Kavik

Sending you well wishes for Mandela and hope you can find the cause of the problem soon It is stressful dealing with health issues when you don't know what they are or how to fix it I actually think that Diesel's health issues have damaged our bond and been part of the reason I have problems with training him, as I am always worried about his health.

Blacktown Dog Grounds, 20 June http://www.adacagility.com/calendar.htm

And I did the same thing and it went pear shaped and I now have a dog aggressive dog who does not like ANY dogs and who I cannot take places, train or compete with :rolleyes: I hope you never have to learn this the way I did, I would not wish it on anyone.

Bumping this for you. Sorry I'm not much help, Kaos is tall and always in the tallest height category so not something I have to think about :rolleyes: Are you in Sydney? If so I am going to the June ADAC comp as well

I have seen MANY dogs act differently at a trial than at training. Including mine. Dogs react differently when you are nervous and stressed and at a trial you WILL BE! I want my dog to have a clear understanding and a good reliable performance on the equipment before I trial on it. That is why, a year after I entered him in Jumping, we are still not entering Agility as our contact obstacle performance is not what I would like yet. After the Ronda Carter seminar I went to (who said that contacts in Australia need a lot of work ) I know people more experienced than me who are pulling their dogs out of Agility for a few months to fix issues with their contacts. I have a keen, fast dog who has loads of potential, and I don't want to wreck that by entering him before we are ready. Maybe you are different and are not interested in getting to top levels, but I am :rolleyes: I saw someone at a trial a few months ago, with a dog that was not ready. The dog ran around most of the jumps, and avoided all the contact obstacles, and the owner kept trying to get the dog to do it in the ring. Not only would this be highly embarrassing for the owner, but not a good ring experience for the dog either. If you are determined to enter your dog, I would recommend getting your feet wet in Jumping first, still very challenging handling wise, and you can get a feel of a course while still not requiring the dog to do the more difficult contact equipment. I started with ADAC Jumping, a good way to start with only simple jumps and open tunnels, no complicated equipment.

I think he has been scratching less. Skin still looks icky and smells though. Will do a Malaseb bath this weekend and see how that goes. Think I have stabilised his weight.

Hey I wonder if ours are related I am having the same problems with Diesel, my GSD who is 5 years old. He has had skin problems for several years (if you search under skin problems in this section, mine will likely come up) and I have problems keeping weight on him too. At the moment I feed him about 5 times as much food as Kaos, who is about 10 or so kgs lighter and much more active than Diesel. We had blood tests done recently to check liver, pancreas etc and all came back clear, so still not sure what the problem is. I have increased his food and he is looking better this week. He is on antihistamines and antibiotics and seems to be scratching less ETA: Here is my skin problem thread: http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...hl=skin+problem

You don't have to go to classes to train him Most training is done at home anyway, classes are only to show you how to do it, so you can get help with any problems and to have distractions. Also doesn't have to be anything formal - tricks are lots of fun

I agree with poodlefan. Is there a particular place/time/type of equipment that you work with when he starts sniffing? Is there possibly food on the ground? (our last trial, Kaos took off after the tunnel and sniffed for what seemed like ages - he doesn't normally do that - turns out there was food on the ground! I got his attention back though and we finished) Zoe used to sniff for ages around the table - no idea why - I think maybe because this club had carpet like material on the top of the table and it probably smelt really nice! I would not correct and certainly would not scruff for sniffing in agility. Maybe go back to basics and built up more value for the obstacles. Have you seen Susan Garrett's One Jump DVD? Explains building value for obstacles well. If they are keen on agility it is unlikely they will sniff at training.

I don't want my dog to be in the middle of boisterous dogs snapping and growling. That means they are uncomfortable with that situation. If they are uncomfortable, things may escalate. So every dog Penny has snapped at backs off? They don't continue to try to play with her? None of them try to hump her? None of them take offence and tell her off? Maybe the dogs you encounter are much better at reading body language than the ones I see, as I regularly see dogs bouncing all over others when the other one has clearly shown it is not appreciated.

Ooh was Boyd there? Haven't seen him in ages.

We have our ADAC Novice Jumping Title Just need to submit paperwork for it tomorrow, and off for open! I am hoping to have our contacts going well in the next couple of months so we can enter agility events and not just jumping Still deciding whether I am mad enough to enter Diesel in obedience, given his unreliable performance and ongoing health problems.

I think you should be right to keep him quiet and wait til tomorrow. When Diesel broke his leg he would not do ANYTHING, was very flat (understandably!) He is my poor accident prone sooky boy.

Diesel has a tendency to mouth the target I have with a ball on the end too. Maybe try clicking early, before she is in contact with the ball, and shape the touch from there, so she doesn't get a chance to mouth it.

What a run of bad luck for you and Mandela Has he gone to the toilet? Will he eat and drink? When Diesel broke his leg, he wouldn't go to the toilet or eat or drink. The noise he made too when it broke was awful I understand avoiding the emergency vets - only gone there once with my own dog when Zoe was attacked - also VERY expensive. As long as you can keep him reasonable comfortable and he is not in immediate danger and you can get him there in the morning I think you should be OK.

So what would she do if her air snapping DIDN'T buy her space? If the dog continued to get in her face, jump on her, body slam her, hump her, annoy her? From experience, this does happen at parks. Diesel is fairly non confrontational and will avoid a dog he is unsure about, but sometimes those dogs continue to annoy him dispite him giving off pretty obvious signals that he is not interested in interacting with them. If he is not interested in interacting with them, I move away so that I don't risk something happening. Also have come across dogs who just come up and stand over yours, hackles up, confrontational body language, even if my dog has done nothing. Now maybe your dog will put up with a dog standing over it, but some of mine will NOT, and do NOT like being so challenged. I will not take the risk of a fight because another dog wants to stand over mine and cause an issue. (one of these times the owner told me their dog just wanted to play! I don't think so!) Also, I would not want my dog to learn to air snap at other dogs, as my experience has shown that this snapping can lead to aggression from my dog. Maybe my dogs are more 'wired' than yours, but this does not seem to me to be a good thing for them to learn at all.

Well at least it's Diesel and not Zoe, he really likes Diesel (Diesel is his favourite and is reciprocated) so that helps a bit

I'm glad you had a good time - agility is so much fun! I am not teaching left and right voice cues. Actually I am finding I am saying less and less to my dog on course as time goes by - don't have time

Poodle or Mini Schnauzer

Yeah I would suggest shows and trials as well :rolleyes: That is what I will be doing.

I am not going to bother with puppy class with my next dog. What about a SchH club or obedience club with a more open mind than puppy class?

We had to do a sequence last night with a send dog in right side of tunnel from left side and Kaos wouldn't do it :cool: More work to do

LOL @ sas He was not impressed. Then he asked what we found out and what the benefit was and where we go from here.

Lots of the differences I see are in what we expect of animals. You would never expect a social wild animal to be able to mingle with strange members of a group they didn't know. You wouldn't expect a wild animal to perform in the way we expect dogs to perform in sports and in jobs. You wouldn't expect a wild animal to tolerate the city life and people patting it, kids hugging it etc the way you expect a dog to. So with training and learning, while you can draw some parallels, there are some things which are very different.

I think what you are saying in this is that you think you were too hard on Penny and this caused problems with her trust in you and you don't want to damage another dog's trust? Which is fair enough. But I don't see how letting your dogs sort out interdog issues comes into it.