BCNTC

you may want to train both ways and wait till she is running the full coarse, clock her times and watch for fumbling. we had Happy turning the wrong way for the longest time, her times were only in the 5 second range and she was constantly fumbling, despite that all the tests resulted in "she turns left". one day the boxloader said "ya know what? im gonna try switching sides" while the team captain was out of the room(he wouldnt let us try before) and ya know what? boom, switch the ball to the right immeditly turned her times to 4 seconds and she never fumbled again lol

hmmm I will have to see what I can do about a barrier lol, diagionaly is what I meant by turning, I will walk into them and they will back up and suddenly turn diagonaly to avoid the box. somehow I gotta figer out 2 wall type barriers as the usual(couches, tables..) they just jump over to avoid the object in the way lol

ok, how the heck do you get the dog to back up onto the box? my girls all back up on command and they are all ready for the 3rd step, but they do NOT understand backing up onto the box, as soon as they encounter the box they turn away from it..

they is a fun one to teach lol. Misty is starting step 2, mostly just because she is so antsy that I have to work specifily on holding still lol. Electra will be going to on step 3, she was easy once I finally manged to get her on the box in the first place..that first step though, she was quite postive that stepping on the box was going to kill her or something lol. Happy is on step 2, she undertstands the get on the box quite solidly, but she HATES training so I have to disguise it, I cant click or treat anything because she knows the click means training and she doesnt like treats so she will walk away. I had to play fetch with her and have her do like 20 other tricks alternating with getting on the box between fetches lol. and Rusty? well he went back to kindergarten to learn that I control the treats, not some magic dismembered arm lol

lol, I will have to try the treat in my hand thing, I have been trying to Teach Leck to shake since I got her(its always been the first thing I teach after "sit" and "stay") but leck just doesnt get it, its like it takes all her concentration to sit and stay, nevermind trying to do something else too!

lol, Moses does it the same as Electra, jumping from straight on to climb over your shoulder. my BCs on the other hand naturally go sideways lol

ok here is Happy please exuse her clicking feet, she has rediculously flat feet, it doesnt atter how short her nails are they ALWAYS sound like that..that also part of the reason I trying jumping directly to the jumping tinto my arms after having her wathc Misty, the little bit of chair training I did with her was really painful because of those claws lol, my poor legs were all scratched up and bruised horrably.

I will have a video up of Happy soon, she was far and away the easiest....I just made her watch Misty do it 3 times then I asked Happy to do it and she did lol, well the first try she didnt make it, but she clearly understood what she was trying to do, the second time she did it easy lol. Rusty I am having issues with though, he gets frusterated and stops trying..or as one trainer at a weight pull demo put it "he changes the subject" lol, he will just decide the its too high and wont even try(if he tried he would not have an issue, he's a JRT mix, he has bloody springs in his legs!) he will just start barking and offerning any behviour exept jumping. I am suprised, I thought Rusty would be the easiest, but he is now the only one NOT jumping into my arms yet. the thing is that I KNOW he can do it, because he has done it many times before...not on purpose mind you, but its hardly a challenge for him lol.

Misty http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=f7vIuGmKC3U Electra http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=dcM7ypwtR0U

I am in the middle of uploading videos of Misty and Electra jumping into my arms, I will post when they are ready it took about 4 10 minute sessions of the pillow training before they were jumping into my arms. I havent progressed Happy and Rusty yet, my arms can only handle so much poundage hurtling through the air at once lol I have no pitfalls with Misty, she was really easy and thinks its the greatest thing ever lol. Electra the pitfalls are that she still belives she is jumping into my lap, so she jumps from head on..as far as my thighs and I pretty much gotta catch her from there, hopefully she will learm better form with time lol

those videos are awsome! I have been dying to teach my dogs to jump into my arms for years but I never had the foggiest idea HOW, sure I had plenty of ideas but I was never able to coordinate myself to be able to DO them lol. but I startat with the chair methode and it works great! all 4 of my guys are catching on really fast and they love it(although the 40lb BC is a little exuberant lol) even Electra is catching on fast and she is the moron of the group..she also doesnt jump lol. but when she gets a cookie for jumping on my lap? well hey, sweet deal! lol

umm I have 15 vetable pets, at $50-70 per check up($70 for the dogs $50 for the exotics), if I did it yearly I would not be able to afford their regular care lol. let see, that would be $490 a year for the dogs alone, just for a yearly check up, not including anything that comes up in between. add anouther $400 a year for yearly checks of my exotics again not including anything that came up in between. thats almost $900 a year for the vet to say "he's healthy, see ya" . so no, Ido not take my pets for yearly check ups, I take them to the vet when I need too.

