JulesP

Good service from them too. The tunnel arrived in a couple of days.

How do your dogs fit in a comp type tunnel?? Do they have to crouch down to go through. Brock is over 50cm tall and he had a bit of room above his back but not heaps. Neither of my dogs is particularly rough either.

I got an Air Dog tunnel today! Am quite pleased with it. Seems sturdy enough for home practice. Is made of a material similar to the soft crates. Not sure how a massive dog would feel going through it as it is slightly smaller than a ANKC comp one but my older border who is fairly solid was fine running through it. Probably wouldn't want to leave it outside but it comes in a cool carry case. Perfect for those of you that travel to a park to train. Weighs about 5kgs.

I don't consider obedience work. My dogs consider it work (in a good sense). I don't consider city slicker type herding ie ANKC herding comps working either. Working needs to involve earning a wage for it to be really working. My borders are serious little critters and seem to view most sports as 'work'. I don't have a problem with people saying 'my dog worked well' in regards to obedience training.

I use quite a lot of treats when training so if I jackpot it has to be pretty big. It isn't just one handful, it would be a couple of handfuls. One treat after the other would just be normal treating. Kelpie what you are describing is my normal treating schedule. But I don't have trouble with focusing and am usually trying to hype my dogs up a bit! They also don't walk off after the jackpots. I do save jackpots for something super and like to end on the super thing.

I do the jackpot thing as a big performance. Running, clapping to the treat bag, patting dog on the way and then handfuls of treats. I like to feed from my hand not just let the dog eat from the jackpot item. I tend to finish training after a jackpot too. As my dogs are more into pats, they get a good belly rub to finish off the jackpot! (As I train on the front lawn my neighbours must like I am nuts!!!)

Now SD are you sure that you are just not trying to delay entering a trial?? ummmm. tell the truth!

I was doing really short heeling bursts, lots of food throwing. Had very nice heeling but was finding it wasn't transferring to heeling in the ring. So have been working more on duration. Big circles of just heeling. Telling her how wonderful she is and then a big fuss at the end. I like playing the handler tries to escape from the dog game. Whilst heeling, I try and lose Poppy! steps to the side, quicker, slower etc. I am quite animated when I do this, telling her I am getting away! I would watch the heeling on the right as when I first started doing that for agility it did cause some issues with left about turns! This would only be a problem if you do the behind the back turn. I have always enjoyed heeling. It is like a dance. And all my dogs have liked doing it. So I think our attitude to it is important.

Ohhhh near me and having herding facilities would be good (Yarra Valley btw!)

Congratulations! ;)

I feed Proplan either the performance one or the salmon one. I tried Great barko and had a drop off in coat condition plus one got itchy. The best dry food is the one that works for your dog.

I've used Proplan Salmon for Sensitive skin successfully for a dog that had contact allergies. It helped his skin. Gives an amazing shine to the coat too.

I don't agree with making your own BARF patties and feeding them everyday either. That is not how the diet is supposed to work.

As this is something that I have said recently I will answer. One of the main points of BARF was that each meal did not have to be complete as a dog in the wild would be unlikely to get all the nutrients it needed in the one meal. The idea was to feed quite a lot of different things and over the course of the week you would get a complete diet. In fact in Dr Billinghursts book 'myth number 6' is related to just this. Let me quote "The attempts to put all the nutrients a dog needs in one product results in much ill-health". That is one reason. The other is the dog isn't getting the benefits of chewing on a bone. Nutritiously it is as most of the patties have ground bone in them. But the teeth and body don't get exercised with the chomping. BARF was also supposed to be cheap. Those patties are expensive. Do I have a problem with people feeding the patties? - no. But I don't consider them to be true BARF.

A guy at my clubs makes weavers and jumps. The weavers are individual metal doo-dads that pipe slots into so you have total flexibility of how they go. I would like a tunnel though.

And?......

I have the same thing with my old border collie. The coat has changed texture and doesn't drop out. It is hard to get out even with a mars coat king. I was thinking cushings as cushings in horses causes the coat not to drop out but everything I read about dogs said that dogs coats got thinner. The vet wasn't bothered about it. The dog doesn't seem to mind but does look rather bad. I clipped her off last year as she got very hot, wasn't so bad this year.

They are shorter and closer together than ANKC weavers. The height wouldn't bother me but the space might be an issue. I would get 2 sets so that I had 12 poles. The other agility mob ADAA ? might have different spacing in their weavers. I seem to remember getting 2 different measurements when I asked. Don't suppose anyone has one of the Airdog tunnels??

"Here comes that crazy singing woman and her vicious dog" - the picture I have in my head right now..... :rofl:

We only have the OP view that it was a strong correction! Any correction on my boy border collie would have him on the ground weeing!

Why this is dangerous is that we only have the view of the OP who has admitted that they are a novice. She might have got what happened totally wrong. People might PM her and ask her the name of this terrible club, which might actually not be terrible at all. Everyone seems to be accepting that some misdeed did happen. She also might not have seen what has happened at previous weeks. The nice doggie might have been biting and snarling prior. Or the trainer might just be heavy handed. It is unfair to a trainer to judge them on a snapshot.

Singing is a good way to counter tension in the human! Hard to be tense when you are singing.

It is unfair to ask people to comment when they haven't seen for themselves. I don't personally use a correction chain, however if it is going to be used I would rather see someone give a handful of meaningful corrections rather than 'gentle' pissy corrections that are probably pulling rather than correcting. Some dogs just don't like people handling them physically, hence why the dog dropped rather than sat. It is not an indication that undue force was used. A trainer tried to lead my dog by her collar on the weekend, she didn't like it and dropped on to her back. Doubt that would have looked good if videoed. You need to decide whether this clubs methods of training are for you or not. You don't need us to tell you what we think about the trainer. Threads like this make me not want to be a trainer!

My club advises to put something yummier in the bowl. I wouldn't do that is the dog was actually growling at the time though. Can't say what I did the last time one of my dogs growled at me in regards to food but it wasn't very positive :D The TOT and NILF stuff tends to put a stop to any of that sort of behavior I find.

Ummm no ACV is not the best hair rinse ever if you have a sore head - it hurts. A lot. And it made my head itch more.