Mrs Rusty Bucket

As far as I know NSW is the only state that has mandatory reporting of dog attacks - on humans. http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlghome/dlg_generalindex.asp?sectionid=1&areaindex=DAIDATA&documenttype=8&mi=9&ml=10 So maybe ms ass-for-mouth just multiplied the NSW stats by the number of states or something. Page 77 of the pdf for the annual report has a bit under 5000 attacks involving nearly 6000 dogs, total for both humans and animals. for 2009/10 Just a bit over 2500 humans. None of it quite adds up so some attacks involved multiple biters and bitten. PS pg 79 - Airedales top the list at highest percentage of registered breed are biters. I've never been scared an Airedale would bite me. Wow. They must breed them savage in NSW. Welsh Terrier x top the cross breed list... Maybe they should have sorted by number of attacks not by percentage of breed are biters...

My mum's neighbours have put citronella collars on their dogs and they've gone from bark a lot to looking very very sad and barking just occasionally. Susan Garrett's dog just barked continously until the citronella was all used up, and then barked when he wanted but now he bolts if anyone gets out an asthma puffer - so those things can have fallout. I tend to follow Corvus's technique to encourage my dog to be quiet. She had decided at one point if she barks lots she gets attention and treats. And eventually that got her some crate time and treats. Not exactly what she was looking for. So she's quit that one. Anyway the distract and give dog something else to do works way better on my dog than my neighbour's technique of scolding and yelling at his dog - which barks a lot more than mine at everything and nothing. PS I'd probably try training the cat to stay out at the same time. Ie make that sunny patch she's in all wet and cold. Or prone to attract handfulls of falling pegs.

My council has just introduced microchipping and registration requirements for cats here. I still think they will go where they should not. My neighbour's new cat likes to sit on the sheds that overlook my place and tease the dog. I find a pump up water pistol does quite a good job of encouraging him to relocate.

Hi Bundyburger I'm not sure the crate games dvd will solve the fear of the crate problem, you might need to work on the fear first. I would use similar techniques to what I would if I wanted to teach my dog to accept a dremmel for nail trimming. Ie what does kelpie love, ideally on the food lines? And have you got kelpie his own crate. So start by feeding as close to the crate as he will accept a treat. Keep the door pinned open until he's happy about being in there. And then you can follow the crate games DVD instructions - which starts with keeping the dog in the crate with the door shut until it can show some impulse control for which it gets heaps of the bestest yummiest treats, but if the dog is too stressed about being in the crate to take a treat - it's going to take a very long time to get to the point where you could let the dog out to reward going back in... took my dog about 20 minutes to get to that point the first time. Eventually you want to feed your dog all his main meals and treats like dried beef chews or bones etc, in the crate. So he associates the crate with really good things. I can confuse the hell out of my dog - because the crates I have are so big, I can climb in too and she follows me in. And I try not to get cramp from laughing. We had three dogs in the soft one last night. Very funny. If I have promite on toast for breakfast, I have to make an extra slice for the dog and we play in and out the crate games with toast for reward for in and for coming out and going in and doing a sit or a drop or a sit in the crate and then coming out and doing the same... And then I can do same with door shut then open the door and call her out and go back in... and slowly build duration with the door shut, and then with me walking away with the door shut etc. And be quick so the dog doesn't start barking before you open the door - because if dog starts barking - you cannot let out until it stops and that might take a while. If you let out when he's barking - a dog may bark continuously in the crate because that's what he thinks it takes to get out. But first you have to get your dog comfy about being near the crate. And if you run out of time, you may have to discuss with vet - a knockout drug for the duration and crate that the dog cannot see out of, or get his teeth into - like the ones that they use to transport zoo animals. Or plan an epic road trip instead of the plane ride.

