ness

My youngster probably developed more food drive after she was desexed but hard to know if it was directly related as it was a good few months after before she started becoming more foodie.

amypie the agility ones are a classic but some of the obedience ones pre-Ptolomy getting stuck into me aren't very pretty either .

Hmmmm if anybody wants a serious handling laugh just go and have a flick through some of my old videos on my channel . Actually I was having a look at some of them tonight - thinking poor Ness. Some of my early agility videos are a scream . ETA. If anybody wants a bit of a sticky at some old clips here are a few links 2003 Novice Agility - Ness back in 2005 - heelwork -

Nah think you missed it huski you can get them to automatically be selected as public from within iMovie - least that is what I do.

Huski there is an option when you upload them for youtube that says do you want to make them private. Its automatically selected and you have to deselect it. Its down the bottom of the screen that pops up. ETA. It says make this movie personal (so if you want it publically viewable you have to unselect that box).

I was going to say the same. My mum use to feed Ness grapes as a training treat although I know now they aren't suppose to eat grapes.

Amypie wrote: Thanks Ness, awwww look how little Kenzie was! She was tiny and sooo fluffy and feral. Now she is slightly bigger, not quite as fluffy but still quite as feral :D .

:D amypie the joys of having a foodie dog. Hmmm Ptolomy might have some ideas - could you try a lower value food reward? The other thing which can help with lining up is teaching them the phone book/pivoting trick. Do you know the one I am talking about. Same one that leopuppy posted with Zara the other day. You could shape that. About K and the RC yeah think that sounds right - I have only started experiment with them with Kenz.

Amypie just watched your rear cross sit video with K - are you marking the moment you cross behind and he turns his head in the correct direction? I thought that was the idea of that particular exercise unless I have it confused?

:D sas - nah don't be scared Ptolomy just sets the standard really high and doesn't like to see people have to redo things later once they have been bitten with the bug of wanting to continue trialling. Might as well have it right at the beginning .

Amypie - I am not sure how everybody else teaches it but I taught it initially by luring the dog back behind my leg and closing my leg up into heel position and C/Ting. I also conditioned it initially with the dog next to a wall so they couldn't sit squiffy. There is some video here of me teaching Kenz at 12 weeks - the setting up at heel stuff is towards the end of the clip from about the 1min 40 mark. Here is a bit of the next stage where you hold the treat and give the dog the command -

The pattern RubyStar is new cue followed by old cue. So I guess the same would hold true. You would just give the new cue which in your case would be a verbal then delay a bit and give the old cue - the signal. Initially you do them pretty close together but slowly delay and the dog starts responding to the first cue as being the cue for the behavior. Ask Sue or Sandi they can probably explain it far better than I .

Ptolomy think from what I know of Soaks Terra will have an uphill battle as Lappies are known for being vocal and Soaks is pretty vocal in every day life . I don't think pulling her up for being vocal would shut her down from what I have seen when I stayed there though.

Shell I had a similar issue with Kenzie and her stand for ages. Sue guru showed me how to resolve it and I won't say it happened overnight but it eventually happened. In my case I went back to making sure I had a solid verbal cue on the behavior. So we went back to me giving my new verbal cue then a short delay and using my shitty hand signal and clicking and rewarding. Kept doing that for a while until I had a new solid verbal cue. Then you can attach the new hand signal once the dog is going down on the verbal only. ETA. Have you taught Zero a fold back drop - so from the stand into a drop without sitting first?

Hi TerraNik My thoughts on the vocalising issue (and you know Kenz was a pain with her freestyle and the barking in the routine and I hate it ) is that I would probably use a time out and deal with it rather than ignore it and hope it got better. I would not permit the whinging or vocalisation in any criteria that I was rewarding. Ness will occasionally whinge at training but because she isn't so keen I wouldn't be so concerned. Kenz on the other hand has a strict no whinging/barking policy (well now ). I thought it would be something that would disappear in stressful situations with her so didn't think to exclude it initially but knowing what I do now I would. There was a great post on Susan Garretts blog about barking dogs while working and the upshort of that was if you don't want it as a part of a particular behavior (as you don't for obedience) then don't include it as part of a rewarded behavior. Obviously this will be harder for some dogs then others and I suspect its one that if you let slide then it will become harder to undo. It almost becomes a part of the behavior. I know with Kenz and sending her around objects for example its virtually impossible to get her to complete this without adding a woof. She doesn't as yet thankfully do any of this when we do obedience but I am very careful to never ever reward a response if there was any vocalisation. Vocalisation = no reward and most of the time I will start over and try again.

:D yeah fair enough - amypie I think Ptolomy has a copy of the puppy jumping grid Susan Salo dvd - maybe you could borrow it . As for me struggling at staying upright with Ness - er yep our lawn is a far cry from a bowling green - think a certain not so midget BC was responsible for that :D . Yep I know I needed to put Kenz away I just had no great plan to train Ness except for the fact she was really looking fired up. And Kenz has been good at sitting at watching - she was waiting on the chair while I did the other work with Ness so presumed foolishly that she might just wait there again. We did later do a session at the bowling green oval and I did have Kenz tied up while I worked Ness then.

:D amypie - just be thankful you only posted agility video to the thread :D . Ptolomy is back with her stick hahaa. Trix looked very cute in her video though and she looks to have the makings of a nice agility dog . Kenzie and I tonight at the park were working on front cross figure 8's around a couple of trees. We also managed to fit in some driving to a stationary toy at full speed. Was to wet to get any jumps out though - need to do some more finding her line on jump work. Have you tried any puppy jumping grids with Trix yet? ETA. Ptolomy do I dare ask have you done any puppy jumping grids with Cider :p .

:D Ptolomy - got your stick out tonight - sounds good I have missed it . Kenz's presents are usually very straight but were also a by product in that video - but point noted. I probably don't have the food out often enough. That is only a subset of what we actually did. I used her i-squeak ball as well and had that in front already and dropped it into her mouth. Kenz hasn't done a lot of round the back finish work so the hand going into position to help her needs to go bigtime . Ness - hmmm its the first thing she has done in a while and because all her presents at training last week were plain woeful and she sat out to far I wanted to reward her sitting in front but mostly we were working finishes. I can't work them both in the same session for obvious reasons. So the luring her in was purely just a means of getting her in front of me so I could reset for a finish. Thanks for the feedback though will certainly take it on board because like you said presents and finishes are a constant work in progress. I thought I did a great job of not rewarding the shitty ones. I would ask the dog to correct itself and then tell them they were good but not give them food or toy and then ask a second time and only reward if they were spot on. Must have learned something :D .

So Ptolomy - did you stock up on wine and nibbles on the way home .

Yeah it depends what I am doing as to whether I will or won't. Sometimes she will wait on the chair while I work Ness other times she just provides the distractions .

Here is one I didn't upload from last night Poor Ness

Yep amypie you can do the other LAT - its the one I do with my two. Kenz still likes to blind cross despite all my best intentions .

I had a quick watch last night Shell and thought Zorro was heeling really nicely. The two things that stood out for me which could probably be sorted pretty easily would be the exaggerated drop signal and the length of the lead you are using. Having all that extra lead just looks messy. Oh and just one other point if your going to reward him and you are having issues with him forging then reward him closer to your leg rather than out in front which is where you rewarded him on the first occasion.

Oh that was youtube last night - I uploaded some and they never appeared . I do have one of the old girl doing some heelwork in the yard with the midget trying her best to get in on the act . Argh I have created a heeling monster.

goodonya Ptolomy - just don't blame us if your to stuffed to move after .