ness

Whatever happened to training the dog to complete the exercise and only entering a dog who was trained .

No wuffles its not the same as coming across an aggressive dog on a walk. You aren't putting the dog in a position where they are being forced to react in a certain way and you are less constrained with your reaction. But do agree we can do everything within our power to protect a dog and I guess it comes down to the dog. If it had been my baby green dog in that stay line up I'd have withdrawn. I did weigh up the possible risk to my older dog and decided she had enough history of good experiences that if something should happen it wouldn't impact to the same level. I just felt sorry for the baby green BC who was rushed and upset in the ring. I have seen one minor incident even at training upset dogs to the extent where they haven't been able to get back in the ring. Very sad when you consider the amount of work that goes in to getting a dog to perform at a top level. I am all for people giving it a go but just wish the rules better protected the dogs. I know one of mine would be fine with a friendly dog coming up to her but the other one won't even want a friendly dog coming up in her face while she is on a stay. How should it be my problem that my dog is trained to perform the exercise and your "friendly" dog who wants to play with everybody comes up an interferes with it in the ring. The trial ring isn't for training a dog its for trialling a dog who has been trained to complete the exercises to the required level. Like I said they aren't robots so sure you might get a dog who breaks occasionally but people who trial the same dog week after week and have no regard for others cheeses me off no end.

Wuffles wrote: IMO it's just one of those things we have to work with if we want to do obedience trials. Yeah but hang on no dog should have to tolerate another dog being rude or acting aggressive towards it in the ring. We aren't talking about dogs who break because they follow their handler or lay down in a sit stay or otherwise break without interfering with another dog. That all happens and you accept that its part of training but I don't think having an aggressive dog go after your dog in stays is something we should have to work with. Especially when come of these dogs haven't even managed to get through the ring work. And the frustrating bit is a lot of these dogs are repeat offenders. Things happen sure - but why should somebody with a dog who is known for being unstable put other dogs at risk because of it. Sorry rant over.

I offered a dog for a set of non-qualifying stays at a trial (never again) but we were half watching our dogs - they were out of sight open stays and all hell broke loose and you can bet I was back to my dog before the judge had said anything. I wasn't going to take the risk. Same thing in novice if I saw another dog was going to interfere with mine I wouldn't care what the judge said - especially if it was eyeballing or standing over my dog. Would rather deal with the judge later then have to deal with any potential fallout if my dog should be harmed. And as I said in the original brags thread in future I am definitely going to go with my gut feeling in a situation and even if my dog is on a brilliant score and I know somebody has an unreliable (and aggressive) dog in the stay line up who isn't in a qualifying score I will be withdrawing. There is always another trial.

Our first border collie wasn't really into chasing things and was pretty well behaved until she hit 7 months. She use to hang around my parents at our country place every weekend. This one weekend she took off after a car going 100km/hr. Completely out of the blue. She was fine but she then did start repeating this behavior more regularly (although wasn't obviously given the opportunity to do so). I would spend plenty of time working on a solid reliable recall with your pup and don't be totally complacent as to whether the dog might give chase to something until the pup is a lot older. That way your never going to be "caught out".

Yep she probably would . To go with her purple cool champions coat ;) .

Not sure an 18 would be long enough for the midget . It would fit across the front though.

That is what I was kinda thinking, hard to picture them though. Thanks. She is a bugger to fit because she is so little across the front. Part of my problem with the Cool Champion's one she has. Makes it hard for her to walk .

What are the cool coats like ValleyCBR?? Kenz nearly collapsed again on me tonight at the park - unexpectedly warm and the real bugger with the silver eagle ones is the fact they take hours to dry.

And just to complicate things I managed to pass every single exercise and still run out of points , but that wasn't CCD or Novice not sure if its possible in that class.

RubyStar so would Kenz - if we could get rid of the SFE we would be set. Hmmm Ness votes for removing articles or signals from UD .

Ness's Open Round today -

Nope nothing wrong its just not the way she was trained ;) . My youngster is trained with a position command only. But thats ok I take pity on my old girl who yesterday got told to DOWN on her DOR when her command is DROP. Just as well she knew what I wanted. And sorry nah didn't get pulled up for it pulled myself up for it - the person next to me in the stay line up was using a position command.

Stewards are suppose to collect the dogs.

