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Absolutely I hold my dog back - she's the kind of dog I'd like in 5 years time to see how much further I could've gone with her, given she's such a good dog with a novice handler... I keep thinking "what would she be like with a handler with more experience?" BUT she doesn't know that... so I figure as long as we're having fun then that's what matters! From what you've written isiss, Bronson is picking up on your nerves and is reacting accordingly. Good on you for finding a club where you both feel more confident. One thing I learnt from my few years studying natural horsemanship is that it's only a mistake when you don't recognise it. If you realise that maybe you're not asking the right question, or maybe you're asking the right question the wrong way, then it's not a mistake, just a learning experience. It'll just take a little longer. :D

Totally agree with the addiction bit! I don't train at Altona, have been down for a look and have seriously considered joining despite the 2 hour drive each way ;) Luckily my 2nd club has weeknight training come daylight savings so that might keep me satisfied for a while...

Our first ever trial was a double, and we didn't have too much trouble. Darcy can be a bit of an everready bunny though. I make sure that she goes back to the car or the crate for a nap in between trials. I tend to get her out just long enough to comfortably toilet her, rouse her up and pretty much walk into the ring without too much panic time-wise.

Sorry skip I didn't exactly know where you were "at" with your dog My dog is the same, brilliantly focussed at agility but if there's any downtime and we happen to be standing next to the one person who has given her a treat, she will sit and stare intently hoping to win one again. I do exactly what you said, take her away or ask for her attention if I can get it and then reward her for it.

Excellent question! We have a bloke here who charges very little and I'm told is very very good. Several dogs from club have been and I've often wondered if its worth going just as a maintenance/checkup thing. Will keep watching this thread with interest.

I don't blame you for being annoyed about someone feeding your dog, especially as you've only just told them not to!! My dogs a food hound and no-one really feeds her but me, but she'll still prick her ears and watch someone intently if they are rustling a plastic treat bag in their pocket. I normally have pretty high value rewards which are better than everyone else's, but the novelty of the unknown seems to be far too enticing - drives me bonkers! Maybe explain to your walking mates (the ones you trust to do the right thing) that the treating from strangers has really helped your dog get past his problems, but now the treating is causing its own problems. If there are a few who don't respect your wishes, then try the "special diet" story. Doggies on a specific diet with no treats other than the ones you have cos they are "xyz-free". Its quick and easy to say "he's on a special diet - strictly no treats!!!" and I would hope that people would respect that! Far easier than having to justify yourself to all the do-gooders who think its harmless to feed someone elses dogs! Fill in the trustworthy mates on the doggy diet story so they can help point it out to someone who doesn't know any better and help you enforce the rule. It will take a while for your dog to get past the habit, he's been on a pretty good success rate so EVERYONE needs to be consistent. If one person crumbles and gives in, or even drops a treat by mistake while your dog is begging, it will be back to the drawing board again! Have you taught your dog to focus on you at home? Just simple "yes" and treat anytime he looks at you. Teach him a focus word i.e "watch me" and keep working on it, as well as your recall. Do you have a really high value toy or food treat that is just absolutely No 1 in your dogs books? Use that as part of the distraction and reward. Don't let your dog beg and focus on other people, if you have to walk up and physically lead him away and then ask for the "watch me" and reward him the moment he gives you his focus. Teach him that you are now the master of all things good, toys and excellent treats. By letting him beg and plead in front of others there's a chance he'll manage to suck someone into feeding him and all your hard works gone. As part of that, have a look at the triangle of temptation post pinned at the top of the training forum - it will help work on focus as well. :D

I agree with Susan Garrett's "Shaping Success" being an excellent book, but for anyone who's into agility not just "very beginners". :D

Kowai, I said I would "break a stay rather than leave my dog vulnerable to a dog I was concerned about." I don't give a stuff about dogs who break. However, if I ever had the slightest concern that the dog that broke was going to cause any sort of trouble then I'd be in there in a heartbeat.

