ness

Congrats to everybody on their passes. They didn't make you do much or spend much time in their for the instinct test did they TerraNik. Look forward to seeing some video of the higher levels as you progress as I am curious to see how they work.

Yep I find it easier to motivate a dog who wants to play rather than one who likes food but thats just me . Nice mix of both would be good.

Find one that isn't a fussy eater would be my recommendation .

Hows everybody's weaving coming - I am somewhere between 4 poles and 6 poles. Seem to have hit a stationary point at the moment. She drives 6 poles nicely on the left from high on the arc entries but on the right decides she will either hit the entry and stop or drive the first 4 and then stop. Doesn't matter if poles 5 and 6 are fully rotated open or in a straightline the end result is the same.

Well I used the practice jumps at todays agility trial to work on Miss Kenzie's Startline stays with distractions using the normal trial environment. I was throwing her toy all over the place and she was pretty rock solid. Think she broke once and I took the toy away. Second time I tried to get her to break she was like nah I don't do that I know what I am doing. Then I would mix that up with releasing her to take the jump . Ness got some doodling heelwork practice while we were standing around too .

They sure were Ptolomy . Actually while the agility gods were in my corner the Kenzie deciding to become more confident with people gods were also working there magic. All up a very good day .

Way to go Ruby . I forgot to add one of Ness's passes was a second place .

Ness managed 2 Open Agility passes today - so now only needs 1 more for both her ADM and ADO titles .

Have you taught Zamba to target heel position when your standing still, set up at heel?

Zug Zug I would get the food off you now!!!! Its easier to not start with the food on you if the dog has had any training on heeling ever. Having said that my 13 month old I train with a tuggy or ball hidden in my pocket but I am aware that she doesn't need this. I do have the chuckit on the ground but minus the ball which is in my pocket. I will also mix it up with her so sometimes rewarding from elsewhere, sometime from on me. My older girl (will be 9 in September) who is currently trialling in UD was the dog used in the demo. I have been a friend of Sue's and had help from her and Ptolomy over the years (among others), and she has also done a bit of duration heelwork in the past. The way we have always tackled it in the past is to have the food pot visible to the dog in the centre of the circle. I am tackling now with the food pots hidden - I will stash them before working the dog. In coat pockets, training bags, behind trees etc. You might have also observed Sue was clicking after 1 step occasionally even with Ness. I have a few attention issues in the ring (first dog so a lot of inconsistency). I was chatting about this with Sue and she said start at a level you know the dog is capable of - even if that level is only 5 steps (and yes that was her recommendation to me with a UD dog!!). Its quite simple you let the lack of reward dictate to the dog whether they are correct or incorrect. The best idea is to set out the level you wish to achieve in a session and write it down before going out. My girls are now on night 3 of duration heelwork. Tonight the target was 19 steps, 11 steps, 27 steps. (Last night was 15, 20 then 7). Totally random numbers but as long as you increase the number of steps at least once from the previous session. I am not sure how old your dog is or what previous training they have had. If Kenzie drops criteria (you have to set what your perfect picture behavior is) then I will just stop, remove my attention briefly (10 seconds or so), pause and then set off again and restart. So tonight she stopped the birds on attempt 1 and looked away for only a half second but that was enough to stop the attempt. Same thing happened on the first attempt at building 27 steps - can't remember exactly what but she lost that perfect position so we stopped and restarted. Ness is different. If she is inattentive/lagging (but it doesn't get as far as lagging as you never let it), if Ness drops her head a fraction then she is put away and I get Kenzie out and play with her (prior to Kenzie Ness would go back in the car and I would ignore her for a while before starting again). Interesting tonight Ness was up and actually a bit to forward. At the time I let it slip but running it past Sue next time I will most likely treat that error the same as I do with Kenzie - namely 10 second time out, too bad so sad and try again. If the dog is inattentive, unenthusiastic don't slip your criteria just because you want to reward them. Different example but we were doing ring work on Tuesday night with my older dog who has a tendency of spitting her seekback article at my feet. Usually I would tell her to pick it up and then continue. Well there are no second chances in the trial ring so with exercises the dog knows this has now gone into my training to. She is allowed to spit the article at my feet but then she gets put away because if she wants to do that then obviously she isn't interested in playing the game. As Sue said at the seminar its not very reinforcing for the handler not being able to reinforce the dog but they can quickly fall into the habit of training you to reduce your criteria - trust me I have one who is very good at that and promised myself not to fall into the same trap second time around. Probably a lot to digest in this post but I am happy to help if you are wanting any assistance. I have spent a number of years in contact with Sue (I actually put the proposal to the canine to get her to come over and give the seminars) and also had the wonderful good fortune of a lot of advice over the years so if you want help let me know.

