Vickie

It's a shock for me...but I actually agree with Dougie for once! I took my first pup to Puppy PreSchool...and started it with my second. The subsequent 3, I did not take. It's not that I don't take my pups out before they are fully vaccinated, b/c I do, but I very carefully monitor where & when and 99% of their time out, they are in my arms. They meet dogs I know & trust, in my environment or at friends places. Putting them on a floor, with a mixed bag of puppies & owners & risks of infection is just not worth it for me. Looking at just what it requires to remove parvo from an environment once it is there, to me it seems very risky indeed. My vet even advises me not to put my pups on his floor, when I take them in for vacs. He is not admitting anything other than the fact that you can never be too careful. It is often not appropriate for different breeds/sizes to be wrestling with each other. Large breed puppies, I think can be just too rough for toy breeds and not all puppy schools recognise this. I am happy to get any advice I need from my breeder who knows my dogs & what they need and would hope that most respectable breeders would be providing any info their puppy owners need. I guess the other big thing is , that when you're on your 2nd dog and especially if you are doing some formal training in anything, half/most the time you know more than the person taking the class. I don't want to be disagreeing with the trainer, who may or may not know anything about my breed. JMO.

We had fun! Next time it definitely has to be on a Sunday, so that we can be a bigger group. I put a few pics in the photo forum. I just want to say a huge well done to Sam (SnoopyJocks). There was a vast improvement in both her dogs by the end of the day. At the beginning of the day, Snoopy started off weaving by relying on Sam to guide him in & out with her hand. By his last run, not only had he cut around a second off his time, but didn't need her hand signals anymore. She also managed to get some real enthusiasm out of Jock, it was hot & he wasn't too keen early up, but was bouncing around like a maniac when we finished. Also a big thank you to Cedar, who worked so happily for 4 different handlers throughout the morning. A great day, I'm looking forward to the next one! Thanks guys.

I just went and read some of your other posts about Daegon. I would not be using your other dog to get him to eat/play etc, I think it could be asking for trouble and may upset the balance between them. If the vet check/thyroid is clear, I would honestly be getting some help from a professional trainer to help change/fix up your relationship with him as I suspect that is a big part of his refusal to drop as well as his eating disorder. Or at the very least, research one method & really follow it through. Since you have been successful in teaching him many things in the past, I wonder if you have maybe been a little impatient with him & switched methods a bit too often? He is still a young dog and maybe it is all a bit much for him. What you see as stubborn may just be resigned confusion. I hope you take this the right way, Shek. It is so easy for so many of us to follow advice from an instuctor at our club and then the following week follow conflicting advice of a different instructor. It can only end in confusion for the dog & frustration for us. Sorry if I am on the wrong track & this is not the case.

So how does he eat each day? Do you literally hand feed him or force feed him? He looks very healthy in his pics.

I just read your other posts. I wouldn't even attempt this until he is eating his meal when you put it down & after you have ruled out health issues. Is he still not eating properly? With Noah, I just put his food down each morning. If he hadn't eaten it in 15 minutes I said nothing & put it in the bin. After eating nothing at all for 5 days, on the 6th morning, he ate it as soon as I put it down & has done so ever since for the last 9 years. It's just the type of dog he is. I had a horse once, just like him, I had to wait her out on a few things as well & then she was fine from then on.

