Seita

Do you train at night at all? I used to have the opposite problem with one of my dogs, alot of my training was at evening classes and early evening training sessions at home and I had a lot of trouble with day trials. I specifically worked my current girl at all times of the day to overcome this issue after that dog. I tend to do most of my work with a dog at the time they don't like as much to teach them that I expect the same level of work at any time. My girl LOVES to work for me but never worked as well mid morning to mid afternoon, so I spent a few weeks of only training her during those times and I'd say I have a pretty reliable dog at any time of the day now.

Baby brain isn't an excuse! I started on Scent work again when Ella had 4 week old bubbas with no issues!!! I found that the longer grass worked more so than the cans for Ella, she just ignored the cans and was still grabbing any old article but once they were dropped into longer grass where it was a little harder to see them she really started using her nose. I also used really really smelly treats to start with (cheese, salami, sausage etc) and I started with Metals as well. She now will pretty much do a full set pretty consistently. I am slowly starting to phase out the treats being rubbed onto the article but am taking my time doing it. LOL yup - we have 4 week bubba's now and since they were 3 days, if training was on the cards, babies were unimportant Will try the long grass too - but finding it might prove difficult Gotta love these career mums hey! Ella was exactly the same. You'll have to get whoever does the mowing to leave you a square unmowed! :rolleyes:

Baby brain isn't an excuse! I started on Scent work again when Ella had 4 week old bubbas with no issues!!! I found that the longer grass worked more so than the cans for Ella, she just ignored the cans and was still grabbing any old article but once they were dropped into longer grass where it was a little harder to see them she really started using her nose. I also used really really smelly treats to start with (cheese, salami, sausage etc) and I started with Metals as well. She now will pretty much do a full set pretty consistently. I am slowly starting to phase out the treats being rubbed onto the article but am taking my time doing it.

My guys were much the same, the moment they had eyes open and were on their feet they had access to the outdoors, granted a smaller yard to start with and then half of my back yard by the end. I also have had no trouble with them eating anything they shouldn't, granted the shrubs took a bit of a bashing but I didn't like them anyway!

My pup (currently 11 wks old) has had access to his yard since he was 4 weeks old (I bred his litter) without any probs. Just ensure there isn't anything in the yard that you don't want destroyed or anything that could hurt the pup (bits of wire, nails sticking out of fences etc) and give pup plenty of toys and things to keep her amused with and she'll be fine. The doggy door is a great idea but definitely start giving your pup time outside, it's interesting, stimulating, there's loads of things for her see, smell, hear etc and she'll probably be a happier pup for it rather than keeping her locked inside.

You could try contact companies that analyse food to see if they can point you in the right direction. I know someone who analyses food for clients, they tell her what they want analysed and what they are looking for and she does it, she works for a uni here in brissy but I'm sure there are other places that do this sort of thing.

I add vit b,c , kelp and brewers yeast to the veggie mix and then go through phases of feeding vit e (goes rancid if mixed into mix and left so feed it in table form every day) and cod liver oil as well. Although this is not always, it really depends on what I have at the time and what I've used in the way of veggies as sometimes my veggie mix is a bit simple (only a few items) so I preffer to suppliment with extras.

Hey Tilly, maybe you and I should meet up seeing as we both want to achieve the same thing with our dogs! Are you doing Steve's raising a puppy thing as well?

Hey can I have some info about take the lead too? I have a 10 week old pup here who I'm doing the same thing with (well not security work) and wasn't even going to bother with a puppy class because I didn't think there would be one that I could happily use. I'm doing the shows, trials and general exposure to various stimulti sort of thing at the moment but that puppy school sort of experience would be awesome!

I had a dogquip one and my only issue with them is if you have a really intense tugger (like my girl) then the stitching at the top where the handle attaches comes undone and the handle starts to rip out. For building drive and early work I think these tugs are great and if you have a softer dog these are good too. I moved my girl up to a firehose tug with a rope right through the middle and a handle on both ends and I think it's virtually indestructable. I need to get a couple of the dogquip style ones for my new pup though as the teatowel I'm currently using isn't coping too well any more and the firehose is too big for him!!

I'd be interested in answers too! I just drop the article somewhere and send Ella to find it and she just keeps running until she sees/smells it but I don't think that this is the most effective way for her to find it and would like to train her to follow my scent to it a bit more.

I feel your husband's pain! I too work night shift and on Tuesday the last of my litter of pups went home leaving only the boy I was keeping. He was left outside as was usual before the others left but he sat at the back door and barked ALL day! I woke up soo many times but didn't say a thing, when I got up that evening he was silent. Yesterday I put him outside and went to bed, he barked for maybe a half hour tops and then was quiet. He's outside now and isn't making a sound! Persistence wins in the end - it's either you or the dog who ends up the more determined of the pair!!

Should be fine outside during the day. The last of my litter of pups just left today (at 9 weeks old) and they've had access to their yard all day since they were about 5 weeks old. They did have access to the laundry as well but only the laundry and the yard and they've been fine. I do keep my pups seperate from the older dogs as I don't want them to play too much. But also letting your pup spend too much time bonding with the older dogs forces your pup to become dependant on the older dog which can turn nasty if you ever need to seperate them for any length of time. I preffer my dogs to be friends with each other but able to cope just fine on their own without the company of another dog as well.

Doggy door will probably happen eventually, at the moment I have no probs leaving the door open. I think this will be a bit of an experiment for me! It'll be interesting to see how long he takes to learn to go outside...

That's my experienced too but I won't be home to take him out so I'm wondering how long it'll take for him to teach himself without me being there to take him out. Until he's able to hold it all night he's going to have access to outside continuously and it doesn't really worry me how long it will take. The situation just got me thinking on how long it might take for a pup to learn this on it's own!

