DeltaCharlie

All the big guys are pure Border Collies except Charlie who is crossed with ACD. The two little ones, Jaz (blonde) is a maltese/ silky and Brooks (grey) is supposed to be the same but likely has schnauzer and poodle in there too. Here is a group shot of the 2 of them

We haven't got around to getting any new ones now that Whip has joined the pack, but here are some of the group shots we do have. The only shot I have of all 7 The 5 big guys (pre Whip) Sweep and Delta I'll have to have a look through and see what else I can find

Cash/ Petrol Vouchers are my favourite Like someone earlier said, I would rather get $5 than some of the dishes that sit in the back of the cupboard and never get used. We generally take a ribbon if it is a trial we have never been too or if its for a novice class, and title ribbons when they get them (although my dogs always seem to title at trials that dont have title ribbons). Otherwise I don't take ribbons, the clubs spend so much money on them, I would rather let them keep it to use for the next trial and save them buying more.

We do some grid work here for a variety of reasons. Delta cannot bounce jump to save herself so we do extension and whatever the opposite of that is (my brain has gone blank ) grids and she has improved heaps. She is being xrayed in a few weeks to rule out a structural reason for her not using her backend effectively, if that comes back clear then we will try and do some stuff to get her to jump from her backend better and stretch out over the jumps. Tammy has done some grid work with Link because she flattens out too much over jumps and knocks bars because she is too busy looking at the next jump coming up. She was also having trouble bounce jumping. Charlie does jump grids but not to correct his jumping style. He does them because I will take any opportunity to do a short sequence for reward with him and if a grid is set up then it is a perfect chance for us to have some short fun in agility.

I think there is a fine line here. I don't want one dog to run like the other for convenience. I want the best I can get out of each of them. If I work with what they give me, then how do I ever seek to improve? When I started running Shine, I liked the way she would drive ahead of me. I recognised it as a strength & something I want in a dog. Rather than recognising that Trim is different, I set about teaching her to drive ahead better. She is still not as good as Shine at it, but she is HEAPS better & still improving. Because I could compare them, I saw it as a weakness in Trim & have made an effort to improve it. Same with tight turns. Trim naturally turns tight. Shine does not. Again Trim is still better at it, but Shine is much tighter than she was because I have spent a lot of time training it. Shine has better weave entries. I thought Trim's were good, but knowing Shine's are better makes me realise Trim's still need work. and so on. Yes there are things we cannot change. But I would rather work on a weakness in training than try to run courses differently forever because of them. (not saying you are doing this Bec, just trying to justify why I want mine the same) Unfortunately, we have very different dogs Vickie :D Your guys live for agility, Charlie on the other hand would quite happily give it up So I am not going to change what he offers me, I would rather just run with what I have. He hates agility and stresses out so we don't do agility. We stick to jumping and games (coz I can make up a course to suit him and avoid contacts and weaves whenever possible) and I always go out there and work out a nice flowing run home if I feel I am starting to lose him. Delta is more than happy to run, so long as she doesn't have to sit at that dreaded startline For major things like you mentioned then yes I would be training the weaknesses too. If it is something that I see as an area to improve then I would be working on it at training. What I meant is that essentially they are all individuals and we will never be able to make them all exactly the same. We can teach them to run a different line but it will never become their natural line to follow so I think there will always be minute differences in handling even if we don't realise we are doing it. Take that serp you posted, now that you have taught Trim how to handle it she will be able to do it, but the next time you see it on a course you will still be aware (on some level of consciousness) that Shine will naturally do it but Trim will need to be handled at that point. With my guys I can run a distance section and not even think twice about sending Charlie out there, but I will still handle it a little more with Delta (and possibly give a verbal "out") even though I have taught her how to do it. I know that it isnt a natural thing for her so I will always handle it a little differently without necessarily trying to.

