Purple Julie

I'm slowly beginning to upload my pictures and I mean SLOWLY! Well here's Jyra watching Reilly with the sheep:

I think I might get a better idea of what to do if Steve were here! Maybe I can learn a lot at the workshop in November. Regarding the back tie to build frustration, I have difficulites with this! I had her tied to the washing line, but the grass kind of got all destroyed from Jyra's jumping around, so that sort of put a stop to that, and I have tied her to a decorative light post which is in the soil, but next to the concrete, so Jyra is on the concrete, but she is too eager to get the ball and now the pole has a bit of movement back and forth. Sometimes she leaps up a bit too much and hits the end of the tie pretty hard. I don't think that is a good thing! So maybe I shouldn't be doing this type of frustration thing anymore. It seems that her drive and frustration are pretty high when she is tied. I know you can't tell properly without seeing, but what would you think from what I have described here and in other posts in this thread - have I built up her drive enough? Should I not do the tie out thing? Just off-lead (at home) frustration building? Just another little question - Can high drive dogs ever run out of drive? I think the answer is 'no'. I know you can reduce drive through corrections, etc, but that is not what I mean. Through drive satisfaction, drive is also reduced a bit. But can you throw and throw and throw a ball, allowing the dog to capture it every time and it will never lose interest? Or say there is no or little satisfaction, as in capturing the prey (eg chasing flies), will they ever run out of desire to chase the item in a particular day? I imagine that a new day would bring renewed drive.

Gosh, you're daring! So he was gentle with the egg, but he is not so gentle with the bumpers? Am I right? Or have I misunderstood something?

K9: have her wait up to 30 seconds before releasing ball. I tried that yesterday and she sat for the whole 30 seconds. I also had her sit for a minute. She just waited patiently and zoomed after the ball when I released it. I took a photo while she was sitting and thought about posting it. But I haven't uploaded it. Anyone want to see it?

Are you asking me or Steve these questions? Steve hasn't seen me working with Jyra in prey drive, so he wouldn't know the answers to these questions. It would be nice if he could, that'd help me too! I shall try my best to answer them below: I don't know, maybe I need to not jerk it so much, but she does pounce a lot and desparately tries to get it, and if I tie her to the pole and play with the ball, she will bark out of frustration of not being able to get it. How quick is too quick? I ask her to sit when I stop the ball. LL, do you think I should delay the sit command? Jyra has pretty high drive. I have built up her drive for the ball by tying her to a pole and playing with the ball. She will bark and carry on and leap and nearly rip the pole out of the ground. So I think that her drive is high. I haven't been patting her when I am throwing the ball around, but when she catches the ball I give her verbal and physical praise. LL, just curious about the hard/soft mouth thing. If Stamp picked up an egg it would crack, right? But a soft mouthed dog could pick up an egg without it cracking? Obviously you're not working with eggs. I'm using an example that I can relate to. Same with squeaky balls? Would a hard mouth dog squeak the ball, whereas a soft mouth dog just carry the ball without squeaking it?

Okay, well Jyra's control seems to be pretty good with the sit in prey drive with the ball. If I stop the ball and command sit, she will sit and stay until I release her and let her have the ball. Should I be doing something to push her a bit more? Move the hose around a lot or hold it still and let her have it. Jyra just loves biting the water, and then I can just switch it off at the nozzle. You don't think it's a good idea? It certainly has its limitations! Can't take the hose with me everywhere, but can take the ball most places.

Ok, just want to verify something about training in drive. We'll use 'sit' as an example. You have the ball on the string moving it about lots and the dog is in drive. When do you command the sit? Do you hold the ball, then command 'sit'? Or do you command 'sit' while the ball is still moving? I tried both this morning, and Jyra would sit for me either way I did it. I also did the same with drops. When the dog complies to the command and sits, you throw the ball straight away intially, right? When is it okay to increase the duration of the sit or require more, such as focus? And do you require the dog to focus on you, or can you only expect them to focus on the ball? As I said two paragraphs above, Jyra will sit or drop for me on command in prey drive with the ball on the string, at home. What is the next step? Should I work on the sit more and forget about the drop for a while? Should I change my prey item from the ball to a more highly desired prey, such as flowing water from the hose? She goes really mad over that. I think I would definately have to turn the hose off to get her to sit and reward her by turning it back on. Getting her to sit when the hose is on could be difficult!! Would the goal be to get her to do that if you are training in drive? ETA - Picture: This is how much Jyra loves chasing the water!

