flyingduster

had the day off today for my b'day, and the past two years I've taken a photo of Paris amongst daffodils, so thought we should head out for a 2010 version too!!! Check out what I found:

we had fun! :rolleyes:

omg, awesome photos!!!! loving them! Poodle zoomies the magic carpet style: not a poodle, but still zoomies...

The easiest way is to simply copy and paste photos in 'paint' into a collage or something, but to 'cut out' photos requires more effort and apart from experimenting it might be just as easy to go to the thread specifically for getting one made!!!

wow, and I thought these shelties I groom at 24 & 28kg were big for their size!!! wowzers; 14kg Malt?! I have no real advice, but good luck!

my dogs only wear collars when we're out and about together, never ever at home. Both because of the risks of it (a simple ID tag can slip between bars, palings or decking, and twist to not come back out...) but also because I'm vain!!! I prefer the look without a collar, and I love the look of long neck hair on my poodle; which would mat up if she wore a collar much! I do have collars for walking with, but if we're just heading out in the car they invariably don't even get their collars on then even... If they run off or get away or something they are chipped.

She is coming to NZ a few days after being over there with you guys too, but no *way* can I afford to get up there, let alone the cost of the workshops!!! http://agilityseminarsnz.webs.com/

Well Kamal Fernadez held two weekend obedience seminars in NZ, one in Auckland and one in Dunedin. I was lucky enough to get a handler spot in the Dunedin one, BUT I couldn't find ANY info on him online except for a youtube of him at crufts! Who is he, and how does he train!??? I've been asked this a number of times both before and after the seminar, so I thought I'd just make a wee post here so that there is at least a little info about him out there for future reference!!! If anyone else has info on him, please do post it too, as he is a good trainer so if people know about him he might get more following!! Basically, Kamal is a clicker trainer and uses +R and a lil sprinkling of -P to train his dogs to a very nice level of obedience. He said initially that he uses very little luring when training, but in the seminar he used primarily luring for all the handler dogs. I suspect though that this is really the easiest way to try and get across training methods effectively without spending ages first teaching the dogs what a clicker is and how to shape behaviours! Many of the dogs who went hadn't had much, if any, clicker training before, so for a lot of it he didn't use a clicker at all and instead used his voice ("YES!! Good dog!!" ::treat:: ) and many of the handlers had crappy timing for their clickers anyway (it's also nerve wreaking being in front of everyone which I'm sure threw off timing for many!) so there wasn't much actual clicker work done, but if you know ABOUT clicker stuff, then everything he did was based on it, even if a clicker wasn't physically used a lot. Kamal has a great voice and was a good speaker! SUCH a good thing, I hate when I can hardly hear someone! The hall we were in wasn't the best as when the group dogs were in and he faced away to talk to them, we couldn't hear so well, and it was echo-y too, but obviously not the fault of Kamal at all! I really enjoyed the layout of his seminar, he had 12 dog handler positions, and split them into two groups of 6. On Saturday, group one were the 'group' dogs, group two were the 'individual' dogs. On Sunday, the groups switched so that group one was 'individuals' and group two were the 'group' dogs. The 'group' dogs all came in together about 5 times throughout the day, for 10 mins or so, and did motivation games, recall games etc, whereas the individual dogs came in once at some point during the day and had basically an individual lesson with Kamal, but with everyone else in the seminar able to watch, ask questions, and talk about what was going on. There was everything covered in the individuals, from send aways and scenting, to retrieves and recalls as well as general attention, heel work position and motivation techniques too. There was very little that *I* took away from the seminar that I didn't already know about as I have done a lot of personal study on clicker training methods etc, but I saw a lot of other people having 'wow' moments as they figured out all this +R stuff! hehe. There WAS a couple of things he did that made me wonder (one wee dog was encouraged to be given a wee collar pop for sniffing at the ground. I am not against a collar pop, but this wasn't followed up enough with reinforcement for the correct behaviour, or at least a description of how this particular person SHOULD be encouraging the right behaviour, and knowing the owner of this wee dog I fear she'll now be a little obsessed with popping the neck of this wee dog cos a professional told her she should...!) but all in all it was a good wee seminar, and I understand how difficult it would be to try and cover a bit of everything with such a wide range of dogs (ranging from a well trained OBGRCH with traditional training methods to young, less trained but clicker savvy dogs, and everything in between!) and handlers!!! We weren't allowed to record anything unless it was of our own wee time in the limelight, and I'd say they'd frown a lot if I went and put that up online, so I won't. But I did get photos and I've put them up as you can't *get* anything from the photos (and this is also why I'm being careful NOT to describe his games etc, as I'm sure with how nazi they were about recording anything they'd get mad at me for that! So I'm sorry for being only vauge and rather general!!!) Kamal holding Paris for a restrained recall Morgan doing send away work dumbbell stuff Kamal would work with the owner, but also would at times take over the dog to show how something would work.... PLAAAY!! All in all it was a nice weekend spent playing with dogs, it was well organised with morning/afternoon tea and lunches provided etc too and while I didn't personally take a lot away that I didn't already know, I DID get a few things that I will utilise in our training and I know many others would have gotten a lot more out of it!

