Agility Dogs

I think if you want to gain an insight into his behaviour you will need to stop thinking about dominance, not because it doesn't exist but because it is confusing the issue for you. A dominant dog does not do what you have described in this thread, in these contexts. It is quite common for dogs to want their own personal space. There is nothing wrong with that until the dog is forced to defend his personal space. I am fairly similar in this regard. Dogs will do what works for them, so if aggressive behaviour gets other dogs out of his personal space, that is what he will repeat, he can't ask them to back off any other way. Given that you cannot afford a behaviourist to work with you at this point, my best advice would be for you to defend his space for him. Keep him away from off-leash dogs, ask people to keep their dog away from yours. Continue to socialise him with dogs he knows and accepts in his personal space, and of course, continue with his training. Make training a fun, positive experience so that he does not experience any anxiety about what you might do next and this will give him a safe, reliable leader (you) who has demonstrated that you will keep the dogs he doesn't want in his space, out of his space for him. His trust in you will then continue to grow, and if you're lucky and consistent, he might even just leave it all to you. What a great post Aidan :D One of my girls needs her personal space, especially when she is focussed at a trial. I do my absolute best to allow her to have it and I am always watching for dogs approaching that may bother her. She has learnt that I will look after her & if worried will always get as close to me as she can. On the rare occasion that we have been out & about & other dogs (not under owner control) have run up to her in a way that makes her uncomfortable, I pick her up & make it my job to get rid of the other dogs. She hangs out happily with lots of dogs, but only ones who I know or whose body language I have observed first. Every now & then she feels the need to give a warning & it is generally appropriate & heeded. If the other dog does not respond, again, I make it my job to remedy the situation. I all her 6 1/2 years, only once has a dog jumped on her & had to be pulled off (no damage done) b/c I misread the dog & the owners ability to read & control it. It won't happen again. I don't consider her to dominant or fear aggressive. She just doesn't like rudeness from other dogs. My boy is exactly the same and I've adopted exactly the same way to manage him around other dogs.

That is the theory - stay tuned for opening dates though.

Yeah, Smisch's puppies did very well Friday night as well! congrats.

We had a great night Friday at the Qld Fund Raiser Trial. Xena won excellent jumpers with this run. and then came second in snooker despite running off wanting to go to the toilet. The further her nose went down the louder my voice got - sorry little girl. We managed to avoid a disaster though. (SD Title!) CK was really drivey all night and managed to beat his little sister in the snooker ring. (SD title for him too.) This was his ugly run in there. Fingers crossed for some agility cards and Xena's AD title this weekend! Have a good week everyone.

COOL! :D As for the second bit - if ever anyone says to me that they want to take up agility and are going to get a BC because they are good at it I think I'll slap them. I would never have gone and got another breed, but it has been a really hard ride learning to run agility courses and doing it with a quick dog. Thing is though I've also run some small dogs and they have their own challenges that big dog owners can't appreciate. We all learn what we need to from our dogs. Not long to go now!

Simple - timing gates are set up at the start and finish of 24 weave poles. Quickest dog wins. Slow dogs do better - probably not. Expect the quickest midi dogs to do it in about 4.5 seconds. Xena last year did about 5.7 seconds and was 6th or 7th in the prelims. Not sure what the other height classes did. BC 4 Me's girl was just AWESOME. Which one....I am hoping I will finally get to meet Coco Pretty sure it was Coco from memory. Just a shame she isn't black and white.......

Mine don't get dinner - they only get fed in the morning. This morning they got chicken meat, mashed veges and yoghurt. Yesterday they got lamb bones. Tomorrow they will get Turkey necks. They eat better than I do!!

Simple - timing gates are set up at the start and finish of 24 weave poles. Quickest dog wins. Slow dogs do better - probably not. Expect the quickest midi dogs to do it in about 4.5 seconds. Xena last year did about 5.7 seconds and was 6th or 7th in the prelims. Not sure what the other height classes did. BC 4 Me's girl was just AWESOME.

My boy is from exceptional lines - although he is pet quality and I got him 'late' - 12 weeks so he was cheap. (half the price of the bitch I have just purchased). I didn't even ask how much he was going to be until we had agreed he would come to live with us so it was a nice surprise to find he was only $50 more than the pet shop puppy we had bought 6 months earlier. My girl (different breeder) was like I said, double the price, but more along the lines of what I would expect to pay for a performance prospect. I had chosen both dogs before I spoke to either breeder about the price. To me that is really secondary. We now have 3 happy, healthy dogs and that is all that matters.

