bedazzledx2

Sooooooo pretty!!!!!! I think she's missing puppy breathe, will just have to get Aussie puppy breathe . Yep, we all need a new showdog (hope Jenna can read this). No pressure or anything Jenna That's ok Mason's mum Jenna's response to preasure is to go in to clown mode. Maybe why she jumped the lounge suite just before giving birth to a belly full of puppies last time. This is the girl I would have liked to have kept from her last litter. Brooklyn is the daddy. She is quiet happy where she is though and her human parents love her to bits, she gets to go to the beach and camping quiet often and ride in the new boat. Spitting image of her daddy or what!

Lovely work there sas If you look carefully he is not moving out of position on the click....its your treating out of position thats causing the problem. Really easy to fix....Golden rule...treat in position!!!!!! Transfer the food to your left hand and quickly treat in position.

Nice run ness :D Quality looked good to me.

Congrats xena!!! Drive safe....see you in Perth :D

Oh totally different thing!!!! The retrieving people had a bit of a laugh at Ptolomy's expense with the latex gloves....it was funny though! Glad I don't have a retrieving dog...I don't touch dead birdies either!!!!

Fanny is a great trainer. Have you seen this one? http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=klicke...117/okEurd-y798 ...and we complain about a little bit of weather!!!!! I understand why she uses this method and I think it has merit but I'm not sure I would use it.

I don't bite...honest!!! :D I was judging the stays ring and then the open ring so I didn't see you. There will be another show n go at the shepherd club on 27th July.

Here's another take on it.... For around the house with a noisy dog barking for no apparent reason I played the "You won a prize" game. This was taken from the clicker solutions list a long time ago with my very verbal kelpie (RIP). I was always careful to ensure she wasn't barking (or woofing) for a real reason...people on the property or needing to go out etc. Attention barking got a response from me of "you've won a prize" and quietly with absolutely no fuss I took her by the collar and closed her into the bedroom for a few minutes. Let her out again with no fuss. She barked...."you've won a prize".....quietly into the bedroom again. Didn't take long before she cottoned on. This must be done with a lot of thought. Absolutely it is not given as a punishment. You are quiet and calm throughout. You must be sure that it is just attention barking. Now for the competition stuff.... Sometimes we are so pleased they do what we have asked...eg a great finish...we can make the mistake of clicking or marking the finish and ignore or not notice that a bark or woof went with it! Bingo! Just rewarded 2 things at once!!!! This can be very hard to change but it can be done. Sometimes the dog is so 'high' that they woof without realising they do it. It is very difficult for the dog to separate what it is that you don't like. The way I did it was to work on a new behaviour that doesn't matter. For Brooklyn that was heeling backwards. He was so pleased with himself that he was squeaking as he did it....I marked it with a NRM and put him away for a few minutes. Brought him out again and when quiet I rewarded. I worked on lots of different behaviors that elicited the woof so as to make it very clear to him what was being rewarded and what was causing the NRM.

Woo Hoo!!!! Well done the both of you! Good luck today!!!! Woo Hoo Amypie - what a away to join the thread Wishing you the best of luck for the trial this morning and the finals this arvo - go gettem girl What nice ribbons as well ;)

Thanks to everyone for your congratulations! Both Scoota and Brookie were fantastic and it was just a shame that Scoota went down with 40 seconds to go in the sit stays. It was a big ask travelling to the other side of the country and being close to the rides made for some interesting sights and sounds with teenagers screaming as some contraption hurled them high into the air!!! Both boys showed the attitude and joy that comes from positive training and Brookie managed to hang in there for 4 goes in the ring....whew!!!! Have to say it was the best Royal we've attended and run efficiently but with the minimum of fuss. Everyone was really friendly and helpful and made it a Royal to remember. Loved the big shade umbrellas over the ring...I reckon it would have been pretty hot by the end of the day without it.

I was lucky enough to buy one from a country club the other day. Having a bunch of A4 rules fluttering around when your judging is a pain. Obviously judges should know the rules but there are time when you have to consult the book and it just not convenient anymore My winge for the day!!! Agree - and pity the poor judges, who used to carry the little blue book in their pockets

Still waiting........ :) Will be interesting what you end up with. You've hit the nail on the head with Jenna and Brooky

Me tooooo!!!! Ouch!!!! Been there, done that, carry the scars... too dangerous to you, your dog or an innocent bystander. The same applies to rope.

