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Kavik

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Everything posted by Kavik

  1. As Vickie said, many tricks can be taught in a short amount of time, and several of these can be very useful in agility later on :D These include hand touches, targetting (both nose and paw), rear end awareness, and sending the dog to a food or toy reward, later sending the dog forward on command without being able to see the reward. Many of the things I teach my dog for agility does not require any agility equipment at all. Shaping is a great way to teach tricks, as the dog learns to work out itself what is wanted with your input, but you need a lot of patience as it is frustrating at the beginning until the dog works out how the game is played.
  2. Who have you seen regarding walking on lead? A reputable trainer should definitely be able to help you with that, it is a very common question that they would see all the time. What did the people you see recommend? Did you follow their instructions?
  3. I think some one on one lessons would be beneficial for you to get the lead walking under control. Any dog can be trained to walk well on lead, you just need to know a good technique. That is where someone showing you and watching you and helping you can be very helpful. Equipment like harnesses, haltis and correction collars can help you to teach the dog to walk well, but technique is more important the the equipment you put on the dog. I still think tricks would fill the gap that you would like to fill with your dog better than agility Tricks are a lot of fun too!
  4. I would say the important obedience commands needed for agility are a sit, stand or drop stay (for start line stays), recall (doesn't have to be a formal one where you leave the dog and call to you, more a practical one where they will come back from distractions) and a drop stay for the table. Many agility people do not go to formal obedience classes. In Sydney some agility clubs which are attached to an obedience club require you to be at a certain level of their club's obedience before letting you do agility, but there are also agility only clubs which do not have this requirement. Not sure what the clubs are like in Vic. It is great that your dog is excited by a tug That is good for agility and flyball. Maybe someone from Vic will come in here and give you suggestions for clubs, sounds like you have the obedience requirements to me There is also foundation work for agility you can do without equipment or a club that will make it easier to do the handling once you get to a club and use equipment. If you search foundation agility on here you should come up with some.
  5. I agree with poodlefan if you actually want to use obstacles. Some obedience and certainly off lead control and recall is necessary for agility. If not trained properly, some of the equipment can cause injury or fear. Some self control is also necessary and important in a pet as well. More training on basics will help with walking and leash manners as well. You can use walks as a training time, not just exercise you can build up the amount of work the dog does before he gets the reward. There are lots of tricks you can teach if your aim is simply to do something other than walking, that do not require equipment like agility does. Clicker training is a great method for training tricks, and can be very useful for agility as well. Teaching a dog to target your hand or other things is fun, easy and useful, and I think there is a trick section of this forum as well? that has ideas for tricks you can train.
  6. How do they compare to German Spitzes? Are they known for being as vocal? How do they compare to other spitzes for training?
  7. OK my question is not about stays but it is about CCD In agility I am having an issue of Kaos running off, and what I am going to do is to disqualify myself (telling the judge beforehand) and make up a small sequence that we can do so I can end on a good note before he runs off. Is it at all possible to do a similar thing in obedience? Say if you are having motivation or stress problems or something, is it possible to go out there, disqualify yourself and tell the judge, and have the judge call a small amount of heeling, and then finish? Or would that be exceedingly rude? If you told them beforehand, could you do a different exercise?
  8. Kaos has baulked at a few different chutes as they were a different shaped opening to the one he had trained on before - he had practiced on barrel opening and these were kennel style shaped opening (now fixed as I got to practice on those chutes in training ;) )
  9. This is one of my favourite clips - especially like how the dog is off the ground when the helper is running
  10. That is a really good point. Or one of the pounds that do good temperament testing. Some of the ones that are posted on DOL with extensive notes on their temperament testing. Some have been tested for toy and food drive. If I were to get another rescue for agility, I would either go to somewhere that does good temperament testing or take someone with me who I trust to know how to temperament test for what I want (since I would want the same as you). Ideally both. After my experience with Zoe, I would steer clear of young pups and would want as much advice from people experienced in assessing dogs as I could get.
