bedazzledx2

Congratulations Danni...that is a fantastic achievement!!! :D

Oooohhhh Pretty!!!!

When you are free shaping it can also be useful to click and throw the food so that they are able to offer the behaviour again for you to click and treat.

LOL we were just talking about it and Mum said they would probably be tired of lemon cake by now! I don't think so....Bobbie's lemon cake coming up!!!! Lemon syrup cake!!

Thanks everyone for your congrats! Yep Ptolomy....pink bubbles on me Cake at training on Wednesday assuming its not raining!

Good Girl Coco!!!!! Scary stuff!!!!

I teach my dogs to focus but only for competition style heelwork. I think it depends on what you want. My view of loose leash walking is that the dog can be at the end of a loose lead and not have to pay attention to me other than peripherally. Its a definate teach just like any other activity you do with your dog. Sadly a lot of people see it as a correction based exercise and that is so unfair to the dog who doesn't know any better. My view is you either manage it (harness, halti etc) or teach it. To teach it you must separate it from your dogs exercise for the day. For that it would be better to drive to the park and throw the ball for a while. That way you are not giving mixed signals by allowing pulling one day because you are in a hurry and insisting on not pulling the next. Give yourself time and treat it like an exercise that will get better and better as you train it. Initially I would be usisng food as a reward (not a lure or bribe). Say for example you want to go down the driveway and around the block for your walk on a loose lead. That is your goal. Baby steps! For today your goal is to get to the end of the driveway on a loose lead. To start with have some nice treats that are not crumbly or hard...cheese is great. Have them in an easily accessable pocket or bum bag. I don't use a clicker for this as its such a general type of activity and I find the clicker to be too precise. Attach the lead to his fixed collar..no correction collars please...and give him a treat while he is close and not doing anything. The lead is there only to prevent him from taking off...it serves no other purpose and you won't use it to control him at all. Take two steps and he should still be watching you because you just gave him a yummy treat. Give him another. Take another two or three steps. If he is still not pulling give him another treat. You can say good boy! if you like but don't give any type of command or cue. If he starts to pull say nothing and stop. He should stop in confusion and look at you...good...give him another treat. Don't call him to you or wave a treat in front of his face...it must be his decision to stop and look or move towards you. Take another few steps and if he is still not pulling then give him a treat on the fly if you can. Some greedy dogs like mine can eat without missing a beat...others need to stop and chew...whatever works for your dog. If he insists on pulling even at this early stage, stop and like the old adage says....make like a tree! You must allow him to be responsible for the lead going loose and for you both to progress. If you correct or even go in the other direction you have just taken it on, and being a dog, he will let you! You may get the beginnings of lovely heelwork which to the uniniated looks like competition stuff. It only looks that way but you could build on that if you wanted. The problem with that is the question what do you want? I teach heelwork somewhat differently and I like to be very very precise and give the dog the finished picture right from the beginning. For loose leash walking I do not ask for any particular position from the dog....somewhere around and in front of my left side will do. My body language is very relaxed and I don't want any sits until I ask for them. For LLW I don't put a cue (or command) on it until it is a trained behaviour. When I do its a "lets go" (or you could do a Barbara Woodhouse and say "Walkies!...but I wouldn't ) If you cue a behaviour before its taught and before the dog has full understanding, you have the risk of him ignoring it, or you correcting it and it can become a poisoned cue and you'll have to think of a new one. I hope that helps and if you have any questions just ask

Have to have a little brag.... I checked the mail today and have just received official notification from Dogs West that Brooklyn has won Top Obedience Dog of the Year. Thrilled with this achievement as its a big ask in very good competition.

I prefer to train one dog at a time. I figure if I want full attention and focus then in turn I must give him my full attention and I can't do that with 2 at a time. Don't feel bad about shutting the other dog away...it'll teach him some self control and that his turn will come. You will also get great attention as you can swap them around pretty quickly.

gremlins

I would recommend Deb. She has been fantastic with my BC who has sustained low grade agility injuries with intermittent lameness as a result. He is very stressed at the vet and everything tightens up which makes manipulation difficult. He is very relaxed with Deb and the improvement is remarkable.

I would suggest that his information is 20 years out of date!!!! It is a lot of fun and its worth going to a couple of trials to watch. Haha, actually sadly my animal behaviour and welfare lecturer told us this.... hmmmm he has some "interesting" views imo. Thanks for all your answers! I am sure it is much harder than it sounds! But would love to get into it even if just for fun.

Good Lord!!!! Where did you hear this?!!?? Speaking for myself (and I think Brookie would rate pretty highly ) He sleeps on my bed although he has to share it with the cat! I have trained and trialled a number of O C"s (stands for Obedience Champion....or Occasionally Clever...depending on the day ) and they have all been house dogs. 6 weeks is too young except under dire circumstance, rescue for example. Most puppy's are sold at 8 weeks from a responsible breeder. ANKC rules allow dogs to compete at 6 months of age although most puppies would not be mature enough at this age. Personally I wait until they are around 2 but that can vary with individuals. Change of position is when the dog is left in a stand and on command goes into a down and in the higher classes sit, come and finish.

