Casima

Hi, I bought a new dog trailer this year, first time I have owned one and first time any of my dogs had been floated, I did lots of research before buying, I wanted something of high quality to ride my precious dogs in. All but 1 coped very well with it (that 1 is my stresshead, and she settled down ok after awhile) they have arrived seemingly well rested and and ready to go and have all been very happy to get back into the trailer again after a ride, the dogs are all crate trained so I am sure that helps them settle. My trailer walls and floor are all lined with aluminium and can be washed out if needed, so far only needed that once when my old boy had an accident, usually they will all hold on until they burst when crated or in a trailer. I made beds that fit the berth size out of a stiff enough foam that the dogs wouldn't slide around and thick enough to help make the ride more comfortable, I wash the covers after each use and air the rest of the bed out, so far so good. I have left a few dogs inside the trailer overnight while away, if you keep the windows and vents closed it seems to keep the heat pretty well, it is insulated, but I did put coats on the dogs that I know feel the cold just incase. My trailer doesn't seem to leak at all, very happy with it, certainly makes travelling away to country trials with the dogs much easier. Still learning to reverse... mine has a pretty long drawbar which I am told makes it easier, I get better each time I try but still need a lot of practise :)

Hi! my young agility dog just turned 2 and I would like to get his hips (and elbows?) scored. I've no idea where to get him xrayed or where to send the films and hopeing to get some recommendations. I did try to search for information but didn't find what I needed. I am located in southern sydney and the dog is a border collie. Thanks for any help or advice!

Oops a bit late, here was mine... Merry Christmas love Raffy, Quinn, Benny and Anna

Definately this no matter where you get your dog from, and what issues he may or may not have, at the point he becomes yours you are responsible for turning him into the dog you want him to be, well behaved pet or performace dog or whatever else. I freely admit that while I trained Anna to the best my ability with what I knew then, it wasn't nearly good enough for what she needed to bring out her best. I've since spent a lot of time and effort and a small fortune learning how to be a better trainer for her and we are slowly getting there and I have no doubt that in the hands of a better trainer she could have been a great agility dog within a reasonable time frame, I still hold out hope that together we will get there eventually. It is the challenging dogs who teach you the most, and my older dogs have all taught me so much about behaviour and training and I'm grateful to them for having the patience to teach me.

You bought dogs from the pound, not from rescue, there is a big difference. If the point of this topic is to show that good breeders should not be lumped in with the byb and pet shops, it has been lost on you. There is no such thing as 'pound/rescue'. You bought your dog from an organisation or different organisations and there is no reason to assume that all rescue organisations or pounds are the same or have the same level of quality control. Coming onto DOL to whinge about rescue as a whole just because you had a bad experience with your own dog is just as offensive as the person lumping registered breeders in with brb and pet shops on Facebook. Very disappointing to see people jumping about to vent about rescue, when all prospective dog buyers need to be careful, regardless of where they buy the dog from. Hi Greytmate, 2 of my dogs came from rescues, and 1 straight from the pound, I was attempting to keep my reply from getting to long and wordy with specifics. The dog with the most serious behavioural problems which were not picked up before adoption came from 3 + months of foster care with a reputable rescue group, I was very aware of the difference between a dog from the pound and a dog that had been fostered and assesed before rehomeing, which is why I went with the rescue in the first place. Maybe you did not read my entire post? I was very clear that I was just relaying my own experiences with my own dogs and not rubishing all rescue dogs/organisations everywhere. I feel however that people do need to know that rescue dogs arn't always the perfect option for everyone, an opinion that seems to get pushed pretty strongly in some places by some people, I used to always push people towards rescue too. My point was that if you are looking for a dog for a particular purpose, which I was, that maybe rescue was not the safest bet to get the right dog for your needs. My post may have missed the point of the original topic, as you say, however the conversation had strayed from that already by the time I posted, I didn't have anything to add to the initial post but thought my experiences relevant to add to the coversation where it was at when I posted. Not all people who breed dogs are equal, and not all rescue groups are equal either and shouldn't be lumped together, however even the good rescue groups are getting dogs from unknown breeding, upbringing and circumstances and despite their best efforts occasionally will miss something before rehomeing. I'm sorry my post seems to have offended you so much, your reply came off pretty strong so I guess you are upset. Maybe a good time to go give your dogs a big hug and forget about the internet for awhile Take care

