Keshwar

Hey Arya, I retrained myself and Faxon for the stays. I don't use a "stay" command anymore. So my stay looks like: Say "sit", mark the stay "Yes!", leave dog, wait specified time, return to dog, then release "Break!" This way sit means sit until I tell you to do something else like "break" or "come" or "drop" etc. The same applies to stand and drop. For this to work a clear release word is vital. Bear.

Just a slight point to clarify where I'm coming from, a marker is trained differently to a release. For example, some who do use a formal release do not teach the stay command. They train the dog that if they give a command eg sit, then the dog sits until it is either released from that position or given another command. However, while the dog is sitting, they can still mark the behaviour to let the dog know that it is doing the right thing...encourage it. So their release word is different to their marker word. The reason I think this helped my dog out is that I might want to let her know she is doing the right thing, but I don't want her to stop what she is doing. So during a long stay for example if there was a distraction that once would have caused her to break, but she didn't, I could mark her not breaking without her mistakenly thinking/believing that she had been released.... Have I just made a mud puddle? That's an excellent point and one that I think many people new to training have problems with. I think many people who are new to training associate their marker word as also ending the exercise. This leads to confusion when you introduce an exercise with any duration in it - like stays. Bear.

Here is an interesting exercise. When you are out walking with your dog, playing with your dog or generally interacting with your dog try to notice how many extra words you use when interacting with your dog. My bet you'll be surprised how many times you use phrases like "OK, good boy" before actually asking your dog to do something or praising it. I think b/c we are such verbal beings we sometimes don't really notice what we are saying. I had to really focus on not giving Faxon non-important information. Things like "Ok, goodboy, now sit" - the only thing I had really registered was I had told him to sit. No wonder the poor boy would look at me strangely sometimes. Bear.

My take on this is without a standard you don't have a breed. The idea of a Standard IMO is to allow people to breed a dog that meets certain requirements - one of which is looks like other members of it breed. Is a Standard the be all and end all of what makes up a dog or a breed? I don't think so. What I do think is that it is the foundation for the breed. Unfortunately it appears to be part of human nature to want to improve on what already works. In a lot of cases this is not a bad thing. However, in some cases it turns out that we, as humans, may not know as much as we thought and end up with poorly bred dogs. People often talk about breeding to improve the breed but what does that actually mean? Do they mean breed to improve their lines so they win more? Or perhaps breed to improve the health of the breed? Having said that I believe that talking about a dogs original purpose is a furphy. Many of todays breeds can't perform their original purpose b/c that purpose either doesn't exist anymore or that purpose has now been made illegal. How do we judge whether or not a breed meets it original purpose in those situations? </babble> Bear

The only thing I have done differently for our Royal (Canberra) is go and do some training at the grounds where the Royal is held. We don't do any other trials on those grounds so they are unfamiliar to Faxon. I haven't really noticed him being distracted by the crowds or food outside the ring - but that could have been good luck rather than good management on my part. From what you've already written I think you have covered most if not all distractions. Good luck! Bear.

I'd love a copy of the Bob Bailey DVDs. I just need to save up for them.

I'd like to address a couple of things. :D First up, people get dogs for any number of reasons but I suspect that the main reason is simply because they can. They may have always had dogs in the family home, or their neighbours had a dog, or great uncle Fred had a wonderful dog who did everything, or they watched <insert famous dog name here> on TV or a movie and want a dog just like that or what I suspect is the most popular reason "look at that cute puppy!" The level of actual planning for most people getting a dog is minimal. This leads to a lot of the problems that we now see. Secondly, I think that we now understand the science behind animal behaviour a lot more. With a greater understanding of what makes the animals in our lives tick. Does this make us any better than our grandparents or ancient ancestors? I don't think so. I believe they had a more instinctual understanding of the animals in their lives. If a dog showed aggressive behaviour it didn't live long enough to bite anyone. If a cow didn't produce enough milk it became the next few meals. Basically a form of natural evolution. Cheers Bear.

Hi Celeste, Usually there will be markers laid out for the stays. The usual process is that you take up your position with your right foot on or next to the peg. The Judge will usually do a briefing before the stays explaining what he/she wants. And yes the stays are done after the indivdual exercises have been completed. However it depends how many people/dogs are entered. If there are a large number of entries they may split the stays up into two groups. There have to be a minimum of 3 competitors and a max of 10 for the group exercises which is why they sometimes do two groups. The order of exercises is that listed in the rule book. Heeling on lead Stand for exam on lead recall Sit stay Down stay. Cheers Bear.

There are no distance exercises in CCD except the recall so at this stage I wouldn't be too worried about them. I'm left handed so I break all the signaling rules by using my left hand for all of my visual cues. Annoys the hell out of seasoned triallers. I train out at CDC and will be instructing on Thursday evenings so I could arrange to meet you out there one night and go through so signals with you if you like. I wont be out there this Thursday cos we're taking our pack to the coast this week. Cheers Bear.

