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How is that going? I can't even do that! She's not balancing on it totally alone, I support the ball so it's not rolling out from under her but she still needs to use her balance a lot. Pics from today - taken with my phone so not the greatest quality. Do you think they had fun???

I have a gym ball here that is too small and have done a bit with my older dog with it - teaching her to get on it and learning balance. She loves playing with it but I've never taken it outside. The youngster hasn't had much to do with it yet but loves the soccer ball. Guess what we're doing tomorrow if the weather is fine....

Congrats Jerojath on the arrival of your baby girl Yep that's me, and the girls. The one who stays in a drop is my 4 yo - Darcy, yeah I'm pretty in awe of her too. The younger one is still feral, but Darcy was pretty feral in her day too so Zee will figure it out. She's only 7 mo so still very much a baby. I do like the showgrounds, great spot - just wish they'd mow it more to get rid of the grass seeds. Definitely wave and come say hello. You won't distract Darcy if she's working, but you're likely to get some kind of explosive reaction from the crazy one if I don't have a frisbee or a soccer ball on me It'll be all bluff but totally friendly

Good thanks Pandii - yourself? Might finally get around to catching up with you one of these days - not training at club at the moment, having my Sundays back to myself means I have just a bit more weekend time up my sleeve

Actually I need some practise with this as well, Darcy is doing Novice at the trial in March and it's something we haven't done enough of lately with people she doesn't know. Friends don't count! Anyone who could call a heel sequence for me would be awesome, I can give whoever a sequence if you need it but it's pretty simple. tez is it you I've seen up the showgrounds a few times? I've got the two black dogs.

Pandii I would prefer the two as well, that way I'll have one for our camp site and one for the seminars if dog forbid it gets too hot.

Seen them the other day and pounced as I need a "clean" one for the seminars I'm going to with the dogs in Feb, just in case it's hot. Until I seen it was only for one - Big W have the same ones, same shape and similar price ($21). Will have to grab a double from either Target or Kmart, whoever has a special at the time.

Or even country Victoria - a seminar of that calibre within an hours drive would be heaven.

Awesome photos! I've just ducked home for lunch, the bucket of water I froze and dumped in their water bowl is nearly melted. They are currently eating home made chicken stock icey poles before they come inside. They can have the run of the kitchen and study with the a/c until I get home from work. They also have a pool in the shade, heaps of shade from a big oak tree but I'm happier if they are inside. I wish I was with them!

Mine are flat out now - Darcy is happy to sleep but Zee being who she is always has an ear at the ready in case there's something happening. They should be fine inside, especially with Darce to set her usual good example. I'm a field rep - so spend my day between the office and out on the road providing service to farmers. I can work from home instead of the office if I want to - I don't push it but on days like tomorrow nobody gets too fussed about it. I'm supposed to be doing an audit with a work mate tomorrow after lunch at Gellibrand, somewhere I have no desire to be on such a sh*t of a day. :D I'm tempted to ask him to shift it or let him go on his own.

I'm wondering what to do with my guys tomorrow - if I had no work appointments I'd work from home for the afternoon but I have 2 appointments booked in on a tight schedule so won't get the chance to check on them in between. Darcy alone inside I've no issue with, Zee should be ok but I've never left her inside for longer than 1/2 hour without me around. I think I'll duck home and chuck them inside anyway at lunch time. They have their clam and I can stick a big ice block in their water bowl but I'd prefer they were safe and cool inside. Zee's still puppy silly and I wouldn't put it past her to do something stupid like run around in the heat.

Maybe we should start one Have been approached several times by keen people while working my two, especially if I have agility gear set up.

Nothing in Camperdown - puppy pre school at the vets occasionally. Her options are two places at Warrnambool - one at Brierly and the Warrnambool Dog Training School. Otherwise there is one at Colac (1/2 hour away) but I have no information on it. Or Ballarat which is Ballarat Dog Obedience Club which is hour and quarter. I've been to WDTS - I didn't do puppy class there or Class 1 so I don't know what the lower classes are like. I had no issue with the higher classes, still quite correction based though.

I tend to agree - regardless of what "system" they use - the overseas guys have this amazing wealth of knowledge and are way ahead of us here in Aus, could be years before we get to see some of them come back again. I'll take anything I can get. As someone who is flirting a lot with the GD system, I'd go to a Linda Mecklenburg seminar in a heart beat if it was offered over here. Edited to add: I did the GD seminars in Sydney recently. Yes handling played a part in the 3 days but nowhere near as much as you'd think. Training, rewards, basics, foundation etc was close to 80% of 3 days. Ohhhh pressure..... Too late - Ivy came out of the closet at the first trial you took her too

Only 5 weeks to go ;) I'm doing the Say Yes weekend with Zee who will be almost 9 months. Then Accel, Decel, Turns and the advanced two day with Darcy, and the mini workshops as an auditor. Hope it's not too hot like last time - I'm camping with the dogs for the week so I think we'll all be sleeping in a clam shell full of water if it does get too warm.