My first 3 dogs are from the pound/rescue as 9 month - 1 year olds and all 3 have had a fair ammount of issues and baggage to work through, the first 2 were bought as just pets and took lots of training and socialising just to turn them into ok to live with pets, not what everyone wants to go through with their new dog! and I believe many people wouldn't have had the time or the ability or support to deal with many of the challenges I've worked through with these dogs. My dog 2 actually has a very serious behaviour issue which I susupect was his reason for being dumped in the first place and that wasn't picked up in the 3 months he spent in foster care and if they had known of it I'm sure he would have been PTS instead of rehomed with me, I don't want to post any more about it on a public forum, but he still has this problem which is carefully managed by me. The 2nd dog got me hooked on agility, so when getting my 3rd dog my aim was to get a better dog for agility than dog No.2 was, I did my best to choose a pound/rescue dog that would be competitive as an agility dog, I wanted to prove to the world that there are plenty of good potential agility dogs in rescue as an alternative to going to a breeder. I choose a young very athletic active, very socialble and seemingly confident border collie girl. I was thrilled with her for the first few months, then the problems started to show themselves, she is very sound sensitive and very attached to me so that she stresses if I go out and leave her and worst of all, once our more serious agility training started to happen she showed a very different side of her temperament than I had seen, gone was the confidence, she turned into a very oversensitive stressed out thing and it was extremely difficult to train her without her shutting down, and I'm not talking about serious stressful or correction based training, this is all positive highly rewarded training and shaping that most dogs find to be all fun and games. I'm not sure if its her underlying temperament at fault or if she just didn't learn how to learn and cope with learning stress as a puppy or what but I would dearly love to know whats in her family tree. Dog 3 competes in agility at masters level in ANKC but her perfomance is very hit and miss depending on her confidence and motivation level on the day. So after battling away with dog 3 for a few years I came to the conclusion that if I want to keep enjoying agility I need to train up another dog as a replacement for dog 2 when he retires. This time, I was not even slightly tempted to get a rescue, I researched my favorite breed and the lines I loved most as agility dogs and recently aquired my first well bred pedigree dog. He is just a baby now at alittle over 4 months old, but so far he is a dream to live with and a hoot to train! it is sooo nice being able to mould your puppy into the dog you want from day 1. I can't wait to see how we go in agility once hes older I had thought I might feel guilty for not getting a rescue, but I have not at all so far. There are some lovely rescue dogs out there that can make special pets or even great performance/work dogs but it is a risk that you get the temperament you think you are getting. I am extremly lucky that all 3 of my pound dogs have been very healthy, but that is another unknown when getting a rescue that can make the dog unsuitable for what you want to do with your next dog as well. I am just glad that there are plently of good breeders out there breeding the best dogs they can and giving us the option of having a well bred healthy dog if that is what you choose to own.

Luckily the areas I usually walk my dogs in we rarely see a loose dog, and the few we do see are usually only over friendly rude dogs rather than aggressive, I've socialised my own dogs well such that those rude dogs don't bother them. The odd occasion we have been approached by an unfriendly dog, I've found these types of dogs usually have a pretty healthy respect for angry people and in all cases but 1 I've managed to stop these dogs in their tracks just by yelling and charging towards them myself and looking as mean and angry as I can, keeping my own dogs behind me. Only once did a dog keep comming, and I must say it got swift boot in its side sometimes you have to do whats best for your own dogs.