This is the NSW legistlation http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/caa1998174/index.html This section 16 where dog attacks animal or human... http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/caa1998174/s16.html This is the relevant exception So if the person or animal has been invited on to the property (like a vampire) and the dog attacks it, then dog and owner are in trouble but if a cat jumps the fence, especially after the cat owner has been advised to keep their cat out - no foul by the dog. Note a dog that has previously been declared dangerous has more restrictive requirements ie a dog proof (and presumably cat proof) run. I don't know of any councils in NSW that ban dogs. Some restrict how many you can have. It does sound suspiciously similar to "when you hear the icecream truck playing that tune, it means the truck is sad because it has no icecream left". Or my personal fave "If you're really quick you will find chocolates under your pillow, but if you're too slow - they will disappear". Guarranteed to work on annoying little siblings. Ie someone told that person that because they don't want to deal with "can we have a puppy". The neighbours cats on both sides of my place died within a year of me getting my dog - the neighbours said natural causes but I'm inclined to think "heart attacks".

Thanks TSD I think I will work the stairs and the plank and maybe do some perch work and try for the "sit pretty". My dog isn't very good at balancing on her bum either, so some angled strength work ie if I can get her to pivot with her back legs on the phone books... that should help. But I haven't done much with her front legs on a perch either. And I will talk to instructor about doing some contact work in some of the earlier classes (eg for "beginners"). I meant to talk to her about doing "stations" for five to ten minutes at the start of class eg we could line up at different bits of equipment and practice, five repeats maybe and then move on to the next station... before we run sequences, by way of maintaining or retraining what we were supposed to have learned in "beginners".

I got told that ACD were bred to find and kill black fellas. All this while my dog was crawling along the ground with her head wedged against the ground in preparation to roll over and present these two black fellas with her paws in the air and her tummy for a rub... She isn't racist but they were. Mum thinks Cesar Milan has good training techiques. I point out all the signs of an extremely anxious dog in the one he's supposedly just cured of all its bad habits and tell her she's not to use any of his techniques on my dog. And she wonders why my dog likes licking her - how's that hiss working for you, Mum?

Congrats on the impending arrival of your new puppy. 1. Clicker training - sure. But you don't need to use a clicker you can use a short word like "yes" and then give the dog a treat. It's great to teach your dog "shaping" from as young as possible - doesn't really matter what trick you shape, just as long as the dog learns to try new things in a training session, instead of just sitting there looking at you and waiting for a treat. Remember punishment can have unexpected fallout ie the dog doesn't know what you do want, so it makes its best guess and that might not be right. Much better to focus on what you do want and train that and limit the dog's opportunity to make mistakes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaping_(psychology) and http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/digital-dog-training-textbook 2. I wouldn't let my puppy socialise with dogs I didn't know were vaccinated until 2 weeks after the last booster shot. Parvo is not the only disease out there. 3. What PME said, have a potty word and use that when the dog goes to the toilet... in combination with number 1, it shouldn't be too hard to transfer the word and the behaviour to where ever you want the puppy to go. Just make sure you get the puppy there after it wakes up, after play, after dinner, 30 mins after dinner, every couple of hours, and any time you see the nose go down and sniffing or circling start - move really fast if you see that happening, it means you missed one of the previous opportunities. 4 - I live in SA, but I guess you could start with dogsWA clubs or your favourite vet and ask them to recommend. http://www.dogswest.com/ No matter how much preparation and planning you do - something else will happen you didn't expect. If you can't be with puppy all the time and you value the puppy and your household furniture intact it might be worth "crate training" as well.

So what kind of contact behaviours do you guys use for scramble? I have a basic understanding of how to get a 2o2o and maybe a nose touch on the ground (transfered from a hand touch) for the dog walk and a convenient plank that I ought to set up (was going to use it for getting into the back of the car which is very high). Would teaching her to target a ball on a stick help? But the problem with the scramble is the angle of it - ie her back end tends to over take the front end if I do manage to persuade her to come to the bottom of it without jumping off (eg food lure). I guess I'd mostly just like her to run down to the bottom of it and not leap off from more than half way up.

I had a very intermittant stay until I started making dog do varying length stays in front of her dinner. And then I got a rock solid stay with tail wag - cos the reward is dinner - very powerful for my dog. So the dinner stay mat is near the back door and the door to the lounge, so to get out of sight stays, I'd do what Agility dogs said, except I'd nick out through one of the doors for a second and come straight back. Sometimes she's a bit too rock solid on the stays and won't come when I ask. She cracks up the dog club class cos she sits there with her tail wagging the whole time checking out the view but not moving. In the early (hot) days - we had a few upside down stays. Ie all four paws in the air.

