huski

I get what you are saying, RS Daisy always gets excited around food. She gets excited at the prospect of food ;) But for her, when I give her the command to let her know we're going to be training in drive it's even more exciting than food on it's own. To demonstrate what I mean when I say I don't need to have food on me or even show Daisy that I have food somewhere, I did a quick training session about fifteen minutes ago. I called Daisy into the room and went to wash my hands in the kitchen to make sure they didn't have any food smell on them. Then I asked if she was ready to work when I came out. I put the treats in the kitchen sink before I called her in the room so she couldn't see them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHsjFxhrYu8 Her obedience is terrible, she can get over excited training at home, especially as I haven't done anything with her today. Obviously, it's no where near the caliber of some of the videos that have been posted in this thread so far but I just wanted to demonstrate what it is we do Those who don't like barking might want to turn their speakers off (I also realised I forgot to mark her when she sat at heel after offering me the stand and down, so yeah, crappy obedience + crappy handling skills) Excuse the horrid mess in the background, we are in the process of doing a big Christmas clean up ETA: Apologies for continuing to take the thread off topic ;)

And yet, having a vocal cue to work is kind of like showing her the food anyway, she knows she will be getting some The other thing we will do is let her see me put the food in a container on the ground, and get her working away from it and rewarding her by releasing her to it. Before we go into the trial ring she will probably see me put the container down somewhere so that when we finish I can release her straight to it.

That's really interesting Ptolomy! I've tried really hard to avoid the food being Daisy's cue to work, or needing to have food on me to have her work with the drive and focus I like to see, because that was probably my number one concern with trialling. We haven't trialled yet so time will only tell if I've got it right

I use it in all my training sessions. I say it before I've gotten food out, or when Daisy doesn't know if I have any or not (although like I said with her sense of smell it's hard to hide it! I guess I just mean I don't present the food to her). Whether I have food or not doesn't matter because I've conditioned her to get into drive when I say 'ready to work' - she knows this means she's going to get food so she doesn't need to see it, or know I have any. It's the way I signify to the dog that we are about to start training and more importantly I use it to cue her into drive. ETA: I test it by doing things like calling her over randomly and asking her 'are you ready to work? Are ya gunna get it?" etc and getting her excited, then doing some heel work and a couple of commands before going to get some food. Sometimes I will put her in a stay in the dining room while I walk into the kitchen, open the fridge, get her treats out and then walk back to her and reward her.

That sucks, Ness I'm sure with your dogs as inspiration it will take off eventually though

Thanks for your response, Bedazzled. That's what I assume with my dogs too - if they get too distracted I assume that level of distraction is too early and I need to take a step back. Do you always reward with food or do you sometimes mix it up and reward with tugs, toys etc? I can work Daisy without food on me, if I have given her the 'ready to work' command because she knows that means she will be rewarded in food drive, irregardless of where the food is (in my hand, in my pocket, on the floor, in the treat bag, etc). Although I don't know if I could have food on me without her knowing, even if i hid it in my pocket without her seeing, with her nose she'd know almost straight away

That's a great video! What would you do if he ran after one of the toys and grabbed one? Would you call him back to you and reward for something basic? I don't know how Daisy would go if someone was squeaking and throwing toys around her like that... I will have to try it She loves toys, but no where near as much as she loves food, and will ignore any toy on the ground if we are training. I've had her sit at heel position while I squeak and throw Micha's cuz toy for him, and she shows no interest in it whatsoever.

How come, Ness? Is it something that just hasn't taken off there yet?

We still have alot of fine tuning to do to . What I should really be working on is Daisy's down stay, it seems to have disappeared LOL. Her sit stays are wonderful but down/stays have gone to hell Haven't said that I haven't really done any work on them.