Is this a good thing? It is interesting to see the difference in Jyra's behaviour - Today I tied her to the pole and played with the ball, and she was going wild, barking and carrying on. Then I let her loose, put her in a sit stay and played with the ball, and all she did was follow it with her eyes and I had it going quite close to her too. Then I released her and let her play with the ball and she was excited about it still. This is raising her self control and threshold and that's a good thing isn't it? But you don't think that this is the way to go to increase her self control with cats/ducks?

Ha ha! That's a bit of a contradiction in terms isn't it!! An oxymoron!

I spend about $50 a month for my GSD, so if it were 3 dogs that'd be $150 a month. Jyra weighs about 30-32kg. I buy beef soup bones, boiling chickens, pork spines, lamb neck, ox cheek, ox heart, lamb heart, ox tongue, pet quality kangaroo/beef, Organ meat consisting of: liver, kidneys, brains, giblets.

Poodlefan, this collie's bones are too easy to feel. If he were short haired, you would be able to see his hip bones protruding. Yes, he does get walked everyday, but other than that, I don't think he does much exercise. I don't have a photo of the collie, but I have some of the Golden Retriever. They don't really show his weight very well though - his tail was wagging in two of them, and you can't see his figure for his tail! Here are the pictures: ETA: Connor (the GR) is probably about 2 years old now.

I was trying to train Jyra under mild prey drive distraction the other day. What I did was heel Jyra around the lounge room, with mum throwing the ball around a lot. If Jyra went for the ball, she got a correction. Then I would release Jyra and let her get the ball and she was thoroughly excited about it. I have also done this with sit stays and drop stays. At training the other day, I had Jyra in a drop stay and I played with the ball with heaps of movement, going fairly close to Jyra and she stayed in position. An observer would have thought she had very little prey drive until they see me release her. When I released with "go", she's right into doing aerial acrobatics to get the ball. So K9, how would you analyse this situation. Have I reduced her prey drive? Have I changed her threshold? Have I done something with avoidance? We went the opposite direction. So, why did she not see my tone of voice as aversive in the other scenario that I mentioned. Amhailite: Certainly! And thank you for that, K9's reply was helpful for me too! K9, regarding your reply above to Amhailite's post, I found that very helpful, and would just like to expand on that. I can switch to the duck example, Jyra loves them too! 'Cat' or 'duck' can be interchangeable terms in my posts! I was just going to ask how do you get the dog's drive for the ball higher than the desire for the duck because they NEVER get the duck, so they've got to be more desparate for it. BUT it seems that you have just answered that! Would you reward with the ball after every release from the heel position? Or would you do it on a variable intermittent frequency? In addition to what K9 said, I think (K9 can correct me if I'm wrong) that after you've done what K9 has said and have the heeling for the ball under low distration down pat, then when you go to the lake, river where the ducks are, start heeling your dog 50m away and reward with the ball, then reduce that distance 10m at a time until you are 10m away, and then reduce the distance by 1m at a time. But you would only reduce the distance once you have got a perfect heel at the present distance.

Dave, did you get my cheque? I have decided to attend on 1 Oct, as I wrote on the slip.

