Vickie

How old is your dog? I would say that joining the closest obedience club is always a good start. Not only will it give you skills that will be needed in most other sports anyway, you will meet lots of other people who are already involved in other sports & can give your advice & recommendations.

any chance of him sleeping inside at night? Either on a mat or in a crate if you prefer he did not have free range of the house? I think that of my 4 BC's, one would bark all night (possums, cats etc) if I left him out, but he has a special sleeping spot inside & never makes a sound. LOL, we posted at the same time Kavik

no I am not saying that at all. I am not talking about generally having a bad run, we all do that, dogs & handlers. I am talking about specific behaviours & yes, I think you can train them to a point where they have complete understanding of what is required & they do not make mistakes. Example - start line. High drive dog has been trained (and proofed) to stay at the startline in training until they hear the word "Go". They are 100% reliable in training, nothing you can do or say other than that word will make them move. They start trialling and all goes well for a while until one day they are so keen that they start to move as you raise your hand to signal the first jump. You are just about to say go anyway, so you let them go. The next trial they know that when you raise your arm you are about to say go & it's OK for them to go then. It's all downhill from there. The dog is still maintaining 100% stays in training, but it has learnt that it is OK to leave a bit early in a trial & it gets earlier & earlier. For a dog that is desperate to get on course, they will do whatever they think they can get away with to get there. Not allowing this type of dog to do the course is IMO the best way to get the startline back again & yes, I think you can get it back 100% if you are consistent. I can think of a number of examples who are living proof of this. I just went through this method with my experienced dog for 2o2o contacts, it is not a coincidence that she now holds her position until released in a trial. For the last 3 years she has held them in training, but has learnt that she did not need to in a trial. She has a clear understanding of what I require, but knew that I would not enforce it in the ring...until now. It took very little time for her to learn that she needs to hold the position until I release her if she wishes to continue the course. This has nothing to do with my mood, she is a smart dog who is more motivated by the course than any external reward I give her. Give her an inch & she will take a mile. I am not beating her with a stick, I am simply taking away the thing she wants most until I get what I want and she is happier for it as I have removed any confusion in her mind about what is required. I think dogs much prefer when things are black & white. Of course our moods impact on our dogs. Just ask anyone how hard it is to get that last pass for a much awaited title. I think generally speaking, the less experience you & the dog have, the more this will come into play, However...I do think you can reach a point in training where minor variations in your mood are just another distraction that the dog is proofed to work through. If my mood or attitude was severe enough to affect my dog significantly in a run, I would simply choose not to run. I think this is probably gone off topic as removing a dog from the course in a competition is not really the same as sinbinning for bad behaviour. I am happy to discuss it further in another thread though

I could not disagree more. The technique of removing a dog from an agility course for an incorrect behaviour (that is trained, and I mean really trained to the point where it is hard to get them to fail in training) is used successfully by the top handlers all over the world...no coincidence, mood or attitude about it. For dogs who are highly driven (which BTW does not mean out of control) on course, it is without a doubt the most powerful tool we have as trainers to consistently get the behaviour we want in the ring. It works & rather than making the dogs unhappy, it tends to make them happier in the long run as all confusion about what is required disappears.

That's so cool. I'm glad she appreciated it. She is going to have so much fun. You will have to take video for us one day.

That's nearly exactly what I went through with Trim. For ages I took what she gave me in the ring, even though she had a perfect 2o2o in training. This year I decided zero tolerance. I don't train in the ring, but if she does not hold her position, I remove her & she doesn't get to continue. She has worked this out really fast. It only took a few times & she has been 100% reliable in trials for a few months now. The big bonus is that she no longer has confusion and her contacts are heaps faster than they have ever been. We still have some striding issue to work through but it was the best thing I ever did, for both of us.

no I don't think there is a study to say it's safe, just a study to say it is less likely to cause strain than running. I agree with you though, it does make sense that the heavier the dog, the harder it would be. Funnily enough my bigger heavier dog seems to find it much easier than my very light dog, but I think it's related more to training than size. She also has a much nicer ascent than my lighter dog.

I did not say that at all. I said I thought running was fine for unmotivated dogs, ie dogs that trot across the contact with no real drive to get to the next obstacle. I have already said I misunderstood what you were saying. My dogs are calm and quiet too in the ring (not so calm or quiet while they are waiting to go in though ).

Sorry I misunderstood your post to mean they weren't enjoying it. My dog's don't slink or crouch at all in agility. The exception might be Trim at the startline, but I would say that relates to stress/anticipation rather than enjoyment. yes my dogs do slink & crouch when they work sheep, but I am not sure they literally enjoy slinking & crouching

but surely you aim to change their enjoyment of agility?