Yes absolutely! This is exactly why I think you should stop now, before you cement your training relationship with him in this method. I am sure he will try this method with every new thing you try to teach him b/c it works for him. Better to rules of the game now. Hmmm, it's kind of a big question to try to answer. I'm sure there will be plenty of ideas on this from plenty of people. Some random thoughts...some of which you probably already know: Some/most dogs need to learn to learn. For me it is better to have a dog doing one thing to start with, with the ultimate enthusiasm, than 20 things with little/moderate enthusiasm, so I think it's worth spending that initial time as everything else will come quickly once they are operant. I recently went through this with my pup. All I had really taught her was to come when called & to go to her crate on command. I started using her meal each day to train her little things. I started with a basic sit, lured her & gave her food when she did it. After 2-3 nights, she was sitting fast & enthusiastically, in front of me, beside me, with a signal, with just a verbal & each time she got a heap of praise as well as her food. I like the idea of working for their dinner. They have to eat each day and I always had some special treats (roast meat) on hand for her extra fast/perfect performances. We continued this for about a week (even though she knew it after the first day or so) I then switched to a clicker because the next few things I wanted to teach her were a little more complex and I want to be able to catch the exact moment she did what I wanted. I don't use a clicker in general training, but I think it is very useful to help a dog learn to learn & also useful for speeding behaviours up. A week later she had learnt 3-4 more things and was performing all of them very enthusiastically. Now all I have to do is take her inside to the rug (where we train each night) and she will go through her whole repertoire, LOL, like a maniac. I believe you can increase the value of an item, purely because you are using it as a reward. Here is an example with Noah (my older & many say extremely stubborn dog). I can give him a piece of kibble & he will eat it (because all dogs like/need to eat). I can give him fried chicken & he will eat it & look for more and offer a few behaviours to get it (because it is his favourite). I can ask him to do a trick for a piece of kibble and suddenly that kibble becomes much greater value than the fried chicken, purely becasue I am using it as a reward for the trick. He will literally turn himself inside out to do what I want & anything else he can think of to add, LOL. Likewise with a ball. I had to teach him to retrieve from scratch b/c he had no desire whatsoever to do it. Now, he will chase a ball, but never so enthusiastically if that ball is a reward from a trick I have asked of him. Trim is the same in agility, she likes to tug at any time, but never so much as after her run on course. I think people are often suprised at just how much they can achieve if they truly set out to achieve something and consistently work on it in short sessions each day. We often see this with weaving in agility at our club. People spend 6 months trying to teach their dogs to weave in the lower classes & then get to a point where they are told that they cannot progress to the higher classes until they can weave. It is amazing how quickly this can happen once the person dedicates themself to the task. LOL, this is long & I think I went way off track. What I would do is pick a new behaviour for him to learn and be patient with him. Just do it every night with his dinner. In the beginning reward anything close to what you want & ignore what you don't. Make it something simple that you can lure & he can succeed in easily. Split his dinner into 3 portions & work in 5 minute sessions. As soon as he makes any real progress, double/triple what is in your hand. He obviously understands praise, so you can use that as well. If you are open to the clicker & understand it, it can certainly help speed things up. You may find you won't get anything impressive for 3-4 days and then suddenly it'll all click into place. From then on, it'll get easier & easier. I never really accept the "but my dog doesn't like food" theory. Noah once went 5 days without food, purely through his stubborness. I just had to wait him out...then that was it. The fact is that dogs NEED food or they die. They have a very strong sense of survival, so I think it's often a case of us just expecting too much too soon. I think we also have to realise that like us they are all different & can learn differently to get the same end result. Trim was born operant , Noah became operant in a day, Zeus took a little longer but it was worth the time I took. JMO & after all, you have nothing but 15 minutes a day to lose.

If it were me I would forget the drop for a while & teach him to learn to take rewards. I think training something using natural instinct can be done without external motivators but would question how far you will get doing something that doesn't use/require instinct. Right now you are possibly establishing a pattern for him of him choosing whether or not he does what you ask. I would not let this continue as it is ultimately what you DO NOT want. I agree with WS about dogs getting keener when they have to wait but think there has to be that drive in them in the first place for this to be effective. JMO. There are lot's of threads in training about teaching your dog to play & work for food...maybe have a look.

I'm thinking we may have to have a bigger get together on a weekend. I really need to do it during the day and can't really do the evening thing. It's not that my son is a monster or anything (well sometimes), it's just that I like to be able to give my dogs my full concentration when I am training them and I certainly can't do that with one eye on a 2YO. I am going to ELS Hall park at 10am, will have weave poles, about 4-6 jumps, a table and a contact board. If anyone still wants to meet later in the evening, I am happy to come as well, just probably won't do any serious training, although I may bring a dog or 2.

He doesn't care for food/toys? What do you use to reward him?

Cool! Sounds like Wednesday it is. What time do you finish Myszka? Only problem for me is that I have my son to pick up by 6pm from preschool. I was thinking during the day as there won't be other dogs around. If everyone would really prefer later then I guess I could fly out, get him & come back...but I won't get much done after that, LOL. As far as location, do we need fully fenced? The park near my house is enormous & will have some shade. It is far enough off the road & there are a couple offenced ovals or the fully fenced off leash park we had a DOL meet at? Other suggestions?

I will definitely be doing some weaving & there are a number of exercises we can do to help Jock weave independently (although it won't be fixed in a day, but there's certainly stuff you can work on at home.) Will come up with a list of what I want to work on & then if others are coming we can add to it, depending on what people are interested in. Location? I am in Nth Ryde, as is SJ. Not too fussed really, but it is pretty central here & there are a couple of places we could go.

I have already given my response, I think? Until recently I was repeating the whole obstacle with a NRM, I would NEVER advise continuing the course for a missed 2on 2off. It sends exactly the opposite message to the dog that you want. In fact that is why there are so many dogs who have perfect contacts in training & none in a trial. People are unwilling to give up that potential qually. After the Ronda Carter seminar, I have changed to her method.. That is: do not allow the dog to repeat the obstacle but make it sit on the ground & hold it's stay while you go back and run the obstacle yourself & release the dog when you are ready. This is based on the theory that the problem is a release one, rather than an understanding of 2on 2off. It also prevents the dog being rewarded by getting back on the contact. LOL, sorry if you didn't want mine again.

