PAX

Every week we do one easy peice of agility equipment, the owners seem to love it and that makes the dogs have a good time. I also do stupid challenges, like make them walk from A to B with a glass of water and dog on loose lead. Whoever has the most water left at B wins. Just silly things like that but it always seems fun and popular. The last 15 minutes we will do the tunnel, low table or low tyre. Just vary it and make it fun. I also throw tricks in, in week three of the eight week course. The handlers love the challenge and they have until the end of the course to show off the trick. I get ribbons printed for best trick which they all get if they attempt to train a trick, they all have so far. I'm trying to get them hooked.

You need to be a Yahoo member then send an email to, [email protected] with your full name, location state and town and a short Introduction.

I think horses learn to wind suck through extreme boredom when stabled whereas our dog seems to do it like a comfort thing when she is resting. I'm glad she doesn't suck her skin. She is very funny, sometimes we will say 'get your ball' and she runs and gets her blankie. Sometimes she greets us at the gate with her blanket in her mouth. If she doesn't have a blanket she doesn't suck so it has never bothered me. Are you on the Yahoo group Ozdobe list? Because it would be a good question to post there and see how many Dobes suck their flanks.

One of my Dobes is a habitual blanket sucker, she has always done it and she was not weaned early or anything like that. The corners of pillows are her prefered sucking thing but we dont let her have them. I have heard of lots of other Dobes doing this,l maybe your boy never got a blanket. ;) I think there was a blanket sucking topic and it seemd like lots of Dobes were suckers. Maybe you could give him a stuffed kong and see what happens.

In regard to worming, what did you worm your pup with. You should worm her with an 'allwormer tablet form' such as Drontal. A lot of people use puppy worming syrups which in my experience is next to useless in older pups. Also you will need to worm her once a month until she is six months old, then every three months after that. You will need to weigh her before each worming so you give her the correct amount. Eggs are fine as long as you feed the whole egg and not just the white.

:D In regard to Left and Right, I had a trainer who would say to me 'Left, the side with the dog'. It always made me laugh.

Worst clip? I think I win, I had to clip a Saint that was fly blown, although it didn't try to bite.

Try rubbing some Vicks vapour rub on the chewed wall as a deterent. I agree with others he is bored and look into crate training.

Thanks LL, You would be delighted to know that in the Motel where we stayed there were two Obed judges staying next door, that had been to a Retrieveiving trial with a working yellow lab and Springers. Well I have been and gone and the dogs were . I have decided to have a break from trialling. I am soooooooo disheartened with the dogs. I am obviously missing something and my dogs are out-smarting me big time. It upsets me that my dogs are smarter than me. To give the dogs a bit of a break, the obedience ring was in the middle of multiple show rings that had been used all day for showing (ring 11 for those who know Durrack) so there were liver treats all over the ground and lots of very attractive (to my dog) bitches urine. I have never done distraction work for ground sniffing because I have never had this problem. I feel like the dogs are looking up ways to catch me every time. BTW; I did the out of sight stays as they were short of dogs, only one Qually, and the dogs were solid. I usually do not do the stays if my dogs are NQing.

I have only had one run out (three trials) last weekend at Open level. I thought the mouthing problems were behind me but I was wrong. In training If he mouths the DB I can give a verbal correction, stop the mouthing then take when he has a good hold. Perhaps I am doing this more often than not so it's something I'll have to watch. I will keep working on this problem but a judge told me on the weekend that she would only ever take one point off for mouthing which I thought was very kind, so I am not going to stress about it anymore. I use the toy delivery a bit like how LL explained. Sometimes I have it on me and some times I will release him and run to where I have hidden them and sometimes I will send him to the bag to get it. I am sure my dog knows the probability of getting drive satisfaction in the ring is non existant so this is another thing I have to work on. Well I'm off to Brisbane for the Speciality (and more Open Disobedience ;) ) so I will catch up on this topic after the weekend. I think I'm going to get a Lab, Do you know of any LL?

K9: This is still happening as the dog hasnt got enough value for the toy & he "knows" you dont have the toy in the ring. If you correct this handler issue it will go away... What I showed you was the first step to curing this, you need to learn about delivery of the toy, presenting & location of the toy... The exchange was just a test to see if it would make a difference... Adding a steel item will not sort the chewing, its involuntary driven by the conflict... I'm really confused, did I drive eight hours to see you for a test? ;) I believe my dog knows the DB retrieve is an obedience exercise and not a game even though he does enjoy it. I work on all Obedience exercises with a toy reward which is 'the be all to end all' as far as my dog is concerned. At first (when you showed me this) I exchanged the DB for the game then gradually increased the amount of behaviours before the reward. If I am missing something I would love to know what and how to improve. Also I have taught him to do a seek back to a leather article, when he retrieves this there is no mouthing.

