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If people decide to respond to his drivel then I think this is what it should be aimed at - if you can show the general public that he's encouraging something as horrible as puppy farms and pets in pet shops then they might start to question his arguments. Hopefully educate a few people along the way too.

I have done the recallers course with SG (1 and 2) and enjoyed it and thought it was very worthwhile, I just have to follow through with training more. I do have both those books, but I haven't read Shaping Success yet. Something to do with too many books and not enough time! I have a ton of her stuff too! I just need to go do it I'm glad that we will see a month of PP as a recaller, will be interesting - if it's worthwhile with some really good new information coming through then I might sign up for it. To be honest, the more I think the more I can understand why she's doing it in this format. She did mention the issue of someone selling copies of her DVDs on ebay back at the seminar, and in this format she can put far more information in and hopefully have people interpret her training better. Must be frustrating to put good information out there only to see who knows how many people stuff it up and then bag the trainer and the method because they stuffed it up. The more cynical part of me reckons it's still bloody good marketing.

I'm a bit the same Jigsaw, the marketing/money is taking over. I suspect if I went through what I already have of hers (notes/books/DVDs) then I would already have a lot of it already, except for that information that she's sitting on deliberately as part of the marketing juggernaut! Reminds me of what happened with the whole natural horsemanship charge, especially round the likes of Parelli.

Stuff it, now she sends out an email that it's flash based... If I'd known that I would've gotten up for the 4.30 am one

It won't be unless you've signed up for the Inner Circle group as part of the recallers.

Yes I am. :D Didn't think I was going to be able to given I'm working, but such a dreadful shame my work car is booked in to get fixed at 10 am tomorrow. ;) Hardly the place to be making work calls so I'll give it a try on the ipad, just hope 3G is sufficient speed to get it all.

Table doesn't bother me so much given we have it at all different heights at the club I train at occasionally and both my dogs are used to seeing it at everything from 200 to 600 and sticking it regardless. The seesaw bothers me a lot, especially with a young inexperienced dog. My interpretation is that you could be using a weesaw at one trial and a full sized seesaw at another up until January 1 2012?. Weaves - would've bothered me if Darcy was still a 10th pole popper, but I found putting her back in to do them again wasn't stopping the issue anyway. I put her back through 2x2s and did some pretty extreme proofing along the way. She hasn't popped a weave pole in a trial since, and I can leave her in the weaves and get to where I need to be these days :D . As for Zee, she isn't the kind of dog you redo stuff with, if she stuffed up her weaves she's telling me she needs more work and understanding and putting her back through the weaves in a trial ring is not going to fix that. I can see why they've stopped people doing it - there is a fine line between making the dog get it right and training in the ring, and some people gallop over that line. Another great argument for NFC here in Vic, but I don't see it happening

Told it's not too bad by a work colleague today - forecast still looks ok, I heard there was some flooding down in the far East but doesn't like it's affected Bairnsdale - more Cann River area. I don't head off til tomorrow morning - hopefully will miss the mad long weekend traffic through the city Good luck for tomorrow - hopefully your boy leaves his "boy brain" at home ;) If you've got time Monday, come say hello - I run two black dogs, one is Lab x the other is a BC x kelpie with very pricked ears. :D

Duh! Wrong day - didn't realise Bairnsdale was on as well, keep thinking it would be nice if the agility trials were Sat/Sun but now I understand why! ;) Thanks and good luck to you too murve - hope the weather is ok for us, looks like Gippy is going to cop it over the next few days

Best check the address for the Bairnsdale trial murve as I think you'll find it's at Sale We're at the same trials but doing agility instead ;)

Crate games and Its Yer Choice - crate games for calm behaviour and self control, IYC for more self control.

Our local council website states that we should contact the local ranger if barking dogs are an issue. I've had experience with an excessively barking dog and reporting it repeatedly with no resolution until the guy moved. My parents are now having the same issue - for whatever reason in this shire you buy a big "guard" type dog as a protector (in a small country town of 3000 people :rolleyes: ) and that's sufficient reason for the dog to bark at all hours of the night and day. No resolution with them either, so I would say the laws are inadequate. I have no personal involvement, but I would have a process put in place (there is none here) to actually do something about it, instead of complain, ranger rings dog owner, dog owner cracks the shits & then gives out the obligatory sob story, ranger rings complainant to notify of phone call to dog owner and resulting sob story, dog continues barking and the cycle continues. In both cases it is large active dogs locked in backyards with no outside stimulation or training. That's still an awful lot of barking for night time, especially with dogs you can hear clearly from several houses away. The dog which I had problems with could be heard clearly two doors away over a TV on low- normal volume. If it barked for 3 mins every 30 mins overnight I would've gone nuts - how the hell can people sleep with that kind of disturbance?

As someone who's only been in agility for 4 years I would say yes. My dogs don't have superfast seesaw performances as I don't have access to gear at home to train it, but they are quick enough and always safe. I too wonder how the "weesaw" got through when everyone I've spoken to was against it. I am glad to see the breakaway tyre get the official go ahead, given it had some resistance here in Vic meaning it wasn't able to be used. Happy to see weaves poles being required to have solid bases.