;) You've stolen my dogs!!! :D

I'll have a shirt on that says 'Xena is a BAD dog' or CK is a BAD dog or CK's Choc Chip Chasers. See you there!

I'm one of the two. Will be the one towing a trailer full of agility gear! See you all there. Only a few sleeps to go! Yeah, your'e one of the two ..the other one is BC4Me My boy is in her girl's team. CK's Choc Chip Chasers.

I'm one of the two. Will be the one towing a trailer full of agility gear! See you all there. Only a few sleeps to go!

We had a fantastic night at Suncoast agility last night. Xena - purple card (first place) in advanced jumping, card and first in jumpers game, card and first with Ripley her pairs partner (those two were born to run together) and first place in open a jumping - I got in her way and she knocked one bar. this is her advanced jumping run - a couple of small mistakes, but still pretty good. An her jumpers run. CK had a really good night too - weavers still the weak point, but getting better. He managed first place in his intermediate agility run (one bar down), got a card in his jumpers run and a third place in his Intermediate jumping run - one fault. this is his agility run. And his jumpers run......He still managed a card - in this game faults counted towards time, but only time so as long as you were far enough under time you could make as many errors as you liked.

That is just an awesome Pic. WELL DONE on the title too.

Cool - thanks for that!! I wasn't sure what 'type' of show Dandenong is. All sorted though. we have worked out a way to send 2 full teams so both my guys will be running. (We almost had to resort to the puppy!! )

If my experience is anything to go by I would take it and move it to another new home far far away. My dogs kill them on sight. I moved one into the front yard and it found its way back. better for it to try and adapt to a new home than suffer the one hole through the head treatment that goes on at our place.

Thanks Kind of what I'd hoped to hear. My vet says 10 days for stitches (or has said that for my girl's desex op).

We are only doing flyball, I am not aware of any other dog events except, being an agricultural show, there may be some jumping or something on. Bummer - but cool that the flyball is one any way. T

My boy has a small lump (about 1/2 a golf ball) on his side. We've had it aspirated and the vet is not concerned, but I'm thinking about having it removed so it is done while it is on the smaller side rather than risking having it grow further and turn into a bigger exercise. It's not an urgent thing so I do have the luxury of time. That said my girl is going in to be sterilised in a couple of weeks and it might be easier to have the two of them recovering at the one time (getting the op done on the same day). So - timing wise it would be between two big events for us - just after one and about 5.5 weeks before the next. How much time would you allow your dog to recover from a simple op like this before letting him back in the ring? (In this case flyball ring.) If it turns out that there is a problem, well that's a good thing because it would only have become worse over time - and he can sit the flyball nationals out. I will speak with my vet, but was idly wondering while I am at work and thought there may be some wisdom on line. Cheers

you have hit the nail on the head with this one. It is exactly why I got our first two from where we did - it was what we did as we were growing up. One of them PTS at 7 months was the wake up call. BUT if I had only got my girl from the pet shop I would have been none the wiser, never got into dog sports and continued on blissfully unaware. As it is I had to train train train because of all the little man's behavioural problems, caught the bug and am now run by dogs sports. We now have 3 dogs - 2 pedigree and the little girl who first came from the pet shop. not sure what the solution is, but good work to everyone who changes just one person's mind!

Hi all, We are heading to the Dandenong Show this year for flyball. Just not sure whether we will run one or both dogs due to a few things that are going on within the club (nothing evil, just life getting in the way of a good time). If there is an option of agility I might decide to run Xena in that rather than the flyball ring. Does anyone from down that way know whether there is any agility scheduled? Cheers Tony

Go with your gut. For me - if it seems serious (throwing up non-stop, bone sticking out, excreting blood, screaming in pain) then we are off to the vet immediately. If it is less life threatening I'll give it 24 hours and REST the dog and see how things develop/improve. If there is a dramatic/rapid decline at any point then we are off straight away, if there is no improvement or they get worse in the course of the day then we usually head off to the vet. (I say usually because sometimes it becomes clear it is not worth a trip straight away and we keep an eye on them for another day.) I know a lot of people tend to race off to the vet straight away, this is just another point of view.

Xena has been a little off colour the last couple of days and at one point I thought she might have had a tick. We've been over her time and time again and can't find anything and this morning she is heaps better so I'm thinking that that is probably not what the problem was. To my question - I was wondering what the likely time frames and progression of tick symptoms are in say, a medium sized dog or is it not that obvious/different in every case?

That was very cool. your puppy is much nicer than mine - Xena would tell me off and CK would just start a random course of his own!