) Cool. I taught too much decel with baby Woo - cos the other two had NONE. The cool thing is that once she starts running hard the decel is still in there - been a big job to put the accel in. Word for the week.......balance.......

Totally agree with this. I don't think the dog should be allowed to rehearse this behaviour - before we even start to talk about the possibility of an enforced holiday from agility. I know some judges would take a VERY dim view of that behaviour and would report the dog. It's something that the owner really needs to get on top of before they venture back into the competition ring. I think more value on the game and impulse control are the keys. ETA - a lot of young dogs are very wary of the judge - this just seems to be an escalation of that, but needs to be worked through because of the potential ramifications.

Fantastic, well done - its great when it starts to come together!

So proud of my baby dog. (OK, she's not a baby any more, but.......) We have been working really hard on getting her to drive over the last few months. The difference in the two videos speak for itself. Lesson for me- the more I focus less on the result and more on just having fun the more fun getting to the end result is becoming! :) Love my little girl.

Not too many people breeding for flyball dogs. Most of them breed for other sports, but dogs that do well in agility and other performance sports will do well in flyball. Have look on the breed pages on here and you'll see several SEQ breeders who's dogs do well in the performance arena.

Another approach would be to put them all in a box where he can't flick them. Get the behaviour you want and then generalise it outside the box. I like the idea of the heavier item too.

I train at both for different reasons. Depending on the instructor I get the most value from clubs when I'm looking to work my dogs in a highly distracting environment. I don't think that clubs are the right place to deal with issues - instructors are all well meaning and generally quite skilled in what they do, but most of us are not equipped to deal with behavioural issues - even if we can deal with the dog our strength is generally not teaching people to manage their dogs. BUT......I guess you get what you pay for. ;) I find most of the people competing (and doing well) at the higher levels look to private trainers to help them hone their skills. I don't have a lot of experience, but I think that problem solving should fall into this category - the upper end of the skill spectrum. I think clubs do a GREAT job of introducing people to the world of dogs, but I don't think they are there to problem solve or to go beyond a certain point with competition training. Typically the introductory classes are where the volume is for clubs and (certainly in my experience with a number of clubs) are not only an important feeding ground for membership, but also help fund the club. What do I look for....... A level of professionalism from instructors, a friendly outlook and most of all a SAFE environment for members where instructors are supported for making good decisions about enforcing that safety. I also look for clubs that use positive methods. I'm not looking to start a fight with this, but for me dog sport (club activity) is a FUN pursuit. Most people can't time a reward properly so I don't know how they are expected to time or learn to time a correction in a class situation. They have their place, but IMO need to be taught on one so they are used appropriately. I think a level of honesty about what they can and cannot achieve is also important. Private trainers - knowledge and an empathy for my dogs, what I'm trying to achieve and the methods (both +ve and aversive) that I choose to use. Most of all though I look for results.

My three were quite happy at Border River Pet Resort. To be fair though they are well known to all the owners and staff and while I'm sure that it makes their time there a little easier I know that all their guests are very well looked after.

This is a GREAT point. The extension of this is if your high drive dog gets injured and retired early you are going to have a high drive dog with less of an outlet than it has had in the past. I'm living this hell at the moment - just lucky for me she is a slightly older dog, but was still very much in her prime at 5 when the injury occurred. (We still herd sheep, but its not the same as being able to work her daily. Having run both working lines (in Australia and America) and show lines dogs (my own guys who I just ADORE) I'd say that for 95% of people a slightly calmer dog or less driven is going to let you achieve everything you are ever going to want to. The calmer dogs will allow you more room for error in your handling, but will be all but as quick as the fastest working dogs. Back to the car analogy - the faster a car goes the more likely you are to have something go wrong! When something goes wrong the faster you are going the harder it is to correct before it gets really ugly. I guess my advice would be (and I know it doesn't answer your initial question like plenty of others have) - have a look at all the dogs you see running and look for people you think you could match and think about which dogs run best for them, then start to look for the breeder you click with the best. Hope that helps. BTW - congrats on doing such a FANTASTIC job with your cocker.

If you own dogs capable of killing anything (and I do - see the picture) you need to be careful how you manage them........ Maybe not mean, but some dogs do have more of a predisposition to aggression than others.

Sounds like your perception of gradual and hers might be slightly different?? I've always found that my guys don't generalise behaviours that they have learned in close to distance well without a LOT of reinforcement. Might be that you need to increase it by 6 inches at a time rather than 2m.

We'll see.

:laugh: hehehe. I'm working on fixing that. ;) She does turn nicely though. Just need to get a bit (lot) more forward momentum happening. It's coming. :)

And just because I had such a great time with this boy in Texas. Our first competitive run - we'd been training together for 3 days! EEK. I want a puppy from this boy one day. :)

Thanks guys, it really has been a wild month or so. Videos - always........ My favourite jumping run from CK. This is the one that got his title. And my gorgeous baby dog. <3 this girl.

I've had the most amazing 2 weeks with my young girl Wikki. She won the Intermediate Midi National Championship at the ADAA Nationals in Tamworth last weekend. Managed to not get eliminated on 18 out of her 19 runs. On top of that she got runner up in Snooker and came third in the Open All around championship. In the process she achieved her Jumping Dog title. Yesterday she finished off her SAAD title at our own local trial. Every time i take her out she is running faster. Still plenty to do, but I'm super happy with her progress and having sooooo much fun with her. No longer is it hard work to run her. To top it off her big brother CK is continuing to improve at the ripe old age of 7! He's got all the skills, but struggles in 'scary' environments. (That would be any environment where another dog might come and visit. Urgh.) In Tamworth he finished off his Aust Agility Champion title and yesterday while he didn't get any results he ran as strongly as he has done EVER. He was ABSOLUTELY MAD - running super fast, to the point where my friend who often runs him couldn't keep up!! She is used to running her own fairly quick BC, but not my growling bouncy boy. :) I'm just over the moon because it is an environment where he has struggled in the past. Can't wait for next weekend to get out and play again!

For Xena I used to use 'Jam'. For the two now I just use 'go'. They won't release (shouldn't and usually don't) unless the person who told them to do whatever it is they are doing (sit/drop/whatever) gives them their release cue.