canine fun sports

Highly, highly, highly recommended puppy school at Seaforth Vet, too.

Hi Atanquin, I am not the best person to ask about the showring - I am (to put it mildly) rather cynical about the results from the show ring. I did it for 15 years, so it is not an outsiders's view. I have owned / bred / shown (once upon a time) and trialled GSP's for more than 40 years now. My dogs prove their temperament, and soundness in the agility trial ring, and just a few are gundog trialled and hunted with. I believe I breed pretty good GSP's and I have not been near the showring for 25 years (except the occasional visit when a trial and show is on at the same grounds.) I have very long order lists for my puppies. Potential owners are very interested in dogs that are bred for temperament. If you are interested just check in to my website. And I have to agree, agility is just a little addictive.

I am afraid you said Thank You prematurely. I forgot to take my camera!!!!! Silly me. I asked a couple of other people to take shots with their phones / i-pads and asked them to email them through to me so if I get any, I will pass them on. Otherwise, I hope someone has been able to get a photo or two for you. SORRY

I will be at the United Retriever trial in Sydney this weekend (doing agility) but can try to get some Rally-O shots for you (weather allowing . . . the rain is pelting down outside at the moment.)

Alternatively, if you want to keep him outside, you could have a dog pen constructed in your yard. Strong wire on sides, cement or pavers on floor or strong wire under the dirt / grass and a roof on it. Not cheap, but it sounds as though he is already costing you a lot in replacement of what he is damaging. Training to get him to love and feel secure in his pen would be the same as crate training. Cheers

I think you will find that most of the people in Sydney / NSW who build equipment have a fairly long waiting list for the supply of the equipment. They do it in their spare time, and they do not have much of that and there are lots of people wanting equipment. Knowing the cost of materials and the time it takes to build equipment, 2k sounds quite reasonable to me. When Keith used to build equipment he used to charge near $1,000 for a dog walk and that was years ago, and at well below an hourly rate of pay that would be expected for a tradesperson at that time. Taking into account annual CPI changes, 2k sounds on the cheap side! Most people who build agility equipment do it for the love of the sport, and not on a professional basis. If people are building this stuff for a living, they do have to charge for the time it takes at a professional rate, as well as for the materials. Cheers, Le Edited to make sense of what I wrote. It does not help when you forget to type half of one of the sentences!

This is different to a dog being distracted by sight, smell, movement etc. when I said I've never seen it, I meant I've never seen a dog fixate (through eye) on an obstacle during a sequence to the point it can't move, although I have seen dogs...including mine, fixate on the wrong obstacle...but they are moving towards it, not stuck on it. I am not talking about gundogs being distracted by scent either. I am talking about the dogs, that once they catch a certain scent, they switch their mode of thinking into "stalking" mode" and they genuinely do not hear or see anything else around them. One classic example was many years ago when a top notch pigeon landed near the ring. Winnie came over a jump, caught the scent and went into a staunch point and could not be moved until some one chased the pigeon away. This is the same instinctive (modified prey drive) reaction to the working dog giving the eye to something that moves. I have never seen, in agility, a dog "giving eye" to a stationary obstacle. Their handler, yes, or something like a leaf that has moved and they want to stare it down so it does not move again. But never an obsatcle on course. And I have seen an awful lot of agility runs. Cheers,

I cannot tell you for certain, but probably not, because the training is done in a different area to the shows Cheers,

Of course, the extreme of "stickiness" is in the pointing breeds, although they respond to scent, rather than movement. Does that make it a "sticky nose"? Many gundog owners know what it is like when their dogs start to only pay attention to their sense of smell, and block out all other senses! Cheers,

I would suspect hormone problems, so get a vet check first. The most common reason dogs hump (other dogs/bitches/people/toys) is that they simply discovered that it is an enjoyable sensation. I agree that in this human society it is not really a desirable behaviour and should be interupted and substituted that another, more desirable behaviour (eg getting ear scratched, or sitting etc, etc.) The 11 year old may have some sort of hormone problem (eg a hormone producing tumour - so yes a vet check is warranted) but it may simply be that she discovered late in life that humpinb feels good. Cheers,