I know I have been doing work on fast sits at the moment, and the method I've used to good success is the 'sinking sand' game (the name coined by my trainer! lol) The idea is that I'm standing on a rock in the middle of a pit of 'sinking sand'; you know the stuff that is solid to walk over and even stand on for a second, but stay still for longer than a few seconds you can feel it start to 'shift' under you and your feet start to sink a bit. So I'm safe on my rock, but my dog is in sinking sand; it can't stay in one spot for more than a few seconds! Oh no! =================== "sit" *Paris sits in front of me* Click & toss a treat off to the side. Quickly! Dog can't stay still for long remember! *Paris dives after the tossed treat* as soon as she is on the treat... "sit" *Paris is saying 'nom nom nom' but sits her butt, cos she knows what sit means* click & toss the treat over the other side. Quick! Click as her butt hits the ground and toss a treat so she moves off quickly! Can't have my doggy siiiiiinkking!!! *nom nom* "sit!" *plonk* click & toss treat etc etc etc. =================== The idea is that it's fairly fast paced, encouraging a fast sit, but also that she is learning to sit where ever I tell her to too; she doesn't have to be close to me to get her click & treat (cos I'm tossing the treats out from me) and telling her to sit again before she has a chance to come back in to me encourages her to be able to sit anywhere around me, including behind me! I will work in the same method for a fast drop, and I can see this being good for an emergancy drop too as I can toss the treats way off to get her running off and hopefully dropping really fast when I tell her to; even if she's still eating her food a few metres away from me.... Clear as mud?

some oldies but favorites.... I don't have a DSLR though, just a nice wee compact camera that I sue the manual settings on! lol!!! One day, I will have me a DSLR. a shiny 'ladybug' beetle thing 'shrooms fern string fly

there's a guy on ustream that has a web cam running on his grooming table all day long in canberra... http://www.ustream.tv/channel/salon-cam http://www.poodleantics.com.au/ He seems good, though I have no experience with him, I just watch him online a fair bit! LOL! I'm not all that keen on having a camera in my salon, but I can see the benefit of an owner going home and being able to SEE if your baby is being handled like you'd want...

my 12 year old foxy was crate trained at about 7-8 years old too, without a problem at all. She has never had a kennel, but she always had a bed she could be sent to if she was being a pain etc, so she knew the concept of going to her bed and staying there for a nap for a while, so her bed just now has a door. LOL! Seeing your girl is used to a kennel I doubt it will be a problem in the slightest, especially if you make it a rewarding place to be (ie a kong in the crate when you leave etc) But yup, just had to chime in that an older dog can learn to crate train fine!

yup, bostons are born with naturally tiny lil nub tails, or no tail at all, and should never be docked even in countries that allow docking! I do know of some breeders who (in countries were you're allowed) will dock a really twisted/corkscrew boston tail though.

Wouldn't you'd just need to measure the sides of the crate, add an inch or something for seams and sew together....?

Paris showing how NOT to do agility, just for fun. I really should train again...

