Agility Dogs

No - I don't think that you should put a command on anything until the behaviour is correct. If you start with weaves for example weaves will mean everything from put you head in the entry to do 2 weave poles to do all 12 - it becomes a muddy command. If you put the command on it once you have it right then you don't have that muddiness. Cheers. Tony.

I only use a couple of verbal commands for the dogs. The other couple are for me. Seriously - the dogs have an understanding of all equipment and an understanding that they continue down a straight line unless they are told otherwise. (via my body position). Cues I use are: 'Bang it' - see saw Touch or Target (depending on the dog) means hold your contact until I tell you to move - a bit of work to do there. and the most important of all - 'stay' for the start line! Then for my own security I might use table walk on for aframe or dog walk poles for weavers but I'm pretty sure this is all just noise for the dogs. That's about it.

Hmmmmm........chicken/egg??????? I think a lot of it is because our puppies constantly remind our fragile male egos that we don't control the world. I often say to my wife that I wish I'd discovered dog sport 15 years ago - before we were married.

I know exactly how you feel. I saw a beautiful 12 week old BC puppy in a pet shop on the weekend. It was all I could do to stop myself from bringing him home. Whenever I feel like that though I remind myself of the pup we PTS at 7 months because of a health issues and how bad I felt then.........Walking away from the beautiful little man in the window was not a drop in the ocean compared to that.

Hey all, We had a great games trial last night. Lomani was there - running VERY nicely I might add, heard many people comment on how well she went. Bond is a beautiful boy as well! As for us it was our best night ever. The courses were perhaps a little on the generous side, but still......... CK got a quali in 4 out of 5 of his events, he was just a little over time in snooker, but managed a card in gamblers, Boston Bowling, Blackjack and Strategic Pairs. Xena managed Blackjack, Gamblers and Strategic Pairs as well. Things to work on - contacts for both puppies. Good luck today everyone! T

Not sure. Thanks guys. It's at least a good place to start looking.

We've had a BRILLIANT weekend. Yesterday at Agility we ended up with 4 qualis from 8 runs. CK scored 3 from 4 - one Agility, one gamblers and one snooker - all in novice. Xena only managed 1 from her 4, but ran SOOOOOOOOOO fast. I have my girl back which is more important than any card. Today we went to flyball. Xena still has another 2 weeks out on vet's advice (he doesn't like the box), but CK ran really well in his team to win division and go over the 400 points he needs to have his FM (Flyball master) title. We will all sleep well tonight. Hope everyone else is having fun as well. Oh yeah - I met Yackett's Mum and Smisch at the trial as well. Their puppies were going really well. Good job guys.

Are you sure that the council officer wasn't just playing the whole power thing? I'm sure all the evidence he mentioned would help your cause, but I'm not convinced you are obligated to prove you dogs are not at fault. My understanding is that those making the complaint need to keep a diary and it is up to the council to come out and monitor the situation. They need to find that your dogs are barking for more than 6 minutes in the hour or 3 in the half hour after 7pm (or whatever it is). I did a lot of calling the council when we had a pup that barked a lot and they didn't ever suggest it was up to me, in fact they said it was quite difficult to get a complaint to the stage where anything other than a warning happened.

Hi everyone, Can anyone recommend a Caravan Park/Camp Ground in Western Sydney (LOL). We are heading down for the flyball nationals next easter and beginning to plan now. Any leads would be greatly appreciated, the only time I've stayed in Sydney with the puppies was for World Dog Games and I don't think Sebel would like 2 teams of crazy flyball dogs staying there! Cheers Tony

Next year for definitely flyball and maybe agility.........can anyone recommend accommodation at that time of year - thinking I'd better get started organising it now!

Awesome. You could always do ADAA trials and run her in the Regular Maxi Class where she can jump 550.

Are you able to suggest some warm and and cool down exercises I can do with my Labs before and after agility training, please? We do a fair bit of warm up/cool down. (Horse people are often disgusted at the way performance dogs are treated in this regard so I tend to listen to them.) Gentle run first up - don't really like stretching cold muscles. Spinning in circles Figure 8 between the legs, High 5's High tens 'dancing' on back legs (not bouncing on them, steady stand or walk backwards on 2 legs) walk backwards roll over crawl 'say your prayers' - front legs on my arm , head down under my arm Basically any gentle tricks that the dog can do will get the muscles warmed up. This takes about 5 minutes in total. Is really good for focus and connection with your doggy as well. Exercises can be lured or shaped, for these purposes it doesn't really matter. I like shaping though. Then stretching, front legs out, back legs out. (I stretch her.) Then we tug and maybe do a couple of practice jumps off to the side. Ideally cool down is the same in reverse, but usually ends up with a 5 minute walk and a bit of stretching. Definitely not straight back in the crate after a run though. (If I have to run 2 dogs back to back then I will get the first one out and cool him/her down with the second one.)

