Agility Dogs

thought everyone looked great! You all did a fabulous job - included Todd and Rusty who didn't make it in the final footage although Rusty did make it in the very beginning of the footage and the start. Ck was fabulous - AD did some pretty good throwing too! :cool: I was just happy that all I had to do on TV was throw and not pick up like I did on Friday. Huski - thanks. If you could have seen him on Friday you would have been totally amazed at the dog I had on Sunday! I could not have been more please - quite a strange feeling because normally I REALLY like to win.

LOL. Just remember - the camera really does add 5kg!! We had a ball. It was great to relive it and see another perspective. Watching it back, all the handlers in all the sports did a really good job in pretty difficult/unfamiliar conditions.

No, we haven't been down there for a while. Been a bit busy with everything else that is going on! I've made a decision - same as the thought last night. CK is going to have a go in the ring and then once I get a taste for it with him I'll put Xena straight into the CD ring (I have to do sweepstakes first, dont' I?) so I don't have to put her through the pain of working on lead!! I'm nervous already!!

Thanks Jules. I think we are looking pretty good. Group stays are easy - we do them at flyball just about every week. (I know, go figure.) At the moment we do shadow handling and heelwork at the same time (or at least in the same session) so that shouldn't be a problem - as long as I keep my signals nice and clear. Left about turn is not a problem, for some reason it was one of the first things I taught them. (even though I tell the beginners in my agility classes to forget about it unless they intend trialling in obedience!! ;) ) I've just been down in the park practising. I think I'll enter with CK and leave Xena to do agility. He had an absolute ball - both on lead and off. She just HATES working on lead - it doesn't matter how hard I work at making it fun or how much I reward she just puts her head down and looks miserable. I don't think I'll ever get her past the horrible way I first trained her. Off lead she is a dream, but the minute I ask her to work on lead I get a sad dog. Maybe I'll just have to start her in CD. (one day).

Or a sheep or 3 hmmmmmm yes......CK seems to think that when the sheep stop he has done his job. He then lies down and gives them the evil eye. Something else I think we might do more of next year.

Why would entering a dog who isn't quite ready wreck someone elses chance of a pass unless the dogs has unstable stays? Stays are taught in other disciplines other than obedience. BD, I can see why you would be concerned, but I would never put my dogs or anyone else's dogs in a situation where I thought they would wreck anyone's chances of anything - either in a ring or 'just' in training. Their stays are VERY stable - I can put either of them on a stay in a flyball ring while the team warms up or on the side of the field at agility while other dogs are training. Now that is working with distraction! Any dog can hold a stay, it's only once you put a jump in front of them you know how well proofed it is! The only way they are not possibly ready is if they decide they don't want to walk on a loose lead. As the T-shirt says 'pulling builds drive' Seriously - they will only get to the end of their lead IF they are having a really bad day, thinking with 6 weeks of solid practice I might even fix that. I can't see any real downside, just wondering if anyone else can.

I'm sitting here filling in jumping trial entries and wondering if I should put the two rat bags into CCD on the same day...........Because we only ever trial in ADAA I don't ever get the chance to set foot in the obedience ring......hmmmmmm....... We've been going a fair bit of obedience work of late and they are both going pretty well, but I'm not sure we are ready for a trial. (our obedience is not necessarily as formal as the ring requires, although for CCD we should be OK.) I'm not big on jumping into the competition ring when the dogs aren't ready, but then again obedience isn't adn won't be our focus until the dogs can't run agility courses any more. So many thoughts..............maybe I should just try really hard for the next month and a bit and bite the bullet. Thoughts anyone?

Well done!! I'm starting to get more and more motivated to get out and do some doggy dancing rather than just looking like a crazy in the park!

Gotta feel sorry for her, note hint of sarcasm , the only way she can feel important is by putting someone else down very loudly in front of an audience , what a looser. Keep up the good work huski, you must have been doing well or she wouldn't have felt soooo insecure . Exactly - great work with the distraction training. I always take it as a compliment when someone starts to 'train' their dog when we are out working in the park of a morning. Remember - having a well trained dog is something we all take as a given - others have to show off how good their dogs are.

I gave up and went down this route when they were pups - now not so much of an issue as they are grown and the wall is only 80cm high. You can hide it behind shrubs or something similar as well. ETA - I figure it is a bit of a lost cause with all the jumping they do any way. Not sure I'd be happy with 1.3m though.

