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Seita

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Everything posted by Seita

  1. Ella sort of semi follows the track back to the start peg but air scents rather than puts her nose down, if she catches a whiff of it on her way to the peg she'll bring it back. Otherwise when she gets to the peg she puts her nose down and starts scenting for it. I didn't train her to do this it's something she started doing on her own. The pot also makes me look like a weirdo! Although I get extra "crazy lady" looks when I walk to a training spot carrying a box of articles, a pot, a tug toy and some white gloves! I really should put everything in a bag! LOL My house backs onto a park and I often get "crazy lady" looks when I come out the back gate in business attire and pink tartan gumboots carrying a belly height white post to do a quick seek back before I leave for work!
  2. Any suggestions on how to teach a dog to sit or drop or stand (basic obedience commands) without luring? Mack has no real interest in food, I'm flat out getting him to eat his meals let alone use anything for training. He goes wild for a game of tug though so I'm using that as a reward at the moment. He's also pretty keen on getting belly rubs and cuddles so that looks like it's going to be a back up reward. I'm thinking about using more shaping to teach him things but not entirely sure how to go about it... so any suggestions? At this stage I've taught him to come when he's called and walk on a lead!
  3. French linen tug from K9pro gets a big thumbs up from me! I've used the jute tugs from dogquip too but they aren't durable enough to last more than a year with Ella and they only have one handle (I like 2) and they are a bit fat for anything smaller than a normal sized border collie. I've also got a katies bumpers firehouse tug which I HATE it's far to slippery. I find the plaited fleece tugs tend to be a bit on the thin side for Ella but I haven't really searched too much for a fat one. Ella will tug pretty much anything but really gets into it if it's soft enough to sink her teeth into and not too thin and not too fat. I like tugs that have softer handles as Ella really gets into her tugging, so no really stiff nylon and no rope for me. I don't give a stuff about colour and Ella doesn't seem to care either. My new puppy is currently learning to tug with a leather shammy which he loves! As he gets older I'll roll it up and turn it into more of a tug rather than a rag before progressing him to something like the french linen tug.
  4. Wow I've never seen a disk, we use a white post, sometimes they have a sign that says start on top but for most clubs it's a stake/post thingy that's about hip height. I'd be worried too if I encountered a disk but I trust that Ella would figure it out eventually! LOL LP - my plant pot is only about 15cm tall so it's not very big but cos it's white it's enough for Ella to see, but I'd definitely mix it up as often as you can so your dog learns to generalise what the start peg actually is!
  5. Sieta - this is one that appeals to me after talking to a few people also. I have a few questions: 1) what do you use as a start peg? 2) did you find the dog took a long time to connect the 'go back to start' peg with 'start to use your nose' 3) Did you find the dog quickly picked up on the visual/ meaning of the start peg? 1 - I use a small white plant pot cos it's small to carry with me when I'm out at the park but I try and use a variety of objects (jump bars, witches hats etc) so she learns to generalise what the start peg actually is. 2 - Ella got the go back to the peg idea pretty quickly and then when I started dropping it away from the start peg she immediately went to using her nose as I'd done alot of find it games and I use the same command as my scent work so she knows she has to use her nose 3 - Yep, once I varied the object she clued on very quickly. For a while I was using the plant pot and then took her to training and used a witches hat and she had no concept of that being the start peg. But after mixing it up a bit she quickly got it! I was using a brown pot to start with and she had trouble with that so switched a white one so she could actually see it!
  6. Hey LP, I too had a lot of difficulty teaching Ella this but what ended up working reallly well for us was to always use a start peg. And to begin with drop the article at the start peg so the dog sees you drop it then step over it and heel a few meters before turning around and sending your dog. Increase distance until dog is reliably going back to the peg to find it, then start dropping it without the dog seeing it still at the start peg. Again when dog is consistently finding it you start occasionally dropping it a step or 2 from the peg. Still in a straight line at this stage, I didn't add corners until Ella was reliably going back to the peg to find it and then tracking towards me. Then added a corner but dropped the article at the peg again and again built this up till I could drop it before, on or after the corner (both left and right corners) and then repeated until I could do a full heel pattern! I tested her out the other night and did a heel pattern where the article was dropped in the far back corner behind the box and I walked back to the start peg end of the ring. She went straight to the peg and searched loosely along the track till she found it! Before I retrained the seekback I had her looking all over the place and while she usually found it, she took an age to find it! I gave this method a shot and was pleased with how it went! Thanks to Ptolomy for sharing it with me!
  7. Here is all the info I can find about the interstate challenge from the qld state trials website (http://www.qldstateobediencetrials.org). It only tells us how QLD is selecting their teams, I guess other states will need to contact their obedience commitees to find out how to get into a team.
  8. I have no idea either Kath. Perhaps we apply and the top scoring dogs get selected... maybe each state does it differently. Yes hopefully we get more info closer to the trial!
  9. No idea Sounds interesting though! ;) Looks like a teams event! I know who will be in the WA team..!! and no, it's not me How fun would that be. So the WA team would be bedazzled, Ptolomy and ? I think it sounds awesome! I hope that I get to be in one of the QLD teams :D No Bedazzled I think it's teams of 3 in each level, and number 6 in the rules says that the same teams or individiual dogs cannot compete in more than one class. So say you Ptolomy and someone made up a team of 3 for UD, none of you guys could be in a team for the CDX or UDX as well. Well at least that's how I read it! Hopefully they'll explain it a bit clearer before the entries are due! :p
  10. No idea :D Sounds interesting though! Looks like a teams event! I know who will be in the WA team..!! and no, it's not me How fun would that be. So the WA team would be bedazzled, Ptolomy and ? I think it sounds awesome! I hope that I get to be in one of the QLD teams
  11. Lovely work Seita and she sure is a happy girl. Interesting watching the first glove - from where the camera was you could see that she was never looking at glove 2. Could you tell from standing next to her which glove she was locked into? I could tell she was looking at glove 1 and I think she briefly glanced at glove 2 so I sent her when I should have waited a bit longer till she locked onto glove 2. When I did it the second time I waited til she had actually locked onto glove 2 before sending her. I need to remember to wait a bit longer with my signal if that's what it's going to take to ensure she gets it!
