kelpiechick

As this is a Dogs Victoria event (I am assuming?) why not ask someone on the agility committee about using the VCA equipment - 2 trailers stored at KCC Park I believe. Don't you train at Croydon?? There are quite a few members there who are also members at K9.

If you're at all concerned about prior learning with an older dog then I would begin with a different crate in a different location. I did this with my BC when I hit a bit of a stumbling block with an unwanted behaviour in the crate at around 6 months old. Changing the picture for her and starting all over worked very quickly and didn't take long to be able to transfer to any crate but it also seemed to give her more clarity in regard to what I wanted. I know SG likes to use a hard crate and understand the reasons why, but once taught the beauty of being able to transfer to a more portable crate means you can do sessions outside a lot easier. (Convenient for tree hugging also ) I also put my crate in the car and went to different locations plus set up 2 crates at home, then added a tunnel in the middle - you are really only limited by your imagination once they get the idea. Currently I am using 2 crates to teach a verbal left and right cue - which I will most likely never use on an agility course but it's a lot of fun and BC just loves it. My oldest kelpie has just turned 8 and although he is very comfortable in his crate I never actually did crate games with him, plan on having a go over summer, figure I have nothing to lose and if he has even half as much fun with it as BC then it is win-win far as I'm concerned.

So you're suggesting with your first sentence that cruelty is a better approach for some dogs? Your word not mine and a strange choice. No, the point of sharing the story was so you could sound off about training methods that you appear to have no experience with other than watching one particular trainer use what you label 'SG methods' - agree with Kavik that she wouldn't have gone about it in that manner either BTW- and that one experience plus no doubt a ton of hearsay from others makes you an expert in condemning all positive methodology. If these comments were reversed and a positive trainer had jumped on here and labelled 'balanced' training in the derogoratory terms that you used this thread would now be 110 pages long with complaints, you only have to ask an innocent question about a prong collar to get 20 people jumping down your throat. Good idea you have decided to stay out of the discussion as the OP asked for constructive comments from those who have experience with training crate games, not for close minded opinionated labels concerning training methods.

Exactly...... we also had a baby gate across the laundry and I taught all the intial work there as well. It kinda ends up becoming a mentality rather than just a fun thing to do and as Jess said, can transfer to a dog bed, mat, etc. Once you have built a ton of value for the crate it won't make any difference what you use. With my 'baby' I taught all my stays from the crate, plus combined it with teaching to drive in from a ton of different angles, which I am now transferring to obstacle entries. Also used it for a stack of proofing stuff with my release and as I am currently 'one armed' after an accident and unable to do my usual training, I have been using the crates inside to teach a verbal left and right and working lead out and release with a high value tennis ball behind me to reinforce it's your choice type stuff and not blind crossing me. 101 things to do with a crate anyone

Short answer - I used a different crate in a different location when I first started training CG so there was no 'muddying the water'. First few sessions I didn't and inadvertently developed a couple of issues that are a whole other topic that I won't get into here. Now I use the same crate all the time and have no problems with it but for me I found it was helpful making a distinction at first. I also kept changing the location of my crate games to further proof the behaviours I wanted with it, including a number of seesions outside.

Sorry about Jess, that must have been devastating. Pure reds are generally more common in show lines these days rather than working, although they do exist. I can't help with that particular colour but if I wanted a good working kelpie in WA I would probably be starting here. Even if he doesn't have a litter on the ground he might be able to point you in another direction. Most working breeders breed for working ability and temperament rather than particular colours - for me these would be the qualities I was looking for and colour irrelevant, although I understand wanting a dog that resembles another dog you have deeply loved - even though they will never replace Jess, you are right. Maybe another colour is just meant to be for you this time, I truly believe we get the dog we need rather than always the one we want. I have a soft spot for black and tans but ended up with 2 red and tans that I wouldn't swap for the world. Good luck in your search.