4th was Saturday according to my calendar Trials are usually advertised on the ACTCA website or in the ACTCA journal. Can't remember if CDC puts a notice up on the notice board or not. If our history is anything to go by it might another year before we pass again! Thanks. I believe the next one is out at Belconnen on the first week of September if you want to watch. Bear.

We got our second CCD pass (89/100) this morning out at CDC in Canberra. It has been a year and a bit since our last pass so this comes as a bit of a relief! Bear & Faxon - the wonder Afghan Hound!

Make being with you the best thing in his life! You can achieve this in lots of ways. Have really tasty treats so that when he is with you he gets a great reward. Play games with him. Basically anything that means being with you is the bestest place in the world for him to be. Being with you has to be FUN. Also make sure that when you call him that sometimes you let him go straight back to what he was doing. This way he doesn't see the recall as meaning that the fun stops when I go back to the Boss. Good luck. Bear.

I guess for me it is about quality of instruction. I have a non-standard obedience breed so I want instructors that understand that what works for the majority may not work for my dog and be able to suggest alternatives. I want instructors that understand that my dog will not stand around for an hour doing repetitive tasks and allow me to do my own thing if necessary. Results are my domain - if I put the work in the results will follow. Bear.

Hey it's at a dog club. I bet if you look around there will be loads of people doing really stupid looking things to get their dogs attention. I think this is the hardest thing for a lot of people to do when it comes to dog training. I know I had a lot of problems being the clown on the end of the lead until a trainer told me I was placid and my dog was placid so I had to make training exciting for both of us. Took me a bit of time but I did get there. You just have to overcome all those years of trying not to make a fool of yourself in public. People genera;;y understand when they see the dog on the end of the lead. Or they think you are just another crazy dog person! Bear.

I think you might have summed up your problem with this sentence. I see this a lot in the classes I teach. I tend to have really tasty treats and can get most dogs to focus on me quite easily. :D When the handler complains about their dog not focusing it is usually b/c they have really boring motivators or aren't rewarding enough. What are treats are you using? Do your dogs like them and will they work for them? Are they bored with them? When I first started training Faxon I had to really work on finding the right motivator for him. I tried food, a variety of toys, verbal praise, pats, games, etc, etc. All of these worked for short periods of time. Fortunately he worked out working for food was pretty good. It just had to be good food. I use cubed chicken sandwich meat, roast chicken, pieces of sausage, cubed pieces of cheese, cabanosi, and various combinations of these. HTH Bear.

NDTF will give you a formal qualification but if you just want to learn to train your dog how about joining your local obedience club? Once you have worked with your dog and you decide you like training you could train to be a trainer at the club. Bear.

From what you've said I think you are close it may be just a case of refining and building his enthusiasm and confidence. I know all about frustration in teaching the retrieve - I've tried teaching my Afghan to retrieve with dubious results! :p Keep at and I'm sure you both will get there! Bear.

Did the person/people who told you this explain why it would not be the best place to go? Do they have an affiliation with a competing training organisation? What breed are you getting. Unless you are getting some rare breed or non-traditional obedience breed I can't see what difference the breed will have on the suitability of a club. I do obedience with a sighthound and have found most people out my club more than helpful. To be honest I would be more inclined to go with what your breeder tells you - they should know about training their breed. HTH Bear.

If he is unsure maybe you need to reduce the distance he has to go to retrieve the dumbell. Perhaps go back to dropping the dumbell right in front of you and marking only fast pick ups, then slowly increasing the distance you throw the dumbell. Making sure to only mark the fast pick ups and only increasing distance when he is reliably going out fast. Hope this makes sense. Bear.

Damn I was doing so well. I know the CCD exercises so well cos I've been doing it so long.

CCD: Heel on lead with position changes including figure of 8 Stand for exam on lead Recall 10m (I think) 1 min sit stay 2 min down stay Novice: Heel free with position changes including figure of 8 Stand for exam free Recall 12m (I think) Option of change of position or; retrieve on flat 2 min sit say 3 min down stay. HTH. Bear.

I would say 3. As a trial is a single event. I'm not sure how you could enter a dog in both classes at the same trial tho'. Bear.

I suspect he missed the signal because it was too fast - I'm working on slowing my signals. It might be a while till we get a title - we are sitting on one pass so I know we can do it. The problem with trialling with an Afghan is they decide to play by their rules part way through. Faxon is an entertainer if he can get a laugh out of me, the Judge or the crowd he is very pleased with himself. I have forced myself not to laugh at his antics in the ring - although at times that is difficult. Bear.

Thanks - we try to at least provide light entertainment if not a good performance. Yup we were at the Canberra Royal. :D there is a slide show at http://www.youtube.com/bearandanita if you want to watch. Thanks for the comments - I'm open to all suggestions on how to improve. The reason I use my left hand for all my signals is that I'm a leftie and find it easier using my left hand rather than my right. The other problem I have with using my right hand is that I have to turn my body which tends to drive him back. I've spent an awful lot of time simply learning not to look back at him for the same reason. Bear.

Thanks! Believe it or not the recall is one of the areas we are having a huge problem with. A lot of the time he will simply sit and look off to the side when I call. We're working on improving it. Bear.