Podengo

Elsie is the sort of dog that LOVES everyone and is really happy and out going, except for one person! Funny thing is, he is one of my best friends and is a really lovely guy! But he was at my house looking after Elsie after she got spayed while I was in an exam, and she started trying to do zoomies across the back of the furniture so he gently got her collar and put her back in her crate to rest. My other best friend was there and saw the whole thing, no voices were raised and she was not manhandled... But from that day forward she won't even look at him when he enters a room, won't play with him, won't go over for pats! He moved to the other end of the country and we met up with him a good year after the incident, and she remembered him and wouldn't even go over to say hi... He is very sad about the whole thing!

Hmm I think my Dobermans have all been timid too - they hate getting their feet wet!

Oh god I love Rottie tails too! There are so many breeds that are way more appealing to me with a tail, they look so balanced and right :D

Awwww I want a naughty whippet!! <3

Bed bugs are pretty big, you will know one if you saw it... We found one in a hotel we were staying in once

OMG Corgis with tails <3 ADORABLE! Want!

My dog, rabbit and cat are all greedy and will eat until they burst if you kept feeding them! Food is not left down at my house, if you don't eat it in 10 minutes it is picked up (or else another animal will eat it). The rabbit has access to greens and hay all day, but his pellets get taken away otherwise the dog eats them.... Same with the cat food, and the dog food has to be picked up or the rabbit and cat will have a go at it... Eat or starve here LOL. Elsie will even steal vegetables from the rabbit, she won't always eat them, but she will ruin them so he won't!

Lottie :)

Agree! I would be too scared to help out physically but I would be on the phone to cops and running to look for someone to help ASAP!

Clippers?

Cute little sheltie - good timing too, I have just been researching shelties tonight, they are super uncommon as agility dogs in NZ, which is odd as they do seem to dominate the small height classes around the rest of the world. Now if only they came in a smooth coat variety :laugh:

I am indeed. :) Bronwen added me the other day. The Kiwi team did a really good job with some quite green dogs and the tricky handling system that is so different to what we are all used to. Yes it would take some getting used to! Looking forward to seeing if they run any seminars here to share what they have learned. Have any of the Aussie team competed in Europe before?

Interesting :) Are you on the Paw Blacks facebook page? The NZ team have been posting heaps of great updates from Texas!

I don't have the equipment either, another part of the challenge! I don't have room for any agility gear though, not even a full set of weaves. I am a committee member for my club though, and was able to get keys to the club for summer while training was off.. So went to club every second day for a few months to work on some stuff. Now formal training classes are off for the winter, so I can get out whatever I want 2 nights a week and train... will hopefully be enough :D I think the process would be MUCH easier if I had a full size DW/room for one. That's why I am considering training A-frames with the box, not sure the running DW behaviour can be transferred to an A-frame easily, or if I'll have to start from scratch with the A-frame with lots of repetitions... If I can do a lot of the training away from a full A-frame that would be very handy, as the A-frame is too big to be dragging in and out every training night... DW I can at least set up on my own if no one else wants to train with it :)

I have a really short attention span so I'll start training something then get distracted and train something else and so on and so on lol. I have started formalising stays a bit more now and they are coming along nicely too, just need to add some distraction now! Me too! Elsie has soooooo many half taught tricks, the start is fun then I give up! She does most of a hand stand, half a roll over, not very much of peek-a-boo... I'm useless :laugh:

I chose ST because it is free :laugh: poor university student and all that....

From what I've seen with other people from my club that have tried and failed to train running contacts is that they have tried with low-drive dogs, and they aren't maintaining clear criteria... So the dogs are often trotting the dog walk (instead of RUNNING!) in training and getting rewarded for it, then jumping off in trials because they are slightly more excited and are running. I think it's really important to make sure the dog is flat out running the contact from day one when it is flat on the ground, if they are running properly, then they aren't jumping. That's my thoughts at least, but we'll see :D

I decided to teach it to do something different, I don't like 2on2off much, I see it fail in trials a lot, and it just slows dogs down... Elsie is already a small dog in her height class, making her stop for contacts is not going to help her course times (and as NZ is a win-based, not clear round based agility system, speed is very important). I figure I can always retrain stopped contacts if RC don't work, and get contacts almost as good as what everyone else already has. My club doesn't teach running contacts at all, only a few of the smaller competitive dog handlers have taught RC, and they taught "run and pray" not any actual method. They don't mind what I do though, but I don't encourage any newbies to teach it. I just tell people that we're the team everyone will learn from haha, as not very many people here with big dogs do any kind of running contact, so if it works out for Elsie, more people are willing to give it a go with their new dogs... If it fails miserably and I am here retraining stopped contacts next year... well so be it! Lesson learned :D

... Elsie is totally getting a bean bag... Now to find the money...

Well done :)

I know a lot of Doberman people show in UKC for fun, but in that breed do not consider a UKC CH to be "breeding worthy" as you can put a UKC CH on just about anything. I imagine it would be quite different in some other breeds though.

Elsie graduated her beginner agility class last night yay! And got the fastest time on the graduation course :) Weaving 12 poles now on both sides very quickly now, so time for proofing and adding it to courses. We've entered agility classes in June that have weaves, so have 1 month to get this sorted! :D Now that classes are sort of on/off for the winter, we'll get back into regular contact training... Her running dogwalk (Trkman method) was looking good about a month ago when we gave it a shot, and I am about to get an on-demand copy of Rachel Sander's running A-frame box method... Hopefully it works out!

CaseyKay on this forum has border collies and a brittany (not a brittany spaniel anymore, they dropped the spaniel part), maybe send her a message :)

Lovely pics - looks like you had a great time!