Mini Schnauzers Shelties Aussies Beardies for a start. More if you start looking at individual height classes like ADAA run. Oh - who's to say the borders and kelpies that win are normal!!

We've been doing heaps of shaping since the Linda Orton-Hill seminars about a month ago. It's been lots of fun and is improving CK's confidence no end. It is improving Xena's ability to bark no end as well!! LOL. We've shaped CK's retrieve (careful - this is great if you want toys dumped in your lap constantly ) and our latest has been to shape both dogs doing figure of 8's in between my legs. They've been able to do it on command before, but can now do it in total silence. It's a lot quicker now and they are much keener to do it. Next trick is weaving through my legs as I walk. I've always done 'shaping' that ended up with 30% luring (just to start it off of course ) and 70% shaping - which is pretty much luring because the dogs don't have to think. Now that I am 100% shaping behaviours the dogs are starting to think for themselves and are a lot more fun to play with. What is everyone else shaping?

I regularly 'forget' to feed my dogs - about once a week. I make up for it by feeding more the day before or the day after though. It's just part of their life - they get fed when it is time to be fed which could be any time. No whinging here if an odd meal gets skipped.

We would be in a similar position at our club, but have decided that we need to compromise on quality for the time being so that we have quantity. I don't mean that we let any idiot take a class. They have to be competing with a dog at least an intermediate level and have some idea, but most importantly they need to instruct within the club's positive training guidelines. It's not ideal and we have people instructing who are probably not quite ready (I know I wasn't when I started), but the thing is they know more than the people who are instructing and it is working. People are having fun and learning to build a relationship with their dogs. We fill in the gaps with weekend clinics (or are about to start to any way). It means I'm only instructing 2 weeks out of 3, but more importantly it means that others are beginning to come through and in time this work load will ease. We are not a big club, but have grown rapidly so have had to cope in this regard. I'm sure others will disagree, but if it is a choice between something you love becoming a chore and turning into something you dread (yes, I know how you feel - sometimes I LOVE it when it rains on club night) or getting some others to instruct at less than the optimal then I know which way I would go.

I wouldn't have it any other way. They are OCD just like me. Seriously, as long as you train for the off switch they are really good. Some just take a little longer to learn than others.

Seriously, the only way I can sleep for any more than 1.5 hours (usually closer to 20 minutes) at a stretch is to crate the dogs at night. They have learned not to bark at me when they are outside during the day.

Toys away........if that doesn't work - crate or outside. :p They soon work it out.

How old is Oberon now PM.. I'd be very careful about doing this with a pup. x2. They do have puppy runs though. Basically 50 to 70m at the end of the run (straight) to give them the feel of chasing the lure. There are also age requirements before they can do full runs. I just can't remember what they are.

We will be there on the 28th. Just found out last night that my girly joint top scored in the one run she did in the summer cup and the boy was only 3 points behind. Go the rat bag dogs!!

I've only done 5 ANKC trials in Queensland. The dogs have only been looked at for lameness once (it was an obedience/agility trial) and Xena (speyed AR dog) hasn't been checked for a tat or swabbed ever. I think it depends on the club by the looks of it.

LOL World is too small. Well done - that is just brilliant!! T

We had a double snooker trial last night. Missy Xena came out of her enforced rest totally fired up and was super quick. I got a bit muddled with her on the first course, but she was like a rocket. On the second it all went smoothly and she managed a card and first place. (I think I had forgotten what it is like to run a quick dog.) The big story for the night was CK. He came out of his crate happy and wanted to play. The first course we ran clean and he really drove through the weavers and managed third place. The second course was even nicer, except for jumping off the a-frame, but I put that down to faceplanting on the up contact on the first course and being a little bit nervous. Again he drove really nicely through the weavers - independently of me too!! The other big thing is that he didn't stop when I turned him around 180 deg or called him off equipment for no apparent reason (snooker is weird sometimes and in the past he just wouldn't have coped!) WOO HOO!!! 2 cards for the night and we have started our search for our SD titles. I hope tomorrow goes as well! Good luck for the weekend everyone.

But the OP said; I don't see the benefit in taking my youngest dog, who is three years old, was socialised appropriately as a young pup/dog, who has a stable view of other dogs, and letting her play regularly with dogs we don't know Some people enjoy taking their dog to the dog park and what not but it doesn't appeal to me and I don't see the benefit, in fact I see it as a risk. My dogs rarely play with dogs outside our pack, although we see dogs out and about at training etc, apart from DOL meets which I only go to every few months I generally don't make time to let my dogs play with others. I'm not saying we should lock our dogs up and never let them play with others as it's important to let them what other dogs are and how to interact with them but once you have a dog with a stabilised view of other dogs it's hardly going to ruin them if they don't regularly get to play with strange dogs. Huski has the context in which I meant the question correct. It is not about whether dog parks are a good or bad thing. It is about play between dogs from different 'packs' and why those who do enjoy it think it is important. I'm not worried which side of the fence people sit on, I'm just curious about those on the 'other' side of this particular fenced.