CaseyKay

I started my older dog in obedience as something to do while waiting for her to be old enough for agility. I always thought it looked pretty boring but both the dog and I liked it. She broke her shoulder when she was 2 so just did obedience again until she was 3. Then most of the shows around where I live are joint shows...I went through a period where we just did agility... then did agility one day and obedience the other day. She is 5 1/2 yo and we recently started competing in tracking and have given up agility due to worrying about athritis etc in the shoulder. She did pretty well in both sports... she wasn't more of an obedience or more of an agility dog. She was consistant in agility, got a lot of clear rounds and ribbons for most of those, but up in the top level she was always outclassed by the really fast dogs so did not make AgCh. She might get to ObCh yet. The higher we go in obedience the more she seems to enjoy the excercises. Tracking in NZ is part of "working trials", about 2/3 of your marks are from the track, the rest heelwork, sendaway, scale jump, broad jump and retrieve over clear jump, plus 10 minute down stay. She loves tracking. I am actually very pleased she had previously done both obedience and agility as it made the rest of the working trials not too difficult, pretty much only had to learn the tracking. My younger dog just does agility and she is faster and less obedient than Maddie, I have a lot of fun with her...she is trained to do obedience but doesn't compete yet, (dumbell issues). She was more attentive heeling at a younger age than Maddie but she doesn't have the same "style". I have also tried tracking with her but she does not show the same drive for it. My next puppy I would hope to do something similar to Maddie (well without the broken shoulder...) do obedience, then agility, then both, then add tracking later on.

My shy dog (in my avatar) turns 4 this year. She has come a very long way and I used to have goals: I would enter her in a show a month out as a goal to work towards. I bought her to do obedience and agility with like I do with my older BC who loves both sports. I have found that the steps I had to take were so small, and sometimes take a step backwards and do something a bit easier until her confidence came back. I can't teach her new things in 5 minutes like my older dog, or my previous dogs. But she has made me think in new ways as well and learn to be creative. Now she will work beautifully at home and she will work in class if she knows the dogs and people but she doesn't like people she doesn't know walking behind her, which is a big problem in competitive obedience. I still don't think she is ready so we have still not been in the obedience ring. She has done a few agility shows now and although she got eliminated (refusals) she did do most of the obstacles but if one little thing goes wrong, like knocking a jump or a dog barking suddenly ringside, she will lie down and freeze. BUT it used to be she would not recover from that and now she will still lie down but she will get moving again. So I have learnt to celebrate the progress that she does make. I think she will continue to compete and get better in agility, and we can work towards clear rounds as a manageable goal, because if she does get scared she can recover and keep going without loosing marks like she would if she had a meltdown in obedience...and we will probably start competing in obedience but no, I don't think she will be doing any winning in obedience. Too many variables at shows that I just can't control. She *can* do the most amazing, beautiful heelwork...I might just have to accept that a judge will never see that

Can you get Canidae in Australia? It is an American brand, human-grade meat/no by-products one a bit like Innova. My 2 border collies have been on it for two years and doing well. Prior to that they were fed Nutro which was also good but Canidae works out cheaper to feed and the fussy younger dog seems to like it better.