flyingduster

woohoo, after the past couple of years making no real progress in obedience we are making progress! We would always have amazing heel-work, interspersed with enthusiastic visiting to the judge and steward and ring-side watchers, which would cause us to loose all our points, or close to it! Finally I have a great trainer, and a set game-plan that makes sense. Yesterday she blew me off, like usual, which resulted in me abruptly ending the 'game' and marching her off to her crate for 'time out'. Having already done some training with the same method (when you blow me off, the game ends and you go into time out) it was basically meaning that I WILL be consistent now, even in the ring. There IS a consequence for blowing me off (I previously used to try and work her through it and bring her back to me, which would just hype her up more!) she dragged her heels as I marched her away, she KNEW and ya could see the 'uh oh' look on her face! I never said a word to her (beyond my NRM of "uh uh!" as she went away from me) and ignored her once in her near-by crate. Today, she was on me like glue for the entire round. We lost half a point on a crooked sit in the on-lead heelwork, and we had a PERFECT off-lead score! We screwed up the recall a bit [1.5 points off the present and a crooked sit] but she did it ok (and I haven't been training it lately as I was focusing more on the attention thing) and I'm just so proud of her! I've NEVER had less than 5-10 points taken off each heel pattern for her being an ass! haha. We trained it (took a toy into the ring) so I scratched my stays and couldn't get a ribbon, but I'm still absolutely chuffed with her.

[lots] more photos are added from today, same link as in the first post! BIS was american cocker, RUBIS was the PBGV again.

just sharing some photos..... I'm stewarding both days so only getting photos when I can... so missing out a fair few but got most of the BIS line up I think..!!! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3315...mp;l=4513c96940 will be there again today, just heading off now. Not stewarding the BIS ring today so should get some better ones! haha. Huge congrats to the gordon who got made up to a GRCH with his final BIS yesterday!!!

heh. The foxy X has her own crate, but who'd want their own one when there's a fluffy poodle in the other one!!?

lol persephone, I adore that pic too! It's Sorren, an absolute darling boy I kept from the first litter I ever bred. Miss him still... Stupid short life expectancy! :D

I've never owned a DSLR, infact I've never even operated one, so every single photo I've ever taken is with a point & shoot.... Originally a wee Sony, then an olympus, and now a canon powershot. and oh-so-many more!

My boss lost her last yankee (am. cocker) a bare 9 days after she lost her husband, leaving a horribly gaping hole... Lil Duffy is helping to fill it up. :D Very nearly 5 months old now, and if her teeth come right then she'll be shown, but she's a pet #1, and is an utter joy. I want one!

We've got a few standard poodles here a friend has a griffon: a brittany a gsd a pap a dally irish water spaniel samoyed does this count? hahahaha

thanks!!!!

like this?

thanks!

Yup, they are lilac torties actually, but wonderful girls none-the-less!!! And yeah, our wear their collars 24/7 more for the fact that I know far too many people who 'adopt' a cat that turns up at the their door, and our girls will turn up to nearly anyone!!!! They are microchipped too... ;)

thank you!! I got another last night... hahahahaha!

thank you!!! Here is a couple of her sister, Freyja:

thanks!

Jazz was lounging on the bed in our newly finished spare bedroom, and I found the lighting and wall made a nice spot for photos!!!! hehehe. "I'm a big girl tooooooo!" Seeing the light and location worked well, I'll get the two girls there tomorrow for some pair photos me thinks...

the binding is part of the cropping procedure. It's not illegal to crop ears everywhere in the world... He is london based I think? though I know cropping is illegal there, I expect he was simply somewhere where it is legal to do so...

yup, the skeleton dog is a poodle, and the 'white puli' is a komondor... The guys website is really neat too; http://www.timflach.com/ I love the wei wandering around ontop of the home page!!!!!