I've got a set of three stairs at home outside that I could try using to train a nose touch, she does great hand touches. But I don't know how I'm going to train a "specific contact behaviour" with our current club set up. We only got three goes at the scramble last night in total as part of three sequence runs. And the instructor - while she understood what I was trying to do with the grass and the treat, put the grass so far away from the bottom of the scramble that my dog was still jumping off, though she did make contact anyway which was better than last week. I don't think I've got room for a full sized scramble at my place even though I've got a big back lawn.

Here - the koolies seem to be the fastest. I've seen two varieties - ballistic, and bored. The ballistic ones - it's up to the handler to keep ahead of them to let them know where they're going next, or they will be over three jumps and in the tunnel before you can blink. The bored ones just follow along behind their handler. I don't know if it's different breed lines or the bored koolies have been scolded for going too fast. BCs - all over the shop. Most of them seem to be very willing to do everything the handler asks and sometimes argue if the handler's signals seem inconsistant or late. Some go fast and some don't, some only do what they're asked and some guess what their handler wants - some guess right and some guess wrong. A fast BC with a brilliant handler looks fantastic but I think there are a lot of BCs out there that look crap because mediocre handlers/trainers think that getting a BC will solve their problems. Kelpies seem a lot like koolies, but handlers seem to find it more difficult to hold their attention. I don't see as many of them as BCs and Koolies but it's a dog I think ought to be excellent at Agility, they're fast and smart and like learning new things. Here in SA there are a lot of shelties doing well. Aussie shepherds seem to do ok but I tend to think they look slow - compared to the best BC and Koolies. It might be a delusion on my part. I've got an ACDx - who seems strong and fast, and I need to lift my game heaps to keep up. She does argue a lot about what is worth bothering with. Again - probably my fault - not enough value for some obstacles and sometimes not enough value for me. The show line ACD seem too slow and short to be good at Agility. I don't see any out there. But there are some taller longer legged faster ACD crosses doing well. And there are some other bitsas out there that also look good.

We had the scramble in our sequence tonight. I had a small square of artificial grass and with instructor's agreement, went (leading my dog) out to the landing side of the scramble and placed the grass and a very high value treat on top and went back to the start (four jumps then scramble), and we had a nice startline stay. I say "go" and she goes over the first jump and directly to the treat and eats it. It's hard not to laugh, ok I laughed a lot - everybody else was laughing too. I call her back to the start, she comes (woo hoo) and we start over, and she does all the jumps and good contact on the scramble - looks for a treat that isn't there, gets one on the table and does the rest of the course properly. After that I get the instructor to place the grass and the treat for our turn. Worked much better. So hopefully giving the evil hound a reason not to jump off the top will work. If I don't get my timing just right with the dog walk - she jumps over the contact at the end, or she turns around on the top and comes back or she jumps on top of me. I have to be just fast enough to keep her moving but not so fast or slow that she jumps off.

You have to download and watch on line. If that's too hard, I suggest getting her DVDs, and Greg Derretts...

My dog left me behind on four straight jumps and when she got to the tyre, she thought I'd rather do the tunnel and skipped the tyre. Sigh. I can't run fast enough to keep up with her if the jumps are in a straight line like that. And we don't have a strong enough go-on or recall to get it right. I'm uncertain about how good Rotties are for jumping sports - or labs. Is this ok with their joints or not? My dog is a AWL bitza and so far no worries despite her being desexed way too young according to the research. I thought I was a reasonably good dog trainer until I got this one and OMG have I had to improve and I'm sure it's good for me and any dog I own now and in the future.

I do tend to look at any distraction as a training opportunity these days. When I started tho - OMG. What a naughty dog. She did learn after a while that getting off the lead then on the lead was not the end of the world, and she's starting to learn that there are more fun things to do than chase possums from the middle of class. I just have to deal with the new distractions ie trying to cadge treats at inappropriate times from willing treat dispensers no less. Sigh. I also have to talk to instructor about rewarding or training or re-training or maintaining training for individual bits of equipment - especially the big chunky stuff I don't have at home like scramble and dog walk. Contacts? But what's wrong with leaping off from the top???

