ness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDtviXgEjMg My favourite Toller strutting his stuff at the Adelaide Royal this year. Certainly very inspirational . Go Scoota and Go Sandi .

Interesting question - my first dog I just put in and she passed her novice 4 trials for 4 passes. My friend just wanted company at the trial so I said I suppose I can enter. Walked away with a very nice 187 and second on count back under the old rules with all that god dam heelwork . I held off for ages in open and then I was having a trip to WA and got gently prodded into entering. More like I had sent entry forms to the person I was staying with and they said and by the way your entered in Open at the State Obedience Champs . Well she passed that trial, not with a great score and then just over a fortnight later had her CDX. Again 3 passes from 3 trials. First UD trial was also a case of a trip interstate and a gentle shove with no expectations. No we didn't pass but we only failed 2 little bits which is a lot closer then we have come since. Everybody watches me train my now 7 month old baby and keeps asking when she is entering her first trial. Her heelwork is very nice and has the most wonderful attention but no way will she venture into the ring untill she is at least trained through to UD. I don't necessarily mean a polished performance but at least a very solid foundation. She has lots of years ahead of her and there is no rush to get her into the ring. She will probably have the more complicated open and ud exercises to a more than reasonable level before I am going to be happy enough with the length of duration on her heelwork to even consider entering. Yes I could push her now but if you want a nice performance that won't break down there is no point. Slow and steady will get me there in the end. She loves her heelwork and happily offers me nearly 30 seconds of pefect focus without so much as a toy or treat in sight or even in my possession.

Yep I can probably pinpoint the event where it started to go wrong relatively minor - a little kid came to pat her and she took off on me. I wasn't sure at the time if it was the dog or the kid but hindsight tells me it was the kid as she is worse with kids then adults. So I guess how do you work at shifting the value to neutral when you have already established a negative trigger without establishing a positive trigger. I will say since the first incident she has been pretty well managed and I have had a few other minor instances but on the whole I have avoided to much rehearsing the problem.

Ok I have read this a while ago but I now have a 7 month old pup. She was heavily socialised as a little pup and started having issues around 17 weeks of age which haven't really gone away. She has great working capability and will happily work and ignore whatever is in the environment in prefence for interacting with me (no fear of taking her off-lead anywhere including high energy environments such as agility etc) but where I seem to have failed is that should some people wish to interact with her then she is very timid. She is fine as long as she doesn't have to say hi but when the go to pat her she cowers and tries to hide. I have been avoiding putting her in such situations and working well within her comfort threshold (which is only a distance of meters). While its not impacting on her life as such I can see I'll have difficulties down the track when it comes to obedience exercises such as stand for exam. So I guess I have achieved having my dog see me as number #1 but not sure I have adequately socialised if that makes sense. Any thoughts on what might have gone wrong, I wonder if in my quest to make me the most important thing in her life I have some how screwed the balance a bit and not properly neutralised the surroundings.

Ness says Ptolomy can you make it something to do with how quickly you eat a treat or looking at a bowl of food or something cos she thinks she would do that better than her sister .

thanks Ptolomy.

Ptolomy can you please find one that Ness will do better than Kenzie .

I told you my problem with it. Too many recalls into heel position. I also think my issue with Ness is too much focus on rewarding finding heel from anywhere and everywhere - not that it helps us in a trial any. As for little munchkin she has only done skip fronts and not really done a recall as such other than an informal one.

Yep certainly think she thinks she is Luke. What of the 2 challenges Ptolomy has posted so far both of them have finished with her latching onto my sleeve .

I really must put the training in drive DVDs up higher on the shelf so she can't find them when I am not around . True come she did hahahahaha. Might be the last time I try one of Ptolomy's challenges. Obviously they aren't suited to black and white land sharks .

I manage to try it with Kenzie - hmm she came bounding over to me and then ran around me in a circle and then launched herself at my sleeve .

Well I tried and Ness came to heel . I am not really surprised though as I forgot I have done recalls to heel before ala the second part of the UDX exercise.

If you want a very keen BC pup to test one on she would be a willing volunteer. I swear she has been watching too many of those training in drive dvds especially the bite work ones involving sleeves .

I just want to put this video up as its related to focus. Here is my 7 month old little BC girl doing some circle heelwork for a friend this afternoon. Her focus is outstanding and she is such a joy to work. She will give the same level of focus whether you have food, a toy or nothing. She has been totally positively trained since she arrived at 9 weeks and as a consequence loves her work. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdox8RcebfQ ETA. I don't usually reward as frequently as my friend was today but still she has such lovely work I had to show it off.

I can loan you a puppy who likes to kill them live - no need for fly spray here .

So Janba in 15 months with little training I can expect the response I am getting now to extend another 18 seconds .

Hahaha my older girl was embarassing but I also tried it with my 7 month old BC pup who has only been positively trained but not as much as I could have as we have mainly just focussed on playing. Well first thing is she is rarely on-lead when we start a training session but that was ok. She heeled up to the cone I was using as a start peg, bouncing. Set her up at heel, remove lead and throw lead away. Kenzie says mum the lead isn't suppose to be on the ground so she goes and picks it up and returns it to me wanting to play . Ok we put the lead in my pocket. Set her up and she gives immediate attention so no waiting around to start the stop watch. 8 seconds later she is still focussing on me 110% but we haven't done any non-moving duration exercises yet so no real stay practice and after 8 seconds of sitting there she wanted to know why we weren't moving so she thought she would bounce up at my to create a bit of action .

Yep I thought I would just clarify my post - she had one at her breeders before being flown over (at I guess 6 weeks) and the a second one here at 13 weeks.

My girl is from a WA breeder and I went with her recommendation which was one after the age of 12 weeks. This is taken straight from our club website: Our club conducts Basic Obedience training from Puppy fun classes (for pups aged from approximately 14 weeks, or as soon as their second vaccinations have taken effect, until 6 months of age) So that would be from when the second vaccinations have taken effect (regardless of age as I know you can get one that is effective at 10 weeks).

Proof of one after the puppy vaccination is all our club requires.

I saw one of these at the petstore today - I didn't think the bodies looked overly tough but somebody who has used one might be able to say more.

I was about to say is it Cloverdale but you beat me to it. I know the people who instruct there and they are all really nice.

Cassie one of the problems with using food too long is the fallout you had with Zephyr in that they won't do it without the food. Ness is similar to some degree but not entirely so. With my new baby Kenzie she maybe got lured with food maybe half a dozen times max. Then I switched to rewarding her and she isn't dependent on the food being there. Sometimes I'll reward her with a tug toy, sometimes a pat and she will happily engage and work whether there is anything there or not.

I put my BC pup onto the adult version. I compared the difference between both formulations and it was really very negligible in the end.

I have my own vari-kennel and I always fly Virgin Blue .