Have just been reading Tony Parson's book where he raises this question. He believes there are 3 possible sources - 1. Bred from fawn complex 2. Throwback to possible earlier infusions of dingo 3. Throwback to UK BC's that occasionally produce what he describes as a lemon (colour not quality :D ) The lemon is apparently self coloured and unrelated to fawn complex, which doesn't appear to exist in BC. Have never seen this lemon BC - Going off to google.

Although ears sometimes come up with age I would think that by 14 months what you have is what you have. Your dog sounds lovely. Nothing wrong with flop ears - some breeders don't like them and have pretty much bred them out but a lot of the top studs still breed the occasional flop eared dog. The main aim for working lines is producing working ability and associated temperament, not colour or ear type.

Don't worry, her hair will be back to normal before you know it. Yep- Spinifex have some dual registered lines. Have only met a couple of kelpies from there but both were really drivey and lovely dogs. For anyone who plans on buying Tony Parson's book, Fishpond have the best price - picked it up for around $50 less than RRP a few weeks back

That was a really good article from memory and there's not much else coming from Oz that looks at it. Plus it was easy to understand too. They touch on it briefly in their kelpie basics book (which is also an excellent read) but not to the same extent. I think you are spot on in regard to a lot of the US bloodlines, have also heard that it is the same in the UK where there are some very questionable but registered 'kelpies'.

The problem with googling colour types also gets confusing because most of the info seems to come from US sites where they also tend to use different descriptors - what we call red, they label brown, etc. Always get confused with their BC genetics in particular as our chocolate BC is a red to them and our red BC I think they call a gold. Very confusing. The mottled looking colouration can be agouti but can also appear in banded hair - my young boy is banded, if I part his hair then only the very tip is coloured, fom the shaft upwards the hair is cream- if I gave him number 2 clippers he would look like a cream kelpie with a red lower back and flanks, pretty much resembling a saddled kelpie.

Ihave also heard of some breeders putting the cream pups down when they have very sparse hair on nose and ear tips as they are possibly prone to skin cancer without 'protection' and they don't want to bother with that. There have been some good cream dogs in some of the top studs, pretty sure Capree have bred some very successful trialling dogs that were cream.

Working line breeders are not trying to distunguish their dogs from show lines. They would never even think of them. They are simply breeding with ability and whatever colour comes up, comes up. There is no need to distinguish the two by looks. Most of the time they look different anyway but pop them on stock and there are all the differences they need. Amen to that And I'd be running a mile from any breeder who bred primarily for colour no matter what the breed. The description of some of the colours always cracks me up too - red and tan comes in a big variety of 'shades' but is still red and tan - someone asked me once if one of my red and tans - who potentially carries the fawn gene and runs more to a brown look with cream points - was a 'chocolate/blonde' ???? Would love to see a working breeder advertising a chocolate-blonde litter

Hey we all started out like that at one stage, nothing wrong with that at all, but beware...... it's very addictive. One minute you just want to mess around with it for fun, next minute you've sold your house, moved to acreage so you can have a set of equipment and more dogs, plan your holidays around what trials you want to enter, own more agility dvd's than any other topic plus have a handling system to boot :D

Positional cue is basically where you are on course in relation to the obstacle you are indicating to your dog. Some examples might be - 1. Imagine the start of a course having 2 jumps in a straight line and jump 3 as a turn to the left. So I need to start with my dog on my right side, then say I want a side change to take jump 3 on my left because of how the course continues. I decide to do a lead out pivot. When I take up my position to release dog I must standing on the far side of jump 3 upright close enough to actually touch that upright - this is positional cue. My use of lateral distance on the lead out tells my dog from the startline that they will be turning over jump 3 before I even pivot. If I lead out past jump 2 and stand close to the line of jumps rather than across near jump 3. this is a cue for my dog that we are continuing on straight ahead. 2. Serpentine - I need to be ahead of my dog so he can see me diagonally through the upright of the middle jump as I give my arm change/turn cue. Think of the different positions you would need to stand in to cue threadle V serpentine, these are all positional cues. 3. Front cross - I need to be as close as possible to next jump when I execute- if you have access to 3rd GD DVD - Great Dog, Great Handler- winning combination- have a look at the positional cue/front cross exercises near beginning. These explain it way better than I can and were actually a real lightbulb moment for me as to how important good positioning was. Motion cues are how you are moving around the course and might include things such as use of arm, shoulder, acceleration, deceleration, direction you are going etc. Hope this makes sense. So much easier to show than put in words.

