huski

I think no more is a good command, especially if it comes naturally to you. It doesn't really matter what words you use, I say 'enough' to indicate a game is over, but again the word you choose is really irrelevant. I understand the excitement you feel when your dog chills out of their own accord for a minute or longer - it is quite exciting when you have a 'go go go all the time' dog :laugh: I think management is an important part of owning any dog, and with some dogs the management level required is always going to be higher. My young Mal is super friendly with people and is also super tug and ball driven (and really anything driven) but generally when guests are over I put her away, as she's naturally too full on for most people even when she's being calm. It's the trade off you have for having a super dog, I think :)

I totally agree with the above. I don't let my dogs interact with every dog we see, nor do I want them to learn that is what we do. I keep my dogs away from others at vet clinics and depending on the dog I usually wait outside. This is getting off topic, but I think while a lot of dog owners are now aware that it's important for pups/dogs to be socialised, they miss the part where the key to socialisation is teaching your dog how to behave in different situations. What happens when this key part of socialisation is missed is that we end up with dogs that think every time they are near another dog they can run up to it and interact with it, and dog owners who see any situation where other dogs are about as a chance for their dog to greet and play with others. One of the least appropriate places for play with other dogs would be a vet clinic waiting room where dogs are generally there because they are sick or injured, but there are lots of dog owners who think otherwise.

When I was in Brissy we had heaps of palm trees and male possums would get in huge fights and eventually one would knock the other out of the tree. My Sibe would be on it in seconds if one fell out. I locked the dogs up at night to try and prevent the dogs getting any of them but it's hard when they come into your yard, if you have a prey driven dog they can be on 'intruders' in seconds.

I agree with others, nothing unusual about bin raiding, once a dog finds something like that rewarding they will keep doing it. Management is the quickest way to fix it, if he only does it when you aren't there just don't give him access to the bin.

I don't approach people to pat their dogs, but if I am walking past and the dog approaches me I make a friendly comment etc. When my Sibe was young we used to have people pull over in their car, get out and ask to pat him!

We are having lots of fun with heelwork at the moment, still have lots to do and working on maintaining the position I want consistently and working on my handling but I am happy with how we are progressing. 2013 should be a fun year for obedience!

Do you have any training clubs or trainers near you who are good at obedience? Or even know of any experienced triallers who could give you a bit of one on one help to get you started? Before training anything else I work on getting good engagement and focus. Once you have that, teaching each command is a lot easier because you have a dog that is focused, wants to work with you, enjoys it and understands how to earn rewards from you. With heelwork search on Youtube for back end awareness videos - it will help teach positioning for heelwork.

How old is Nina, Ptolomy? Scent work is on my list too. And increasing duration for heelwork as well. And doing more work on durability and training a SFE and retrieve... Lol yep the list is endless!!

So what is everyone training over the Christmas break? I am determined to work on getting some nice fronts happening :)

I actually like training stays! I love giving my dogs a bit of a challenge and testing them. I don't really see training stays as much different to any other obedience exercise we train. And I love the end result of having a dog with a nice solid stay.

I think it's important to teach our dogs how to behave outside of when we are directly training them. All my dogs are really great when interacting with me but they also need to learn how to behave outside of a structured training session. I commit time to teaching them how to chill out and have an off switch when it's not time to play with me, how to go for a walk and stay chilled and calm etc. there are times with the Mal that I wouldn't use food with her as it will make her too excited and aroused so good behaviour is rewarded with my attention and pats etc. I find it especially important with driven dogs to make sure they learn how to switch off and chill out. Part of that is making sure they learn that they will get drive satisfaction with me when I tell them that is what we are doing but I also have a command for "we are just going for a walk and chilling out now".

I love working line dogs and have no desire to own anything else, but they wont make good pets for people who are unsuitable for and who have no desire to high drive dogs. Often show line dogs make more suitable family pets and are more suitable to the average dog owner, not everyone wants or needs a working line dog. I think there are a place for both when responsibly bred.