My dog has huge value for the toy so I'm not quite sure how he could have more. Are you going to offer more information on this 'handler issue'? Toy presenting? delivery? and location?

Am, You have to use a wooden DB and pull one of the bells off and put a piece of metal pipe over the dowell or just replace it with the right sized metal pipe. Ask around at Hardwares or a plumber might have some spare pipe. Let me know If it solves the problem.

Hi Am, I have been suffering this problem for ages. I like you, have been fiddling around with the clicker for ages but have not had much luck. A few old trainers have suggested putting a metal shaft on the dumb bell and taping it so it's not so nice to mouth - haven't tried this one yet. The other thing that helped is to have another toy and the second he sits take the DB and throw the other toy. This was K9's suggestion as he thought my dog had some anxiety about handing over the DB. This works in training and gets you very fast returns but I am still getting some chomping in the ring. Forgot to say, Im glad your back posting again.

Hi Ish, Great photos, I trialled on the weekend as well and my dog (well i don't think it was my dog but another dog in my dogs body) decided that drop on recall really meant roll around on the grass on your back. If he had a banana chair and a teqiuila the look would of been complete. I just stood there gob smacked with a 'What the' look on my face. bloody dogs. I'm thinking of changing hobbies to cross stitching or embroidery.

A healthy dog is a hungry dog and as far as my dogs are concerned if its human food then it must be good. Don't let her have the opportunity to eat things that might upset her. Onions can be really dangerous for dogs. If she seems bright in her self you shouldn't have to much to worry about. Pups can go down hill very fast so if she seems ill and is still vommiting or has diahorrea you should have her checked by your vet. Better to be safe than sorry.

HR, She told me that was what she was going to do. :rolleyes:

Thread Hijack, Hey Erny I had a lady ask me at training how to get her 7month old BCx to stop digging holes. I suggested the usual things and told her to put some dog-doo in the holes. The next week she told me that it worked a treat but now the dog is pulling washing off the line.......whoops. :rolleyes:

Send her to Aunty Pax, I am home all day to play all day. :rolleyes: Sorry no help but i couldn't resist.

I think my club is around $30 per year fees and $5 each time you come, 2nd dog is less. Erny, I take two dogs and I go every week unless trialling although if I take a class I don't pay. I travel far to Seminars when ever I can and they cost heaps, does that count into your figures. I would hate to add up what I spend and have spent on my dogs training or I should say my training.

CC, that's funny. At first i would always make up excuses. It's too hot to train, I can't stay too long so I didn't bring the dogs or what ever else I could think of. Now I have the confidence to just say 'block heeling is not for me or my dogs'. Our club is slowly changing for the better.

I have been training with my club for about 18months. I can't really say I train with them though more just train there. I train my dogs differently to most at the club, My club is pretty much old school with their training methods. I like to use motivational training or prey drive training so it doesn't really work out well for me in a group situation. I joined mostly to help the club so we can continue to run trials as the club has a member shortage and we are in a regional area.

I would have the pup on a collar and lead and just grab the GHOD and just do it. I'm sure (because it is a highly intelligent breed) the pup will soon know that grooming is heaven to a Dobe and finish with a good game. I would be very matter of fact about it, I have been like this with my Dobes and I can do anything with them on my own, nail clipping/dremmeling included. So where are the puppy photos????

I can't imagine having a dog and not doing training, it's like having a car and never driving it. If that's what people want they should get a remote control dog that they can switch off. I also think that most people wait too long to start training, when the dog is out of control. I have spoken to people about traing their pups and they honestly think they should wait until the dog is one year old or more. Its great that breeders are letting people know about early training. I also believe training needs to be fun for people to stay interested and they need to see some results to feel they have some ability as a handler or it all becomes too hard for most.

I just taught an introductory class (8week intro) at dog training. I was very lucky that all eight dogs were under 12months with most around six months. :rolleyes: For something different I added some basic tricks to the course. I had all handlers just loving training, with them demo'ing their tricks in the final week. They were all amazed at how smart their dogs were and hopefully will become addicted to training (I live in hope).