All in all this sounds like a typical novice dog and everything will work itself with a bit more training and trial experience. Your timing will improve, so fewer bars will come down. She will get better at her weaving in different places - many novice dogs have problems recognising the weave poles, because we usually practice them time and time agian in the same position. They just need a little experience to recognise those 12 poles in a row when they see them in a course mixed up with all the other equipment, including jump uprights, the poles around the broard jump, the start and finish gate, the legs on the dog walk - they are all vertical lines. And of course, we have spent so much time training contacts - dogs (and all living creatures) mere reflect their reinforcement history - just start rewarding the other obstacles more often and the contact suck will disappear. As an interesting aside - many, many years ago, I remember practicing Ned's weave entries so often, he was the first dog I ever knew to developed a weave suck! Cheers,

That is all sounding very good and optimistic. Keep us posted with progress. Cheers

We will have to be patient then! Cheers,

So what has the physio suggested??

On my last few visits to Bayview, I had serious problems with other dogs, and owners' total lack of consideration for other walkers. My aged dog was bowled over by a maniac young Weimaraner. On the same walk the Wei took on my entire male Gserman Shorthaired Pointer (who turned his back on the dog and walked over to me) Earlier in the walk he had been charged at by an Am Staff (the problem was more the owner, than the Amstaff!) when the owners just let the dog bounce out of the car and take of wherever he pleased. Once agian, my GSP just turned away. I find this type of occurrence fairly common at Bayview. The other problem with Bayview is that a lot of people do not pick up after their dog. Also, there are sometimes fishermen down on the beach, and that can be a real hazzard if you have a dog that might raid their bait bags, or not notice the fishing lines when they run along the beach. That said, Bayview, at quiet times of the day (or better still in the late evening) is a fantastic place to run a dog. No waves - so that is good for some dogs, and great if you want to walk the dog through chest deep water to build up their hind quarter strength. So Bayview is fantastic, if you choose your times, carefully. I would never go again, on a weekend! Cheers,

I do not know anything about the fitness of your dog, and I have not seen the dog working. So I feel I am stabbing in the dark. The one thing that jumps out out me here, though is if he is not as muscularaly fit as he should be, doing these exercises only once a week, may be the problem. Let's see what the physio says. Cheers,

Tugging incorrectly can cause neck and lower back soreness. Just keep that in mind. Even if you do not do it often, it may be related. Obviously, if he does not like to tug when he is sore, it uses those muscles that are sore! Also look at his jumping style - does he push off with his hind quarter and turn in the air to land, or is he throwing himself upward with his forequarters, and jarring himself on landing. Some people think that the decent on the scramble is also jarring to the back, especially if going into a 2on2off position. Weaving style can contribute to back soreness, too. Just a few things to consider that might be contributing. I would be looking to ways to strengthen his back, and increase the flexibility in his back. Do you have a good canine physiotherapist where you are? Cheers,

What area of his back is sore? How much tugging do you do with him? Cheers,

No reason for guilt. You took away his pain. that was the right thing to do.

We understand your pain, and off our deepest sympathies. Grieving is a process that we all deal with differently, and you have to choose what is right with you. Some of us like to bottle up our feelings until we are by ourselves, others like to share their feelings. Some like to write about the good times they had with their pet (or human), some like to make a scrapbook, others like to plant a tree, and others like to carry a momento with them. We are all happy to help you share your grief, and everyone offers a big group hug. Your feeling of loss is very real, even though those who have not loved pets may not understand that the grief runs just as deep. It all feels like a big black cloud at the moment, but you will come out the other side, and realise that you and your dog had the best time together possible.

This is what's making it soooo much harder, he's not showing me any 'signs' - if only he would I know what I have to do, but because he's not showing me anything, it's like I'm forcing him when he's not ready. ETA: he ate last night, and was so comfortable. My advice is that if you wait until those "eyes are telling you" then you may have left it a little too long. Do not wait until his life is totally miserable. A number of people have said, and I agree that very few people choose a time that is too early, but it is easy to wait until it is too late. If you have vomiting, and on those occasions he does not want to eat, he is feeling like he has a shocking hangover. I do not think it is fair to let him live like that. He is well and truly into that grey area that I spoke of in an earlier post, so for his sake, do not let it go to dark grey/black.