I recall an anime when I was younger...the little animal creature things could only master 4 things, as soon as they learned another they lost a prevous one. I think your friend is confusing real life with a cartoon lol. alot of my dogs know upwards of 30-40 commands. I think someone must has forgotten to tell them that they cant know more then 5 lol

my front door window is 4 feet up, Rusty is 15" tall and we have to tie him up or crate him in order to open the window because he can easily jump right out. Im sure he can jump higher, his old owners said he would have no problem clearing my 6 foot fence..thankfully he hasent tried lol but I do keep a tie out in my yard for him just in case lol. Happy(21" tall) can clear my 6 foot fence, I've seen her lol thankfully she is my baby and the only time she has ever done it was because I left her in my yard while taking Misty for a bikeride around the block, Happy cleared the fence and appeared at my side lol Misty(18" tall) can FLY, infact its her favorite pass time. steps dont exist, coffee tables are long jumps, 26" high Agility jumps are much to low etc.. how high can she jump? not a clue, but I dont doubt that she could clear 6 feet..and probably set set dock diving records too lol(unfortinatly we dont have dock diving here, because if we did I would be there in a flash to prove it lol)

woo ok with Happy I started with systematic desensitization with clicker training. basicly I took her all over the place armed with treats and a clicker, and I start out far away from the object or area of fear, I would reward her to be calm, slowly I would shrink her comfort zone, if she started freaking out I would simply back away, eventually I was able to shrink her comfort zone down to pretty much touching her. IOW despite her being terrfied of strange dogs and while I try to avoid dog overrun situations, things happen, escaped dogs appear from put of nowhere, idiots let there dogs run off their property to greet mine etc.. and in these situations, she may not be comfortable, but she is easily kept under control without anyone ever knowing that she doesnt like strange dogs.

I cant think staright right now with the fumes from the paint thinner lol but I have a fear aggressive BC who has overcome a LOT. from not being able to get anywhere near a starnge building, attacking children and other dogs, to gaining her flyball master title running 3.8 seconds inside strange buildings, napping inside petstores, ignoring strange dogs, and being more tolerant of children then a lab. it involved clicker training and some sort of desensitization..and time(took her 3 years). I'll explain better once the fumes are gone they are making my head too wonky to think of all the details clearly lol

sounds like Happy in the early stages. I would give it a rest and try flyball or disc dog, then just toss in a little agility here and there for a change. I made the mistake of pushing it with Happy, and all I did was make her HATE agility. it got to the point that she would hide when she saw Agility equipment, now she wont even do it on any occasion

we have our culprit! I ordered that smart fetch book, and it just arrived, I have barly read any of it and already seen that we were taught the force fetch wrong. I adjusted the little things to make it the way its in the book, and it worked WAAAAYYYY better right off the bat lets see the class didnt teach the pressure correctly, taught with a chain collar(book says Buckle, which makes a suprising amount of difference, for Leck anyway). the class skipped a LOT of steps as well, in the class we went immeditly from reaching their neck a little to grab the bumper to full out marked retrieves..no in between. according to the book, she should not even BE at the retrieve from ground stage yet, there is still 2 more steps before she outa be even begining the retrieve from ground stage.

she is 16 months she does have natural motivation to retrieve lol... I have 2 BCs who are retrieving obbessive and figer they are the only ones who should ever be allowed to retrieve, they corrected her everytime she tried to bring the object back herself, so she wound up learning that running after the object is all she was allowed to do. I have been working on getting past this, and I had her retrieving normally again about a month ago(totally,she was retreiving in certain situations for that). the main reason I use the force fetch with her is because she like to do things on HER terms onlys, and she cant only run a trial "when she feels like it, the way she feels like running it" . she has to learn that SHE doesnt get to decide what game we play, when we play it and when it ends. this is what I am trying to say, she is NOT a soft dog, she is not a submissive dog, and she is not shutting down. quite the opposite, she is a tough dog, a dominant dog, and she is trying to change the rules of the game to suit herself. she doesnt want to pick it up off the ground simpley because she doesnt feel like it, so she changes the game by heading to "lala land" followed by turning the game into a wrestling match.