We'll see Tiggy, lol. She's still not working quite as consistently as I'd like and we still have a lot of fine tuning to do lol... you can see how crooked her stands and downs are in the video

Thanks There's a trial at my club in Feb that I would love to enter but I don't know if we'll be ready by then... fingers crossed

Hehe, I can't talk either, Daisy is a terrible barker, just ask anyone who was within 100kms of K9 Force's Brisbane workshop

Short video of Daisy from tonight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f--DRfQNhE Cut it short because the neighbours kid came out to talk to us at least Daisy completely ignored him and sat in heel position waiting for him to go away You can see the ugly bruise on my leg when I turn to one side too Daisy was a bit distracted at the start because the cat was playing with her bag of treats :D ETA: PMSL I just realised you can hear the cat purring almost the entire time She was like "ZOMG, a bag of lamb!"

And I still maintain that why the dog bit is important.

Guys this thread is two months old ;)

I think he's been really flat out, I'm sure you'll hear from him soon

Thanks Maree :D Will have to catch up for a training session over the summer holidays I think there's a metro trial coming up in Feb, I would love to enter Daisy, but we'll wait and see how she goes. Still a lot of fine tuning to do

I'm not sure how old she was, she could have been late teens or older. It was so weird as when we're training we're always off in our own little world, I hardly notice what's going on around us - it was only because this girl was so (intentionally) loud and obnoxious! It sounds like your two set a great example

Moosmum, curious as to how you've tested the dogs to demonstrate that they will 'prove' themselves? what situations would you class the dog as proving themselves?

Awww that's nice Megan I get compliments on Daisy sometimes and funnily enough I actually got one when we were training today - even though our heelwork was pretty craptastic today

Woohoooooo can't wait to see it Ness, you must be so thrilled

Thanks Bedazzled and Tilly I had been getting better with training outside but geez today I felt terrible! The funniest thing is that if the girl knew anything about obedience, she would have known we weren't doing that crash hot anyway I feel the same about dog parks Bedazzled, which is why we didn't actually go in - I had Daisy working on the outside against the fence the entire time.

Hope you got it on video, Ness!

I really wanted to upload a new vid tonight but Daisy just wasn't working that well at all bah, will try later in the week.

I take Daisy out to our local park/sports field pretty much every day to do training with her. She'd been soooo lethargic and lazy all day (she's not great in the heat) but I took her for a walk any way this afternoon and figured I'd give training a go. As soon as we started training I could tell she just wasn't working to her normal standard, she was lagging and a bit distracted so thought stuff it we'll just have a walk instead. We did a massive 45 minute walk and on the way back as we were walking past the fenced off leash park, which was full of people and dogs, Daisy had a sudden burst of energy so I thought I'd do some focus work with her. I lined her up against the dog park fence so she was almost touching it and got her in heel position, focusing nicely on me. We did a little bit of heel work and she was actually working ok (no where near her normal level of drive) but her focus was quite good considering the level of distraction. As I was revving her up she started getting into it so I did some downs, stands, just basic heel stuff and some stays. All the while some of the dogs in the park were rushing up to the fence and sniffing her etc and she ignored them :D I had her in a short stay and I thought I heard a girl in the dog park with a small fluffy crossbreed saying "don't bother with that beagle, you're way better than that" but it was so silly that I thought I must have missed heard them so I kept training. Then the girl looks at us, throwing her voice and in the most conceited tone goes "OH BENNY, you ARE SO MUCH BETTER than that dog. You can do ALL THAT without ANY TREATS!" I was like, wtf? Standing there with Daisy quite gobsmacked - I couldn't believe anyone cared so much I was so shocked I didn't know what to say, so I just looked at her and explained we were practicing some focus work for obedience competition and that's why we were using food. She then asked her dog to sit, repeatedly because he wasn't paying attention to her at all, and I had to bite back my tongue from pointing out that Daisy sits automatically. I felt like asking her what was with her attitude, I was just trying to train and have fun with my dog, but instead I lined Daisy up along the fence, did a COP and recall from quite a distance (which she nailed, despite not having her normal amount of drive). I always feel self conscious training in public and things like today just make me feel even sillier