Ok all the breeds on your list - are ones I'd consider way too much drive... or always looking for something to do. Working lines or not. All the ones I've met - I have a hard time finding the off switch. I got an ACDx - because all the Cattle dogs / Heelers I've met - do have an off switch. They're quite happy to sleep when nothing else is on offer and they don't hassle you for jobs to do. Labs probably don't either but you just know they're excavating the back yard if it all goes a bit too quiet. Unfortunately with my ACDx - I think the x might be kelpie x bc ie I have trouble finding the off switch for my dog and the more relationship building I do - so she won't leave training to go possum hunting - the more demanding she gets. Oops. She spent quite a bit of time in the crate with the door closed because I wanted to watch movie and she wanted to bark a lot. (More food - but you have tummy upset - you're on fast - MORE FOOD MORE FOOD NOW NOW NOW NOW MORE FOOD...) crate!

My dog quite enjoys watching the front loader washing machine at work. And she lets me know when it's done too. @Lindainfa - your dogs would love the new ABC program on Saturday nights "Kingdom" - frequently includes a large amount of barking attributed to the jack russell/fox terrier type dog that lives in the household.

That's an interesting list of Criteria, Agility Dogs. We've got fails on two of them. * Drive to toy / bait and bring it back. Pretty good at going to it, intermittant about bringing it back. The problem with toys at class is that other dogs tend to be distracted by them - enough to leave their work way over there and try to come steal the squeaky ball over here. And my dog just thinks - chase me with my toy - is the best game ever. * drop on the table. She's good at drop at the end of a run, but not so good at drop during it. At the moment she equates table with stop with no fun - so is rather reluctant to get on it at all - especially since they've shortened it. I think she'd be more enthusiastic about jumping on a 1m table than a 40cm one. Better view or something. So we're back to food reward for getting on it when I ask. Really really need to ask our instructor to let us train individual equipment from time to time instead of all sequences - where the only thing we're really doing is shadow handling - for which we don't need any equipment at all. Sigh.

I've seen toy poodles doing agility - so they must have good recall - it's mostly up to you to train it. They do like food. And the houdini dog toy poodle would run all day touring the neighbourhood if he got the opportunity. Again - how much running they can handle - once they've done growing is up to you. http://www.caninebodyworks.com/et.htm

My hound really enjoys Turid Rugass calming signals DVD. She does a sniff test and a peek behind the TV if she's not sure about whether there really is a dog there or not. TV has dog snot marks along the bottom - as does my full length dress mirror. Sigh.

hi mumtoshelley That looks like an improvement but I still wouldn't want to bring another dog into that household.

Ooh look - there's Indi... in the weaves. I'm finding this thread a bit scary cos I thought a fancy Digital SLR would fix my point and grab shots but maybe not. With the point and shoot camera to get good action shots I needed bright even sunlight, and to preset as many settings as possible. Especially focus and lighting and fastest shutter speed possible. And then to hold the camera as still as possible ie leaning on something sturdy like a fence post and wait for the animal to come into shot - well I'd actually press the button just as the animal took off and generally the lag time meant I got the picture of the critter over the jump. (was horses at 3 day not dogs). I was out there this arvo but I'm not keen to go watch tomorrow with the crap weather forecast. http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/sa.asp

Given how your mum stopped Aunty and her stinky dog - not, I imagine you'd get away with whatever dog you bring home too. But if it was me - I'd wait until I had my own place. What's going to happen when Aunty comes back bringing her badly behaved tribe with her and starts corrupting your dogs again?

The one toy poodle I spent a lot of time with liked wandering and he was a houdini escape artist too. Maybe desexing would have stopped that but I think he just liked exploring. Most of them are smarter than their owners. I like the papillion for boldness (without aggression) in a little dog. Most of the cavs I've met are shy of other dogs and sometimes people too. Mumtoshelly - does this mean you've found your own place or you're just dreaming of what you might have some day.