*double post* sorry

Paris didn't know what tugging was when I started training her. Soooo, for her 2nd b'day I bought her a special toy. It was a monkey. A SPECIAL monkey! Why? Cos I said so. *note Paris didn't live with me at this stage, all training was done during the day at work where she spent her time with me* The Monkey lived up on a high shelf out of sight but within easy reach of me. At various times throughout the day (5+ times a day) I would look at Paris and crouch down, whispering to her about The Moooooonnnkkkkeeeeeeeey, and I'mmmmm gonna go geeett The Moooonnnkkkeeeeyy! Sneaking along, really silly and exaggerated. Paris was all wiggly-butt cos I was being weird and it looks like fun. ?? I'd 'sneak' up to the shelf, and then reach up and grab The MOOONKKEEEYYY!! YAY! *bounce*; TOSS The Monkey! Catch it! Whip The Monkey around! YAY!! Happy! Silly!!!!! Giggle and laugh and look like a LOON! A really REALLY excited loon! YAAAAY FOR MONKEY! 30 seconds or less, enough time to dance around the room being really silly and OTT happy, and all of a sudden plonked the monkey back on the shelf and said 'ahh well' and walked away normally and carried on with whatever I was doing before. Paris was NUTS! OMG! Wtf!??? She was thoroughly confused, she was all bouncy cos SOMETHING really weird just happened... But wtf!? She soon settled down again cos I was ignoring her and back to work but you could tell she was thoroughly confused, was I still happy? Was I gonna play? What!??? By the time I started 'sneaking' up to the monkey for the third time, Paris was automatically hyping up. She WANTED the fun that was The Monkey! Something was REALLY amazing about The Monkey cos it made me go NUTTY happy! Of course *I* was having far too much fun in my few seconds of looniness that she couldn't get NEAR *my* special monkey! Two days of doing that 5+ times a day and Paris was seriously ready to rip into The Monkey! OMG she WANTED it! The third day I let her snap at it and teased her with it rather than ignoring her in my own happy bubble and playing by myself, but nooooo, she couldn't actually HAVE it, it was MY Monkey! Forth day I let her GRAB it a little once, with a little tug but then it was mine again and I kept playing briefly before it went away. By the end of my working week I was having little tug sessions with Paris; a dog who had NO idea how to tug or that she COULD tug. 5 days earlier if you held a toy she was holding, she'd let go! Sure she'd chase, but she would never grab let alone hold. She was now tugging! A few seconds only, and I was still keeping it really jazzed up and short, but darn it, she was TUGGING cos she WANTED The Monkey toooooo! The next week at work we went in leaps and bounds and I could get her tugging pretty well with the special monkey, and I could get really nutty with it in the carpark and let her grab it a little etc and the whole presence of the monkey would now spark her drive to GET IT. Time and playing about, keeping it short and awesome and Paris will now tug with any soft toy or rope anywhere. She's not massively focused on tugging sometimes in a really high distraction environment but she TUGS happily and easily. It would have made no difference WHAT the toy was, it was what I made the toy INTO that made her want to tug. As long as it was something soft and easy for a less-than-confident tugger, then it wouldn't matter. And besides, it was fun.

I'm a pro groomer. I LOVE grooming. I never used to like poodles much (silly fru-fru dogs!), but after falling in love with grooming I LOVE them. They're SMART, and as happy to be mucky gross happy bouncy dogs as any labrador or terrier! lol. The SPUNK and happiness with life is just so much joy to have around. And I get to groom and dye her *however* I like when I'm bored with all the boring pet trims everyone wants me to do in the shop!!!

lol, love the pitchfork wrinkles!! this was a collie I was babysitting for a number of years ago, her markings weren't *unusual*, but they were cool...

I have a few... *nyaaaa nyaaa* *fail* ?? ???????????????????! toofs argh! TOEZ! upsidedown is bestest. "oh sh*t!" *dodge* ok, I have more but I'll stop. lol!

food colouring is great, but you certainly won't get black from food colouring (yes, I know you can get black food colouring, but it doens't make fur black!)

guess we're lucky here, we have great outdoor places, as well as an indoor equestrian centre for winter training and competitions, as well as an indoor breed show hall as well!

I can sometimes have an inclination to use my clicker like a remote control, and *point* it when I click (duh!) now I *KNOW* better, but it still happens at times! lol. Paris is also sometimes inclined to throw anything at me and watches for my hand movement either for the click or when I move to the food or to feed her, rather than paying attention to what I'm clicking. So my trainer suggested an exercise to help us; teaching Paris to put her head inside a bucket! Both to give us something rather unimportant to teach (we can screw it up and it won't really affect our competitive training), as well as teaching Paris to LISTEN for the click better (she can't see me moving if her head is inside a bucket!) So I had a quiet day at work on friday, and within a few mins we had it down nicely, though I've yet to add very *much* duration to it, we'll work on that another day. it's silly, but incredibly cute when her big fluffy head disappears inside a bucket, so I had to share!!!! And hey, might be useful to play about with for anyone else having similar problems... or for someone bored. LOL!

I dont think I will do this, we are taught in tracking that even if you use car air fresheners it can put your dog off smelling properly for days so I can just imagine what the alcohol would do to their nose. I don't know much but I too wouldn't use this method, as I'd be worried about trying to fade the scent on all the other ones. How will they go from others being strongly scented to no scent. Seems like there would be an extra step in the training process doing it this way Happy to be proved wrong as my experience with dog training is fairly limited!! Fair enough, like I said I've never trained scent myself yet so I don't know what works and what wouldn't! I can understand not wanting to use something like alcohol, but I wonder if there's something less pungent that could still be used to help make it more black & white about the scent for him??? He's obviously not using his nose to find the right one, he's just retrieving an item?? Or work on getting him seeking out one cloth if it's hidden, so he uses his nose to find it? Hmm, dunno!