Excellent - thank you

Left and rights have never been my forte Kudos to those who manage to put directional commands on their agility dogs and use them accurately. Something I forgot to ask my "judge" last night and didn't realise beforehand. I assumed change of positions was sit at heel and walk into a stand like you do a stand for exam, but it's not. What's the done thing in a the trial ring - do you have space to step into position and give the command stand? Or do you let your dog sit at heel until ready to go and then give the stand command so they kick back into a stand without you moving anywhere?

I'm glad this has come up. I did some basic work (several workshops and a lesson) with Darcy as a youngster and haven't looked back - she works really well for both food and toys. Has a brilliant recall, can call her off anything that moves (or doesn't!) regardless of what's going on. I love the fact that she's so reliable off lead and can handle distraction with barely a glance - with or without reward on me. I'd love to get that kind of reliability on Zee, my 7 month old, and hopefully prove that Darcy is not the freak that several think she is. Zee at 7 months does ok with food except when there is the soccer ball on offer - and then she blatantly refuses the steak and will only focus on the ball. She's far drivier than Darcy was and I reckon it will do both of us good to revisit this and work through it in full.

Easy when you know how! Thanks again :D We did our Novice run through tonight, I have a few things I need to work on but I was rapt with her heeling given that's what we've struggled so much with. We went all the way through, no food reward until the end. She was not 100% switched on for the first 10 to 15 seconds of her heeling but from then on she was fine. Turns were all fast and drivey, which is the first thing she loses if she's starting to switch off so that was great. At point we ended up doing figure of 8 over the top of her reward and she did a great job of staying focussed. ;) I need to work on my straight lines (recall, change of positions and stand for exam all crooked!) and be careful with my hands as I moved them several times during the recall. Seems I've also lost my formerly automatic left and right foot work for leaving and stopping, and some work on which way is left and right might be handy too! :D Looks like Darcy gets the week off obedience for good behaviour and I get to go back to obedience basics 101 bootcamp. :D Anyone have any ideas for getting this stuff down so it's automatic - no-one really local who can help me and it's a 2.5 hour round trip to class on Thursday so any assistance for doing it alone would be great.

Well I've done two sessions on the RATs with the head turn and the clicker. To start with I exaggerated the head turn and then quickly faded it as I could see Darcy turning faster and tighter. Second session last night she was turning much better and I've figured out that while my footwork is greatly improved I still need to stick an extra short step in coming out of the turn in order to give her time to catch me. We'll continue working on it - she picks this stuff up so fast once I put my mind to it. So tomorrow night we have our first Novice run through with a friend who is an aspiring Novice judge so I hope we can pull the entire thing together.

Pretty much equal. They get trained with different stuff, depending on what I'm doing. So with Zee (7 months) I'm doing plenty of simple play as well as some agility foundation work and some life skills (i.e recalls, and not being a lunatic in public!). With Darcy, I'm doing some heeling work for obedience, back to contact foundation for agility and a few other agility/obedience skills plus plenty of play. They both get worked the same amount - I'll let them have a brief run around, then put Darcy in a drop and work Zee for a few mins. Swap and work Darcy for a few mins, back to Zee and then Darcy again. So they each get about 10 mins total of training outside a day, and then some general free running and more play. Quite often they'll get another session after tea as well - that's when Zee probably gets more training than Darcy but Darce still gets a few minutes minimum.

Not sure. Terry who is running the agility info site has said he will run that site as a temporary measure until Pamela decides what she plans to do. And yes it is poor form - I think most clubs assume that us triallers know about their trial and will chase it up if we wish to enter. All well and good if you've been around long enough to know which trials are which.

Everything used to be on the geocities sites - either vic agility or vic obedience. I have never had to use the gazette to get trial info until now. Now the geocities sites have shut down, there is a new website as noted in above posts for Victorian Agility, and many schedules are put on the Agility Victoria Yahoo mail list. I have no idea if something similar has been put together for Obedience - thus why I asked the question. I know I've always just used the vic agility list, and I have a rough idea in my head which agility trials are when. My issue is that not being an obedience trialler as such, I have no idea when trials are except my local ones, and I'd like to look at what is coming up so I can enter Darcy in Novice. In some cases the trial schedule is not even put up on the club's own website so I have no idea how outsiders like me are supposed to get the trial info. I would imagine there was probably some chasing of information from clubs/trial secretary's to get the information for the geocities sites.

Done heaps of part turns in the kitchen just as part of our learning to 1) truely understand finding heel position and 2) enjoy it given I nearly ruined her with boredom from doing 2 years of classes. So as part of that we've done left turns right turns backwards forwards etc etc and she does them fine. We have done some on the spot work and yes she is lagging/not turning as tightly - most of it's been in the kitchen on board floors but I did some on grass this arvo and they were still ordinary. Maybe she's got used to turning badly on the boards due to footing and it's carrying to outside? Try turning your head in the direction you are turning just prior to making the turn - it indicates to the dog that you are about to change direction. I can hear you saying footwork, food, clicker, head turn ARGH - but it does work! Will add it to this week's training plan.... Thank you!