Seita

Well Done!! Sounds like a pretty good first round! Good luck for this weekend!

Hey KathQ! How did you go on the weekend??

Back from my run out! I was really really pleased with how she went! We had a few green dog issues like her presenting her seekback article to the judge instead of me and running to the box of articles outside the ring instead of the glove I was sending her too but overall really nice work and I'm feeling a lot more confident about doing her debut next weekend! And she had no trouble finding the seekback which was my biggest worry despite the judge having us facing away from the start peg (back to it) completely which I'd never done with her before! *YAY!*

They use gloves for the directed retrieve... the seek back article can't be any bigger than a scent discrimination article and (I think) it can't be white Thanks! I'm a bit nervous but I need to practice with being told what to do etc so I don't stuff it in the ring when I'm in there for real!

Sorry Seita, but that's bloody hilarious Poor dog I had an interesting time with our baby seek back - next door's property is vacant (owners live interstate) so I used some fresh ground to see how we were progressing. Ziggy was a bit confused at first (the whole generalisation thing) but soon got the idea. Then I decided to take the article on our forrest walk as he has been offering some really nice enthusiastic heel work after doing zoomies - clearly chasing a biscuit to warm his empty tummy The first time I tried the baby seek back he looked at me like I had gone mad and just offered me more heel position but yesterday I tried once more and his eyes lit up. He absolutely BOLTED back from whence we came and clearly over shot the mark but then put his nose to the ground and headed straight back towards me and found the article. No pi$$ing this time The track was very wet and muddy and there were great smells, sticks and all sorts of loverly things on the ground. Sooooo, I'm interested in opinions - has he "got it"???? The thing is, he BOLTS in that first few metres (I can't think of any other way to describe it - he sprints like agility!) rather than sedately putting his nose to the ground from the beginning like I see the trialling dogs do. I don't want to impact on his enthusiasm in the slightest (and it's bloody funny to boot) but not sure he is doing it "right"??? Thanks I thought it was funny too but felt sorry for Ella!! Ella still bolts back to the start peg when I send her for a seek back before she puts her nose to the ground. SHe tends to air scent and look at the same time as bolting so if she spots it or get s whiff of it she grabs it immediately, but that's not something I taught, she started doing that on her own! In answer to your question Huski, I use a leather strip which is pretty much identical to my scent articles... I keep meaning to buy a nicer one like the stiched or rolled ones I see some people use but still haven't got around to it! I know someone who uses a peice of stiff rope and as far as I know you can use a peice of wood or metal like your scent articles if you wanted to. Well we're going to go out and do a proper ring run out tonight so see how we're doing before making a decision about entering our first UD trial... should be interesting!

I think poor Ella needs a new handler! I went out to do a quick seek back session with her this morning, I sent her to find it and she searched and searched and searched and searched. I thought I'd just let her go as long as she could to see what would happen if she couldn't find it in a trial. She ran over the spot where I dropped it several times and just didn't seem to indicate it, so here I am thinking that she was just clueless, after several very long minutes she finally stopped in front of me as if to say it's not here mum... so I walked around looking for it with her seeking for it and we couldn't find it, on a whim I thought I'd check my boot, and sure enough the blasted thing fell down my boot when I dropped it, no wonder the poor girl couldn't find it!!! I felt sooo bad for her cos she tried sooo hard to find it! I did another short one after that and made sure it was on the ground and she had no trouble finding it! I'll bet if I tried to drop the thing down my boot I wouldn't have a hope!

Let them know on the day when you pick up your numbers. I'll probably be entering both Caboolture trials so you can come join me under my gazebo, wine will be your entry fee... maybe a doughnut as well! Will see you two there as am entered in the second trial. Have to work in the morning darn it.. I'm only entered in the PM trial as we are trialling at Metro the next day, you should join us for some wine Kath Yep, we'll be easy to spot... well perhaps hear! Bec and I aren't the quietest people out there! ;) And I think wine will only exponentially increase that!!

Yay! That's great! Good luck for the weekend!!! I just went to the park behind my house and did a seek back in the dark, well it is lit but poorly and Ella did two really nice seek backs without any trouble... here's hoping they keep improving like this!

