Kavik

Most dogs will do well on a variety of diets, unless they have a specific problem or dietary need it is mostly owner preference and experimenting to see what works. I have three dogs on dry food diets (one with renal failure on a special diet) and one on a homemade diet (who had his spleen removed). Personally I find the homemade diet to be a PITA and wish I could just feed him dry food instead (the vet recommended a dry food which was very expensive, couldn't put him back on the same food as the others, so I opted for homemade). Every circumstance is different.

This is what I do when there are down time periods in classes (I do agility). I do one of two things 1) I do engagement activities - active fun little games or exercises where we run and interact, some body awareness stuff - I use a high rate of reinforcement for these, use lots of food as my competition dog doesn't tug at training. High food drive is fantastic - I say use it! :) 2) Put my dog in a crate so he can relax and have some down time before our next turn. It is mentally taxing for them to be out the whole time, there is a lot going on. I don't want him to use up all his mental energy being silly and excited just because it is an exciting place. If I am not working him soon, I would rather him relax so that he is ready to concentrate when it is our turn again.

He looks a good weight from the photos.

That is really interesting Vickie, about the drive work for agility affecting sheep work. Does it go the other way too, does the sheep work impact on the agility? I haven't done enough sheep work with mine to know.

Thanks for all the well wishes :) Zoe has very high food drive so I'm sure she will eat the food fine :) She also has some dermatitis so we're trying to work that out too - need to bring her in for skin scraping to rule out demodex (she had it as a puppy).

Wow Cassie! He is nearly as big as Diesel already! Nitro is probably around 10kg :laugh:

Ellis and Balabanov are similar, SG uses toys quite differently IMO. Things like how toys are handled/manipulated/placed, and also how they are talked about and thought about. Also Ellis uses luring, SG uses shaping.

Actually, SG is really big on ranking reinforcers. One of the first things you have to do in Recallers is rank what your dog finds reinforcing (including environmental reinforcers), and she includes ranking types of food and types of toys. In some exercises she wants you to use a low and high ranking food reward in the same exercise (Crate Games and some Recallers games), and others toy rewards of different ranking. I do tend to rank toys (as my dogs definitely have toy preferences, though I am working on that, and Nitro will play with a wide variety of toys), I don't tend to rank food as much, apart from moist treats having more value than kibble, and I will use moist treats in high distraction environments.

When I think of TID I think of methodologies like Steve's or Michael Ellis or other people coming from a Schutzhund/obedience perspective. SG, while she does talk about drive, she mostly talks about arousal levels, and relationship building. In the same session/exercise she will switch between food and toys (eg start the session with tugging for relationship building/drive building (getting arousal levels up), then go to food for shaping, then back to tugging for a balance break or relationship building to end the session), from what I understand of TID they don't tend to do that.

At the moment, all of my dogs are being fed different food! What a nightmare! Diesel is on a homemade raw diet, with no bones because he had his spleen removed and stomach tacked. I find that it is time consuming, having to portion overything out and make the vegies and rice etc. Kaos is on Advance (also gets chicken wings), Nitro is on Advance puppy, Zoe has just been diagnosed with failing kidneys so is on a special renal dry food.

Actually I would say that Training in Drive is a term for a specific way of training using drive. While I use drive (both food and prey) in my training, most of my training would not come under the specific methodology of training in drive from how I understand it (some of it would). There are many ways to use food and toys in training, there is not only one right way.

If you use a halti you should introduce it very slowly - I think there are some videos on YouTube on the best way to introduce them - from memory teach them to stick their nose through the nosepiece for food first, don't just stick it on them :)

The vet didn't mention fortekor, I'll look into it.

Zoe has been diagnosed with failing kidney function I've just put her on a special renal diet. Any other experiences with this, how did they cope etc. So far she is still bright, going for walks, chasing a ball etc.

Our most recent training video - working on walking backwards! Clever puppy!

I agree with corvus, Training in Drive to me refers to a specific way of training using drive, and is often associated with certain disciplines, I think of Schutzhund and obedience when thinking of TID.

Have you contacted DOL member Lablover? From memory she breeds working line Labs.

Kaos is on the Sporting Register, Diesel is Associate (though I never ended up competing with him), Zoe is not registered. Nitro will be Sporting Registered as well when I get his pedigree and get around to doing the paperwork.

Yes you can compete if you are an associate member (I have associate membership), you just can't vote.

I found out about it on Facebook, but not sure if they have set up a page specifically for the pups. I'll find out.

Yes police were informed.

What sort of creative can you do on a Schnauzer?! I understand that a lot of the regular grooming classes a lot of groomers borrow dogs from breeders/friends/clients etc. But do people really borrow Standard and other size Poodles and Bichons etc for creative competition? Yep they do borrow dogs! I know someone who is doing creative competitions and can't use her own dogs (she breeds working Kelpies lol not much you can do with a Kelpie for creative grooming!) and so she is borrowing dogs from other people for the competitions.

Thanks guys. The owner has placed a note that they are stolen on their microchips as well.

STOLEN: 3 blue Amstaff puppies, 9 weeks old, from western Sydney. Microchipped. Please keep your eyes open for these guys!

I do the two toy thing (toy swap lol) with my puppy to get him used to playing with different types of toys and to play with the toy I have but never even thought about using it to teach the out cue! That is a great idea! I'll give it a go