Kavik

At the moment feeding Advance along with chicken frames or chicken wings. They have also done pretty well on Pro Plan, but local store doesn't stock it. Despite all the hype around Eagle Pack, didn't find it was that great for my guys. The Kelpies were fine on Supercoat but it didn't agree with Diesel who has skin issues and LOTs of poos.

My guess (may well be wrong) is that you have to do the around the back finish (as opposed to flip/swing/military finish) after the recall (call front)

It would be great if you could keep us informed of when he is coming That would be a very interesting seminar to go to.

What about SAR dogs Midol? I went to the SAR seminar held by K9 Force and SAR people from this board - it was awesome If the SAR teams are civilians, do you classify them as working? Racing Greyhounds (if you don't think racing horses are)?

Have you tried delaying throwing the toy so you can see if the dog understands the verbal command? Give the command and if the dog runs forward then throw toy. If you don't have good forward focus from a stationary position yet you could try from a restrained position such as holding the collar and then let go when you give your send command (I do this sometimes with Zoe and Diesel. Kaos now has pretty good forward focus )

Not sure if this is what you mean? I have taught a send on the flat "GO!" by getting him to focus forward and then throwing the toy, then only throwing toy when he responds to voice command. I have also done this with a straight line of jumps. I have also done a send where the toy or food is at the end of the jumps, or a distance away on the flat. I have done a bit with an "OUT" command to do a jump that is a distance to the right or left.

OK sounds fair But what are the parameters? Bit muddy? Drive? Duration? Does handler have to be doing it as a living? What about SAR dogs owned/handled by civilians?

I think Midol is talking precisely about what IS hardwired into the dog, and work being something that tests that ability. Obviously for Kelpies and BCs this is herding. I don't think he is talking work/play but working with the dog's instincts, testing for what it is bred for. Because you can't test for herding ability in obedience, it is not work under this definition.

I think Midol is talking about the use of instincts/drive and suitable 'working ability' in the task they were bred for. Which obedience doesn't test per se. However I do feel that to do well in obedience competition, get to high levels and be a happy 'showy' type worker in the ring, that the dog needs a decent level of some sort of usable drive, as the exercsises themselves are not self rewarding (which many other activities which utilise drive can be fordogs).

Just so you know (if you haven't been told already at seminars), apparently Australians commonly call the left about turn a "pivot turn". Any tips on doing it right/well... regardless of what it's called? That's a different turn altogether. The left About Turn has handler doing a U turn (left turn into the dog) the dog does the about turn (right turn) Yep that's what is called the pivot turn here I think in normal obedience trials, when asked to do left about turn you can either turn into the dog and the dog has to turn on the spot/pivot or you can do the pivot turn where the handler pivots and the dog goes around.

My GSD goes through fine, he is a fairly small one though. He is rougher on the tunnels than the Kelpies, but the tunnel seems to be holding up pretty well, had it for about 2 years or so now.

I do not consider obedience 'work' in being able to determine whether the dog will be able to do what it was originally bred to do. However, competition obedience is not easy, and to do well and have a flashy working dog like some of the clips I have seen requires lots of time, dedication and a decent amount of drive in the dog. I get upset when people come in and say competition obedience is easy, when I have been working with Diesel and have not been able to get him to the point I would like to trial . IMO obedience is as difficult and valid a sport as any other you can do with a dog. I don't think getting to this level could be considered easy!

I did my best to let people know Zoe wasn't friendly, but they didn't listen :rolleyes: Unfortunately, I think if I called out "STOP!" loudly, she would have reacted. Best with her to be quiet and calm. Much easier said than done!

Steve Austin does scent detection work but not sure if he does private lessons teaching it? I have done the NDTF scent detection course a few years ago now, but didn't finish the practical assessment component :rolleyes:

I do the handful all at once when jackpotting Diesel (though most often done from a container or lid on the ground).

I taught this to Zoe I backchained it Taught her to target the basket using a clicker, and extended that to putting her head in the basket. She already knew how to hold something from retrieving in obedience (best to teach that separately if she doesn't already do that - there are heaps of threads on retrieving, hold is the first thing you teach) Then I held the article above the basket, told her to hold then her command for put head in basket, and click and she released the article so she could get her treat. Once she was doing that reliably, I put the article on the ground next to the basket, then slowly moved it further and further away from the basket til she could get it from a distance away and put it in the basket.

I go to the Saturday classes & in beginners pet dog classes we have 8 dogs per class with at least 2 instructors. The higher classes have more & sometimes have to be joined due to lack of instructors. Tuesday night training are the triallers mostly trained by an obedience judge. I haven't been to the pet dog classes, but know they are taken by Delta instructors. When I initially called Western Suburbs and explained that my dog was dog aggressive, they suggested going to the Tuesday night trialling class regardless of whether I wanted to trial or not. I would think this is because being the trialling class the dogs would be better behaved and not as exciteable and more under control which is what you want for a reactive dog.

Western Suburbs is by far the smallest club I have gone to! Only one or two classes running on a Tuesday night, maybe 20 or so people, all of which are experienced people with controlled well behaved dogs. Manly and Districts was 4 or so classes running of around 10 people, and most people were pet people with exciteable 'friendly' dogs, Northern Suburbs was at least as big as Manly and Districts, if not bigger. I can't think of a club that is smaller.

Kaos is the one going great guns at the moment

I wish she was coming to Sydney OT but when is the SchH trial in May? and where is it being held?

Click to Calm: Healing the Aggressive Dog by Emma Parsons

Just searching for fun stuff to watch and found this - pretty cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crmD_B8ERzk

If I had my time with Zoe over again I would do a lot of things differently to address her dog aggression One of these would be my approach to group obedience lessons, which we attended from 4 months to 4 years of age (yes I am a sucker for punishment considering she started showing aggression around 6 months of age!). What I did was to attend classes as per usual and try to give her space enough so that she wouldn't react. Didn't work as nobody listened when I told them she was aggressive, and her aggression got worse ;) What I would do if I had my time over again: Develop a strategy for dealing with this behaviour first, before going to classes, that I had previously worked on around a small number of dogs (if I decided to go to group obedience. Personally I found that she enjoyed agility a lot more!). I would talk to the instructor and tell them about her problems and work on the periphery of classes working with the strategy for keeping attention that I had previously perfected in a less distracting environment. Once I had my dog to the point where we could walk around the environment at a distance from other dogs with mine being relaxed and not reacting, maybe I would join the class at a distance for a short period (not the whole hour class). Obviously this would require an understanding club who is not too rigid in the way they run things. I would recommend Western Suburbs obedience for this as they are quite flexible and I found them understanding of my problems with Zoe. They have small class sizes and most of the dogs and handlers are very experienced triallers so the dogs are well under control and not overly excited.

We had another clear round in ADAC Novice Jumping and a qually! Bit messier this time - missed a rear cross (he came back to me confused, so I did a front cross then) but we got there in the end! Came third place this time.

Thanks Midol, I'd love to have a look The ones I am most interested in is the positive retrieving one, competition tracking, and competition heeling dog (have watched it but a while ago). He does seem to be harder on dogs than I would do, but I also don't have hard working line dogs nor am I training for bitework. Nor do I have that type of personality. I know he is not the first to do the food spitting thing, but it is the first I saw of it I wouldn't mind seeing the Balabanov DVDs either. If you combine that with the agiltiy DVDs I would like, gees I want a whole library of stuff