Let them know on the day when you pick up your numbers. I'll probably be entering both Caboolture trials so you can come join me under my gazebo, wine will be your entry fee... maybe a doughnut as well! :D *sigh* I mean if I HAVE to bring wine ;) Oh wow it should be sooo hard for you to do that!!! lol I'll bet you've got a glass in your hand right now! :-P

Let them know on the day when you pick up your numbers. I'll probably be entering both Caboolture trials so you can come join me under my gazebo, wine will be your entry fee... maybe a doughnut as well! ;)

Yes Nic who shall we get to be a DD for us?? LOL Can you imagine us together with alcohol??? ;) I know! We're bad without it!! Except I'm the trial secretary at this trial so I need to be coherent enough to sign yours and Kath Q's quallie cards!! ;) OMG I just realised Daisy and I will be in that catalogue Holy crap remind me why I'm doing this again??? :D Yep! I just entered you into my database! Daisy will be entered into it tonight and the actually entry will go in sometime in the next few days! Just a note on your entry though.... put your club on there somewhere in future (something like points to Metro). We run an interclub pointscore thingy each year and each entry gets 1 point plus I think there are extra points for quallies and places etc. I've put you in for metro but other secretaries won't know what club you're from! Caboolture usually wins but the more trialling members from other clubs the better!

Thanks for the vote of confidence guys! If her seek back keeps improving like it has been over the last week or so then I'll feel a whole lot more confident about entering. This morning at the park I dropped it maybe 5 or 6 metres from the start peg, just as she got to the spot where the article was she desperately needed to do a poo, so the poor girl who is somewhat constipated today was there trying to decide whether she should hold the article or leave it on the ground, she would pick it up for a while, then drop it etc while she finished her business and then continued on her way to bring it back to me! Note to self must let the dog go to the toilet before commencing training! It's funny, I was soo disheartened last week about her seek back and then over the last few days she's just improved so well, she's started to clue on to the fact that the article is somewhere between me and the peg not behind the peg and will follow the track a short distance forward. I need to work on her following the track further forward but even if she loses the track she sort of zig zags back and forth across where we walked and usually finds it that way. Only at club under flood lights does she lose it a bit of gets confused about where the start peg is/was, might need to find a few more places with flood lights to train out before I do some night time trials!

So far we have a unanimous vote for do it.... I'll wait another couple of days to decide. I won't be printing catalogues till next week on wednesday or thursday so I can decide then. LOL It just scares me to think about it!!

Huski! Yay I'll have a drinking buddy at trials! I never bring wine cos I haven't had anyone to share it with! But now I do!!! LOL OK GUYS! LISTEN UP!!! I need help to be either talked into or out of doing my first UD trial the weekend after next. It's a day time trial (which is when we do most of our training) at our home grounds, she tends to only botch things up at night under lights and I think it's due to not enough practice training in those sitations. Her seek back is the only hang up, if she can find the start peg she should be able to find the seekback. However she has "blonde" moments where she forgets which direction we've come from and searches the wrong way. She will eventually find her way back in the right direction and she has never once NOT found the article, it's just on occasions she's taken a painfully long time to find it. She does everything else quite well and has been doing it pretty consistently under varying distractions over the last few weeks so I'm reasonably confident that she can do it. So what do others think? Do I enter her and see what happens or do I wait until I'm a bit more confident on the seek back? I'm probably 50-50 about it at the moment, although after this mornings seek back I'm more confident. As I'm the trial secretary I can put myself in at the very last minute so I still have a week and a bit to decide but want some opinions! I figure I'll probably stuff the first trial or even few trials cos of nerves which is why I'm soo tempted to do this one.

Pretty much, a chair for you, a crate/peg/mat etc for Daisy. A water bowl is a good idea although there is a communal water bucket always. A clip/pin/arm band thing for your number, a pen is a good idea if you want to record your scores although in CCD it's not hard to remember . Umm treats for the dog, a hat might be a good idea and that's about it really. Gotta remember sooo much more for UD! LOL Shade is a must either gazebo or umbrella keeps either the sun or rain off. And something to keep you occupied like a book to read (though I always take something and never end up actually reading ) Insect repellent is another one for stays as my girl will play hunt the fly, bug whatever and break accidentally trying to get it off herself. I always bring a gazebo but rarely end up setting it up! Southside has a couple of shade structures on the grounds and several large trees next to where the rings are so plenty of shade on offer there but not all grounds are like this. And yep agreed on the insect repellent! Ella has an unexplainable fear of ants and can't tolerate them being near her so I always spray her feet lets and belly before stays!

