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Obedience Trialling A Blind Dog


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Depends on the judge but you wouldn't find you ran out of points just because the dog was crabbing/forging. 3-5 is what I had somebody tell me at some point but I suspect some judges will take more. I think in this circumstance I would be happy to take the point loss and its better then the alternative of losing the dog. You might also find anyway the dog does drop back a fraction into the ring and is no longer holding quite as strict contact and it balances out anyway and especially in the novice classes.

ETA. Staranais I know there are dogs competing in NSW that are trained in the UK style heelwork (Powerpaws team - Steve Davies comes to mind) and wining classes so it can't be that considerable.

Edited by ness
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Saxon we believe was born with his problem - he has a detached retina. We first noticed it at around 17-18 weeks old and the specialist advised me that it was "long standing". He started out having about 5% sight, however now he is totally blind. Unfortunately there is no surgery to correct it, so he (and I) have learned to live with it. In saying that, he is now pretty well adjusted...sometimes he just forgets to concentrate and walks into things LOL :-) It is amazing to watch him grow as all his other senses have heightened! He is showing a lot of promise with the tracking...and it is fantastic to watch him do something that comes so naturally.

Yes the nose works overtime here too! Paxy loves to look for things I hide for her! We also have the occasional head bang when she just doesn't realise what's next to her and she turns suddenly. I also have the occasional lapse and ask her to do something when I'm training at night and then realise that she's not responding because she can't see my hand signal because it's in my shadow! Smack the trainer! :laugh:

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Good for you for your work with your dog, the achievement you have obtained and for working towards even higher ambitions :thumbsup: .

I'm not going to be a great deal of help (other than what has already been suggested, as I'm not familiar with what would or would not be allowed by the Judges in the trialling ring) but I will say that I recently had a dog in for B&T and he too was blind in the right eye. When he first came to me he used to circle me almost consistently as I walked - he'd learnt that by doing this he could keep his eye on me and see the world as we walked. I actually purposely taught him to hang back a little so that his good left eye could see me as well as see ahead of himself. So I fully understand why your dog would want to lag.

Edited by Erny
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This is an example of lovely heel position UK style where the dog is touching but not impeding or crowding the handler. I would think this style of heeling would score highly anywhere in the world (including Australia ;))

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