How long do you think it will take for a pup to learn to hold it in all night on his own? I don't want to put this in the puppy forum as it's not really a problem rather a thought. I took on an adult rescue dog a few years ago and she'd been solely an outside dog until she lives with us. I did no training with her to teach her to hold it in over night or during the day, she just knew that she needed to go outside to the toilet. Now I have a 9 week old puppy that I'm wondering how long it will take for him to learn to hold it on his own. I need him to learn this on his own as I am not home at night, I work night shifts and he's going to have to learn soon to hold it all night inside as I don't have anywhere secure and comfortable to keep him overnight. Currently he's in the laundry with the door open so he has access outside continuously and has been going outside on his own since he was about 5 weeks old (I bred his litter so he's been with me his whole life). But obviously winter is on it's way and I can't leave the door open forever. He is being trained to toilet outside when he's inside with me during the day as per normal and he is also being crate trained for short periods of time during the day again when I'm home. I thought this was an interesting topic so posted here for a bit of discussion. My rescue girl learnt virtually straight away that she couldn't go inside after having spent her first 4 years outside. I don't think it's going to take 4 years to teach my pup this but was curious on what everyone's thoughts are! I think he should just about be right to trust inside by about 4 or 5 months as he'll be physically able to hold it all night and will be more than comfortable in a crate and should ideally be able to let me know when he needs to go out when he's inside and I am home. What does everyone else think?

Ok yet more success tonight! I decided to put all articles out and get her to retrieve one scented of each. I started with Metal as that's what she's most familar with and no probs whatsoever - went out searched the whole pile and brought that one back. I then put out a wood, she picked it up first and then doubted herself and brought the wrong wood back. I did another attempt with the wood and she brought me the right one. Then onto leather (which we really have only done a little bit of work with) and she searched and searched and could not find it so I called her off and rescented the leather and sent her again. She picked it up and again doubted herself and brought me back a wood. I gave her another shot on that and she brought me the right leather back! I'll probably work with less articles for a while to get her used to searching a range of types to find the right one before I put her back on a full set but she is definitely improving! At this rate she may trial in UD this year!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! They look lovely! I can attest to this, my first litter just hit 8 weeks on Tuesday and I really haven't done anything for the last 8 weeks!!! And as for shows... I wish I'd entered my girl in some shows for when the pups were in that 6 to 8 week bracket cos she looks stunning at the moment. I just know that she'll drop coat in a big way before her first show back next month!!!

I might try that with the bricks but I'll definitely need to use food if I do that. When I've got the tug she's in very high drive and still won't see the box despite it being raised (i've seen her go straight through the middle of jumps because she wasn't looking at them). I don't know why this is being soo difficult, I did lure her the first couple of times but yep she is doing exactly what Ness did - dash out a few paces (we're working from about a meter at the moment) spin and sit sometimes in the box sometimes not! Definitely don't have a problem with speed here! To get speed into the box I have been using a tug toy and racing with her to the box and luring her in, so she goes pretty quickly towards the box but just doesn't get the "I must sit in the box" bit! I think my issue with her is that I've worked on speed first rather than accuracy, so I need to go back to a lower drive invoking motivator to get her to focus away from me and more on what we're doing! Now if only it would stop raining here in Qld I might be able to get outside and actually do some training!

Not much! She seems to understand that she needs to move somewhere in front of me but hasn't clicked that the box indicates where that somewhere is. I don't know if she actually sees it or just bounces somewhere in front of me sometimes getting it and sometimes not! I'm thinking I might switch to training it with food rather than a toy as she seems to get to focussed on me when in drive for the toy which means she doesn't notice things like jumps and boxes etc! Ahh we'll get there some day!

I thought I might drag this topic back up again as we had some major success yesterday! My girl quite happily will retrieve the scented one from a pile of 5 metals, same as woods and last night I tried leathers for the first time (training has been a little slack of late) and she found the right one first time out of 3, then 4 and then 5! It won' t be long now before she's doing a full pile in one hit! I'm still using some treats on my hand to make the scent really stand out, is it just a case of phasing that treat out bit by bit until it's just my scent? Now if only I could make her understand what she's meant to do with the box!

LOL! I created the same problem from being lazy too! I've been fixing it slowly without a guidance stick but I'm thinking about bringing one out! Have you tried Ivan Balabanov's method for teaching left turns? My girl used to jump and bounce into position and has NO rear-end awareness but using this method and doing some rear end work (feet on a book move bum type stuff) she's improved heaps!

Dogdude, she's sort of swinging her back end out as she heels in a straight line. I'd slow your work down and do a lot of work in slow pace focussing on her position. I'm having similar troubles with Ella at the moment so am doing most of my heel training in slow pace and only working on a few paces of correct heel work at a time. Aside from that she's got super focus and really nice control of her drive good work!!!

Seeing as your home all day can you do a few short training sessions with each of the problem dogs to tire their brains out. A walk is good but if their not mentally stimulated you can walk for hours and still not tire them out. You could teach tricks, games, fun things like scent and find etc. Alternatively what I'd do (as well as some training) is put them out in their pens and ignore them for the day or two or three or four etc until they learn that if your home and they are in their pens then they need to be quiet. If you don't give in to their barking and carrying on then they'll give up soon enough and you'll have peace and quiet. That would be my choice if in your situation.

Congratulations!!! Now you fill out a title application form (you should be able to find one on the cccq website) and send it off with the correct amount of money (see back of dogworld for current prices). Here's the link to the form, just print it out: http://www.cccq.org.au/documents/APPLICATI...AMP%20TITLE.pdf Oh and make sure you send in your dog's pedigree certificate as you get issued with a new one with the title added to the end of the dogs name. You'll also get sent out a ccd title certificate. Then you start training for novice!! ;)