Just to add to Kavik's very comprehensive answer - mainly because I'm bored sitting around with a splint from wrist to shoulder and my only entertainment is one hand typing, LOL.... When directing your dog around a course you use different cues to let them know where to go, such as your motion, your position relative to obstacles, verbal directions, etc. Most systems actually use very similar cues as a starting point BUT it's the way you combine these cues and the hierarchy you give to them that makes a handling system. For example, positional cues are a huge part of GD system. This attracts a lot of criticism from APHS handlers as they don't believe it is natural for the dog and yes, it does require a lot of foundation training to get the most out of it. In Aus - or Vic anyway, there are a lot of people who say they are using GD system but are not incorporating correct positional cues, eg: standing out in the middle of nowhere to execute a lead out pivot. This makes it further confusing as just because you are doing 'the moves' associated with a particular system doesn't mean you are 'running it.' This also doesn't mean that position is not used in APHS - I'm sure it is and am happy to be corrected as I don't use this system, but even though you are striving to get to a particular spot, it's not as important as it is in GD - this is what I mean by the hierarchy thing. This also attracts a lot of criticism from GD handlers as position in APHS can have more than one interpretation for a dog - but APHShandlers would be using their position in combination with other cues. Motion is the most important cue in APHS system. This doesn't mean that the GD system doesn't use motion as a cue - acceleration and deceleration particularly are a big part of it, but it's not used in the same way or in the same combination with other cues as it is in APHS. This is what gives them a very different 'look'. I kinda think it's a bit of a right brain/left brain thing as to which one makes the most sense to you. Personally you do what you believe is the best for your dog and if you choose a particular system it shouldn't matter to anyone else. I also believe there are very few people - in ANKC ranks anyway, ADAAmay be different- who truly try to stick to a system and most use a bit of this and that. Sure I do as well but that's through occasional crappy handling rather than choice as I try to use my system of choice. Thought about it a bit last year when there was some nastiness that appeared to be going around from some people criticising other's systems and I blogged about it here if you are interestd, but it's probably more rambling rather than information about a particular system.

Vickie, I retrained my younger kelpie's A frame using Rachel Sanders method. In general I am not a fan of running contacts but stopping was no longer an option so I made the decision that I would rather risk missing a few contacts if it made him more enthusistic running agility, which it certainly has done. I chose this method because I liked the idea of being able to do the majority of the foundation on the ground away from equipment. In effect it's still very much a stride regulation method but the dog patterns the striding on the ground with the box first. Have been doing it for close on a year now although I haven't had the box faded anywhere near that long. What I have found when trialling is that on courses where he gets a good run onto AF and gets his 2 hits in the 'correct' spots on the way up, then he also gets 2 correct hits on the way down but if his striding is off for some reason (course design, poor footing, late call, etc.) then he doesn't get his hits right on the way down. So far he has only missed 2 trialling and one was on a gamblers course where I tried a back to back, plus he's had another one that was legal but put in 3 hits on way down. This is a tall dog jumping 600 - another club member is training her poodle using same method- she hasn't had problems with dog missing but for some reason is having more problems than me getting a consistent number of hits up and down. Have you seen the running contacts blog here? Has good accounts of a number of people's training using different methods and a few with this method. Overall I like the method but don't believe there is such a thing as a 100% reliable running contact, which I'm willing to wear.