My 2 are very different dogs to run, I don't think it would ever be possible to run them both the same. While it isn't as difficult to run Charlie as it used to be (and Vickie, you have attempted that lol) he is still a harder dog to run. He no longer looks for a way out but will stress if he doesn't have all the information in plenty of time. Charlie will drive ahead nicely but wont always pick up on subtle offset jumps and as a result can run right past an obstacle when he is ahead of me. The same thing with distance work, he has really nice distance but will sometimes go out too far and around stuff as he just doesn't instinctively follow a line. My favourite was Loris' JDO last year in Newcastle. The distance part was quite technical, involved layering jumps and bringing them to you and back out, finishing off with sending to a tunnel. Charlie did all the technical stuff perfectly then ran around the outside of the tunnel (it was very sneaky, neither Loris nor I realised until he got to the end and didn't actually come out of the tunnel, instead he came from behind it ) He has become much better at understanding my body with offset jumps though, and will push out nicely to jumps and save my arse where Delta would just miss them if I don't get into the right position. Delta has proven over and over again that she can follow the most ridiculous of offset lines which is a great help in many gamblers runs. She works nicely ahead of me but doesn't have the same distance ability as Charlie. She will work at a distance but needs to be catapaulted out there alot more than him, rather than just moving laterally away from me. Part of Charlie's "get the love back for agility" training involved lots of short sequences for a tennis ball. I now have the issue of anywhere on a course that looks like it could possibly be the end of a sequence (usually a jump leading to nowhere) and Charlie will power ahead in anticipation of a throw, then go out really wide as I attempt to turn him and bring him back on course which wastes a ridiculous amount of time. When I get my timing right, Delta is a much tighter dog, unfortunately I cannot get it together of late and we are having some very crunchy runs as a result. Charlie is also a slower dog around the course, he isn't as efficient over jumps and doesn't flatten out as much which means he is taking off and landing alot closer to the jump than Delta, who flattens out and is already on top of the next jump if I don't give a signal to turn in time. Because mine started trialling at the same time they have pretty much always been in the same classes so I have to walk every course in 2 different ways. Some courses I walk completely differently as I will very rarely rear cross Charlie as I don't want to risk stressing him, and front crosses work much better for him. Most of the time I know I wont be able to get into the position for the same front cross with Delta so I walk it again with rear crosses. Then I hope I remember which course is for which dog when I get out there It makes it even harder for things like gamblers and snooker as I will avoid contacts and weaves in opening sequences whenever possible with Charlie, so I end up with 2 completely different courses I think that every dog is different and it is up to us to treat them as such. I don't think it is fair to expect one dog to run just like another to convenience us, we work with what they give us. When I was really struggling with running them both about 12 months ago I seriously considered taking it in turns with them, and only running one at each trial because it just wasn't fair on them. Charlie was so hot and cold that whenever he was happy to run for the day I focussed so much on him that Delta kinda lucked out and had to find her own way around courses, and whenever he wasn't happy to run I made it worse by not wanting to run him and focussing on her. I managed to work through that though, and was able to look at each dog as individual and see their strengths and weaknesses and understand what each had to offer me out there to use.

In my experience, dogs are not stupid As far as I am concerned, he will find the kennel himself and seek it out if he needs shelter. If he isn't going in there now then he obviously doesn't feel he needs shelter (and is possibly enjoying the sun and exploring the yard). I wouldn't worry about it too much, he will use it when he wants to use it. I used to have an outdoor dog and he never went into his kennel during the day, he much preferred to sleep out on the grass or stretch out on the warm pavers. I figured he mustnt use it until one winter night when I saw him come out of it when I went to the door. If you really desperately want to see your dog in the kennel (because we all like to think that we haven't wasted money LOL) then feed him in there, kinda like crate training. I am of the school of thought though that if you make too big a deal about the kennel the poor pup will have weird feelings towards it, rather than just naturally seeking it out as a form of shelter when he is cold or wet.

Vickie I have one somewhere (Dad has moved so not 100% sure where my stuff is now stored) if you want it. They are ok but a pain in the butt to put up and down and every time you want to change the shape you need to restake them. They wont stay up on their own so you need to use tomato stakes to hold them up (a stake on each side for each end and then each side every time it bends). I very rarely used it as it was just annoying and such a timewaster. I wouldn't spend money on another one.

We brought 2 of them back to Canberra from Sydney last year on the roof racks of the cars No issues at all.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of competing in the agility nationals if we didn't have the dogs????? We did a pretty quick trip over (6 days) and the dogs were on tight leads from about Eucla until we got to Perth. I know there is somewhere at Eucla that we can run them from talking to a local lady who worked at the SA/WA checkpoint and across the nullabor they will be toileted 1 at a time and under close supervision like they were to travel over. We had heard that there were some dog friendly beaches along the coast of south WA that were pretty safe but not sure whereabouts they are. With 7 dogs, it is not something we want to risk unless we know that the area is bait free as you simply cannot keep an eye on that many at once. At least at a beach our guys generally don't leave the water, especially when something is being thrown into it (ie ball).

