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A lady at our club has a Visla who assumes the position when given the toilet command regardless of whether she needs to go or not. So cute...just squats and looks at her owner as if to say 'See, there's nothing there!. Had a friend who was very proper about the language she used and was complaining about her first ever puppies indoor toilet habits and referred to them as 'Archies' cuz of the shape of the dogs back when they were going. Had a few giggles about that and decided that Archie would be our cue word. On the pooh pick up side of things, my girl looks at me with a kind of embarrased/disgusted look when I pick up after her.....'What do you want that for??' Kind of like the way I look at her when when she wants to roll in dead things :cool: ETA: Friends in Canada tell their dogs to 'Take a dump'

Maybe you could use the command 'whisper' instead of 'speak'

Bump!

I'm planning on doing some swimming work with my girl as well, just as good a work out without all joint wear. Would love to see a training program for ET though....eg. how many times per week and at what distance and speed. Have read somewhere that its good to do some cross training eg. short sprints mixed alternated with long jogs etc.

Good onya CC. This is the first dog I've taken to formal obedience training and I can't say that I feel as though I get the best out of my dog in a class situation.....seems to go against the grain of the Time b4 Distance b4 Distraction thing. Not that I have anything against obedience clubs in general, they serve their purpose for those handlers who need to learn more & they are a great place to meet other doggy people. But I'd really like to see some changes at our club, hate the way beginners start of with dogs on a check chain amid loads of new distractions...just seems so counter productive! Erny, I haven't paid anything yet...I was instructing for 12 months or more before I got my current dog! Maybe my accounts in credit

At our club we pay $15 per annum membership and $60 per annum training fees. We train 44 weeks of the year and so thats around $1.70 per week. If you are training more than one dog we add another $40 per annum so works out at $2.60 per week. Just wondering because some think that we are too dear so would like some comparisons. ETA: That also includes agility for those who choose to take it up

Hope this post works...just had some sort of gremlin attack. Here's some stats if anyone is interested: 68% of dogs that do not get some sort of formal obedience training end up in pounds/shelters/pts. Average life span of dogs in Aust is 3.5 years with the majority of those being pts or dying b4 12 months of age. Interesting comparison average life span of wild dogs is 5years! Of those dogs that end up in pounds/shelters approx 50 percent have been surrendered or not collected by owners because of behavioural problems that could have been prevented by early training. Locally, only 27% of dogs that end up in the pound are collected by there owners. This is from some research that I did for an article to promote obedience training. Sources are Cooloola Shire Council Health Dept., RSPCA and Speakers notes from Clonicalm conference Bris 2000.

Absolutely! See the pinned Triangle of Temptation at the top and read some of the posts about drive. If I were starting again with another dog...this is absolutely how I'd start! My initial education on training in drive started with reading Kevin Behans book Natural Dog Training. K9 gives specific exercises and lots of followup. Will be well and truly worth your time and investment!

Phew, thats impressive! Wish I knew more about it when my girl was that young!

17 places left at workshop

Hi Hopenfox, I like what you say....but what sort of program did you use to train this way? Did you just ask for more each time b4 you got to the fun, heaps of verbal praise/encouragement stage? Its a problem you see a lot around, but I haven't yet heard of how people over come it. All the best Capnash!

Hi everyone, Steve from K9 Force has agreed to come to Gympie, Qld to do a training in drive workshop on 23 & 24 of Sept, 2006. We have already filled 11 places out of a possible 30 for the weekend and judging by his popularity, the remaining places will fill fast. Please PM me if you are interested in coming, include email addy so that I can send back info.

Are you finishing on your left foot when you stop? I find that dogs read body language and since we have been taught in obedience to finish on our left foot as an additional signal to the dog for an automatic sit, then this may confuse the dog when teaching the stand. So some at our club reverse the foot work and finish on the right foot when giving the stand command or some like me, delay bringing up the left foot until the stand command/hand signal is completed. (Remember to only do this in the beginning stages of learning the stand though cuz later on if you go in the ring, it may be considered that you have double commanded your dog and you lose points.) Also some dogs react to having their tummy touched to prevent them from sitting. Maybe because they have recently been desexed or they relate a tummy touch to play time when they roll over and we rub their tummy. So if we get a reaction to tummy touch when teaching the stand, instead we do the same hand signal but rest our hand on their stifle in an effort to make them think twice about flexing the stifle to sit. Another method I've seen used, but rarely rely on myself is to have a soft strip of fabric like a tie or the sash out of a terry towel robe and make a loop to put around the dogs bellly. When they go to sit after the stand command, the tie around the belly is used to support the weight to prevent the sit....don't jerk on it or anything like that, just prevent them from sitting.

