ness

Hi, Ok since nobody has responded yet some thoughts from me. Firstly you mention it is a double obedience trial - were you intending on entering both or just one of the trials. I would probably recommend only entering one trial if you were considering both as the whole trial atmosphere can take a lot out of the dog if they aren't use to it. Not to mention the handler. Maybe enter the morning and then you can watch some of the higher classes in the afternoon and observe there handling. As for leading up to the trial - keep the sessions short to keep there enthusiasm. Make sure you have practiced in a number of different areas other than your normal training locations. One good thing I had suggested to me was to go to a place to train, leave the dog in the car and take out a few containers of food "aka JACKPOTS". You can hide them behind trees or whatever. The idea being you ask the dog for some work and then you can go and reward them and they then realize there is a possibility of a reward even if you don't have it on you in person. From what you have written it sounds like you haven't correct faded out the use of the food. Don't fall into the habit of totally phasing out the food. In a mock trial you should always have the option to reward something. A really enthusiastic recall, a spot on position etc. The idea is that you just don't always reward the dog at the end of the exercise. Mix it up keep the dog guessing. Sure others will have some thoughts but that is just a start to get you thinking.

Thanks everybody for your thoughts. Ptolomy you well know that I did "retire" her from walking but then when I found out she had stacked on the weight again I had to do something drastic to try and get it back off. My concern is without the walks I can't get her in adequate condition to trial. She certainly needs to improve her fitness if I want to chase down some of those top scores I know she is more than capable of achieving. So its a bit of a catch 22 sure I could stop walking her and just have training sessions but she manages to stack on weight if we just do that (doing that I managed to put 1.4 kgs on her!!!!!) As LP said I don't know if part of my worry is that yes I have nothing to "replace" in a loose sense her when she can no longer trial. I don't and am not able to get a pup at the moment so once Ness is finished there is no more. Everybody says dogs should love there walks and but for Ness its really like pulling teeth BIG TIME.

No haven't had blood taken. Nothing has happened recently on walks to scare her. She is getting raw chicken necks/wings/drumsticks and whatever I use as training treats on a daily basis - so roast meat, chorizo sausage, schnitzel, tinned tuna. She also gets a teaspoon of yoghurt a day with her joint guard and fish oil capsules. Oh and a few raw carrots every now and then for good measure.

My answer is spelled from what though. She worked her best obedience round in ages last night. The past two weeks at agility she has been absolutely firing (tonight was a completely different kettle of fish). I mean I caught up with bridgie_cat on Friday and even then she was chasing her ball fine and driving through the weavers. Sure her obedience was a bit lack luster but that was probably a result of the agility first. I just don't understand. I mean she is absolutely buggered after a walk to the local park. We did a half hour walk around the streets this morning and she came home had a huge drink and went back to bed. Its almost as though she couldn't give a toss. Bring out a treat and she will work or get to the evening and she can be full on but forget it the rest of the time. I was chatting to some people and said Ness puts herself to bed at 7pm and you won't get a peep out of her until whenever you get up the next morning. She spends most of the day asleep so you would think she would be full of beans on a walk but nope. The only way I can get her to exercise is to stick her on a leash and force her to walk. If I take the leash off she just stops on the track or doesn't want to continue or tries to go home.

Following on from the thread on participating in multiple activities I thought I would pose another topic which is weighing heavily on my mind - that topic being when and what do you factor in your decisions on retiring a dog from a particular activity and when you retire them is it a gradual process or do you stop doing everything. I have a just turned 7 year old BC girl and I am continually having various thoughts on whether I retire her at the end of the year. I just don't know she enjoys training and trialling and learning new things, has been given a complete clean bill of health by the vet (and is structurally sound still - recently been to the chiro) BUT appears to struggle even on a walk to the park so I wonder if its unfair to continue to trial her. She complains bitterly till you take her and then just wants to perpetually hunt for food and if she isn't doing that she just isn't interested. She lies at the gate sulking and refuses to budge. She might chase her ball half a dozen times and then she will just lie back at the gate of the oval waiting to get to the other park and will act like a devil when you put her on lead to go back home. About the only thing she reserves any enthusiasm for is barking at things walking past the front but even then that is pretty limited. Mostly she spends the day sleeping somewhere or another. She isn't seriously overweight and certainly less than she was now since I have dropped a kilo off her (she was topping out at 18.6 but is now back down to 17.6). Still a bit to get off but nothing drastic and its coming off at a steady rate. She is my first and ONLY dog and first competition dog so I haven't been faced with this prospect before. She still has nights were she works an absolute dream (like last night's UD ring session). However I am concerned that she just doesn't seem to care about the rest of life. She is still enthusiastic enough to train but just hates walks. She would be the only dog in the world who would consider being forced to go for a walk on leash as punishment. In her slightly younger days she would run at least 8km a day sometimes twice a day. I guess I am concerned that I am looking through the fact she likes training with rose coloured glasses because that is what I want to see rather then that is what she is exhibiting. So any of you seasoned campaigners who have been through this before care to shed any light on what you use in making a decision to retire a dog.