I'd do the same thing TO, break a stay rather than leave my dog vulnerable to a dog I was concerned about. I can be fairly confident I have a pass if we're on a pass prior to the stays, and I would never risk ruining that kind of reliability if I thought there was going to be a problem with another dog. Luckily I have only come across a few dogs breaking in CCD, and every one has gone straight to their owner. Back to the OP - if you have a tendency to get nervous - sh*tloads of rescue remedy!!!! Let the judge know its your first trial and you're a bit nervous, it helped me a lot as I found they were all good at trying to put me at ease! Oh and don't forget to breathe - I got to the end of my fast pace and wondered why I was so out of breath, I don't think I took a breath between the startline and the fast pace....

For obedience - showers yes, heavy rain no way. I hate getting wet Won't do agility in the wet at all, jumpings not so bad but if general conditions are bad I'll pull out for my dogs safety. Funnily enough Darcy packs it in if its raining at obedience, but take her out for a walk in it when its twice as heavy and she's as happy as - maybe she's trying to tell me something

Reddii we started our agility career about this time last year, right from the start. 6.5 month old dog and a novice handler. I felt like you did to start, couldn't get the co-ordination or timing right and basically felt like I was stuffing the lot up. One thing that helped me a lot was investing in a small collection of excellent DVDs - Greg Derretts Foundation Training and Susan Garretts Success with One Jump. It gave me things to work on at home, even small things like start lines, and that gave the opportunity to experiment a little without the constant worry of eyes over the shoulder and feeling like a goof! :rolleyes: It gave me some confidence and as long as you recognise that you're not asking your dog the right question or that you're making mistakes, then your dog will forgive you Mine has forgiven me an awful lot 12 months later we still have a way to go and I still have a lot to learn. I have a once in a lifetime dog who only stuffs up on course cos her handlers a twit and makes stupid handling decisions! Funnily enough we had our usual training session taped about 2 months ago. I never got the chance to watch it at the time, but it was playing in the club room the other night. The difference in our team work and my handling in that short amount of time is quite amazing, thanks to some excellent instruction over the past few weeks I feel like something has clicked, but I'm sure I'll have a lot of those moments over the duration of my agility career!

You could always do their Easter trial Pippi :rolleyes: Great trial, which is why I'm disappointed that it coincides with Ballarat. Will just have to wait til Easter myself!

Thanks Mornir - your searching skills are right on!!! The trial is under "Blue Lake" so it does coincide with Ballarat...

Can anyone confirm that there is in fact an agility trial in Mt Gambier in October? I've done a search, I can't find any reference to it at all but I am told it coincides with Ballarat's agility trial this year Does anyone have a link which provides details of the SA agility/jumping trials - I couldn't find one at all Thanks in advance!

Is there a reason you don't use all the juice poodlefan? I bought the big 1250 W Breville juicer and it copes with sweet potato and pumpkin easily.... far easier than what I do. I hate cutting up pumpkin!! But considering I use pumpkin as a base for weight reasons, I don't have much choice

I know for a fact that Pro Plan do Bowser. Fairly sure Nutro do as well. The last different brand of cat food I tried (a brand very highly recommended from this forum) ended up being fed to Dads work dogs because even M&Ds cat wouldn't eat it. When you pay upwards of $10 a kg for super premium food you kind of expect it to be palatable enough that they will eat it. Thanks Gomez, I will just ring the store where I got it from in the morning, was just wondering if anyone happened to know. There's no mention on the website or the bag unfortunately! Lesson learnt - only buy stuff you know the fussy little sods will eat!!

Specifically Eagle Pack? Got a bag of a EP product that I've never bought before but the store was out of the EP brand I usually get (which they love!!). A week on and still not interested in it at all. Fussy sods! Do EP offer a money back guarantee on palatability?

Even though they have completely different hand signals? We've been working on heel a lot with Darcy, my long term suspicions were correct in that she really didn't understand what "heel" meant. To her it was stay within cooee of my left leg (no distance or direction criteria). All well and good for CCD but pretty useless for Novice. ;) So today we did a bit of everything required for Novice, and discovered that her recall has suddenly fallen to pieces. I've always used "here" for recall, today she come towards me at a fair pace, but was sitting diagonally to my left instead of straight in front. Barely managed an acceptable recall at all when its never been an issue. So are the two words too close? Do I retrain the recall with a different word? Or is it purely because we've focussed so hard on heel recently that she thinks thats maybe what I'm asking for and just requires a bit of persistance and great rewards for the right answer?