Agree and I would add to this that you will make faster progress if you can make all their food coming from your hands....no food in a bowl for a while. Portion up their food and teach them lots of easy tricks. Come to the hand, get a piece of food, sit, get a piece of food, puppy push ups, touch a target (lid or hand) etc. If you can get someone else to help that would be great. How old are your kids? Swap the dogs and kids (or helper around so that they are associating it with interaction with different people. In other words they have to interact and come to you for all their food...not just once a day in a bowl. This doesn't have to go on forever but its a fast shortcut to good interaction and makes recalling games easier. I feed BARF so I portion up the wet food in small containers and thats the jackpot for a harder behaviour. Whatever I'm training at the time.

There can be a few issues with teaching a down from a sit when you progress to trialling. I like to teach a fold back down so that he is never coming forward in signals or drop on recall. You can start by luring it from a stand with a piece of food in your closed fist. Bring your hand close to his chest and down to the ground. Wait him out...he should start to drop his front end slightly to get the food. As his elbows go down, mark (click or "Yes") and open your hand still on the ground for his treat. As he gets the idea you withhold your click until the back end goes down. Make sure you do it from both front and side and you fade out the lure as soon as he gets the idea. Keep marking and rewarding it and move quickly to the stage when you can stand upright and give the signal, click and reward. When you reward make sure you place the food low so he can get it without standing up again.

Snap! I just started to write exactly this and for once I checked first!!!! I too use my left hand as it doesn't cause a twist of the body as using the right does, its more visable to the dog and its not confusing with the down signal which is my right hand. You can use whatever hand you feel comfortable with, Fran... Don't let the trainer dictate what your cues are going to be. You need to be happy with them. I think most people use their left hand for stand (including myself).

Nice run Congratulations!

Nice run Congratulations!

Interesting.... is that across the board black and tan dogs or is it limited to certain breeds? I'm wondering about black and tan kelpies. Does it relate to tri colours....wondering if the white has any effect? Rumour has it that mating of very white particoloured Whippets has seen deafness crop up in the breed. There is a definite link between black dogs and increased risk of some cancers and between black and tan dogs and susceptability to parvo. And of course the lethal white gene crops up in merle to merle matings.. in dogs and in paint horses. We covered something in a lecture today about black and tan dogs and a type of antibiotic use (sulphonamide);

Good girl Millie ;) That's two trophies for her so far..yes?

Good boy Brookie!!!! He won the double Open and UD at the German Shepherd trial today. Open was lovely and he scored 197 for the win in a class of very good dogs Celebrating with a nice drop.....hic!

These things happen Aussies are known for their bounce and they can be too much dog for little kids. You managed it well though and the bell is a good idea for everyone's sake. Dogs don't understand things like don't jump up or don't pull on the lead etc. They do very well if they are given an action they can do...sit means they can't sit and jump at the same time so train and reward the sit. This will take a bit of dedication and will need teaching and proofing in many circumstances. You need to get to the point when dog sees a kid (for example) the conditioned response is to sit. You will need to reward big time in the short term, and then occasionally as he gets to understand it. If you can ask older kids to treat him only when he is sitting that will help your cause. Make sure they only reward him (treat,pat or praise) while his bum is on the ground. There is a new Mastiff puppy where I work and he is very exuberant!!! I don't feel like being bowled over by a fully grown Mastiff everytime I go outside so I am training him to sit before he gets a pat. I've been doing this for a few weeks and now its just what he does! Good Boy!!!! The other vital thing your dog needs to learn is a first time every time recall. There are many systems out there but the one I use and recommend is free and available here http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/Lesson6.html Aussies are exuberant dogs with lots of energy and do really well at dog sports. Mental stimulation can be as important and energy sapping as physical. Until you can truly use all that energy train the recall very well and you and your dog can enjoy a great deal more freedom. A chuck it ball thrower can burn off a bit in a short time!!!!

Depends on the exercise and where the judge is likely to send me. If for example, the seekback pattern is going past the jump then I will set up on the other side of the start peg to give me a nice straight line rather than deviating slightly as can happen. If in Open we have an Eastern States judge who likes to have you start the retrieve on the flat from the start post, I'll choose whichever side gives me the middle of the ring and is not too close to either the broad or the high jump. Generally I will set up with my dog closest to the start post though...just habit I guess. I think way back when, I was advised to do this as it gives a small barrier for the dog.

You are not judged (except for misbehaviour) until the judge asks you "are you ready" at which time you acknowledge and on the command "leave your dogs" you are permitted to give a single word command and/or signal and leave. So any chatter you give to your dog prior to this doesn't matter. If I'm next to Ptolomy I'm just as likely to use wait instead of stay!!! :D Good thing he knows what I mean!!!! So, the judge has said to take up position and sit your dog and you give the command "sit", then the judge says leave your dog and while others use the command "stay", you want to say "sit" again? Some people don't use a 'stay' they train that sit means sit still, I'm guessing this is what the OP is doing hence wanting to say sit instead of stay. This is what I do as well. In some dogs it cuts the confusion of too many commands. Sit means sit until you are released irrespective of what is going on around you. The only release words for my dog are 'finish' or 'come'. We use the same approach to her drop as well. It seems to have improved her stability on stays. So as Tiggy said, I repeat the command of the position I want the dog to hold when I leave, be it sit, drop or stand. Ok, that's interesting - it didn't occur to me that you could use the same (sit) command twice in the group sit/stays

I got tired of the leaking so have just invested in a food saver! Its like a home cryovac and should solve the problem. I haven't used it yet...need a spare day to organize a big freeze up of home made BARF.