yes very wishful thinking as that would mean adding the lotto gods to your list of weekly gods which need SORTING and bribing and pleading with. Sorry if you added them then when would you have time to answer my questions . Although hmmm there is a thought heavily reinforce the lotto gods for a few weeks forget the others as then when you win you would have plenty of time for the other gods . I want to try tracking but its too difficult to get involved with. I had arranged to go to a training day last year I think it was before I came for my holiday in Perth and then I got carried away with this UD training (wonder who's fault that was ). ETA. I do actually remember you saying you had entered I just forgot.

Hey yep the phone a friend option will get you there as well or so I am discovering . But need to arrange a few guru visits as well (and I promise to send them back again - maybe!!!). But yep WA ROCKS . Do tell me though if you can't have to many fingers in the pie ptolomy why are are certain few duck dogs NOT doing retrieving given you have retrieving gurus in your state as well or are you saving that for later (when you have time ).

Ptolomy maybe thats just where you are and the fact you are on subsequent dogs so know what your doing (don't remind me that WA is ahead of the times ). Here still the deal seems to be you train your novice first till you get that title then your allowed to dabble with CDX (and people finally start talking to you and not totally ignoring you) and finally if you manage to crack your CDX title you are welcomed into the big league and allowed to attempt training for UD (BY YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with little in the way of assistance). If you can live through all the snide comments that get thrown your way in the process of training for UD and get to the stage of actually entering a trial then maybe people might start thinking you know what your on about .

Like everybody has already mentioned I think the main issue is the time required and what level of performance you desire. I do both agility and obedience as well as dabble in canine freestyle (which basically means throw a routine together the week or so before a demo ). We don't do half badly most of the time.

Hey Erin, Maybe another route before you get the x-rays might be to try a good dog chiro/muscle manipulater. It might be simply the case of something having gone a miss due to the rough and tumble play of being a puppy and can quite simply be fixed. Likely a cheaper route before opting for x-rays. I know one of my friends dogs started sitting scew wiff and it was able to be fixed quiet easily by a chiro.

You are a super human trust me . Yep you obviously have this planning thing down to a fine art - although we had a training session on Monday with a friend and we were all done in about 30 minutes and thought we really need a few more dogs. Well ok I thought that. Yes then you have to factor in all the appointments. You said nervous breakdown day was Thursday but see even that needs to be planned and its probably only Friday now since you won't be doing any training . But once Beans, Scoota and Lara are finished there is Lexi . But then you'll have so much time on your hands you won't know what to do LOL.

Helen, I always wonder that as well. I was having a chat to Ptolomy about the fact I got so nervous at trials and then made a comment the reason she never does is with that many dogs you don't get a chance to think about it . I honestly don't know how she does it. All her dogs are super top class workers - not only in obedience but agility as you can see from all there titles (with the occasional show for good measure). Not only does she find the time to work full time, run a boarding kennel and train her dogs but answer my endless stream of questions and helps me with my training. The only thing I can think of is she is some super human and has managed to find an extra 5-6 hours in every day .

Oh no do ask leopuppy her ambitions - she told me a few weeks ago . Ness's ambitions for the next 12 months are finishing off her JDO, SD, ADO maybe, JDM (wishful thinking but we are now over the half way point ), ADM BUT.............................. more importantly a 190 score in Open and even more important entering her first UD trial . The 190 in Open might come if her bad handler got her act together and didn't leave the poor girl having to second guess me all the time . ETA. And contrary to what Leopuppy said I don't believe I have set the bar that high at all

Ness: Lochness CDX ADX JDX SPD GD (3/5 JDO, 1/3 SD, 1/7 ADM, 4/7 JDM)

Alternatively a good chiro/muscle person might be a wise move. Might have tweaked something and need it put back into place. Vets on the whole tend to only prescribe a bunch of anti-inflamatories and rest in circumstances like this and then tell you to come back if the problem isn't sorted.