Not much help here - I have a jumper as well, but I encouraged it and have taught her to jump into my arms on command. By putting a command on it it seems to have taken some of the fun out of it from an attention seeking POV and it doesn't happen so much unless I ask for it. OK with a smaller dog, but with a larger one....hmmmmm........

All part of the learning process. T

Is that the same for every training session AD?! I found out recently that I was causing the issue with the 'can't weave at trials'... although that's hardly surprising always the handler isn't it! Someone pointed out to me that I don't de-cel before the weaves at a trial, whereas I do at training. What do ya know! I de-cel and give her room at a trial and she weaves like a pro . Might be something to consider there... think outside the square a little as to what may be causing the weaving issues?! I can't see anything and sadly nor can anyone else!! Our current theory is two fold. First of all he does have trouble hitting the weaves at full speed - rear end awareness isn't quite what we would like to see. So, over christmas I'm going to retrain his entries using 2 x 2 method. We think this will help him with the confidence to hit the weavers at speed and in turn keep the fun element in it for him. The other is that the extra level of pressure in a trial is something that he feels (be it from me or the extra dogs/people/noise/whatever). When I look at videos of him 3 or 4 months ago and compare them to now it is like looking at a different (and more confident) dog. This is one that time will fix - he is now driving hard on most of the course, just not weavers and the occasional contact. a while back he would rarely drive anywhere. Hopefully by giving him a different way of looking at things and giving him a break for a while over Xmas we will recreate him. (I think the wider ANKC weavers we are going to attack a bit more next year will also help matters.) Thanks for the thought - I am going to take special note of whether/when I am decelling for weavers too - that might just help him. T

Well done to everyone - seems the hard work all year is paying off in the last few trials. We inched closer to Xena's games and MAAD titles on Saturday night with a card in the Open Game and card AND A OUR FIRST OPEN STANDARD WIN ;) in Open B jumping. Only one more jumping or agility card and Missy has her Masters Australian Agility Dog title. (6 open or advanced level jumping or agility cards (min 2 agility - we have 4) and 3 games cards - min one gamblers or snooker). Hopefully it will come in the first trial next year! CK continues to be CK. If anyone wants a desexed, but very well bred Border Collie please let me know......... He was really drivey everywhere and ran very nicely, but just didn't want to weave again. Although he did get through the weavers twice out of 3 courses he needed to so I guess we are getting there. The problem is that training last night he was a weaving demon ........go figure. At least we are getting the drive that was missing 3 months ago. Merry Christmas everyone!! Tony, CK and Xena.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CKandXena Need to video more training, but these are a few (OK, a lot) of our trial runs.

Bubbles from one of those bubble blowing things really get my boy going.

We had a good night at a beginners comp tonight. CK still refuses to weave, although I'm getting closer to cracking it. He did have one AWESOME run in a game where he won his class (don't ask how many in the class.....), but it was a great run none the less with one of the best scores from any of the dogs on the night. Xena also ran the one open event on the night VERY well. She is such a good girl. 2 quallies with my guys for the night. Morgan - my ring in dog also ran really well in the one event I ran her in and came up with a 4th place and quallie in the game as well. VERY funny watching her bark at me, but still heaps of fun. My other brag is for our club. We had 9 dogs running (big for us given this time last year we only had 7 dogs in the club and they were all advanced with the exception of a couple). I was so proud to see just about all of them go up to collect cards and/or wins! Have a good weekend all. Tony

Sadly I know what you are talking about - no longer a problem though!!