Hi! I have relatives with a fat dog, and other relatives with a skinny dog. The skinny dog is a Rough Collie called "Conner" (this is how they spell it). Whenever we went over to their place, and I patted their dog, I thought he felt very underweight. I could feel his hip/pelvis bones on his back, and his ribs very well. The hip bones were my biggest concern - very protruding. But I also thought, well, I don't know Collies all that well, so maybe that's just their build. Well, they've now been told by their vet that Conner is underweight. He is a male rough Collie and he weighs 20kg. I have no idea what the recommended weigh for a male collie should be, but 20kg definately seems not enough. Jyra, my female GSD weighs 30-32kg and is a good weight and my guess is that a male collie might weigh about that much. So anyway, my relatives comment was that "He eats everything we give him", implying that he isn't starving himself. Well, duh! Of course he eats everything they give him, and he would probably like to eat more! Gosh! They think they are feeding him enough. And the other dog, which is overweight is a male golden retriever, also called "Connor" (different spelling). They also have been told by the vet that he is overweight, but they don't really seem to be doing anything about it. They even give him pizza to eat occasionally! I think he weighed 50kg at 6 or 8 months even. I was totally amazed at that! Goodness! Give me each of these dogs for a few months and I'd have them at a healthy weight again. Thanks for listening to my little rant!

Lablover: I have been using a ball on a string. I can throw the ball and have Jyra in a sit-stay without chasing the ball until it has landed and I choose to say "go", then she will go and get it. I did that with her other toys this morning. I think I might need to work on this a bit more. Greytmate: Amhailite: Mainly because Jyra chased it! Perhaps there were other drives involved there also. Greytmate: The dog ran up a driveway and reached a dead end, turned around and went the other way, as did Jyra in her chase. As I had run halfway up the driveway, I caught Jyra as she was running back down it in pursuit of the other dog. Thank goodness!! Greytmate: She got up out of the drop and pulled toward the cat. The cat backed off and we walked the other way. Yes, see that is where my confusion lay. I guess as you and the others said, I should have commanded a heel away from the cat. So with Jyra's level of training is there anything that I could have done to get her to comply? One time I let Jyra off lead at an off-lead park, when I shouldn't have (hindsight is a great thing!), and she bolted after another dog. The owners were all freaking out and carrying on, so I had to yell really loud, "Jyra, NO!" for her to hear me, and instantly, she turned around and ran straight back to me! When she got to me she grovelled and crawled on the ground. So, somehow she responded that time! Ok, so would you say that the next time I see a cat, I consider it as a training opportunity and practice heeling/social walking on a loose lead, giving corrections for non-compliance? I hope you can all cope with all the cut and paste quotes! Sorry for confusing you, lablover!

How much are the frames are M'bark? Other than wings, does he have any other good lower priced meat? I usually get whole boiling chickens for $2.20/kg at Box Hill though.

I have learnt a bit about training in drive, but I don't know how to get Jyra to the point that she would be able to walk off lead along the street and not chase a cat or bird, etc. (ETA: Although I wouldn't walk her off lead anyway for that reason and even if she had control, I believe all dogs must be on lead, so I would have a lead on at all times anyway!) I must be doing something wrong. Now, here are two scenarios that actually happened, and I would like input on how you would train in drive to manage these situation in future. 1. I was walking Jyra and there was a cat very close to us, amazingly it didn't bolt, but Jyra was very interested in it and pulling towards it. At this stage, Jyra wasn't in a command position, so I told her to sit and she dropped. I didn't correct her because she was in drive peak and to get her out of the drop would only get her going for the cat again. Now, now that I had her in a drop, I was in a bit of a pickle, because she was about 1 metre away from the cat, and as soon I release her, she's going to go for the cat. So, how would you get out of that situation?? 2. I was walking Jyra, and she was walking VERY well on a loose lead to the point where I didn't really need to be holding the lead. Noneless, I was holding the lead, but didn't have a tight grip on it, when all of a sudden, a dog approached us from behind, which Jyra noticed, but I didn't ( :D off lead dogs in front yards on Sundays ). So Jyra bolted after it and pulled the lead right out of my hand before I knew anything. I called "no", I called "drop" and no compliance to anything. Her drive was too high to respond. So, I learnt to have a vice-like grip on the lead at all times even when Jyra is walking beautifully because you never know what'll happen, but even so, if I was holding the lead well, Jyra would have chased the dog till she hit the end of the lead, which wouldn't take long, but how would you train a dog so that when they are just walking, not in a command position, it will not chase when stimulated? Today I tried something new, so hopefully she won't cross the road in prey drive. Jyra knows that she is not allowed to cross the road without our permission. So today, I got her all revved up about the ball, and I had her on the long lead, so I positioned the lead so that if she crossed the road, she would get a correction pretty quickly. I threw the ball across the road, and Jyra went over the boundary, so she got a correction and 'no'. Then I made her sit on the nature strip and stay while I got the ball, which she did well. I played a bit longer, and she seemed to accidentally cross the road one more time, and she got a 'no' and ran straight back to the nature strip. But after that, she would fully put her brakes on whenever the ball was over the road. So, I managed to get a good bit of control in prey drive there!