Not sure if it will help the tendency to roam or not - but I guess if you work on more mental activity of which agility is part mental and part physical they are less likely to roam as they are more content to sleep. So yes I think you are on the right track having said that I have a houdini who gets umpteen amounts of training - training for utility and does agility and she still escapes given half a chance.

I just looked up the Southern River website. http://www.agilitydogclub.org/ Yep they train agility - a foundation class on Monday evenings with concentrates on focus, targetting, reliable recall, reliable stays, tugging and heeling on both the right and the left and once you complete that proper agility on Thursday evenings. ETA. I would still probably recommend ACWA.

Hi Joelle, Nope never to old to train agility. Agility Dog Club of WA train on a Tuesday evening at the canine grounds. They have an excellent foundation agility program. http://www.agilityclubwa.com/ I don't think you have to have completed an obedience course before. I think Southern River also train at CAWA but stand to be corrected as I don't know. I do think though that ACWA is a very good club and the people are very friendly.

Sometimes its honestly just not worth fussing the dog for the perfect position in the ring. My instructor said to me once quit fluffing around with it and get on with the exercise. I was watching a few trial videos and yep when I started stuffing around with asking for a perfect sit or whatever in the trial and made Ness move she started to drop drive. Now I ask her to set up if its not perfect so what - training is the time to work on that and getting her to set up square at the start. It will ultimately cost me points in the ring but then it also might save me from blowing an exercise since the dog gets stick of the mucking around.

Ness Music Video:

Oh you tease Ptolomy - you know I am so jealous of the guru seminar. As for Ness's performance at the Royal she exceeded my expectations quite honestly. Apart from a minor hiccup on the retrieve over the jump and hindsight is wonderful as I should have thrown it the other direction she performed the exercises at least as well if not better then she has at any normal trial. Especially with a handler who was struggling to stay upright and get commands out due to nerves. Here are the video links to the exercises: Heel Free - (22/30) Good SFE - (20/20) Lovely DOR - (27/30) Lovely retrieve on the flat - (19/20) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkWom27Ng_Q Retrieve over the solid - O!!!!!! Great change of positions - (19/20) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1_UYYMnZA Honestly she was on really early and there were so many people watching and you could barely remain focussed as a handler with all the clapping. Considering most of the time they started clapping just as the dog was completing the exercise it would have been easy for the present/fronts and finishes to all go a miss but Ness was a solid little trooper and completed for the most part to the best of her ability and then some. The ring that was used is used as the conformation preparation area so there are lots of dogs peeing and a lot of the even very experienced dogs didn't get through so I was very happy if not a little dissappointed. Hell though for what she got through she only lost 13 marks which considering the environment is an achievement in itself. You couldn't even walk to the ring without having to get through bumper to bumper people so for Ness to remain focussed and switched on was fantastic. As Ptolomy said she did well and in fact the watching the video nearly had me in tears - she just didn't do well she did BLOODY BRILLIANTLY :rolleyes: . Thanks for your support Ptolomy as without it we probably wouldn't have bothered entering and I wouldn't have had a chance to see how far we have come.

:rolleyes: yes ok jealous of your kids On button. Yeah Ness's problem is me not her. Really its not as bad as it seems so long as I don't take off at a million miles an hour. We have been doing lots of just setting up at the start peg and rewarding or start peg and a few steps into a reward. It never happens when I train at the park despite the huge number of distractions.

Signs of stress - usually there is only one stressed partner in our pair and its NOT the dog :rolleyes: . No seriously inattention at the start peg and the usual sniffing.

Yes the ever reliable dependable Lara :rolleyes: . I agree she would probably say give it at least another year mum. Your others aren't that bad either . Agility well its kind of indoors - they put up a huge tent over a usually outdoor grass area roughly enough for 2 conformation rings. I guess the area is about the size of a tennis court possibly. So yes its grass but run indoors. The conformation dogs run around on it during the day and then they run the agility on it on one evening (which happens to be the Sunday this year) and the Jumping on a separate evening (the Wednesday). Ends up being a huge mud bowl by the end of the week. Oh well I am tempted to turn Ness into a floor rug and just use my entry pass to go and watch the BC breed judging rather than trial after a horrible session where she pushed all my buttons. Lazy working dog.

Ptolomy Nervous NEVER . She is pretty cool calm and collected to me even when running off for the best dog at the States. Me on the other hand bloody NERVOUS .