ness

Ah yes but there is nobody to make sure I do the 3 hours of PhD work per exercise failed so therefore I am pretty safe and considering the most she will be permitted to fail is 2 exercises that only constitutes 6 hours work . And 6 hours won't maketh a PhD thesis.

Awwww Ptolomy that doesn't sound like a very good idea to me . Hmmm can I switch Ness for Scoota pretty please not sure Ness will come to the party on that. I just bought her KFC as a jackpot on the expectation of something BIG tonight so lets have all fingers and toes crossed she works her black and white socks off. She came so close at the last trial would be nice to go that one step closer again. She was looking very keeningly at me packaging up the KFC into containers and then I said if she didn't work her sister gets it all . As for Seita's comment - hmm yes Kezie will probably be one to watch if I can get a handle on her shyness hence not having her in the ring this year and no great urgent rush - although I have fingers crossed for at least one title (and it would be oh so nice to make it a double) soon on her . I was only saying tonight to another friend that if she decides to get her act together I expect a better performance from her then I do from her older sister and will have no doubts that she will score much higher. Having said that I am still going with no expectations on her as its a hard ask to take a baby dog away and expect them to perform especially when they have Kenzie's temperament and also only 48 hours after an anasthetic. Ah well will see what happens (ooops and no spoiling anything TerraNik ).

Kenzie says Retrieve over jumps are easy so long as mum uses the correct word . With Ness I use "over" but apparently Kenzie will only pick the DB up if given her retrieve command. If you just use "over" then she runs over the jump, stops at the DB and looks back at you as if waiting for permission to pick the thing up. Think its because we have done too much work with agility and jumping that she is waiting for a release command in order to be able to take the "toy" or in this case the "dumbbell".

Seita - hmmm Kenzie is trained for Open but we can't do a novice stay yet as I find teaching stays well bloody boring. She was out doing Directed Jumping practice last night too just for something different. Hopefully Ness was watching as it was too hot to train her.

Seita well I have doubled my available quota by having her in both Open and UD - hmmm Ptolomy do half exercises count in UD so if she gets both DJ does that mean 2 or 1/2 for each part of a exercise . So at the moment I have 6 available for Open and 5 for UD if parts of exercises don't count . Although I have to say the temperature at present is 39 degrees and bloody boiling so not expecting anything flash at all. Glad I held off making my youngsters debut. Not that she wouldn't have been more settled working in the heat I am just not sure I'd have got my head around 3 rounds in an evening and they both would have demanded a new upgraded handler just like Leo is .

Well done Leopuppy and fingers crossed for you Seita. Think it will be too warm for my girl tonight but ah well - I get one ice coffee for every exercise she manages to pass and since I am pulling her out if she fails an exercise she better pass a few before then .

at least I can tell you there are a truckload of novice dogs entered so you have a good chance of being on much later when it cooled.

Dear Scoota, May Ness please borrow the down gods (and the everything else UD gods) tonight - will return them as soon as we can early next week. Signed Ness's mum And if anybody wants to send a bit of cooler weather our way for tonight it would also be very welcome.

So do I Rivsky - Kenzie is very heartbroken that Zum will not be present to wear her out.

Goodonya Beans - thats a Ness trick to pull on gloves . Way to go Scoota and Lexi .

She sure does RubyStar . Go my favourite little Toller .

We are competing on the Sunday at Erskine Park - oh boy what have I got myself in for .

I am coming over for the second weekend in December and staying with Terra . Would love to catch up with some other Sydney DOL people.

You can use whatever word you like Gamby. Somebody who trials here with a Cavalier (or use to) used "away". The only place in the rulebook where you are constrained with what word you use is utility food refusal and then the rule book stipulates you may only use the world "Stay" and no other.

Sorry LP I am off to Sydney .

Nope any trial scheduled to commence after 6pm is not effected by the SACA heat policy, the SAODC trial is scheduled to commence at 7pm so the trial will go ahead as scheduled. I know when they had an earlier start time of 6pm they would occasionally delay the start of the trial until the temperature had dropped. Just have to hope your lucky enough to be in after 8pm when it should be ok. Least its one of the more shaded grounds around the place.

Back on topic Keisha - have you played any other sort of restrained collar grab games. While I haven't worked through crate games I have taught Kenzie to drive after toys etc by holding on to her collar and only releasing her when she is pulling towards the object. You can do it with food as well. Place food on the ground show the dog take the dog back a few paces and release when they are driving hard. Make sure they are being released when they are pulling forward and into their collar though.

Kavik - I am a poorly PhD student who is only being paid up until December - suppose I should be grateful for at least that.

keisha - I just need to find a job not necessarily one that pays anymore .

Ok I have a question for you - if it is my understanding you can use the TOT to teach the dog to focus on you in the presence of something that they really desire. What if you want the to look at the object i.e. your teaching the dog a directed retrieve and you only want to release a dog who is committed to the object so you know they are going to retrieve the correct item (i.e. the correct glove in utility), but also translates to things like looking at a jump to find the dogs line for agility. I am just curious if you can then build enough value to the dog for looking at the object rather than focussing on you. I considered teaching my youngster TOT but didn't for that reason but I wonder if it is possible. I wanted to build value for looking at the object to remove me from the picture. My older girl was taught to focus on me and I had great difficulty shifting that focus onto the item. Any thoughts K9? If you require clarification of what I am asking - ask away and I will try and explain myself a bit better.

Even my ever ready for a game Border Collie Kenzie would be fine in a small yard so long as she got regular exercise and training. They get those anyway along with the occasional throw of the frisbee in the yard. I don't think the size of the yard is an issue. I know in the US people have kept multiple BCs pretty content in an apartment building. They take them out 2 or 3 times a day for a walk/run or out to training.

Well done Rivsky - they were certainly some nasty agility courses last night (well least I wasn't so keen on the Masters and Open one), not sure what the excellent one was like.

have to laugh at the more settled comment about Jazz. Its 36 here at the moment and that hasn't deterred mine from being a lunatic, having a training session and fetching the frisbee (although not quite the million throws she would usually insist on). Admittedly the yard is shaded a bit but I was hot out there and she is still waiting for more activity at the moment.

Yep I use the one at Glenside with my two - less regularly at the moment but use to try and go once or twice a week.

Nah LP mostly they only learn the bad stuff .