Kavik

I'd be hesitant to suggest that Kelpie's aren't also on this slope - there is already a massive difference between working Kelpies and bench Kelpies. They just haven't become popular with performance people......not to say they aren't great agility dogs, just that they aren't as popular as BC's seem to have become. Oh, I think they are on the slope but I am hoping it's a very shallow one - there is something about their temperaments I think that doesn't click with performance people quite as much as the BCS - bit less biddable perhaps? They can be quite independent thinkers and not so interested in what the handler thinks! But performance people aren't trying to breed their own performance strain, they just choose from what is already available in the working strain. And I hope that continues. I can see why the BCs are more popular! Met a friend's BC puppy yesterday - so much more biddable and longer training attention span than my Kelpies! :laugh:

I don't want my dogs creating movement for the hell of it. If the sheep don't need to be moved anywhere and they are together, I don't expect my dog to do anything, I certainly don't want them to make the sheep move unnecessarily. I have a bitch who has some show lines behind her and that is what she wants to do. Works beautifully, nice and calm, very useful dog. But can't handle the lack of movement. She has a reliable stop but doesn't have the patience to wait for longer periods or just watch calmly. She has to create movement. It is not a useful attribute for a border collie to have IMHO. In agility, the dogs should never be trying to create movement in the handler. Nipping, jumping up etc is frustration because the handler is not giving the correct information or not giving it in a timely fashion. I am seeing it a lot at the moment with people trying to throw in fancy moves when they are not required or not even suitable for that situation. Dogs are asking lots of questions and getting inconsistent answers. I have an awesome dog who is just too much dog for me. I gave him to Tailwag to start running about a year ago now. I frustrated the hell out of him as my cues were poorly timed or inconsistent. He was forever barking at me, launching himself at me, and even went in for a nip sometimes. He reached a point where he was second guessing me even when my cues were spot on. I was worried he would hurt me and that made me handle him too conservatively which made the problem worse. Tailwag just gets out there and runs, he much prefers that and they are starting to gel nicely now. Does Tailwag want a go at a Kelpie :laugh:

Yes I was going to say I think it is pressure related - some dogs are more sensitive to pressure and naturally a bit wider.

Akitas would have as much coat as a GSD, and they are not as trainable as a GSD :)

German Shepherds shed A LOT :laugh: But they do fit your other criteria :)

I've even seen GSDs being used to portray wolves. Funny! :laugh: Me too! The least they could do is pick something that looks vaguely realistic and wolf like :laugh:

How is he with having his collar touched/grabbed? A lot of dogs are not comfortable with their collar being grabbed or being picked up. You can get him used to this and then he shouldn't scurry away.

Not only is the domestic dog not a wolf (so much artificial selection for our breeds, they do not act like wolves! Wolf packs are family units/groups and are not usually friendly with random strange wolves they come across), a lot of the research on wolf packs was done on captive wolves thrown in together and now has been debunked.

I didn't realise liver (brown) was rare in greyhounds! I thought with all this hoohaa that it must be a dilute of some sort :laugh:

What is dun genetically? Dilute brown?

I think she is opening H360 again soon? There was a survey floating around recently from her, so my guess is she is getting ready to open it again. Alternatively, Shape Up Agility (Justine Davenport and Jessica Patterson) who are also based in Canada, run online courses as well. It is the same handling system as H360(They train with Susan, and run seminars at her facility), the main difference that I can tell is that there is not quite so much intricate detail, and they use some different verbal cues, but it is essentially the same. http://www.shapeupagility.com/online-lessons

That's not a bad idea :laugh: This handling system uses a lot more verbals than my last one did and it is taking a while to get used to! :laugh: And it's not an age thing either - heaps of younger folk tell me they have the same problem and I tell them the same thing. It's a bloody sight easier than running I'm not sure that it's easier than running :laugh: but I think it should help give clearer information about where we are going and prevent a lot of confusion and incorrect obstacle choices/directions especially with a dog that may lock onto obstacles quickly

That's not a bad idea :laugh: This handling system uses a lot more verbals than my last one did and it is taking a while to get used to! :laugh:

I've taught left and right spins on verbal but I haven't decided whether I am going to transfer that to equipment or just leave it as spins.

I've had the odd scuffle - normally when the dogs get overexcited, or over a resource. They have been almost all noise - no injuries that needed vet attention, at most a small tooth mark on the nose from being told off. Even when I had Zoe who was dog aggressive and also a resource guarder there were no serious incidents.

holy cow...how do you get the dog at e.g. 0:53 to ignore the first tunnel and take the other one? Do you mean Kris with Jive? That's an easy one :laugh: Just lots of driving forward and handler motion. Check this one out of Katie with Nakita - taking the least obvious end of the tunnel at 0:15. We give a turn cue for the previous jump (tis tis - so the dog knows to collect their stride towards us) followed by a threadle arm (verbal is a drawn out "come") which means take the opposite side of the obstacle that you're approaching. If she had said "jump" the dog would have taken the jump in full extension and been in the wrong end of the tunnel before she could say anything. What a great video - they are an awesome team! How many threadles did she do? :laugh:

Dogs like the repeated sounds :) I don't have as many as TSD: check check check - wrap jump nanana nanana - wrap backside of jump lala lala lala - backside of jump digadiga - sprinkler/general turn

I thought check check was front side wraps and nanana was for backside wraps?

on cues: Some of our confusion and barking is surrounding our PNU/traffic cone tight turns (and when I try them on jumps, so I am now going back to traffic cones til I fix it). Currently using both check check check and nanana nanana nanana on traffic cones. I am thinking of maybe dropping the backside wrap cue and only have one general backside of jump cue, and keep check check check for traffic cones/front side wraps. I want to make things very clear for Nitro and I am wondering if having 2 cues for the same behaviour which then become cues for different behaviours on jumps may be confusing him.

A threadle then :) I am really looking forward to teaching Nitro the new threadle :) I think it will make things so much clearer to the dogs to separate the cues for "come off the obvious plane/entry and take the non-obvious one" (threadles) and "come with me instead of taking the obstacle that is staring you in the face" (now flappy tappy/wit wit wit etc) :laugh: I don't think it was as clear for Kaos, running under Derrett handling where threadles had the same handling as pulling them off obstacles/false turns. I could see that he sometimes still had questions.

Yeah FF = Focus Forward. I'm finding a strong background of IYC is helping a lot with that, and Nitro is picking it up quicker than Kaos did :)

Yes I will need to do work on that as well. Decel caused lots of issues with Kaos, we got lots of refusals for a long time as he would stop in front of a jump when I decelled :laugh: . Verbals for our tight turns fixed that.

Basically I want him to be able to sit next to me, for me to be able to leave him in a sit and lead out, him to look at the obstacle (focus forward), then send to the obstacle. And he was confused about what to do.

Yeah I figured the only ones likely to understand what I wrote were MRB and TSD as we all follow Susan Garrett! :laugh:

My problem was that Nitro was barking and bouncing when I left him in a stationary position and when I was sending him to do an obstacle, so he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be staying in/following RZ or not. So I worked RZ cue and release from RZ to a treat, and sit in RZ, I take a step and cue RZ. (my RZ is not anywhere near as pretty as SG's :laugh: ) Value for obstacles and crate. Including verbals. When in RZ in front of crate or obstacle, I then wait for FF to release to crate or obstacle. This is what was giving me grief before I did this remedial training, and where he would bark and bounce.