I think many issues people have in training come up because they missed building the right foundations on focus and engagement in the beginning. The command is just the exercise the dog does to earn the reward, teaching a new behaviour is definitely easier when the dog's focus, engagement and understanding of how to gain the reward is solid.

I think one of the hardest things to learn for many dog owners is how to interact with your dog - it's not something that generally comes naturally to many people, and every dog has a different 'style' of play they enjoy so you have to learn different ways to make it work for that dog. How I'd keep my beagle engaged is different to how I'd keep the Mal engaged with me. What has been said above about how engaged the handler is, is so true, especially when we want our dogs to learn that it's not just the reward itself but sharing in the experience with us that is also rewarding.

Start with the basics! what is your dog most driven for? Learning how to play a game with them that keeps them engaged and teaches them the rules of engagement is important too. How we handle ourselves makes a big difference too. Look at something like playing tug, there are a lot of things we as handlers can do that can turn our dogs off tugging and decrease drive or put them off the toy. Building their drive and focus and teaching them how to play with you without distractions present is really important, once you have that foundation you can make their focus more durable by adding distractions and teaching them buying into the distraction means a loss for them.

Another rec for Anvet Kedron :) Saw them for years when I lived in Wavell and then in Windsor.

I find a common theme in these threads is that a lot of people want to recommend their breed of choice often regardless of whether it would actually be suitable. We all love our chosen breeds but the reality is that no breed is suitable for everyone. I think Malinois are the best dogs in the whole wide world, but a lot of people would be miserable living with one. I also love hounds and spitz breeds and again they aren't for everyone. As much as we love and are passionate about our chosen breeds, sometimes a bit of objectivity is needed :)

My young dog could work forever if I let her :laugh: I generally keep training sessions short, but we have no troubles working for longer periods of time if we want to.

This! Or sometimes you need a helper to participate in the training session for you and that can require a bit of planning! There are many reasons I'd plan a training session in advance (i.e. 'formal' training). There are many other times I find training just happens as the right opportunity presents itself.

I do structured training in some form every day (I don't attend classes) but it could be as short as 2 minutes or over the course of an hour or a half. I am training a young dog though so we have lots to work on all the time. My older two I don't do much work with but we do short bits and pieces for fun. The older dogs enjoy training but don't need it like my young dog does. In terms of 'incidental training' it's corny but I think every interaction we have with our dogs is in some way training them, especially when you are working with a pup or young dog.

There are lots of ways to handle training an out IMO, I use a ball on a rope with Wisdom for obedience work, when we started using it with her having a ball as a reward was relatively new to her and she had a really high value for it and wasn't outing with the speed and responsiveness she would out the tug with. Steve told me not to use collar pressure to achieve the fast out as it could get the dog to out but doesn't really address the conflict that exists between the dog and handler when the dog isn't outing. She has a super out with the ball now and we can enjoy the game together much more too! :)

Wow look at all the training forum puppies expecting puppies next year!! We might need a thread just for training forum babies! :laugh: :)

Fun fun and more fun!!! Loving training right now. Would love to get back into the trial ring in 2013 and see where it takes us! :) Also wishing lots of super Malinois puppy vibes for Wisdom some time later next year. ETA: I would love to add some titles to the end of Wiz's name next year, but I'm not at all in a hurry so I'm not going to list them here, happy to wait and see what we can do together next year as a team :)

Very sorry to hear that RV

I feed a raw diet and have for the past few years. I make it up myself, I used to feed BARF but now what I feed is more similar to prey model. Even my cat is on a mostly raw diet. I feed raw for a number of reasons - my dogs do best on it, for me it's more economical than a super premium diet, I like knowing what goes into what they eat and I think it's better for them. I also think eating raw meaty bones has added benefits like increasing muscle strength in their jaws etc especially for pups. I also find feeding raw easy - I think that the way dried food is marketed leads us to believe feeding a balanced diet is something you need to be a scientist to get right, IMO don't think it is that difficult at all.