Another one for Victoria... WARRNAMBOOL DOG TRAINING SCHOOL INC www.wdts.org.au

Glad zip bag in my jeans pocket's the best out of all I've tried. Problem is you can't really get much in the way of treatbags in country vic so have to get it off the net, and you miss out on the benefits of try before you buy! I gave up after a while and just went with the glad bags. Every now and then one will give way on me but no real biggie... bit of frankfurt/cabana in your pocket will wash out eventually

But I reckon you're also right, because utilising the correct drive seems to teach the dog to think of the best way to get that "reward" whether it be food or toy or praise. The best thing is that a training session is always reliable while I have control of that drive. I don't have days where its shitty and windy with distracting leaves going everywhere, or like today having two strange dogs rock up, so it doesn't affect our ability to train because the distractions disappear. ;) So its like your training time becomes more efficient... thats just my take on it anyway! The only dodgy training sessions we have these days is because her handlers an unco at all this agility stuff we're learning

I have a nylon martingale with the chain section - I'm really happy with it and will stick with it. I got it from K9 Force When I first got it I had it adjusted quite snug so the chain would click in easily. Darcy was a bit of a puller as a youngster. These days I have it adjusted quite loose, so that when the chain is at its tightest its only just tighter than a normal flat collar. Darcy is quite responsive to the sound of the chain clicking in and that sound is all the reminder she needs that that the lead is a touch tighter than I'd like it to be ;) The fully nylon ones seem to be only of benefit if you have a dog that can slip its collar or for greys/whippets that are difficult to fit a normal collar to. I reckon they'd be no better than a flat collar on a dog that pulls.

I agree Pax, was trying to write this down last night but got lost and gave up The dog may get distracted easily, but what if it has a high drive but the handler has never learnt how to use it? Or never wanted to? Or maybe using the wrong drive for the dog? What if the dog learns to direct that drive onto other things that aren't useful to the handler? I.e the dog places a higher value on playing with other dogs than working for its owner in class (how often do you see this in pet classes?). I know Darcy was starting to head down this track quite badly as a 6 month old pup - to the extent that I pulled her out of the club we were in and started with another club. She wasn't allowed to play with other dogs at the new club, and is still rarely allowed. Lesson learnt (She plays with friends dogs and my parents dogs, just very rarely at training!) Today I took her out the local soccer field with her favourite toy for some play and training... two strange dogs rocked up to check her out. She barely looked at them other than to get out of their way, all she wanted was the toy in my hands. ;) So I would say she's a medium to high drive dog, I've learnt to work her in drive enough to get the results I need. I would say she'd be closer to high drive if I learnt more about drive when she was a young pup but I'll use that knowledge for when my next pup comes home... and I'll be looking for another high drive dog. I don't think I could deal with a low drive dog now ;) Mind you I could regret saying that later on.... :p

Vets can be a bit lax on dog weights I reckon - I had a bit of trouble with Darcy's weight when she was younger, always carrying a few kgs more than necesssary - every vet who seen her commented on how good her condition was, despite me stating I was unhappy with her weight. Her last proper vet weigh in was 24 kg at about 14 months old. I dropped into the vet quickly the other day and asked to borrow the scales, she's now down to 22 kg and still carrying probably a 1/2 to maybe 1 kg more than I'd like her to carry... then again maybe I'm too used to straight working kelpies (not lab x kelpies!) ;) Instructor tells me she's fine

We have the same thing at my main club, one dog on 300 mm then most of us are on 500 mm, putting the jumps to correct height doesn't bother anyone. I was more curious whether people trained at a lower height to take the pressure off their dogs joints? I'd not really considered it but then again I only do jumps once a week at training or a once a month trial.