Alpha

What about a puppy group or puppy socialisation program? Some vets run them for nominal fees .

In the same boat as you Mrs D, have'nt entered a ring since 1997 and I was 8 month preggy with bubbie 1 then It will be very interesting to see the new rules, shame my girl is now 12 and a bit too old for agility, she loved it as a reward after some ring work. But the pup is up and coming and should be in a ring by 2008 He was very excited with the tunnel and the weaving pegs at club last week when they took our dogs through them as an after training play ;) :p Thanks to everyone for the info and links, its great

Having been originally trained by the correction chain/loud voice methodology, I was started food training when I saw the results of it after I managed to teach my ACD to "speak" in one day for an ad he was in. I used food as a reward not an incentive but it worked the same, he got the idea pretty quick and our lives changed from then on. I did not use food constantly once he could complete the exercise but occassionally so he never knew when it would be coming and he had to complete it in full to get it..no half measures, crooked sits, lax returns or half hearted (he never was half hearted in ANYTHING) responses. When I was training our bitch as a pup I used food for attention and to teach her an exercise, as she got older and more proficient...the food became less and was given as a reward along with pats and hugs, she is a very responsive dog and would not get into play mode with hyped up praise like the dog did. Our pup trains with food and "bridge words" and food is very very big on his agenda for doing something...has not quite got the concept of straight sits, recall to me, not past me, and playing nicely with others but we are only 7 month old ;) Food ;when used properly is great, but I know some dogs who don't respond to it

Silly question maybe...but where are you aiming to spit the food with this method? Is the dog meant to catch it? :D On the mater of My son is special needs/ disabled/ whatever LABEL society places on it and his dribbling , speech, oral and food issues have never been a problem to anyone in any of our community be it shops, school, pre school whatever. Nothing is every black or white but many shades of gray.

I know that the club I attend uses positive reinforcment/food and they teach the beginners to place the food on their forehead and say their bridge word, gradually the dog will look at your face with the bridge word only..thats the theory. Me, I just keep talking to my dog in a happy tone and hes' watching and listening all along..but he LOVES me :D I remember some uproar at a trial years ago where a handler was seen rubbing raw sausage on her left pants leg in the carpark before entering a ring, a steward saw it and it was all over the place before she entered the ring...biggest audience for an Open ring I had ever seen

I know someone who got a similar e.mail form OS ( not sure if it was the same fellow) this person has had 6x UD/TD dogs and was going to try for endurance with dog number 6 so was doing some research on endurance and such...he got her e.mail from a book mailing list. He said something about her no 6 dog breed being hard to train too THis dog was UD by this time She offered to "review" his product if he sent it free of charge and publish the review for him....never heard from him again. :D

Our fellow would wee inside if left inside too long,when younger he was in the laundry at night and would wee on the paper but he would wake up during the night (0400 or 0500am) to go outside for his biz. We did nothing more than praise him when he did his stuff outside but if he did it inside he was placed outside straight away. We have an older dog also, so this may have helped. When we did bring him inside before he was trained we would encourage him to "take a wiz" before we bought him inside...he soon caught on. Incidently, if you want to get rid of wee odour so they don't do it , can't smell it and get any stain out. Try this :Mop up excess moisture, sponge with white vinegar or soda water, then with Windex. Or Steradent (white ones)tablets( for cleaning false teeth I think)dissoved in a cup of water and sponge the area with a clean cloth., Nilodour will neutralise any smelltoo. Courtesy of my mums old Martha Gardeners Household Help Book. She used this method for years when breeding pups and having to clean up accidents x10 or more, many times a day

:D Because our boy came home over brfore Christmas...there were no puppy schools runniing till the new year...he was eligible for obedience club then. So I bit the bullet and went to some off lead areas to socialise with other dogs, big walks where other dogs were, and even advertised for other puppy owners on a local forum site. Lots of other dogs from which he learnt a bit too much dominance for my liking but no pups. SO we missed out on the puppy class experience

Having trained under the old school of "must always have a correction collar" but being of the mind of "I will train my dog ,my way"( motivatinal training) and now having reentered the new world of training (motivational with bridge words) I agree with many here. Get some good books, train yourself and your dog...YOUR WAY. Use the school for socialising the pup only...he's a pup, he'll mess up and so can you, make it fun, no corrections...do the down to earth stuff at home. I suggest you train him in the same exercises as you're are doing at school, that way the dog will learn the exercise but YOUR way. And no one will be any the wiser. Are correction chains mandatory? The club I attend will not allow them, except for some larger dogs and then you have to reverse them so they cannot be use to correct. I was training on a fixed collar over a decade ago with one of my dogs and entered a ring once where a judge queried where my correction chain was as the dog had a fixed collar on.

Is a gentle leader a Halti???? It's like a horse halter but comes in three sizes for dogs. I used a Halti on my ACD ( who was dog aggressive) in conjunction with a correction collar...I would conect both to the lead. It was to help bring him back a bit whilst heeling and keep him focused on me. I found it was ok and we moved away from it after a while.