sidoney

Vickie is actively herding ATM and could be worth asking. I reckon she would suggest the herding at Erskine Park, apparently the fellow in charge there is good. I've not been. The sister referred to (if it's the one I'm thinking of, Belle) got very ill for a while, I think she's recovering now, have not seen her owners for a bit. Being ill she was not doing much of course.

Puzzle, duh! Of course. It's been a while since I've done strategic pairs, it's good fun. Must be good to have a regular partner. Well done to both of you. I called you yesterday to see if you wanted to go to an evening/night horse show (East Coast Arabian finals night) but you were obviously having MUCH more fun.

That was Trim and Coogee?

Last year I took Xia down to her breeder's and she had not learned to head sheep - this is likely because the sheep had been very dogged (?) although we had been to one Bernard Arends clinic - anyway Xia learned to head sheep with an older dog keeping them under control where needed, this was good for her, by the time I left she was able to keep the sheep to me and stop them getting into the trees, this was a 5 acre paddock and sheep that were not very dogged, they were quite willing to make a run for it up to their favourite corner that had the trees. She'd only been in a round yard once, after that she'd been in smallish rectangular yards, but bigger than a round yard. So any problems she had, you could not say were due to a round yard.

As you would remember Vickie, Xia was intimidated in a round yard and needed to go into a larger yard. But Xia is about the extent of my experience.

That is interesting, although Kay Laurence is in a very different context, being a clicker trainer and thus positive.

You can also teach him to handle distractions/stress in your own environment, by deliberately adding them and progressing from mild to very distracting, while asking the dog to repeat simple, well known behaviours. Learned this at a Kay Laurence (UK) seminar. Her opinion was that once a dog learned to manage stress in a few situations it was then able to generalise it in more situations. If you want to call me I'll describe the exercises in detail.

My Vizslas are good for beginners to run as they run freely but not TOO fast. I also have a HB (Ellie).

I have a few jumps, a full size tunnel, a contact training plank, and between us Vickie and I made an adjustable table last year. Oh and I have a tyre jump too. And some old obedience broad jumps that could be jiggered to make a broad jump (albeit a bit dodgy looking). Almost forgot, a few sets of weave poles.

We may end up with a DOL agility group! Wouldn't be such a bad thing either.

The only thing with the fenced area is that if other dogs arrive we won't get much agility done. I've got pretty comprehensive notes from the Rhonda Carter seminar, although I didn't work a dog there, so between me and Vickie who had the working experience we probably have a fair bit of it covered.

Bernie gets back from the USA on Thursday. Besides not knowing when his flight is, it's probably best for me to not go off doing dog stuff the day he gets back, after him having been away for almost four weeks!! I'd be up for it on another day though. Edit: just been talking to Vickie and at this stage we are looking at Wednesday.

A lot of people drop the nose touch. If you are happy with the 2O2O and you are clear and consistent with the criteria for that you should be fine.

I agree with Vickie. I went to the Rhonda Carter seminar also, and her method of proofing contacts is the most effective I've seen. If you'd seen the changes in performance from dogs that understood the contact behaviour but weren't performing it, after only a few repetitions, I think you would be trying this method too. It is worth noting that several dogs also got faster. This is probably because the criteria were getting clearer.

That dog looks a bit like a Kelpie!

That reminds me of when I got my first Vizsla (I have bred my subsequent ones). She was the one in the litter that was pointing at a quail wing on a bit of fishing line at eight weeks. However the breeder's partner who had his own prefix, bred for the field, and did lots of field work said that it didn't really matter as the others were just as likely to be birdy as they grew up. At the recent Rhonda Carter agility seminar we discussed dogs, picking pups, and drive. She said that a few years ago in the US people were picking the very high drive ones and ending up with barely trainable dogs - dogs that needed lots of work to get them out of the over the top zone and into the learning and listening zone. Now they are going for the middle of the litter. This wasn't stated specifically at the time, but the middle of the litter on litters bred for performance would be different to the middle of the litter on litters bred to be quiet companions ... again that goes to the importance of knowing the breeding lines and what the pup's ancestry is like.

Try Clean Run. I only checked there and amazon, CR was cheaper, there will be other places to get it.

If we had cicadas they'd eat them. My lot eat Christmas beetles, and also dig for beetle larvae and worms.

I have had Vizslas for some time and have done lots of different dog sports with them, as well as show. I currently mainly do agility. I taught agility for some time and wanted to try a "rocket dog" for the experience and so I could learn and pass on what I had learned to students with them. Have long loved Aussie working dogs - had a cattle dog for 16 years - but they are too heavy so since I also love Kelpies I got one. I am not so keen on long coated dogs. Vizslas came before dog sports, however I was doing some bunny shooting at the time I chose one, so did choose something that would be good for that - was raised with gundogs though. Agility came before Kelpie but love for Kelpies predated agility. Also have a short coated BC that my daughter is training - was a foster. I think in the end for me, the breed of dog and the activities I do with the dog are intertwined, they go together.

I forgot to say, Ch 4 with the weaves ideally had a diverging line from the weaves, dogs had some problems with this, she explained how to train that too. There was so much I cannot write it all, your friend will give you lots, would be interesting to hear what is covered in Melb, what is the same, what different things are covered. Your friend will be able to video tape her own runs (or rather, have someone do it) but that's all the video taping she can do. So if she's well prepared with pen/pencil and paper, that would be useful.