Just wondering if anyone wants to join me for an agility day this week, probably Thursday? I'm thinking I might just take what equipment I have to a park for the whole day & do some training. Mostly foundation type things & small sequences. I would like to practise some of the things I learnt at the Ronda Carter seminar & since training doesn't go back till Feb & I have a trial before then thought it'd be worthwhile. I'm hoping to convince Sidoney to come along as well & between the 2 of us we can probably help any level for anyone who is interested as well as train our own dogs. Sam, will this day suit you?

What does the dog think it's job is? Is it just a touch somewhere on the yellow? Where exactly should the touch take place, at the start of the yellow? on the ground? Do you give a command to touch? Do you require a stop of any kind? I guess the question is...if I sat down with your dog and asked them "what exactly is your job here?", what words would they use to describe the behaviour? This is always a good question to ask of people & often people are very suprised by their own responses. IMO, unless you are asking for a stop or a specific behaviour in a specific place, the dog either has a trained running contact (which requires a lot of very specific training related to muscle memory...or no contact. I have used this method in the past for start line, but in all honesty it was never truly reliable and I was doing it often so it was obviously not effective. (probably me as a trainer, not the method). I have never done it with Trim because I have never truly felt she was blowing me off. Any issues we have had have either been me missing/not proofing something in foundation or teaching her something which was ambiguous in some way. If you only have to do it once or twice & it works & you really have reliable contacts afterwards forever, then that's great, it is obviously right for you & there is certainly nothing to lose by doing it. I think dogs are a little more optimistic than that. Even if you were 100% consistent, I think it would still take a little longer & even then not all dogs would make the connection. Again JMO.

I think it depends on whether the dog understands what is required or not yet. If it does not, I would not correct in any way...just not reward & jackpot when the behaviour is correct. If there is failure more than once or twice, then you may need to go back a step & make it achievable for the dog to reward success. For the dog who understands the required behaviour, we learnt a great trick at the Ronda Carter seminar recently. She does not put the dog back on the contact, but makes it sit on the ground, while the handler goes back & runs past & releases the dog when they are ready. She believes a lot of missed contacts are release issues, rather than contact issues. With her way, the dog does not get to do the obstacle again, but is made to hold the stay. For the most part I do not believe in stopping a dog on course & agree that they should continue because the do not know they have done anything wrong. The exceptions to this would be startlines, tables, weavepoles and contacts. Also dropped bars for some dogs. Anything else is handling & either the dog does not understand your signals, you are late, your handling is ambiguous or you are asking too much too soon. It would be odd for an instructor to tell you to continue if your dog is blowing contacts? OTOH if you continually stop a dog on course every time something goes wrong, one of 2 things will happen: the dog will become cautious & slower...or the dog will just blow you off & do the course itself. A good instructor once told me never to continue to repeat mistakes. If it's not working...put your dog away & work it out youself...you owe it to your dog to get it right. I think far too often we don't walk courses enough or properly & then expect the dog to get it when we don't even know what we;re doing till we get out there. Hope this helps JMO

The problem with "slow" is that there is no defined criteria for the dog. I found that out with Trim, I taught her 2on 2off and she had what looked like a beautiful running contact in a trial. Although she never blew her contacts, I decided to retrain as I knew it was only a matter of time. I used to have Zeus drop on contact. It was very reliable that he'd do it...just not reliable where he would do it and he would often drop before the contact zone as I had no way to mark it. Again, he always got them, but was slow getting there. I see many people saying "touch" and releasing the dog with praise. The problem is that I think the dog rarely understands what this means & they tend to be very hesitant...just going slow until the handler praises them. These contacts are rarely reliable unless the dog has a natural stride to get the contact or it is slow enough that it will hit it anyway. The best thing about 2on 2 off is that the dog can very clearly understand exactly what is required of them and as a handler you can easily reinforce the correct behaviour and see when criteria is not met. For the dog it is as easy as running until 2 feet (or nose) hits the ground & then stopping until released. This is something they can very clearly understand and provided we as handlers are consistent from the beginning, should work.