Hi! All those who give their dogs whole eggs, want to share your 'egg-cracking' stories? I have been cracking the eggs for Jyra up until recently and I have just given them to her as they are. So far I have done this twice, so I have two stories: 1. Jyra licked and licked the egg around her food dish for ages, then I said to her "Where's your egg?" (prey drive trigger) and she picked up the egg without cracking it, carried it over to us and then let go when her head was at knee-height. So that caused the egg to crack and she licked it all up off the concrete. 2. Jyra starts off the same as last time, licking the egg around the bowl and then she decides to pick it up and put it on the concrete gently. So she was licking it on the concrete. It rolled away under a chair, so Jyra picked it up from under the chair, took it to a more convenient spot on the concrete and continued licking. She got her paws onto the egg to hold it still and stop it from rolling away, and eventually she accidentally pressed her paw against the egg too hard and caused it to crack open, then licked it all up off the concrete again. Isn't that fascinating that Jyra has such a soft bite that she can pick up an egg without damaging it, yet she can crunch through bones!!? So, so far Jyra hasn't figured out how to crack the egg open. She has managed to do it accidentally and enjoyed the results, but so far, no purposeful action to actually crack the egg open, except for licking it, and that has proven unsuccessful - you cannot crack an egg by licking it!

Pretty much an all-meat diet. Raw meaty bones, muscle meat, organ meat, canned fish once a week, and a raw egg once a week.

I am definately interesting in coming. I shall try to email you now.

I feed Jyra a raw diet, but I don't do the veggie thing, so can't help you with that part. Jyra is a 30-32kg female GSD and it costs me approximately $50 a month to feed her. I feed her about 600gm a day. I calculated it based on 2% of her body weight.

Ok, so Tim writes that it's 10am - 4pm, while Sparty writes that it's 1.40pm. I'm confused And what it Travelmate? I'm guessing that the Pet expo is 10am-4pm and the Lure coursing is on at 1.40pm is that right?

If your dog loves chasing things, there is a higher chance that she'll chase the lure at lure coursing. The RR club runs it just for fun, not competition, so you don't have to train or anything.

I still can't get over how good Jyra was with other dogs!! Who did she talk to: Rosie (Chezzyr's dog) - got along fine Ashley's dog - no problems Caber (Spike's puppy's dog) - did not like Reilly (Nat's dog) - okay for a while Max (Jeff's dog) - fine Indy - only short interactions, no problems Al - fine Smithy (?name, Basenji dog) - okay, but not great, BUT Jyra didn't react one time when he growled at Jyra!! Woohoo! I am very happy with Jyra's behaviour, VERY GOOD!

OH, I AM SO PROUD OF MY GIRL!! HOW GOOD WAS SHE?? She behaved very well and got along with most other dogs!!! She didn't even react when the basenji growled at her one time! That is pretty amazing. It was good to meet you guys and socialise Jyra with some of you. Jyra got a bit confused on her first run, but on her three other runs, she did very well and followed the lure the whole way. Here are my two best photos of her. Not really that great, so if anyone happened to take photos of Jyra that are better than mine, please post them or send them to me.