I have the opposite problem. I have been known to share a couch with 5 German Shorthaired Pointers, who all pile in nice and tight so they will all fit. It does get a bet squashy! Cheers

I hope I am able to give you some information to help you make this decision. I have had to give this advice on many occasions. Your own vet should also be able to help you. There is no moment when the decision is THE correct time. It is not black and white. The decision comes in various shades of grey. At one end of the spectrum - light grey - the dog may have days of being unwell, have mild pain, or occasional unpleasant episodes (depending on what the health issue is.) Most people would, at this time decide that the dog is still enjoying life enough to maintain an interest in life. At the other end of the spectrum - dark grey - the dog is in frequent or constant pain, feeling listless and uninterested in life, he may be vomiting, breathless, unable to exercise (depending on what the health issue is.) Just about everyone who saw this dog would advise the owner to euthanase the dog, and many vets would not allow the owners to take them home. My belief is that the right time is somewhere in between, and I would prefer to err toward the lighter grey than the darker grey. I do not think we have the right to keep our dogs alive to a point where they know significant suffering. We owe it to them to have a happy life. I certainly would not keep a dog alive until he no longer wagged his tail, was not longer interested in food, and was always listless. I love my dogs too much to let things go that far. It is a very personal decision whether you want to put your dog through chemotherapy. Cost, for most people, must be considered. But also you must considerfor how long the dog will live with good quality of life after the event. So the dog's age, general health and the prognosis on the particular type of cancer must be considered. My last piece of advice is that the decision should ALWAYS be based on the welfare of the dog, and not your own needs. If you base your decision of the needs of your dog, you will find that your decision will be easier to live with. You will be grief stricken, but that will pass with your recollection of the good memories, and knowing you did the best thing for your canine companion. Hope this helps with your difficult decision. It is a sad time.

I would call it latent learning - if the dog did not know it but comes back later knowing it, it is not a transition from short term to long term memory - because the dog had no short term memory of it in the first place. Latent learning is the ability to figure something out while you are not actively doing the task - you might be observing it, or just thinking about it, or "sleeping on it". I have not gone and taken out my text books to check the definitions, but this is my recollection of what was taught to me (quite some time ago) when I was doing some behaviour classes at Uni. On the agility thread, one of the most useful uses of laten learning is to help memorise a course. Just shut your eyes and visualise it, running the course in your mind. Cheers,

I guess it is about time I weighed into this discussion. One thing that would be utmost in my consideration is the handling that the breeder does with the pups. I do not want ot purchase a pup that is kept down in the back yard and visited twice a day by the "breeder" to give them a bit of extra food. I want to know that the pups have been handled very regualarly by humans, they have been taken out places, even if only to explore on their own residence. Has the breeder encouraged many people including kids and grandparents to come in and handle the pups? Has time has been spent to take the pups on their own away from their litter mates, even if only for a couple of minutes two or three times a week? Has the breeder ensured the pups have experienced thunder and fireworks noises before 7 weeks of age, whether it be naturally occurring or by playing a CD of these noises? Have they had a wheeley bin roll past, have they heard a lawn mower? Have they been taken for a car ride, other than the traumatic experience of being taken to the vet to have their needles? Have the pups have been wormed regularly and have they been on a good diet? Have the pups been taken for walks and rewarded when they come back to the humans. An independent pup is often the result of not having that much human contact when in the litter. For an agility dog I would like to know they have been on a bed that wobbles, or through a barrel or cardboard box etc etc etc. Not all breeders would do those last couple of things for all their pups, but they should be willing to do these simple things if you make a request. Environment, during the first 8 weeks of life has a huge effect on temperamemnt, no matter wht the genetics. To produce outgoing puppies with a good, outgoing, stable temperament for agility (and for life in a pet home) requires the breeder to spend the time with the puppies. Sure, make sure you like the temperament of the parents, but pay a lot of attention to the enviroment in which the pups are kept. Cheers,