Point of order - please do not consider this to be advice that will work for all dogs or even your dog. I am just sharing what has been a really good learning experience for me and a great result for my boy. CK is a VERY soft border collie - not particularly confident in strange situations or with strange dogs. He NEVER aggresses, but will react violently if he is actually or feels threatened by another dog. He is VERY quick and quite strong for a medium sized dog so, whilst I'm confident he would never hurt another dog and am able to call him out of anything he might be doing he certainly tells them off in an OTT manner if I am not on the ball. I have never been happy with that or what he has considered to be threatening - made it challenging to live with him so I wanted to fix it. Most people would tolerate his behaviour because it was only on walks (never at a trial) and only some dogs, but I want to be able to relax and wander without having to worry about every dog that might be in the area. We started by keeping him at what he considered to be a 'safe' distance from other dogs and have been rewarding calm behaviour. IF I got it wrong and put him in a situation where he felt the need to react he was very swiftly corrected if the reaction was any more physical than a grumble. The penalty has matched the crime - from verbal for a stiffening of his posture through to scruffing for a lunge. The correction was definitely timed so that he knew it was for the behaviour, not for the presence of the other dog. Then we moved to allowing my other dog to greet the 'strangers' with CK sitting calmly by my side. Same correction and reward rules applied. At the same time without realising it I started to build a 'happy' command. Every time someone came to pat him I would say 'say hello'. At first just our doggy friends, but then also to their dogs. Because he knew the people and dogs EVERY interaction he ad after I said 'say hello' was very positive. The next step with CK and strange dogs who wanted to meet us was to let him greet the other dogs for a short period and then ask him to come back behind me. At one stage during one of these meetings I must have said 'say hello' because I noticed his body language change totally from a little wary to relaxed and happy. So, I've been experimenting - greet a dog without a command and you get a wary CK who will jump on them at the slightest provocation. Tell him to 'say hello' and he relaxes and becomes quite submissive and tolerates behaviour that would have started WWIII six months ago. By chance we've met a good number of dogs in the last couple of mornings and without fail he has been perfectly polite in the greeting as well as very relaxed about it. This process has taken us the best part of 2 years and I'm not sure I'll ever let CK run loose with unknown dogs, but he is finally at a place where I am confident enough to take him anywhere and be relaxed about it - which is in turn helping his state of mind!! Thought I'd share a happy start to the day. cheers Tony

well see there's your problem ... if you were wearing a skirt I'm sure the dog would have performed perfectly apologies on that one hehe I try to sneak out with one on, but wife just won't let me!! Best I can do is fishnets covered by tracky dacks. The other problem is that he things a skirt blowing in the wind makes a perfect tug toy..... ...we are working on that perception.

Congratulations!! Yay to Xena I'm so glad it is not just my dog that can do weavers but in the ring a totally different story! Go on - where is your brag!!??

If he thought that he was VERY confused. Mum was at home cleaning up the house like a good little wifey should be at that time of the morning! It's OK, I get called a girl all the time and don't really think too much of it - pretty fair assumption given how many guys are out playing dog sport. If only I'd discovered dogs 15 years ago - before I got married!! ;)

We had an interesting training session this morning - teaching a new trick. Basically I want to teach CK to vault off my legs and catch a frisbee. This morning we started to work on the foundations - me kneeling with one knee on the ground, the other out in front of me - CK to put two feet on my leg and then have a play. (Pretty basic really......) BUT......it took two goes to teach it to him on the left leg, then a few more goes to make sure he knew exactly what I was asking for - clever puppy. THEN - I decided to teach it on the other side - I took him around to that side and asked for the same behaviour - he looked at me blankly. It was really easy to get him to understand what I was after, but I was amazed (but shouldn't have been in hindsight) that he just did not relate on side to the other. It never ceases to intrigue me how their brains work - I think that is what makes training so much fun. Results come from thinking like a dog - not like a person.

AWESOME WORK. My Xena wants to borrow your Xena's handler!!

We had a good night in at our first trial in almost 2 months last night. Both dogs walked off the first course at heel after deciding to do their own thing. After that Xena ran AWESOMELY. We got eliminated in one where I messed up on a d/w tunnel discrimination - that horrible feeling when you know you've taken one step the wrong way, but can't fix it. Other than that she was brilliant. Then we had two runs where we had one fault - one mine and one hers - she knocked a bar and I can't for the life of me pin it on me. Both runs were really quick though. Finally we got a card in open jumping. 20 obstacles in just over 30 seconds!! CK was another story. He ran everything very nicely except his weavers. I think he is getting the picture though. If he doesn't weave he gets to walk off the course and back into his crate. The third time I did it he got the picture and bolted back to the weavers!! (FTR - he can weave quicker than Xena, he just doesn't like to do it in the ring. ) I wouldn't normally do it to him, except that in the first run of the night he got his entry, turned and looked at me and then took off to the next jump which is what I normally let him do. It was the look that did it.