Day one set up a course with particular handling challenges, people ran it, then it was broken down and the challenges worked through, then people ran the course again. Plus some discussion of things that arose. And a discussion at the end, in the air conditioning. Challenge one was an A frame/tunnel discrim from a position I'd never even thought of doing it before, explanation of how to train it, and some on-the-fly training of it. Challenge two was a tunnel entry discrim followed by a jump and very sharp turn onto see saw. Challenge 3 had an a frame after a couple of jumps, with a 90 deg turn off the end to a U shaped tunnel, entry the further entrance. Challenge 4 was a send on to a jump then back over weaves. Dogs needed better send ons, handlers needed confidence to handle Ch 3 aggressively - and when pushed to do so, there were some really nice performances, Ch 2 was fairly straight forward and Ch 1 saw improvement but this really needs training, as does better send ons, and also contact performances. One thing is that she says problems with dogs not sticking contacts tend to be release problems not contact problems (assuming dog understand performance) so says sit the dog at but not on end of contact, go back to where you were, run past and release dog when you wanted to release it. This saw significant improvements esp. with exercise on day 2. Day two had short course including a particular lead out followed by "call to side" foundation exercises - "call to side" is very important in Rhonda's handling arsenal. This was then followed by doing the short course again and comparing the times using what people had learned and what they had done previously. Then there was a section on the "backy uppy" threadle/pull through handling approach, which had dogs and handlers unable to do threadles doing them nicely in short order, and that was then put into a short course to use it "in action". And it was smoother for the ones that could do them. There was a rather nifty contact proofing exercise. Then a jumpers with weaves course where people put what they had learned into action. Too much to type. Anyone in Melbourne, if not already booked, would learn a lot by going to audit. Oh and BTW not only is she a good teacher, who gets people to try new things, she's also fun and nice with it. And very generous with her knowledge and time. Oh yeah. Bending over problems? Go buy one of those back braces from a hardware store and wear it with the back bit at the front. Instant feedback when bending over. Nobody had one but we got told about it and I can see it will help me with my bending over. "Send and run" is her basic handling approach - line commitment from the dog and obstacle independence including correct discriminations, handler takes the short path to meet the dog where control/closer handling is needed. Rhonda is a normal person in terms of her athletic ability, like most of us, not one of those whip thin super athletes that runs every step with their dog. So great to get handling choices for normal people. Mind you it DOES mean you have to train the dog properly, so it can jump cleanly with extension or collection where needed, discriminate, do its contacts properly, and so on.

Aww gillbear, I didn't see you! It's been a good day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. "Call to side" should be interesting.

I think the tumours came because she was "intact" (sort of) but never actually used them. Now I can't directly relate people to dogs but I recall that women who did not breast feed were at slightly higher risk than those that did. It's *possible* that something similar might be in effect here. I would have to do some research to see if there actually was a link. But, I think it is possible that my decision meant she was more likely to get tumours than my breeding bitches, who use their mammary glands! If there is anything else I don't know it, since I don't know what the finer points of the uterus and its effects are, but again there is some possibility of having ovaries but no uterus might change the body's chemistry in some way. It's worth checking out. I was startled to find that cowanbree's girl also had three operations for mammary tumours. That got me thinking. As I say, two out of two is in no way a sample that is generalisable, but it did seem to be something of a coincidence. Other than the mammary strip tumours I actually didn't notice much of a difference between my girl and a desexed girl, although it was some time ago, so the finer points may be lost. She did cohabit with entire males most of her life. Oh and she was late onset epileptic, IMO due to a skull fracture when she was a pup and then being whacked by a stick years later. So with managing the epilepsy and coping with the tumours, we had a lot to contend with. Edit: I am thinking about it, and I think that there may have been some regular changes that could be associated with cycling, that decreased as she got older. I don't remember that any dogs mated her. But it was about 20 years ago so I'm a bit vague as to just what happened.

Perhaps not, and it is something that I have to take into account as a breeder, BUT having lived through multiple surgeries for my girl when she was in her early teens, I can say it was very unpleasant and difficult for both of us. So far I'm one of the only people who has done what has been asked, and I am stating why I would not do it again. Fair enough, IMO. My choice at that time put my dog through a lot of pain and unpleasantness later. It may not be what the OP wants to hear. However I can speak from my experience here, not from having researched pros and cons. It is possible that the OP's dog may not have the problems mine did. But I owe it to my dog and to the OP's to mention what happened.

So that's two posters (me and cowanbree) that have had semi-spayed dogs with ovaries, and both had to have THREE operations for mammary tumours. A small sample size, sure, but IMO that's a good argument for removing the ovaries. The mammary tumour ops that my girl had were quite large ops, with tumours all down the mammary strips. I chose to leave the ovaries in (in about 1983 this was) because of the hormone thing but had I had more information I would have made a different choice. And have done since. Edit: I suppose one COULD choose to remove the mammary strips altogether, like the women who have genetic dispositions to mammary tumours and have double mastectomies. I found the mammary strip ops to be quite hard on my dog who was older by then.