Wow, thanks for posting that as I wouldn't have seen it otherwise

Hi stonecutter, can Ziva be put in a sit from your left side and stay there while you move around so she is now on your right? then you can give her lots of treats once you change sides to start building value for being on your right. Susan would just say that she is telling you that there is tons of value for being on the left and none for the right, so it is just a matter of getting her to see the value is also on the right. For call once, I find my dogs anticipate comming back to me much more than the other person, as they have lots of value for me and not as much for whomever else I am playing with, so that they almost always reset back to me when playing which sort of spoilt the fun of the game, so in the end I decided it was best to just get the person who called him to maintain the collar grab until the next person has called preventing the dog predicting any calls or comming to me until called.

I love call once too! the dogs have a blast running back and forth

Besides my BC puppy, the only dog here to do regular zoomies is my brothers 8 year old Malamute, she will still do them almost every day. The others love to run around lots but different running to actuall zoomies.

I took my BC puppy in for his 12 week vacc and my vet mentioned how he had just become qualified to do Pennhip xrays and was getting into doing some sort of preventative surgery for HD, I'm guessing this is it. Even tho I don't have a large/giant breed he wanted to know if I was interested especially since my dog is going to be doing agility. No thank you

Assuming your dog is just really rough but not actually going to injure or take your fingers off here is what I do. With a treat that is pretty small and not going to smoosh in your fingers, take 1 treat and hold it between your thumb and first finger tightly. Offer it to the dog, but do not let it go, if she anything less than really gentle when she goes to grab it take it back. Try again (and sometimes again and again and again) and the dog should be alittle unsure this time why she didn't get the treat and grab alittle more cautiously. Within a few times she should actually try to take the treat gently, that is when you let her have it. Repeat this with a few more treats. Do a treat taking session with 4-6 treats a few times a day for a few days or a week, especially when she is a bit excited and likely to try to be rough. Try not to let her practise rough treat behavior at other times during this period, she should soon learn that to get the treat she needs to be careful pretty fast. Have fun

Cool thread topic! Here are mine... Benny - now officially retired from agility. Train him in Tracking - this is hopefully going to be my retired agility dogs sport so they still feel special. Check out Rally - maybe another retired agility dog option for us. Raffy GDM SDM SPDM PT Anna JDM ADM GDX SD SPD ET Quinn Foundation training - to prepare for agility trialling in early 2013 Herding - starting early 2012 depending on his ability will see how we go. Best of luck to everyone in meeting their goals or having loads of fun trying, bring on 2012!

I am doing Recallers for the 2nd time, can't wait

Love all the stories My Benny is the worst for doing embarrasing things. Not long ago we were running a bit late for an agility trial, so my Mum helped me bring Benny from the car to the gazebo while I was getting more things from the car. I was walking past a tent on my way to our gazebo, stopped to say hi and they mentioned that someone's dog had just peed on their tent, I sympathised and said that people really need to be more careful with their boy dogs. Got to the gazebo and it occured to me that my Mum had just walked one of my boys past their tent and sure enough it was my own dog that had done it! One time at a dog beach Benny followed his nose right up to someones fishing gear and ate a bunch of the fish bait thankfully the guy had plenty of bait left, was so embarrased tho Recently at an agility trial I thought Raffy might be a bit sore, there was a dog massage stall at the trial, so he had a nice massage. He enjoyed it a bit too much and kept humping and being silly I was so embarrased, especially since it was totally out of character for him. Just so noone thinks embarrasing stories are only for the boys... Anna let off some very smelly anal gland stink one time when I was introducing her to visitors We had to clear the room after that.

In a trial I usually don't, as I don't think the dog learns anything from this and can be very demotivating for some dogs as well, and almost always it is caused by handler error or not enough value for the jump both of which needs to be taken back to training, so if my dog does miss an obstical we just keep running and try to complete a close aproximation of the course. There are however 3 instances where I will go back and redo the jump. 1) If my dog misses the last jump or homerun in a trial as a shortcut to going to get their reward faster, I have had 2/3 dogs try this "short cut to the end" thing on me at some point, and I feel bringing them back and insisting they finish the course does teach them that they will get their reward on my terms, not theirs. 2) In an RQH or silimilar situation where it is important that we don't DQ in an experienced dog only. 3) In training, if we miss a jump, I will try to loop the dog back around (over obsticals if possible) without stopping the dog to try the same approach and handle it more clearly and reward the dog for making the correct decision the second time.

