Things You Would Like To Change About Current Obedience Rules!

[leopuppy04]

But the biggest thing that I would like to see is that novice heel work is still on lead.. after all you need to be able to walk your dog down the street on lead.

But in whole the current rules are ok, and with the rule review happening, things will slightly change again.

I love to hear a dog doing Speak on Command at Trials, and a few of my friends do this exercise in UD.. I too, have done both Directed retrieves and Speak on Command in UD.

Nooooo to Novice heeling on lead!!! LOL! I HATE the lead . Hate it, hate it, hate it

I love speak on command - so does my dog

[Sheilaheel02]

Hi Gayle K,

It's not the teaching the dog to speak on command that's hard, it's teaching the enthusiastic ones to stay rock solid while they do it in the three positions and from a distance Also, UD can a very stressful class and keeping the dogs focus and convidence up can be a challenge. If worried, some dogs will not speak at all and others will move their mouth but hardly any audible sound will come out.

The trial ring and handlers nerves can do funny things to a dogs performance.

A lot of people will choose the Directed Retrieve over the SOC as they feel there is less opportunity to lose points.

Sharon

[Seita]

Hi Gayle K,

It's not the teaching the dog to speak on command that's hard, it's teaching the enthusiastic ones to stay rock solid while they do it in the three positions and from a distance Also, UD can a very stressful class and keeping the dogs focus and convidence up can be a challenge. If worried, some dogs will not speak at all and others will move their mouth but hardly any audible sound will come out.

The trial ring and handlers nerves can do funny things to a dogs performance.

A lot of people will choose the Directed Retrieve over the SOC as they feel there is less opportunity to lose points.

Sharon

Not to mention that you only need to do one glove unlike the SOC where you have to do a speak in all 3 positions! My dog speaks on command but I wouldn't risk it in a trial as he tends to move or gets excited and barks twice or doesn't bark properly (does more of a growl thing)... all too risky to do in a trial for me!

[kallistar]

But the biggest thing that I would like to see is that novice heel work is still on lead.. after all you need to be able to walk your dog down the street on lead.

But in whole the current rules are ok, and with the rule review happening, things will slightly change again.

I love to hear a dog doing Speak on Command at Trials, and a few of my friends do this exercise in UD.. I too, have done both Directed retrieves and Speak on Command in UD.

Nooooo to Novice heeling on lead!!! LOL! I HATE the lead ;). Hate it, hate it, hate it

I love speak on command - so does my dog

Why? Don't you walk your dogs down the street on lead?

After all it's not that hard to have a lead in your hand unless you have two left/arm hands and two right arms/hand..

[kallistar]

Hi Gayle K,

It's not the teaching the dog to speak on command that's hard, it's teaching the enthusiastic ones to stay rock solid while they do it in the three positions and from a distance Also, UD can a very stressful class and keeping the dogs focus and convidence up can be a challenge. If worried, some dogs will not speak at all and others will move their mouth but hardly any audible sound will come out.

The trial ring and handlers nerves can do funny things to a dogs performance.

A lot of people will choose the Directed Retrieve over the SOC as they feel there is less opportunity to lose points.

Sharon

Very true, but one of my friend's dog couldn't cope with the D/R and would stress out badly, drop the glove, not go out ect. So I told him to do SoC and he hasn't looked back..

[J...]

I love to hear a dog doing Speak on Command at Trials, and a few of my friends do this exercise in UD..

Benson can speak on command. He can't do much else well, but he does this VERY well, and it was so absolutely easy to teach (and we don't use a clicker) that I'm surprised it's a UD exercise.

In fact, my 15yo daughter taught him in about 3 minutes. Now we're trying to teach him to "speak softly".

Not all dogs are easy to teach to speak though. Darcy is not a natural barker, in fact I never heard her bark until she was well over 12 months old. Even then it is very much a "somethings wrong" behaviour, it's not a behaviour she does for the hell of it.

I have trained her to bark on command now, but just because one dog does it easily doesn't mean they all will.

[Gayle.]

I have trained her to bark on command now, but just because one dog does it easily doesn't mean they all will.

But I am a hopeless trainer, and my daughter is even worse. I mean....we are really bad. After 2 years in regular obedience classes and loads and loads of practise, Benson still can't heel properly and it's not his fault. It's mine.

And Dusty (my daughters obedience dog) only works for food and only when she can see it. They are stuck in class one and don't look likely to be promoted any time soon.

So if either of us can teach a dog to speak on command, any one of you guys, who are awesome trainers, should be able to do it then build on it to get the exercise correct.

[JulesP]

My dogs don't bark when I am around GayleK. And I couldn't make them bark so I doubt that I will be able to train them to speak.

[Seita]

I have one dog that never barks, I have heard her bark on only a small number of occaisons and there is no way I could teach her to do this. But my pup likes to bark alot so he was really easy - taught him in one night to do it and he loves it! It really does depend on the individual dog.