And ValleyCBR it is why Kenz won't ever see a CCD ring and I will be very careful with her in Novice and now Open and be more than prepared to scratch her from stays, quallie or not depending on who she is next to. One stay incident can upset a dog badly and totally ruin them. As I said I was very close to walking away from them today. I think they should just abandon them totally and certainly not permit dogs who have not got through to potentially cause issue with those who are on a quallie. I know this won't get rid of all the problem dogs but it might get rid of a couple. By all means run a set of non-qualifying stays for those who feel the need to do a set but just don't let non-qualifying dogs ruin it for those who are on a pass.

I have never really been nervous since Ness titled during a set of stays (other than when she was on a placing at the Royal) but I had serious reservations when I left her even with the dog out of the ring after the incident. She is pretty bomb proof but still it really unsettled all the dogs and you never know quite what is going to happen after something like that occurs. It just upsets the pattern and messes with both the dogs and the handlers. I even got caught out not telling her to "stay" but to drop when I went to leave her on the drop stay. Lucky for me it was ok but still I was more rattled then normal.

Well Ness managed to back up yesterdays Open pass with another much more respectable 186 today . Good girl - it was warm and she still managed to put in a nice performance. The less said about her UD performance the better though . I will say for the first time in my life I contemplated not taking a dog into stays while I was a pass (and even on a placing). What I thought might happen did eventuate really wish they would adopt the two sets of stays suggestion that seems to occur in WA with having non-qualifying and qualifying stays. A dog who wasn't on a pass and who is known to be unreliable in stays broke and tried to leave the ring before we had even started. Then the handler retrieved it and it went after the BC next to it. You half expect it in CCD and Novice but geez you wouldn't anticipate that sort of issue in Open. Ok my rant for the day - Rivsky has a brag so hopefully she will come in and share it .

Interesting mine has had solid jump issues the last 2 weeks - at the trial last weekend she ran straight past the bloody thing and at training she came back over the bar on me. Bugger decided today she could get it together after all and had no problems with the solid even though I had had the bar jump first in the trial - usually thats a sure thing that she will take the bar again. Think they just like messing with us - now to hope she doesn't decide to do her scent work tomorrow by taste , we might then get through 3 exercises and still be on a pass rather than the 2 we managed today.

Wahoo go Ptolomy and Scoota - not bad for a part-time agility dog huh .

It was warm out there though DSO. So glad I didn't enter the afternoon trial . Not holding out any hope for us tomorrow its going to be a very warm day and if today is anything to go by I think Ness is a little sore so we might yet scratch. Will see how she is when I get her up in the morning. My brag is that out of 14 exercises in UD/Open (including the little parts of UD as separate exercises - Ness only failed 2 out of the 14) and the 2 she failed in UD weren't disaster fails. I suppose I should say she managed an Open quallie. Wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination but still not bad for my 10 year old .

Yep Kenz was seriously spooky of people. I won't say she probably wouldn't have got through the heeling it just wouldn't have been enthusiastic and with attitude. Pre-TID she could manage a heel pattern but certainly wouldn't tug and wasn't performing at her best.

Yep very pleased with my little munchkin. She even managed some lovely work this week under a judge at training who spooked her so badly in the past that for a long while she couldn't even stand within a couple of meters of him and take a treat (wasn't anything that shouldn't have been harmless - he bent over to look for something in the grass and she panicked). Never mind asking for off-lead heelwork and getting something that comes close to what I get out of her at the park or even get her to take her tug toy enthusiastically as a reward after we had finished. Certainly would not have managed to get her to the point she is at now without doing the Training in Drive package with her and without Steve's assistance. It really has bought out to the full extent the dog that I always knew was in her. A lot less disparity between what she gives me at home/at the local park versus what she is now giving me at training and when we are out.

Drive training is going really well JulesP. Here is a video of Kenz doing a novice training round last week at club - http://www.youtube.com/leggsv#p/a/u/1/hwq0oDFm2EU Just need to work on polishing it all up now .

Yep thats what I mean by a session number - thanks SnT for clarifying. Although its also a pretty handy way to keep tabs of sessions anyway . So if I wanted to cross reference something I had reattempted from an earlier session I can do it that way ;) .

I have running tables of what I have been doing, what time I have been running a session, session length, what reward I have used, session number and if I have videoed a session it has video in italics under the session number/date.