Tassie

LOL BC Crazy - don't worry - it's not in the rules. It's just what people have found works well to keep you balanced, and give the dog the most timely information. :D

Friend who showed Rory for me had a lovely aqua skirt - showed him off beautifully - would be ice in pants suit. Yellow shows them off well too - alathough maybe a bit much in a pant suit. Midnight blue - not dark also looks great. ETA, or a light terracotta.

Ok TSD - why are you running away. :laugh: Fess up now. I love my Frogz Togs jacket - I got the nice mauve one. Been looking at them for years, and decided to take the plunge. I particularly like the hood which doesn't fall down over your face.

You can use a martingale from the time the pup is out and about walking - since it doesn't close tighter than a normal flat collar. My preference, especially for youngsters, is a fabric one, but that's just me. I would only be using a martingale when the pup is attached to me by a lead, or when I am closely supervising. That is, I wouldn't leave it on the pup when I wasn't there - risk of the loop catching on something.

Yep - agree with these. The stop on the right foot, bring the left up, also gives you time to give nice signals for drop and stand, so that the dog will end up in nice position - able to stay by left leg and stay parallel. And well done on your graduated students :D ,

This is such a good plan. It will likely take a few weeks - with whoever is walking him being absolutely consistent about expectations of not pullig (and he may need refreshers every now and then even as a mature adult :laugh: ) - but the inconvenience of juggling kids for a few weeks will be so well worth it in the long run. Be absolutely clear about what your expectations (criteria) are - you can use treats and/or verbal/physical praise for loose lead, and including you in the picture - but as has been said - the biggest reward he will get for loose lead is actually going forward. A technique I like to use if you've got some open space anywhere near you, is "doodling" ... walking purposefully in one direction, then without saying anything to the dog, changing direction and walk purposefully in another direction. Mark and reward for the dog changing focus back to you and slackening the lead. You'll find very quickly the dog will be paying more attention - probably because he thinks you've lost your marbles ... but hey - it certainly makes you interesting. Don't feel that you must take the dog for x distance walk every day - at this stage, training him to walk nicely is your priority. Learning that will tire him out better than any amount of just walking.

Nothing constructive to offer ... just wanted to wish your family and little Lily all the best.

The mature eye exam/gonioscopy (ACES exam) in BCs is an example of this sort of test to contribute to a database. According to the opthalmologist who did my boy, the angles revealed by this are not an absolute predictor of glaucoma, but may be - and in any case, as it's not a hugely expensive test anyway, it's worth doing, IMO to add to the store of knowledge. We are lucky in BCs that the mode of inheritance of CEA, CL and TNS is simple autosomal recessive, so we can DBA test and be confident what we're dealing with, and retain a wider gene pool. Proud to say that blood from my CEA affected girlie (from before the availability of the test) contributed to the late Dr Alan Wilton's amazing work to identify those genes.

Most of my training at home with Rory was (and still is) done with no collar. When he was little I used a Black Dog soft martingale/limited slip because it.) was easier when he was growing fast than adjusting a flat collar. (Now it's in my puppy class training bag.) Only harness I use is for bike riding or tracking - ComfortFlex Sports - did use Black Dog. Dogs walk fine on flat collars.

Wow - how lucky is that poor girlie. You've certainly earned your bright shining halo today

And still looking really good. :)

:laugh: Sue ... nice one Waldo. You never know what they're going to do. Like the feral Kirra at our last club test - decided she LOVED the Tassie Devil toy - and she's not a toy girl - and had never heard of sit. Just as well they're cute and adorable :laugh:

They're still pretty lightweight, and need quite a bit of staking. (Oh, and if you ever want to gt serious about agility, beware the dreaded tunnel suck .. seems like Zig might have caught it already :laugh: .)

Yes - that was the message I was getting. It's all about trying to make sure the dog doesn't have questions - so clarity and timeliness of cues are the important things. And yes - reading the dog is key, and I guess training the cues so that the dog is clear about what they mean, and can trust the handler. (In my case, I think that's a bit the unreachable goal - but it's a lot of fun trying to get there :laugh: .)

Yep - that all makes perfect sense - when he's slower he's in handler focus - like Zora in RV's clip - very aware of what handler is doing - so can pull off easily if shoulders just dip a bit or head turns or feet turn - when they're going flat out - like my misguided missile, and they're completely in obstacle focus, nothing much short of a nuclear explosion is going to get their attention off the obstacle ahead. I'm not good with set ups - but reckon someone else will have some suggestions. Some accel/decel flat work would probably be good - not eto self- need to do that with Mr Rory, and something where you can vary tight turns with flat out and back again.

You're not alone there Kavik!! And it's hard with two dogs - needing different timing. :laugh: That reminded me too of another good bit of explanation from Nancy - she was explaining commitment point of the dog as the dog's last stride/contact with the ground (more or less) - I found that a little bit easier to visualise than just :commitment point".

Try thinking of this issue in terms of commitment. If he is pulling off the jump, you are cuing the turn before he has committed to it. If he is making the turn slowly, you are hanging around for too long after he has committed. I think too often we get caught up in what a system says we should do or the latest trend in training at the expense of reading our individual dogs. I see a lot of people stopping short on turns lately as that is what they are seeing the big names do. It's only really appropriate if your dog is driving forward like their dogs are. The problem is that the more people try to copy this with dogs who are not driving forward, the more they are encouraging those dogs not to drive forward. That's such a good point, Vickie. It was one of the things that Nancy Gyes was emphasizing ... it's good to know the theory - whatever handling system you're using, but you have to know yourself and your dog too. I liked her explanation that for example, knowing a positional cue in the GD system, gives you a direction to be aiming, say for a front cross, but timing overrides position, so if you're not going to make it in time, you cue the FC in a timely way. Same with accel/decel - if you can't make the place you would ideally be, you cue the decel in time for your dog to respond appropriately. I probably haven't done justice to Nancy's explanation .

Gotta be happy with that. You guys look like you're having fun, and she was really paying attention to you, so that if you turned a little bit too early at the top jump, she came with you. That's a good place for you guys to be at at this stage, I think.

Thanks ness & Tassie, I thought it was so, just double checking. I know an instructor at my obedience club before I joined, did/does agility & judges. She only ever has mixed breed dogs & fought for them to be able to compete in agility. I can still remember members of the club I belonged to then going mob-handed to a meeting of Dogs Tas to get the Associate Register reopened, so that mixed breed and non registered pures could compete in the performance disciplines. Not so many years .ago

LOL TSD, it's the time thing isn't it, with our versatile dogs. But it's a lot of fun even playing with moves, just in case ;-)

That's great staffyluv .. you must be really thrilled with both your kids. They certainly look pretty pleased with themselves. :D

Well done DD - love the versatile dogs! And as Ptolomy says, the first one is really special.

@ TSD - the last weekend in March .. BC Nationals website has all the dates. Would be great if you could come and say hi :D

Yes - all Border Collies registered on the ANKC Main, Limited or Neuter Registers are eligible for the performance events. Limited Register of course are not eligible for conformation. As far as I understand, this is not a ruling of the local organisers - they are bound by ANKC rules regarding the holding of National Breed events - I believe these rules have been in place for a few years now - though they were not in place at the time of the first BC Nationals, I believe. The ANKC rules have caused some major concerns (for want of a better word) among particularly the Sporting Register BC people who would like to be able to compete in herding and agility in particular.