My dogs ran really well on the surface at the ADAA ones, first run or so we took the odd bar while they got used to the different footing but after that they were excellent! Not sure if its going to be the same? but it was like running on the wet beach sand down near the water but with alittle more traction as it seemed to stick to itself better. Hopefully it will be the same

It is really hard to pick just 5 - Athletic and lightly built - Drivey with toys and food - Owner focused and moderately affectionate - Intelligent with good problem solving and trainability - Plenty of Character a dog with a good sense of humour - I love a dog who will give me a good smile/laugh everyday My current adult dogs of assorted herding breeds all come pretty close and my puppy Quinn looks like he fits what I want too Border collies definately fit my criteria, so can most of my other favourite breeds: Belgian Shepherds, Shelties, Papillons, Kelpies, Tollers.

My 4 all had their front dew claws when they came to me, I have seen photographic proof many times to see that the dogs use them while turning at speed to grip the ground as well as seeing them worn down when I clip nails, given a choice for an agility dog, or just an active pet I would keep them on, why remove body parts that they use. I reguarly cut one of my parents dogs nails and he had the dews removed as a baby and it is really weird, I go to cut them and they arn't there My GSD has injured both his front dew claws, the first he tore the nail+quick right out and I freaked, but the person I was with had seen it happen before and that it would heal up just fine by itself, which it did but the nail never grew back, he was only sore for a day or so. The second one the nail snapped off but the quick was left and nail grew back normal, took a few days to stop being sore as the quick was still there. This dog is very high drive and tries to throw his body around like my border collie can, but his size and weight means his body can't always cope with what he thinks he can do, he has also snapped off a normal front nail, we needed the vet to clean up that one but didn't cause too much bother either, and a few years later he has this weird little nail bit growing there. My other 2 adult dogs have never injured theirs and they do some pretty crazy things and my puppy actually has a rear dew claw on his right side, its not a floppy one and looks like it may be useful? I plan to leave it there unless it causes problems and it will be interesting to see if it gets worn down at all from use.

My Shepherd sheds like crazy! there was a time years ago where I brushed him daily and he still shed everywhere, these days I just brush him every few months, I don't want to ever own a dog with that kind of coat again, drives me crazy. Although I think Mum's Corgi's are even worse... and we wont even mention my brothers Malamute My Raffy's (BSDxBC) long coat sheds much less and my border collie's medium coat hardly loses any hair at all much easier to live with.

Having done both in the flesh seminars and e courses with Susan and Greg here are my thoughts Seminars are great if you want to ask questions and if you can get a working spot you get great feedback which is really helpful and often you learn extra little bits and pieces that you didn't know you didn't know and wouldn't have made it onto an eCourse. It can be super motivating to go home and train your dog after attending seminars, the energy can be very contagious. eCourses are great so you can see their actual training since being in Aus they don't bring demo dogs over here and I have found it really useful to see how it looks when done right, the information is fed to you more slowly so you don't get the information overload that happens after several days of seminar and they tend to be much cheaper and without the associated travel of seminars. Both very useful for learning all you want to know about agility I guess my decision on what to do would come down to what I needed to learn most at the time

That is really sad that Trim didn't quite get her Ag Ch before the cut off She very much deserves it! Not sure how I feel about the new Ag Ch rules, I liked how for the most part the old Ag Ch's were fairly rare and earnt by some amazing dogs. However the new system makes it more attainable for dogs who may not be competitive across all heights but are great for their height catogory and fairer for people who don't want to travel far and wide to find seperate height trials. Hi FHRP! Raffy needs to come visit the ACT again so poor Rogan isn't lonely hopefully next year we will get a few ACT trials in!

Or here is where I got mine, love it! http://www.gameondogs.com.au/dog-gear/stainless-steel-non-spill-travel-bowl.html

Was it me that told you that you can't wear club shirts? if so I am not sure where exactly that thought came from and may not be true. just something I thought I remembered from somewhere. Sorry