We are in Perth at the moment for the agility nationals and are planning on taking the scenic route back to Canberra via Margaret River, Albany, Esperance, then down through SA (Elliston area, Adelaide and surrounds), then taking the Great Ocean Road and back up through Victoria (Torquay, Anglesea, etc). We have heard that there is alot of baiting happening along this route, particularly the Eyre Peninsula and would like to know where some safe places to run our dogs are. They are on tight leads across the nullabor due to the ariel baiting but we dont exactly want them on tight leads for 4 weeks... this is their holiday too Are there safe places (beaches etc) in south WA that we can take them for a run and a swim? What about through SA and southern Victoria? Thanks

Well we didn't have the best of days, I think both dogs and human are still tired from the travelling (well thats my excuse anyway and Im sticking too it ) Delta (who has been running really nicely of late) managed to get herself withdrawn from 2 of the morning runs... in JDO she popped the 10th pole to get into the tunnel quicker which is a big no-no, then in AD she decided not to even attempt to stop on her DW which is very unlike her. She got all of her contacts fine in ADO though (and was made to hold each one for a few seconds) so at least she redeemed herself. I pulled her out of her afternoon agility runs as she was just exhausted and the brain was mush. Still ran her in jumping but she just wasn't thinking, running around jumps because she forgot to adjust... silly things like that. Charlie ran really nicely for me all day though. Interstaters wouldn't know him but he is a very tough dog to get to actually stay on a course. He shuts down easily and can run a few hundred metres away if he really doesnt want to be out there. It has been a very difficult job to get him running courses and staying happy out there. I spend alot of time running him on direct routes home if I think I am losing him so that I am still finishing on my terms without forcing him to do the whole course. He is also petrified of chutes, we have no idea why as he never used to care about them... we have been practicing them with high rewards all week in the hope that he would go through it. He ran through the chute in JDO in the morning without hesitation so I gave him a pat and ran straight home for some treats Then he went through it again happily in JDX, we continued running the course and he managed to get a Q and 2nd place I was just over the moon that he ran all 4 of his runs happily and finished each one wanting more I saw some nice runs from some of the other DOLers too. I missed Alex's ADM run :D In fact I don't remember seeing him run all day, but Snazzy had some nice runs. I also saw Gabby's titling run, very nice

No the dogs were pretty stiff from all the travel so we took them to the grounds earlier for a run and to stretch their legs but didn't want to actually train them until they were stretching out properly and their muscles were looser. Our guys are such manic idiots they probably would have hurt themselves had we put them over equipment Think we are going to training tonight though Wont do alot with them though, but hoping that there is a chute somewhere as Charlie has real issues with chutes, its been an issue for 12months and we don't seem to be getting anywhere with it. Once he gets used to one he is usually right but it isn't carrying over to other chutes he sees unfortunately. Hoping that if he becomes familiar with chutes here then he will actually go through them... it has cost us so many runs it isn't funny.

We arrived in Perth yesterday afternoon, having a relaxing day today to recover Nothing like squeezing 7 dogs into a station wagon for 6 days Where are some good places to swim the dogs that are close to Maida Vale?

The idea is to not say much while you are on course so that when you need to say something the dog will tune in. If you went around a course naming everything the dog gets to it will stop paying attention to your voice and an important call will not be as effective. Generally if you are running towards an obstacle or directing the dog to an obstacle the expectation is that they will do it. They respond so much better to your body than your voice for things like that anyway. Most of my obstacles have names though, so that I can use them to help the dog discriminate between 2 things that are close together. You can call them whatever you like, and whatever you will remember. Alot of mine come from what I said while they were learning the obstacle, eg I taught them to jump onto the seesaw from the side and worked back from there, as I did it I was saying "onyaget" so that just became my command. Until Delta's seesaw performance became unreliable and I retrained it with a 'steady' command which she seems to recognise so much better. My flatmate's command for table is 'on the box' because they were taught to get onto a box as she didn't have a table at home. I also usually throw in a command rather than just name the thing. So I usually tell them to 'go tunnel' or 'go weave' rather than just naming it. On contacts I usually tell them to 'go touch' or 'touch it'. Table- table/ get on the table Weaves- weave/ go weave Tunnel- tunnel/ get in the tunnel/ go tunnel Chute- Chute (although sometimes I call it a tunnel too) Tyre- Tyre (very, very rarely used... i consider it to be no different to the spread/broad/normal jumps in that they should just take it) A-Frame- Hup Dog Walk- Walk it Seesaw- Onyaget (Charlie) Steady (Delta) I have never said anything for jumps, even when they first started out. The expectation has always been that if something is in front of you then you take it. Besides my dogs go too fast for me to be calling out every jump LOL I have other commands too, which they know to varying degrees. Wait- hold your position until you are released. I use it at the start obviously but also sometimes on contacts if they look ready to release themselves. Lets Go- release cue for the start and from contacts. Tight- wrap tightly around the closest upright of the jump because we will be heading back this direction. Turn/Cross- means I will be doing a rear-cross, expect me on the other side of you. For fairly straight runs that I R-C I don't say anything though. Back- move laterally away from me, used most often for distance work, gambers, exclusion zones in open Out- head away from me and take that obstacle out there Go home- here is a nice straight run home, dont worry about me any more just do it on your own Far- go around that jump and take it coming towards me. And Again- used in gamblers when I want to do the same obstacle back-to-back. I think that is all that I use. I know other people use things like left/right for directions and 'come tunnel/out tunnel' to tell the dog whether it is the far end of the tunnel or the close end.