I would suggest watching as much herding as you can before you start using Tia. Is it possible for you to go & watch some of her family work? That will give you a great idea of how her lines work & what to expect when you start using her. Honestly I'm not sure herding works "for fun". Try telling some dogs it is just for fun. If they take it very seriously (as they should) then I think we owe it to them to do the same. That doesn't mean you have to trial or give up the rest of your life to do it, I just always object to the word "fun" on so many levels. Not sure what you mean by "harsh" methods, but often the method will need to fit the dog. I don't believe you can be purely positive with dogs who have instinct, but you can certainly use the work as the reward as much as possible. As with many other things, there need to be consequences if your dog does the wrong thing. JMO

THANK YOU! Yep! Foundation training & research. Every time I do a seminar I realise how little I know & how much of foundation training I have skipped (and I have probably done double the average agility person in Aust.). Trim is an amazing athlete and a very biddable dog. She has all the right ingredients, but she is not anywhere near her potential yet. I have a heap of work ahead of me & I'm looking forward to it. I did most of our foundation at home, as I couldn't find a club who trained the way I wanted to. I think one of the biggest tips is that anything too complex for you to learn/coordinate is too complex/ambiguous for your dog. A few rules that you are 100% consistent with, I think is the key to success. Coming from a high level in training your dogs, you will already have a headstart in these areas over many. I'll look forward to hearing about your experiences with your setter. There are a heap of great agility trainers on DOL, so no doubt you will get all the help you need. I will PM you an article I wrote about start lines, not in order to tell you how to teach them but b/c I think it gives a good idea of the consistency & ideals I want to train with.

What a nice thread! Congratulations to everyone on their wonderful achievements! We have had a dream year this year. I started trialling Trim in agility just over 12 months ago. Although we are not in a position to trial every weekend like many, we have managed to achieve quite a lot in a relatively short time. She earnt her Novice Agility Title with 3 consecutive 1st places She earnt her Novice Jumping Title with 3 consecutive 1st places, including an amazing 14 second run. She earnt her Excellent Jumping Title with 3 1sts, 1 2nd and a 9th (LOL, I fell over). She also has a few legs towards her Master Jumping, Excellent Agility, Open Agility, Snooker & Strategic Pairs titles. We also won 3 of the 12 Heats of the RQH Jumping Dog of the Year. and... WE WON THE NATIONAL EXCELLENT JUMPING CHAMPION FINAL! It's going to be a hard act to follow, but I am so excited about continuing our success next year and hopefully spending some more time on sheep as well.

SPOT ON WS! If you know what is behind the pup, for at least a couple of generations & it is everything you want, it shouldn't matter which one you pick. I guess if there was some sort of major outcross done to correct something, then you would expect to see some variation and the choice may become important, but as otehrs have said...pups can change from one week to the next. I saw a really dramatic change in a pup once & it didn't happen until around 7 weeks. She was very nondescript till 6 weeks & ended up being the highest drive from 7 weeks on. She came from a consistent litter, so there is not a huge variation in them as adults. I think the old nature V nuture argument comes in here as well in a big way. A lot is going to depend on how they are raised & how good a trainer you are. Since it would be virtually impossible for any of us normal people to raise 2 pups the same (and would we want to?) how could we ever make absolute statements? I am raising a pup at the moment, she has a different temperament to my older dog, even though they are bred from the same lines. She will be better, because I am better. Although their temperaments are different, they are both consistently bred with the same essential qualities that are important to my breed. I don't expect her to be perfect, I'm just going to do the best I can to make sure she is as good as I can make her.

This may be odd, but I think it is relevant. Your question reminded me of a story I heard about a sheepdog person. When asked how he would choose a pup from a litter, his response was "I'd take the one no-one else wanted". When I heard the story, it made me think...Now I am in a different place & I totally agree with his sentiments. Anyone care to guess the point?

Tollersowned, Best to email & ask, link is here: http://mywebsite.bigpond.com/pep-lill/1Rhonda.html There may be a working spot in Melb, definitely auditor spots. Good Luck.

Last chance to book an auditor spot...only a couple of days to go in Sydney for a chance to spend a day (or 2)learning from an Agility World Champion.

I'm right with you, Dasha! What concerns me is that some of these dogs need 6-12 months training, often with a muzzle, just to pass an instinct test. To me this is wrong. Instinct should not have to be trained, week after week. These dogs may end up obedient on sheep, but this is not instinct. I have been to watch a couple of days now. I took my camera to one. There were some talented dogs there, but the first 4-5 dogs I took pics of had no intention other than to bite the sheep & I have a number of photos showing them doing just that. What truly horrified me was that a couple of those owners came and asked if they could get copies of my photos. I told them they weren't great pics so not worth it. One lady told me I she didn't care that they were out of focus, she wanted them. I told her the photos were good quality, but they were bad shots of what her dog was doing (since that's pretty much all it did, it was hard to get anything else). She didn't care & wanted the pics anyway, so it would show her dog's progress. I told her I would send them...NOT! BTW, she passed.

She's hooked!!! Once you really bond to a BC, you always have to have one, you know I was going to have boxers...until I got my first BC.