Old rules: The length of the plank should be a minimum of 3660 mm to a maximum of 4250 mm. The width is to be a minimum of 300 mm to a maximum of 330 mm. The height of the central bracket being approximately 1/6th of the length of the plank, from the ground. Example: L = 3650 mm H= 600 mm L= 4250 mm H= 700 mm. New rules: The length of the plank should be 3500 mm. The width is to be a minimum of 300 mm to a maximum off 330 mm, The height of the near central bracket is to be 300 mm from the ground. The seesaw should have a droppage rate of minimum of 1.5 seconds to a maximum of 2.2 seconds. This is determined by placing a 1kg weight at 150 mm from the up end of the seesaw and recording the time to hit the ground.

Would've much rather seen the effort put into standardising the drop rates and getting rid of the older two part seesaws which tend to whip badly. There is a puppy see saw at a club I used to train with, roughly half height but same length board. It drops far harder and quicker than any competition seesaw that I've come across.

It was bloody cold this morning - I left at 4.15 this morning to go to Nth Vic for the day, and the windscreen was frozen even then. Even the water washers were frozen shut. A workmate went to hose off his frozen windscreen this morning and snapped the garden hose straight through cos it was so cold. Beautiful day in Nth Vic though. Hope the toe is feeling better soon tlc

Yes - that is what I was trying to say Tassie slaps forehead - sorry TSD - missed your post. Senior's moment! So you think Vic is going that way too? (i.e. 2 height table can start July 1) I'd say so Tassie - makes it so much easier given some of our tables are a 2 person job to adjust. The other reason you don't see tables in Masters much here is because you can't get consistent timing off the table. That 0.5 to 1 second might be the difference between 1st and 4th, especially when Top Dog points are added to that mix.

Started trialling Darcy in obedience while I waited for her to make the age requirement for agility, did her CCD and then onto Agility. She's got multiple Masters titles in Agility & Jumping and we're working on games titles. I felt she was well and truly capable of going further with her obedience and it was kind of unfinished business so I put her through CD and CDX last year but I felt I blew a lot of time that I should've been working on agility. Zee is my young dog, she's got her Novice Jumping title but I'm taking it easy with her as she's a very different dog to Darcy. Probably won't bother with obedience with her as agility is my preference and I find I struggle to find time to dedicate what I should to agility training, let alone obedience as well.

An update on Darcy's jumping. I did a session with her last week on the 6ft 7ft etc grid - she struggled with the 6ft and 7ft section as I don't jump her that compressed normally. Knocked a bar in the early section twice and got it right twice. Ran it backwards and once again she dropped a bar as she hit the really compressed section. Ran it twice again correctly. Bent it and she nailed it both ways correctly. Also did one quick session on the one jump exercise. Took a practise jump to the trial yesterday and warmed her up then put her over that a few times with the same principle as the one jump exercise. Yesterdays trial was in sloppy mud, firm underneath but wet on top, keeping your feet for the day was a feat in itself. The dogs did fine in it, but plenty of bars came down yesterday. Darcy knocked one bar for the entire trial, totally my fault for putting her at a spread at that angle (Snooker!). As a result she came home with 4 passes, a first in ADM, a 2nd in ADM & JDM, and a 6th in JDM. The 2nd in JDM was a bloody ugly run (hard to remember and even harder to stay on your feet) but I never even heard a bar tap. :D No way do I think that's it and she's "cured" and yesterday could've just been one of her good days - but it's a good step in the right direction. :D I think the practise jump will become a permanent part of my trial gear too.

Well done on your first club trial When I was an agility newbie I trained with a club, but it only trained in 4 week blocks with quite a few weeks off in between. So I started training with another club in between and learnt so much from it, in the end I started training with the 2nd club full time. It did cause a little bit of conflict, especially when club 1's ideas were quite different to club 2. But in the end my dog is my dog and I have full say in how she is trained and how I chose to handle & train her. If it's contacts you are referring to with A frame and dogwalk - make yourself a travel plank. Mine is a length of wood probably 2.5 feet long, with a chock at either end and one in the middle so it sits about 2 to 3 inches off the ground. I trained my young dog's 2o2o contacts using the travel plank, the back steps and very occasional access to full size gear. So the minimal access to gear was used mostly for proofing, with very little teaching of the required behaviour. Saves a lot of time when you don't have gear. As for jumping 600, my lab x jumps 500 and is 520 mm at the shoulders. She jumps 600 quite easily if I need to jump her at that height at club.

Happy Birthday for yesterday RJ! :D

If 5 am is ridiculous then what is 4 am? Actually don't answer that...

@TSD I'll be there as well, bloody early start for Croydon to get a decent carpark

Well behaved dogs are always welcome on lead. :D You probably know this but I'll say it anyway just in case others read it and don't know - give people plenty of space, especially around entrance and exits to rings, around any random toys/jackpot items on the ground and always ask before allowing your dog to approach anyone else's dog. ;) There will be a few DOLers there tomorrow :D

Bumping so I don't have to see the horrible headline in the main board