I used to have the same thing when I was living with my parents for a little while. Their dog Maddi is a dominant bitch and my Cody was as submissive as they come. I used to go out to obedience and agility, come back and Maddi would spend the next hour standing over him etc. It was never an issue with those 2 as it never progressed past dominant stances etc and Cody basically ignored her. They now have 2 very dominant bitches and cannot take Missy out for more than an hour or so without it causing issues upon her return. Bringing Missy home again requires reintroducing them like you would dogs for the first time. Id be interested in theories as to why this happens too

Do you know if they have any photos of them?

anybody?

Yeh Tammy and I have bought a van especially for the occassion LOL The 2 little ones are retired so only the borders that we need to worry about. We have no choice but to drive though as they will not fly more than 2 dogs on each flight and we werent prepared to separate them over 4 different flights, who knows where they would have all ended up

We will be there Delta will be running in everything she is eligible for, Charlie will just be doing jumping and games as he doesnt enjoy running agility so I wont waste my money We are driving over from Canberra with a van, staying at some christian camp thing that they have opened up for the agility competitors... all 7 dogs in tow Only 5 are competing though, the older 2 are just the support crew.

Is anyone going to this? I don't usually do Victorian trials so don't know who to speak to about finding a pair for Delta. She can jump 500 or 600, is fast and reliable with good contacts and weaves. If you are interested or know someone who is please email me ASAP at [email protected] Thanks

My flatmate We forgot to take treats with us to a blue ribbon trial a few months ago so Tammy stood at the edge of the ring to play with them as a reward at the end They absolutely love her to bits so it was the best reward.

Do you point at the ground when the target is there? Is your target clear or coloured? Clear targets are easier to phase out as they are not so obvious to a dog moving at speed. How big is the target? Make sure you are not doing anything to lead him into position when the target is there- just stand still and wait for him to offer the behaviour. If you think a clicker will help then use it, I use a clicker for teaching initial 2o2o behaviours. Then do the same thing when the target is removed... you want him to be thinking about what he needs to do rather than using cues from you. Otherwise he will forever be dependant on your body to get it right. And yes, nothing more powerful as a motivator than a second dog We are lucky enough to have 5 currently trialling agility dogs here (the others are retired) so plenty of torture for the dog that mucks up and must join the end of the queue again

I had similar problems with Charlie for a long time, he just couldn't seem to work out how to get his weight right on full height equipment. Until one day when I was annoyed with him for being stupid on the course at training, he didn't even attempt to stop at the end so I pulled him from it and put him in his crate. Amazingly he nailed his A-Frame contact after that Turns out he did actually understand what he needed to do but until there were actual consequences for not doing it right he didn't see the point in trying too hard He was much further in his training than you though, I didn't use a target for the A-Frame, I did a bit on the DW then transferred that behaviour over to the A-Frame. So he was well and truly aware of what was required. However, a similar principle can still be applied to your situation. If you put the dog back onto the contact every time they overrun it... chances are they will just think that is what happens ("I run over it, do a handstand, fall off, have to get back on, get rewarded") Do you reward the position when you put him back on??? I wouldn't give any more than a quick pat or a "good boy" then ask for it properly (from the start of the obstacle). If he gets it right then he gets a huge reward and lots of playing etc. I would be going back to lower heights to reinforce that he gets a big reward for doing it right (set him up for success until he gets the idea of what is required, that way an absence of reward will be that much more effective). What are you using the target for? Does he nose touch it? I realised very quickly that Charlie wasn't always getting the target when he nosetouched so I took it away and he still did the behaviour, from there I just had to reward the behaviour. It is the reason why I am never really particular about my dogs hitting the target every time even from the start, so long as they hit pretty close to it. Makes it so much easier to remove the target as it is the bobbing behaviour that is being rewarded rather than the actual touching of the target. Good luck

Sorry guys we had issues getting the website up and running on time so all photos have been put onto pbase, just follow the link that Jo posted. I have put the team shots on flickr as it just takes forever to put them on pbase (have to do one image at a time ) Team Shots