I know! My only problem with us getting a whippet is that then I would NEVER be able to convince all the people that refuse to believe my BC's are not whippet crosses yep

I would all 400 & 500 dogs as medium & even some of the 300's. There are lots of things that could place strain on an agility dog of any size. The biggest one is probably too much repetition...of anything. The next one I would pick would be lack of fitness/warm up, followed by poor jumping style and understanding of timing & cues. I'm not sure where all this "2o2o causes strain" has come from. I have never seen any official study to say so and as Bec mentioned earlier, I was told of a study to say that most of the impact on an AF is taken in the shoulders on the way up and that b/c of this, the repetition required for reliable running contacts is more likely to cause strain.

maybe when it warms up a little. Oh BTW, we met your Howard at Goulburn. He is GORGEOUS!!!!. He was very sweet with my kids. It seems after meeting him, Chloe has now added whippet to her list of potential dogs. sorry to go off topic Hotdoggy .

Thank you . I have never trialled in Canberra, but hope to one day...

Just out of curiosity PF, is that only for training at the club? Will there be a problem if I ever enter a CDC trial for Chloe to run?

How exciting! You will have to tell us all about her reaction when she gets home.

With a medium or large dog, I would not recommend someone do running unless: they were committed to teaching it properly as opposed to just letting them run over it (b/c they usually touch it) or they had a fairly unmotivated dog and no real aspiration to change it. I know quite a few people who are stuck in Novice or Excellent b/c they thought there dog would always naturally hit the contact. I don't know any of them who are happy about it. ETA: to be fair, I also know people who have never trained a contact & their dogs never or hardly ever miss them.

It's not Ruthless that Chopper worries about. It's when (any of?) the other dogs leave. yes, I know, by "you're out", I meant Ruth AND the other dogs. I assume that the 4 of them are not always together in & around the house (if they are that is the first thing I would be addressing). If he doesn't realise the other dogs have left, he would have no reason to go insane.

can you trick him? I mean put all 4 in the run, then take Chopper & Ivan out, then bring them back inside through the front & sneak out the back with the other 2 so he doesn't know you're out? By the sounds of it he is too distressed to be interested in a big marrow bone?

I don't know what to say except OMG! . I hope someone has some good advice for you.

Thanks TSD She has been running the dogs over obstacles in the backyard since she was 5, so it's great that she can have a go at trials. Next step will be to get her a dog she can train herself from scratch. Pity she didn't have the same energy to clean her room .

Too bad you didn't ask this question a month ago Charmaine...that run was at the Goulburn trial in May...you guys could have come along & watched, it would have been fun for them to meet, they sound like kindred spirits. I think there are 3 clubs in Canberra. Hopefully FHRP or Poodlefan will read this thread as they will know whether children are allowed to train at any of them. There is also a club in Wagga, they hold a couple of trials a year but I am not sure whether they meet weekly for training or not and I'm pretty sure that at this stage Goulburn does not meet, although they also run a trial each year. I will see what I can find out for you about Wagga & Goulburn.

My 10 year old daughter has competed a few times in agility. We thought she had to wait until she was 12, but I called DogsNSW & they confirmed she is able to compete under my membership until she is 12. Different clubs will have different rules about allowing juniors to train. It is best to ring a few and ask what their rules are. Personally I think it's a bit silly that a child is allowed to trial but some clubs will not allow them to train. Best of luck to your daughters. It is great for them to be able to join in and we are finding people so incredibly supportive . Here is video of my daughter running my dog about a month ago. This was her first clear round in ANKC and they came 2nd place out of a class of 58 dogs!!! I am so proud of both of them .

Like Helen, I will use a form sinbinning in agility if I am not getting a behaviour that my dog is trained in. It works perfectly for my dog. For example if she does not stop until released on a contact, I tell her "you're done!", pick her up & carry her to the crate. The punishment is that she does not get to continue the course. The crating after the run is going to happen anyway & I don't think she sees this as the punishment, just part of life at a trial. Sometimes our runs totally fall apart (my fault) & we do not finish a course, we just do a shorter course but she is still rewarded at the end, so is not a sinbin. I don't think I really do any other form of sinbinning. If my dogs are being "red-cordial" (I like that one), 90% of the time I will use their energy to train something, or if I am unable to train for whatever reason, they are placed in a drop stay. I am sure that in many cases the average person does not understand timing or consistency well enough for sin binning to really be effective, so I can see why people would say it doesn't work.

There are various discussions & pics of examples that people have made here: Agility Equipment