I'd train them with separate crates. When they are both crate trained you can let them move down to one big one if they want to, but I wouldn't be pushing them to force close proximity with no escape from each other... I have two adult dogs, one is a small dog and was 8 years old when I first crate trained her, the other is a big girl and she was a 2 year old when I got her and promptly crate trained her too. Both had separate crates, but after a while the lil dog would be found in the big crate so much that her wee crate had been unused for months before I packed it down and tucked it away, and they do both now share the one [massive] crate fine. I'd not want to try and train them initially to have only one though...

the problem is that you have openly taught him that unless there is food (or a toy) in sight, then there is no reason to give. You've bribed him by wafting the food and essentially saying "seeeeeeee what I haaaavvve? Now if you're a gooood boy you can get it!" You need to SWITCH your training from bribery, to payment. You don't get bribed into doing your job, but you do still get paid for it. There's a distinct difference, and it's so easy to fall into the bribery trap with dogs!!! First thing I'd do is set yourself up for lots of repetitions from the start, have the toy, and lots of treats ready. Do your usual thing of having the treat and bribing him into giving you the toy (get a treat, hold it out, ask for the 'give', take the toy and pop in the food and throw the toy for the next round) Do that maybe 3 times in a row. On the 4th time, having thrown the toy for him, and he's come back, reach for a treat, PRETEND alllll the world like you have one (hold your hand as if you are holding a treat) and ask for the give. Most dogs will assume you still have food, and will do it. Here's the fun bit; if you were 'offering the treat' with your left hand, and he gives you the toy, then immediately reward him with a treat from your right hand. Vis visa if you were pretending to offer with your right, you'd want to *actually* reward with your left hand. *side note in here, and I will carry on again in a sec* if your dog takes one whiff of your hand and KNOWS you don't have any food and just says 'naaaah' when you try it on that 4th time with no treat, then you want to have a teeny treat in your 'offering' hand to 'bribe' them still, but have a bigger yummier treat to PAY them from the other hand when they give. Do NOT give them the 'bribe' treat. Fade the 'bribe' treat to nothing fairly quickly, as long as you are rewarding with the better treat from the other hand **end side note** The key part here is that you do NOT follow through with a bribe, but instead you PAY afterwards with the reward. You mustn't waft your reward about for the dog or it becomes a bribe again, you are only going through the motion of bribing cos you're having to re-train this behaviour. Go through the motions, but you instead offer a reward for a job well done. The payment has to come from the other hand to differentiate, from the dogs point of view, to the bribe you were (falsely) offering, and the payment has to appear AFTER the dog has done the request. As long as you keep doing this (faking a bribe, following through with a good payment [from the other hand] once the job is done) and always still follow through with a reward every time you ask for a give, then you should be able to wean him off needing the bribery of SEEING the reward first. For now I'd still always always offer a reward, to prevent him going sour to the whole idea of giving at all, but as he gets happy to offer a give whenever you ask for it you can reward him with another toy toss or a game of tug etc.

I just loved watching this wee girl with her yankee pup in the weekend. They won their class.

I didn't get around to getting anything sorted before the deadlines either, and this is the only one I've gotten around to finishing since I gave up... dunno if I'll try finish off the others or just leave it, I know I can't enter now, but it's still fun.... we'll see!!!! Maybe next year...

I have a friend with some miniature horses... she has a new stallion, Cadence, and I promised I'd go out and get some photos of him when he's in better show condition. He's still in need of a little more shaping up, but I had a free weekend so we decided to see what I could do; I've never tried doing "proper" sorta pics before! lol! And as well as Cadence, she is leasing a colt he sired as well. The colt is for sale, but my friend has the rights to show him this season to showcase the progeny of her stallion. I got photos of him too... I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. Oh I know they're not amazing, I wish I had photoshop or something to do tweaking! I really want a DSLR one day too.... ohh, think what I could pull off with proper lenses and stuff rather than a lil compact!!!!! Still, my friend was stoked with them, and I'm quite happy with my first try at horsie glamour shots! :D

thanks guys! I love #3 too!!! hehehe.

new-born baby rat paws Slightly older baby rat paws and TOOFS in this one