I trained my older girl with a wooden DB until we were on a trialling holiday in WA and I threw the DB and it nearly landed back at my feet. Now I have switched to a plastic DB , just in case its windy and I am ever trialling in WA again.

Yeah probably worth a shot in the morning 8 times in 75 m sounds like a lot. Is she pulling when she isn't flopping? How did you condition her to walking on a lead initially? Did you clip it on a have her run around etc?

What are you expecting on a walk? I don't ask my guys to heel just that they aren't pulling. They are allowed to sniff, be a dog or whatever. Most of my walks when my BC was a baby were to the local park and then she could run off-leash. She had a few issues just prior to christmas (so around 8 months) she would sit down on walks on the way home and she had a strained hip flexor.

Hmm we did ours with a huge flock of birdies on the oval and none of the kids went to chase them - pretty impressed .

Awww caffy don't be mean .

What obedience weekend is this!!!!!!!!! Darn you lot.

Alright quit with the teasing else I might just have to hide myself away in dad's bags when he goes to Perth on Monday or somehow lose him on the way to the airport and pinch his ticket .

I heard about you and your i-squeaks. Well Kenzie killed a small kong wubba tonight but we had an awesome hold on her metal article. Just hope we don't go through to many of them till we have our problem sorted . And yes Kenzie failed her homework she decided she would pretend to eat the treat so that when I offered her the tuggy she nearly choked to death cos she had her mouth full of treats .

Hope it all goes well for you guys - need to get some more training time before I am ready to put Kenzie back in an instinct test .

Stuff the i-squeaks my home work for tonight is to pair food with tugging - think Kenzie is gonna fail bigtime .

Well I didn't get abused for letting Kenzie chase her cuz toy at agility tonight - maybe somebody was listening about the benefit of distraction training .

Well I just played duration heelwork with both my kids for tea (well Ness did hers for tea, Kenzie did it for her ball). Worked Kenzie first and OMG I set my expectations way way way to low. I was going to go for 5 then 10 then 7 steps on both of them. Hmmm well we ended up doing 10, 20, 30 (but then a lunging barking fluffy walked past and some scary people so she looked away but straight back but I considered it a reset), then we got the 30 easily at the next attempt and then finished off with 25. There were also another strange people with their greyhound wandering past and kids playing soccer 25m away. Ness well I did 10, 20, 15 with her and she nailed it with ease as well. Finished up with a signals drop and sit. God I am pretty pleased with the baby considering the distractions. When we restarted the 30 the medium fluffy was still lunging and growling and Ness was going off at it but Kenzie didn't miss a beat. Off to agility tonight - flatwork for little miss and weavers and contacts for Ness.

Yeah I was going to say I have a Tuffie toy and interesting that my non-toy destructive dog has decided to chew it so its a supervised only toy (despite the fact I leave every other toy out and about with no damage done).

They just need to learn self control RubyStar. I will say when I did Kenzie's session I started off with chuckit and ball on the ground but that blew her mind totally so I left the chuckit on the ground but placed the ball in my pocket. She was very very up. Ptolomy or Sue at some point said to me if that is the case then work it in slow pace and if the dog pops forward stop, ask them to set up at heel again and continue. They can learn to be OTT and still remain in proper position. Sue very quickly picked up on Sunday that when I did left circles Kenzie was pushing me to walk a straight line. Now I just plant my foot and stay strong and if she loses position - too bad so sad we start again and she gets C/Td for being back in position. The other advantage I found using a ball reward was that as the session progressed she had would lose some of the OTT and hold a very up position but a much more accurate position. I tried a small bit more at club tonight and her focus was out of this world.

I sure did . Well Kenzie just had her first go at duration heelwork in ages and it was a huge success. Think she is pretty buggered now though from all that ball throwing . Sue pointed out to me had I ever paired the clicker with anything other than food - hmm nope I hadn't but we were about to find out what happened when I clicked and offered her a tuggy. She accepted and suffice to say her toy drive is higher then her food drive. Decided tonight I'd use her ball to work on duration heelwork instead of food. Found a conveniently sized circle at the school oval, well started working on a bit of the arc of the oval and then spotted the circle in the middle and thought that would work better . Certainly stopped her dictating the line . Although man its tiring training properly. Not sure think I am as exhausted as she is. Then finished up with a bit of work on drops so I'd click and then toss the ball.