PAX

Good. Bad But really, they are both good...apart from the mud...haha

Another great verbal test is to stand next to your dog...do nothing and give your verbal release word without moving a muscle. Most dogs will maintian the sit at heel. I have seen this done many times and the handler is/was 100% confident the dog knew the release word, clearly it did not. Dogs pick up so many more body cues than we give them credit for.

Hands off Caffy, I had my name down first.

IME, dogs will always pick the body cue over a word. I train my dogs to know both, they can sit, drop, stand and lots of other stuff off both types of signals. But if I give a hand cue to sit and pair it with a verbal down at the same time, they will always trust the hand cue...it's really interesting and a great way see what they know and what you think they know. I often play a game with them to see what verbals they truely know, I ask the verbals in different positions, can you sit off a verbal if I'm laying down, have my hands in the air, have my back to you, etc. If they struggle, I help them but they seem to enjoy the game.

It's a good idea to try the different sizes but my Dobe girl loved the mediums.

If I am not too late to add to your order, I will have ten small and two mediums.

My BC Pup is not a swimmer but loves water. I live next door to a dog swimming pool. My pups breeder came down for a visit and tossed all her own dogs in, they had a blast. After watching her dogs, I decided to toss my own dogs in the pool, my puppy, the pup she bred, swims like a fish, the others swim great too, they would of never gone in with my gentle tactics, so who knows? My past dogs, I have gone swimming and they followed me, that is the way I prefer but now don't have that choice.

As soon as I read the topic heading I thought Border Collie...bless em. I agree with the other suggestions, keep his brain busy.

Awww cute. Nothing is a problem unless it bothers you. Don't get to hung up on the whole Alpha thing at this young age. She is just a baby and a very cute one, do not let her do things that you wont want her to do when she is 40 kilos. Make the rules fair, and black and white now. She is lovely.

One of my dogs is very sensitive but super smart so I use free shaping with her and she is very good at Obedience work.. I do as you quoted but I quickly put the behaviour I want on cue, works well for us and have never had any problems, only happy dog and happy handler. The last rewarded behavoiur you will generally get next in free shaping, so I use that to my advantage by getting it on cue. The best thing about free shaping (dogs that like it) is you often get a behaviour that would be very hard to train, all of a sudden it is there, and ready to put on cue. IMO some dogs do get stressed by free shaping, my dogs do not. Mary Ray's dogs are taught through free shaping, they don't look confused or unsure of the job to me. ;)

I have used different sounding clickers and found no difference to my dogs response. I have heard that some dogs don't lke the box clicker sound as it's a bit louder but I have not found this.

My cat is crated every night along with my dogs, no one complains.

I buy 50 at a time from clean run, I misplace heaps of them but I know I can find one in any room, car, etc. I am forever giving them to people too.

Can I guess???

I never knew Jonty broke his foot??? You bad! Never told me, send him to me for rehab. He must be heading towards the milion dollar dog....bless him, send him to me!

Now that I train with Vickie, I say 'stop' to all dogs in my care..haha. 'Stop' command seems to work really well with dogs when you need them to stop.

Yes she is a purebred BC, I think her tan markings make people think she is an Aussie.

Pixie, I have been confused before by this blue Merle Border above and thought it was an Aussie. See any difference to my blue merle Aussie below? The do look similar in those two photos, I bet now that they have grown they would look very different from each other apart from the colour.

Whenever I watch SG dvd's I start saying cookies instead of treat.

Did someone say Koolie?

Think about what you need and go to the Hardware store.

I prefer bitches, I cant's say why, I just do. I think boys are slower to learn but more devoted to you. Someone once told me girl dogs love you but boy dogs are in love with you. In saying that, my girls are very loyal to me. I think bitches take the work much more seriously, I have no proof of this it is just my opinion. I always prefered Mares to geldings too. I haven't found any difference with my girls training through seasons, although they rarely come into season, once a year at most.

I would guess that Daisy is working the TOT, she checks in with Mum before she gets the reward, she's a good girl. The level Erik is at is totally different, I think he is more operant and drivey, but he is just a baby. :p the two videos can't be compared as they are such different dogs..training, breed, drive, owners, training styles...bla bla .

Yep agree with above, in the mean time maybe you could interupt the behavoiur before it happens.

I think drive is working/training to the dogs highest level reward. The desire for the reward is under the handler's control.