Wanna bet!??!!! His first run of anything agility is scary! He back chats all the way and I really need to be a better handler...I wonder if mirawee wants the job?!! Hey bedazzledx2, Jenna isn't feral she's just full of the joy of life and wants everyone to know it. I'm going to assume it's Jenna your talking about as you couldn't possiably class that clever boy Brookie as feral.

Absolutely! The same could be said of the herding breeds doing what they are bred to do. You don't see farmers handing out tit bits for the dogs when they round up the sheep! They don't need to as the work is inherently rewarding to dogs that are bred to herd.

Kathy is excellent and would be my recommendation too

Unfortunately the ANKC have opted not to print any more rule books and DogsWest don't have any left. You can download the rules from here http://www.ankc.org.au/Rules.aspx

Page 9 of the little blue book...."A voice command and a signal may be given, but must be used simultaneously. A signal should be a single gesture of the arms and/or hands only, which must be promptly returned to their normal position. Signals must be inaudible and must not touch the dog." Most judges interpret normal position to be that which the handler has adopted at the beginning of the exercise. In other words, if for instance in the recall, you turn and face your dog with your hands at your sides then that is your normal position for that exercise. If you then call your dog and place your hands at your waist then I, and most judges will ping you for an extra signal. If you then give a finish signal and that hand stays at your side instead of returning to your waist...that's another point off!!! Gets expensive when its the handler making the mistakes not the dog I know a senior judge and I have asked this person if it was right that competitors were being pinged for putting their hands in a different position before the recall, and after the recall. This particular judge was adamant that there was no penalty!!! This person is a senior judge and is a current judge. I would not risk the change of hand position myself because it comes down to who your judge is on the day.

Well said Aiden! My money's on you!!!! Depends on the reinforcement history and how well the response has been conditioned. I'm not 'purely positive', but the value of an individual reinforcement v level of distraction becomes a non-issue even at my level of expertise. It certainly does depend upon reinforcement history but in the reliability crunch, there will be some distraction somewhere greater than the reward on offer and the dog will bolt, or disobey especially off leash. Diva was right, it is not that the distraction is "greater than the reward on offer" but that the dog is not conditioned, through it's reinforcement history, to respond in that environment. Believe it or not, it is not a competition between reward and distraction (unless we are discussing bribery). Otherwise how would you explain dogs who recall off live prey, not knowing whether there is a reward available or not? That's were a dog trained to recall to avoid punishment works in any environment. I agree with what you are saying here Aidan, but conditioning a dog to respond in so many different environments, there will be one environment missed being the time the dog finds it's fate. That's were E Collars etc come into play, drop means drop so to speak. Behaviours taught with -R don't necessarily generalise any better than behaviours taught with +R. The e-collar has practical benefits in the field but I wouldn't say that a dog wearing an e-collar was a more reliable dog than a dog who was taught the same thing with food if both were then put into a trial situation or maybe even a highly distracting situation (with the e-collar dog wearing the e-collar - they aren't magical!) If you were to compare two dogs in a Skinner Box, one trained with food and the other trained with shock, then removed the food and removed the shock I would put money on being able to train the one with food to perform more trials until extinction than the one trained with shock. I'd put that money down because I know the probability is higher from repeated experiments. Of course we don't train (or even trial) dogs in a Skinner Box, so practical considerations come into play. However, every year we see more and more dogs on the podium trained with more and more +R, we're finding ways around those practical considerations and even discovering some false economies in using aversives along the way.

If the dog is not touching the hand then there shouldn't be a problem. If the dog is constantly nudging the hand then yes that would be cause for lots of points to go down the tube! From the videos I have watched the dog is targeting the hand so I don't personaly like it. I can't do that with my anyway as his head is higher than my waist.

That's exactly how I see it too and that's how I judge it It's not something I've heard of (and I'm SE Qld). The only thing I've been told is no matter where you choose to have your hand you should keep that position for the whole ring workout ie. don't let your hand swing one minute and then hold it to your waist the next minute as this could be seen as a double signal

Yeah full trial...not just the bite work. Agreed

Goodness me!!! I do wonder about different states sometimes!!!! Its a little blue book that is supposed to be the same for all states put out by the ANKC. No where does it say you can't have your hand on your hip. I'm not shooting the messenger here but it can be a concern.

Left hand....depends on the size of your dog but generally people hold their left hand at the waist or hip simply so that it doesn't interfere with the dog. This is for obedience trials. It is not considered an extra signal unless you move it around. I have seen clips on You Tube in working trials where they have both hands at their sides but I think this is for Schutzhund.

WTG xena :rofl: You must be fit with 28 runs!!!! I'm tired just thinking about it!!!!