  12. Yep doing a double on the 3rd July and then another one 2 weeks after that. Then nothing for like 6 weeks due to the Brissy Royal being on and nothing else! (and she's due in season around then). I won't be surprised if we get a pass in one of the next 3 trials, she's working so well! :D
  13. Thanks to Huski, here is the majority of Ella's UD round from the weekend! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou9DR2_UO1o
  14. I've only managed to get to a minute and a half of duration heelwork before I got bored so rewarded her. I know I should go for longer but honestly walking in circles in a park is not my idea of fun! I'd rather do a bit of a heel pattern either without positions (so just heeling and turns) to mix it up a bit.
  15. None! I want Ella to be soooooo keen to do something before we walk into the ring! She gets crated, I usually try to take her out a few dogs before we're in so she can go to the toilet and then back into the crate until just before we go in. Her "warm up" involves me revving her up as much as possible and then asking for attention and heeling into the ring and line up at the start peg. Nothing... I don't even show her the tug reward anymore, I used to do a small bit of training and give her a reward but I've found she actually works better without a bit of training/warm up etc first. She knows that when I say "are you ready?" that means it's time to work and that the tug will be provided when I say "OK"! You should have seen her yesterday! I pulled her out of her crate and headed to the ring revving her up as we went and she was bouncing straight up in the air to about my chest height that's how excited she was to go into the ring! And the moment we left the ring we hightailed it back to the crate for the tug!
  16. Nah! My strategy is to keep doing what I'm doing and not focus tooo heavily on what went wrong. I used to do this with my previous dog who used to vary what she blew in Open and inevitably if I focus heavily on something then I will neglect something else, so now I just keep training everything reasonably equally. While I'm here, here is a video of Mack having one of his first training sessions (playing tug) with me, taken this afternoon:
  17. Seekback went really well! Here's the video of it! The rest of the trial is on Huski's camera and will be up later.
  18. Well Ella did her first UD trial today and I was very pleased with how she went! No quallie but still some very nice work, she went for the wrong jump on the first directed jumping part and then realised part way to the jump so went back to the box! I thought it was cute and am not worried about this as she would have zeroed either way if she'd followed through with the jump! She did nice articles, a bit of fidgeting on one or two but got them all with full marks for one! She did a really nice signals exercise and did everything but missed 2 drops (she didn't quite get her elbows on the ground) so we lost a few marks there and ended up with an NQ score. And then she got herself set on glove 1 and I didn't give her a long enough signal so she went for the wrong glove. We managed a 3rd place in the end and I don't think it's going to take long for her to get it together for a quallie!
  19. Forgot one! If you're a woman you start referring to your period as being in season! :D
  20. I went and did a ring run out again tonight and Ella put it all together for me! Yay! There were some sloppy moments and few little things like failing to sit after bringing one article back and a missed position (my footwork was at fault here). If she works like that on Sunday she'll be on a pass, not a very high score but still a pass! KathQ - I wanted a boy this time around cos I'm sick of bitches, I hate seasons and I really don't want two entire bitches at the same time. And my last boy was also my first dog who was a complete failure as a competition dog so I want to prove that I can train a boy too!!
  21. Bits were a pre-requisite for me too At least your puppy has his! Mack is 8 weeks tomorrow and they've been located but haven't dropped yet, he's got til 9 weeks old for that to happen otherwise he's going elsewhere! I'm not having a repeat of the pup I kept last year from Ella's litter who had to be rehomed at 6 months old cos of a missing bit! Has your new boy got a name or is that going to wait til you get him?
  22. Woo Hoo another baby. How did you choose him Nic - I can't wait to hear more about him He was the only boy! LOL I know both his parents and the chances of getting a low drive puppy from those two was pretty slim as both Mum and Dad are pretty full on. Then it was a case of wait to see if his conformation would be ok as he's going to be a show dog too and that checked out ok. Then at 6 weeks I assessed him and was really pleased with his attitude, he's a keen tugger already and I was with the breeder when we took them for their 6 week vaccinations and I was able to get him to tug in the vet clinic - somewhere he'd never been before that was strange and cold etc, that was all I needed to be sure he was going to be a good performance dog! Good nerves and keen to play with me both at home and in a new environment. Now as long as he gets his "bits" then he's all set to come home!
  23. And another one just cos he's soo cute!
  24. Well I'm feeling a lot more confident about Ella's UD debut this weekend, she's been doing really well with her seekbacks for the last few weeks and her gloves are pretty reliable now too (unless I give her a bad signal which I have been known to do). I dare say that short of her doing something silly due to her lack of experience she'll do really well and we'll probably only get zeros cos of something stupid that I've done! On other news.... this little guy here looks set to become my next show and competition dog. All going to plan I'll be picking him up this weekend or next! Please meet Mack:
  25. Pffft look how well you guys have done already! I just like having someone to chat to at training, just as Seita or Maree And man can she TALK!!!
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