Pretty much, a chair for you, a crate/peg/mat etc for Daisy. A water bowl is a good idea although there is a communal water bucket always. A clip/pin/arm band thing for your number, a pen is a good idea if you want to record your scores although in CCD it's not hard to remember . Umm treats for the dog, a hat might be a good idea and that's about it really. Gotta remember sooo much more for UD! LOL So what has happened now - dare I ask???? It's not what's happened now, rather what she STILL doesn't get! Grr! She goes back to the start peg and searches around there and then tends to go back the opposite way to which we walked tracking our footsteps rather than forward towards me! It's just sooo frustrating! She sometimes gets it right and starts following the track back towards me but usually after a bit of searching the other way first. She always finds it but just doesn't seem to get the concept of following the track and I don't want to put her into a trial and then have her take 5 minutes (and sometimes it does take this long) for her to find it! It's rather disheartening as she's got everything else working really nicely!

Yay! I was going to debut at this trial too but somehow I don't think this will happen... that blasted seek back is still causing problems! I'll decide this week before I finalise the catalogues (gotta have some perks if you're the trial secretary!). Oh and both Huski and Kathq, I'll be there handing out the trophies when you both do really well!

Great to hear Tiggy! You will need to do a video update soon!! :D :D We had a great training session tonight too. I played around with hand positioning and tried having my hand on my hip, with one hand down; both hands hanging down; one hand on my stomach and one hand down and Daisy worked brilliantly regardless but I find I spend the whole time thinking about where my hands are and trying to make sure I put them back in the original position after giving a command Both hands in the middle is still the most natural position for me. I think I will see how we go trialling with my hands like that and if we have lots of trouble with judges I will force myself to change! I spoke to a senior judge this week about the way you were marked last week cos of your hands and she was stunned and said that as long as your hands go back to the same position every time during an exercise then a judge CAN'T take points off for it! Having hands in the middle is no less natural than having one on your hip and one down by your side! I don't think you'll find many judges even here in QLD that will ping you for that. There are a few who have funny notions about one hand on hip and probably in the middle too but I the majority I think will not take marks off as long as your hands always go back to the same place. Actually I think in some of my early trials I had my hands in the middle too for heeling but have moved to having them both down by my sides these days!

I train Daisy so the leash being on or off doesn't matter :rofl: We do a lot of off leash training. I know! I don't think you need as high a score to pass as you would in a Novice trial normally. I could be wrong though (Seita or other QLDers will be able to correct me if I am!) Yep Sweepies has a lower pass score of 150/200. Why QLD is the only state that does this is beyond me but oh well it's not a huge deal!

I still see plenty of people choose to do it, I can't see the point of it either but some people obviously still like it! I stopped training it when the option came in cos I don't own a board jump, have no desire to own one and even if I did own one I doubt I'd be bothered enough to set it up for training!! Same reason I train UD scent discrimination on the ground cos I'm too lazy to put the mat out!

Mine too except I don't actually do the walk part all that often!

WOW that's cheap!!! It's $21 here in QLD and if you want a breeders certificate it's an extra $10! If it's a champion title then the cost is $31 but includes a breeders certificate! So even though my question about it not being shown on the certificate title wasn't really answered, at least this clarified it has been updated on the system and the other thing it clarified, was Seita's statement a while back about CCD still being on the dog's registered name. At least in WA's case, the CCD is superceded by the CD like one would think ;) That's weird! Maybe different states do things differently. I just got Ella's champion title certificate today and it clearly says the dog "Bojak Crystal Bliss CCD CDX" has been awarded the title of... etc and her pedigree now says Ch Bojak Crystal Bliss CCD CDX. I wonder how many other states are the same as QLD or WA? What I said about the CCD title staying is definitely correct for QLD but I would have thought that stuff would be the same everywhere!

How interesting! In QLD you have to return the rego papers and they get updated automatically. You don't pay more or less for that it's just what happens. If you forget the rego papers they don't process your application until they get them. I am also impressed at how quickly you got your title certificate back! I sent my Aust Champion title application off for Ella on Monday last week and still haven't recieved the papers or the title certificate back... the cheque has been banked though so I know they got it!

Thanks. That looks the same as the behind the back method? Footwork is pretty much the same for you on both types of turns, it's mostly what the dog does that is different. To teach a nice clean left U turn your dog will need to have some back end awareness as it will have to swing it's bum around beside your leg as you do the turn. I don't know if this makes much sense? I did both, I can't remember how many of each I did but I remember doing DB at least once for novice! I had both trained nicely before entering novice and then decided on the day based on what she was doing best in training during the week!

As Huski asked! Which one? I've got the southside trial next month marked as a potential for our UD debut but will decide at the last possible minute (as I'm the trial secretary it shouldn't be hard to slot myself in somewhere :D ). At this stage it depends on fixing her seekback and also depends on when she comes in season. I am getting scared just thinking about my first trial and I'm not even certain when it will be at this stage!!! :p