You're still confused :rolleyes: It's a totally different thing to crate training. But you've also made what I found to be a very interesting point when doing it with my young girl - using the same crate as she slept and relaxed in was fine at first but then for some reason as I got further along the stages it muddied the waters - or it was most likely something I did inadvertently that muddied the waters, although I have kept detailed notes of every training stage and gone over them stacks and can't figure out what happened, but that's training ! And I like your reference to the crate being another piece of agility equipment as in effect it does become that. The differentiation for the dog should be he is free to relax in crate, when your hand touches the latch it is the cue for game to begin and dog 'assumes position'. Mrs RB - I'm not sharing behaviour I got atm as I only have one good arm after an accident and one finger typing is doing my head in but it was a lot more bizarre than what you have described. Ask me again in a couple of weeks when hopefully I have normal use again and I'm happy to share. What I did was totally change the picture for her by using another crate just for crate games that looked totally different from her relaxing crate and I also changed the location by setting it up outside just for CG. I was also at the stage where I had named the driving in behaviour so I changed thst too, just to make sure I didn't get any 'poison cue' syndrome. This eliminated my unwanted behaviuor immediately - I did go back to stage 1 and start again also. Now I could use any crate anywhere for crate games and it is fine but for me I found it helpful to have this very black and white distinction first. Some more things that might help- *test how well your dog understands release cue away from crate - put dog on stay, walk forward and stop with back to dog, keep looking forward NOT back at dog, stand totally still and give verbal release - do they come ? *if dog is not driving out of crate you might need more balance of reward by rewarding the drive out as well as the drive in . *I wouldn't be making the goal at the beginning of each session that I was going to get to stage 3 in one session, even though that might be realistic. Start with a one minute session, then put dog away and re-assess both dog's behaviour and your training mechanics and then make a goal and bring dog out again. Do not drill - poison cue thing again. If I had the problems you described when I finally got the going back in I would jackpot and then stop immediately, not do a couple more loops. The hardest thing to do when you are finding problems is to leave it and walk away for a bit but often that is best. *IF dog doesn't choose to go in crate after around 2 mins restrict environment by holding collar in front of crate - that one from SG notes. Sounds like you did that though. Hope some of this helps - have to say I am a huge fan of CG and am always trying to invent new things I can teach using it, especially atm with my injury time out. Hope I am able to drive again in time for SG seminar or to say I will be pissed is an understatement.

But the wording before that says councils may do all or any of the following , so I think there might be different agreements for some sporting clubs rather than just for general public use of grounds. I know on Fridays at ADCV for instance that as we are using an on lead oval, technically the only times a dog may be offlead is when under full control of an instructor in the ring. When I first joined there the lights used to be kept on for 10 mins after packing up for anyone who wanted to let their dogs run together but then we found out that was actually in breach of our council agreement so it was stopped. ETA - dammit I can't bold with one hand

A general rule of thumb that I like and find easy to remember is no endurance type exercise befoe 12 months minimum and when walking aim for 5 minutes per month, so a 5 month pup would be around 25 min. walking session each time. Can't remember the source but could also possibly have been Christine Zink.

There were a couple around Bowral/Mittagong when I googled, but not sure if you want to be further ahead than that. Hopefully someone on here can help. Think it's going to be the good old Jugiong motel with dog in car for me - have been trying to find something around Goulburn, Yass but no luck for me either so far.

Put your tent up you big wuss I found one in the Southern Highlands just south of Sydney, it's only $1050 a night..... we could share ! Bargain. (sorry to hijak your thread but training was cancelled and I'm bored)

Where are you in Vic. ? There is plenty of EP at Petstock in South Morang as they just had a delivery - picked up a big bag today

All the Victorian agility trials are listed here. There are 2 on this weekend. Saturday at KCC Park (Westernport) and Sunday at Ballarat. You can find all the information about times, etc. on the website.

I wish more people would do things like that ! Hard when you live in a backward agility state with no Not For Competition class - my other pet peeve, LOL. (My state anyway, not sure about NSW?) Luke, you were well and truly ready before you first entered and it showed. I'm also guessing you have had a lot more of a positive trialling experience so far because you waited until you were ready. (and I know how hard it is to do that with your first dog, believe me..... it becomes much easier to be 'patient' as you go along with multiple dogs.