poodlefan, do you mean because of her "lala land" thing? this has nothing to do with the methodes, its something she has done since the day I got her. It doesnt just happen during training, she just heads off to "lala land" whenever. like sometime I call her from somewhere in the house, but she is off in her own little world and doesnt hear me. she is fine and dandly once she has snapped out of her little "revry" thats why I said she is "weird". I have never had dogs that do this before, but leck always has, iI remeber when she was a pup she headed off to "lala land" while laying on top of the couch, she went tumbling off, hit the floor, and didnt even notice. she was dong this LOOONNNNGGG before she started her bird dog training.

what in the world is a "walking fetch"? I didnt say she retrieved from the ground, I said she will bring it back once it is in her mouth lol. the trainer didnt want me, as the handler to come over and make her pick it up, so the trainer was at the other end and made her take it from her hand, then bring it back. thats what I meant..she will run out to it, but if someone doesnt pick it up to get it in her mouth she just wanders off, but if someone at the other end has her take it from their hand, she will brind it back, and hold it doing whatever, until I say "out". I hope that makes more sence... my previous post I was refering to "hold". for the longest time she would "Hold" while sitting, but walking with the bumper was out of the question lol. I had initially thought she was "shutting down" and too soft, so I was trying to teach her really positivly, but it didnt help at all. the trainer took her aside, as non of the other dogs had issue with this, and within 20 minuts if a very strict, no nonsence "cut the bull" type methode, leck was happily moving around the with bumper, and hasent had an issue with it since. as I said a few posts ago, she IS making progress now. I tried getting more strict with her all around in everyday life, and its helping, the other day she picked it up herself a couple times. the more strict overall thing seem's to be focasing her, making her more interested in going after the bumper(while before she was more intersted in mouthing ME)

I ALWAYS adjust my methodes to the dog and what I am teaching, I have never ever ever been one to train with only one method, what works for one dog, does not always work for another. trust me, Leck is NOT soft, if I am the least bit leniant or ignore things I dont want she WILL walk all over me, she just droops her ears and looks sad, all the while continuing to be obnoxious. I was having difficulting with her before, because I tried adjusting the methode so it wasnt so harsh, I thought she was too soft. but I got absolutly nowhere with her, the trainer however stuck with the harsher more strict stuff, and when she put on the "sad" act the trainer ignored her and made her do it anyway. it worked, in what took me 4 weeks to fail to teach her. the trainer had Leck happily doing within 20 minuts.

were making progress! I tried "doggie boot camp" lol I am typicaly a posative trainer, but I tried getting more strict with her all around in life, and it appears to be helping. last night I actually had her more interested in grabbing the bumper then grabbing my arm

she was taught to hold without the ear pinch, it was only used to teach "take it" after she knew "hold" quite well. as for birdie......she aboslutly is EXTREMLY birdy. it took her while to notice the duck because she wasnt paying attention, but once she noticed the bird? :D as for being a soft dog? nope, not at all. she plays the part of shutting down, without actually shutting down if that makes sence lol one of my BCs does this as well, its drives me bonkers. basicly she behaves ALMOST as if she is shutting down, exept that she doesnt actually shut down. Obedience part is is fabulous at, if there is one thing I get alot of comments on its how focased she is on me, when it came to the obedience, she was the star of the class from the beginning. trianers in the feild have commented on how great her rapport is with me, as well as conformation judges when I have been in the ring with her. as for another trainer? all our trainers are part of the same retriever club here, the trainers I refered too were ALL the gun dog trainers in my area lol and I am is Saskatchewan by the way.

she's weird..... Electra has this thing, where she will just turn everything off and head to 'lala land' so she will be like "ehhhh, Im tired of this......lala laaaaaaa". for example when the dogs had to practice holding a stay with a dead duck was tossed in front of them, Electra headed off to 'lala land" the trainer tossed the duck while jumping up and down flapping his arms making funny sounds, and Leck did not so much as LOOK his way, she was off in her own little world. finally the trainer picked up the docked walked staright to to Leck and started waving it an inch from her face...still not even a glance from Leck. finally the neck of the duck swung a bit and wacked leck in the head, ONLY then did she snap out of her little world and realize what was in front of her. this is the problem with her earch pinch training, if she doesnt feel like it at the time she heads off to her little world, and has no reaction whatsoever. so, because she doesnt wanna take it off the ground she simply heads to 'lala land' when I ask it.