Another method I have found handy is to sit on the floor with your legs out front and knees bent up so as to make a triangle shape between floor heels knees and butt. Have the dog on the left side facing triangle and with right hand under your legs holding treat. May need to adjust height of knees to depth of dogs chest. Poke treat out at dog and then bring it back under your legs. Dog has to get down to get the treat. Doesn't quite get the same 'fold up effect' as the method L&P uses, but is just another way to try and get the idea through to the dogs that just don't seem to understand what you're asking of them. Also a good one for small dogs is to teach the drop on a step. That way you can hold the treat just below the level of the step and they have to put their nose over the edge to get the treat. I love and prefer any method of training a task that does not use force however so slight because it gives the dog options that don't include resistance to the force because the dog will be trying to maintain its balance and using its muscles all wrong. Makes the learning slower IMO. Esp important in the drop because a dog doesn't have our equivalent to a collar bone to help a stabilize shoulder joint that was not designed to take force from above. Resistance from dog when trying to maintain its balance could stretch the tendons and ligaments that hold the joint in place securely. Once read an article on muscle memory and balance. Basically if you think back to when you were learning to ride a bike you won't remember exactly what it was that you did when you finally had the balance down and could ride, but once you had the balance right, you never had to relearn...same with teaching a dog...let him get the idea under his own steam and let him figure out the balance for the moves himself without adding any force or physical guidance.

Unfortunately, this woman is an ex-obedience instructor. She has a group of people who follow her methods still because otherwise her dogs are so well trained and obedient. Although her older boy is just not the keen to work dog that he used to be 2 years ago and she has actually been marked down at trials for his demeanour (sp?) in the ring. She is very set in her ways and really does not take notice of anything said about such issues. I have really not like seeing her treat dogs the way she does when they lash out at other dogs and have really felt crash tackling her....but I'm fairly new to this game......

Cheers Mel! I just subscribed to the online version of the mag. They wanted US10 for the article or you could get 13 issues of the mag emailed for US16.

Thanks for the replies everyone! When I get a printer I'm going to print this page out and show it to her!! (If thats allowed!)

A woman that I know punishes her dog for its dog aggressive outbursts by pushing its head onto the ground and yelling and screaming at it. While I admit that her dog is generally well behaved and social, I feel that this method of dealing with the situation doesn't take into account the reasons for the aggressive outbursts and try to deal with them and/or teach the dog alternate ways to deal with other dogs that it feels the need to lash out at. I just don't feel that its a long term solution. How do DOLers deal with there dogs in this type of situation? Is this an accepted method of dealing with the problem?

18 months ago I had to make this decision for a lovely big gentleman of a boy. He had cancer of the larynx and was not young enough to take treatments and medications well. We decided with our vet, that so long as he was not in pain or suffering that we would just let him be. It only took a short while before he started to have difficulty swallowing, so we made sure he only had soft moist food and we were all happy for a while. Then coming up into the warmer weather, I noticed that when he was panting, his tongue was hanging out, but he was unable to draw his breath through his mouth and over his tongue for the cooling effect....He was trying to pant by breathing in and out of his nose. In all other respects he was still happy and reasonably active for his age...but I just felt that as the weather warmed, his quality of life would start to suffer. I had all those stories about near death experiences going through my mind....you know, how as the spirit left the body and was looking back it could see all that was happening around the body.....I wanted more than anything else for my boy when he was looking back that he would see me holding him and loving him. So for me, there was no other way than to have it all happen in an arranged time and place, rather than him slip away in the night. Funny thing is...I think he knew that I had made the decision and the appointment. He became more attentive to me, possibly because he sensed that I was already feeling deep grief, but there was a strange gentle and accepting quality about the whole thing. As we were driving to the vet, where once he would have slept the journey away, he sat with his head on my shoulder. Then at the vet surgery instead of bouncing around to say hello to everyone as was his custom, he sat quietly with me with his big paw on my knee. I've got to tell you that it was the most easy and peaceful way I could have chosen for him to go. I cannot describe what an honour it was to feel the last beat of that gallant great heart on my chest as I held him, and as he relaxed how much easier his breaths seemed to come before they quietly faded away. I don't envy anyone who is put in the position to have to make this decision...its never an easy one. But to feel that absolute connection of trust and faith that that big boy put in me as his earthly life ended has convinced me that I did the right thing. Doesn't mean that I didn't feel grief because I cried buckets....and still do to this day. But I also feel that my relationship with my big boy somehow has a more lasting quality. Be in peace, Pauline. Your decision either way will not be easy on you. But I hope that my story can help give you courage should you decide to take the path that I did. Thinking of you.

Thanks for the reply Rachelle. I'm feeling a little embarrased now ;) , guess if I had read the stuff properly......

At the same time?

K9 You're a champion for sharing this stuff! But l have a conundrum for you. I was telling a friend about the TOT today, she has 5 dogs who all have issues of one sort or another....some sort of bully cross, adoption greyhound, adoption border collie, addoption cattle cross and a great dane. (BC is speyed male, all the rest are speyed females except the great dane which is entire bitch) To sort her issues with being alpha and to cut the squabbling down, which dog would you start the TOT with? The alpha, the meddling middle hierachy, or the most subordinate?

Hang on...I need to go and learn how to pm. :D

Even though I know that it is unlikely that any one has done both.....from what you do know, how does it compare to Delta?

Hi Poodle people! You will be happy to know that above mentioned speaker stated that in his experience Poodles were the smartest dogs he'd trained because he reckoned it only took them an average of 3 repetitions to learn something new!