  11. Jules Have you watched Susan Garrett's Success With One Jump? I am rewatching it now in light of my problems with Kaos, even though I don't use her handling style, many of the exercises and points she makes are valid regardless of handling style. There are some great ideas and some very good points to consider in there. The themes that I am taking out of it are: * The importance of building value for obstacles/positions * The importance of understanding - One example she brought up which is valid in this thread was an exercise she taught where one part of a pair was to teach their dog to get as of a much distance send to a pause box (drop in a box, like the table) as they could, the other person was to see how many positions they could be in and have their dog still do the pause box. She found that the dogs who had been taught to do the pause box regardless of where the handler was or what the handler was doing had a greater understanding of the exercise and would drive further and harder to the box than those who had pushed for distance. I think it is easy to get so hung up on distance in agility (I am guilty too) whereas if the dog really understands and you proof the understanding, that distance will come. * To give the dog the same picture in training that they are going to see in competition - this was in regards to where you are on a lead out with a jump, but is just as valid for any obstacle.
  12. From what I can gather, both main handling systems encourage distance and independence. However if you don't have distance you just have to go with the dog. The main differences I can see are in lead outs and things like serps/threadles, not in distance work. I'm not sure how they could allow for closer handling. How would you like a handling system to be different to the one you use? What would you like to achieve?
  13. Kaos is the first dog I have actually competed with, so there are a few transition from training to competing bugs to iron out for both of us
  14. I put in a heap of effort too, but have run into a problem in that Kaos has been running off at competitions - last time was at the start line before we even started! So I am changing what I am doing to try to fix the problem on a few different fronts. A good part of that is my confidence level at comps and how I handle differently at trials and training.
  15. I have a chronically itchy dog who has allergies. Dogs can be itchy for a variety of reasons, it would not be a good idea to give an antihistamine without knowing the cause of the problem. I would suggest your daughter take the dogs to the vet to find out what the problem is. It could be a number of things including a plant outside that is irritating them, fleas, food intolerance, allergy to plants (or just about anything else!).
  16. Another lovely looking red and tan boy - hope you find a nice agility home for him, would be great to see more Kelpies
  17. I'm not sure that the handling styles would be that different in regards to clingy dogs. I have to agree with Cosmolo - maybe you'll just have to run with them! The handling differences that I can see have to do more with turning the dog.
  18. One of the things I do with Kaos is a send where I started by standing next to him with him in a sit waiting for him to look forward then sending and throwing the toy (or you could use food). Then I would send and only throw the toy once he had already started moving forward. Once he could do it on the flat I added jumps.
  19. I'm not as game as Shell I would have pulled my dog out of the situation, taken some time to calm the dog (and me!) down and refocussed both of us and trained at the other end of the class.
  20. One person who has helped me a lot with agility training I don't think has formal qualifications (I've never asked ). Her dogs are very successful competitively and the way she showed me weave pole entries and how to begin seesaw training made sense and for the first time I have a dog that can weave and is not scared of the seesaw Sometimes for specialised training it is more important to have someone who is good at that area and understands the ins and outs of it, and can help with specifics, regardless of whether they have qualifications or not.
  21. The clicker is a tool which allows you to capture the exact moment the dog does a behaviour, like a camera taking a photo. It is very helpful for teaching complex tasks which can be broken down into small increments, and shaping the dog's behaviour teaches the dog to work out for itself the behaviour you would like. Clickers and marking behaviours is very helpful when teaching the dog to interact with objects such as targets. It is not a whole training method in itself though. Many of the simpler basic everyday commands you would want to teach a puppy (sit, drop, coming when called, stand) do not require a clicker. Many people use a clicker for some things and other methods for other commands.
  22. Hi Brad I think discussion forums operate best as a DISCUSSION, so posts read best if done as a conversation rather than a statement. There are many different views on here and occasionally things get heated but it is not often that there is a serious conflict.
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