RubyStar

$57.76 in postage to Perth for 2 What a shame, they look great.

Happy Gotcha Day, Lucy!!! xx

Well done WX!!! That is awesome :D

A hard crate is better with one of those latch doors (collapsible hard ones are ok as most have latch doors?), as you can open/close the door quicker which you need to do when first starting out with crate games as the dog starts to understand the criteria. If your dog already stays in a crate pretty well, it can also work with a soft crate :)

Self control in the dog or handler? OK I will think about it! Sue, I've signed up mostly to help the obedience side of things. I'm hoping with some work, I can get Millie to focus 95% of the time, except for a lot less. When she's on, she's fantastic, but when she's distracted, oh boy - I swear I have indeed trained her!! Who knows, it might even help Ruby stop visiting the judges and stewards between exercises! (and sometimes during!!) I'm going to be doing it with Pippa as well. She looooves to play and is pretty full on, so I want to maintain that enthusiasm! Here's hoping I at least get something out of it

Yeah I am going to (try) take it easy and try to make it more relaxed and fun. No grumbling at being too eager in the heelup for starters! And reassurance when she's out in the field. I'm not concerned about losing points at the moment, I just want her to bring the bird back with minimal damage! I hope to get up the confidence to come out this again season Good luck for your pups first trial! Let us know how you get on :) What DVD's do you have? The one I have that I love is the Wildrose one. Of course I skip over bits that aren't relevant for me, but for the most part, I like it :) I also have Retriever Fever which has some good bits in it. Always on the lookout for more DVD's as I need all the help I can get!!

I just signed up :D This is my first online course, I'm excited!

Kavik, you should be working on commission :D I'm going to sign up as well! I think it will be great for all my dogs. I mean who doesn't love playing?! Will be great to see videos of everyone's progress in here, even if videos aren't required for the course. I'm looking forward to it! Just hope I can find the time and space to do it

Where it says "active online support" - does this mean we upload videos and get feedback, or we can just email questions?

I'm thinking the same, FalconRange. It's essentially a $150 DVD (and ebooks)!

We've just signed up! Very excited - have been looking at doing Recallers for ages, but always so expensive. This time round it appears to be a little cheaper. Or maybe I'm willing to spend the $$ to try and create a recall in my Siberian. Come join us if you are able RubyStar! Oh I'd love to, but I am worried about having nowhere to do the exercises (you can't go hard on a small square of paving!) so if I feel restricted with where to train, I would probably get lazy and waste the $$ spent I think it'd be good to do with both my girls, plus little Pippa. Can anyone rent me a backyard please?

Your video looks great, Kavik! I've got a few issues myself with Millie switching off for a good sniff or boglap every now and then. The more I hear about Recallers, the more I'd actually like to give it a try (but she doesn't tug, do you need a tugging dog to do Recallers?) Never mind, just read the responses on this page and got the answer! But why couldn't the 8 weeks have been over the Xmas uni break!!!! Not a good time to be starting this for me Another question - do you need a decent backyard to do the games? I have no backyard to train in. Just a bit of paving. Oh how I long for a decent backyard for training, or to live across the road from a park!

How great! I'll keep an eye out for it

I had a feeling it was GSP's you had, but didn't want to be wrong Gorgeous dogs! My girl has fairly good obedience (which I am well aware can go out of the window when out in the field! ) and is steady, it's just the damn heel up So we have done a fair bit of wait, walk away, throw dummy, send, etc etc. We can do some very basic left and right overs and backs, easy doubles and sighted blinds. Anything more than that and we're out of our depth Stop to the whistle is um, progressing (drop to the whistle, anyone?), and stopping and casting well, not yet She decides she's smarter than I and anticipates I'm going to stop her. But we've only done small amounts of this so far. I too spent years letting Ruby play with squeaky balls so it definitely is at least partly a learned behaviour. The squeaky ball is the all time reward for both my girls. Millie has more enthusiasm for retrieving and repetition of drills, but she isn't that keen on holding birdies, and could be perhaps gunshy. Doesn't matter though, she's only an Associate Gundog Shame though, she reallllyyyyy loves to retrieve this one!!!

Thanks, TSD. That is good to get some suggestions that are thinking outside the box. I'll give that a go :) rubyroo, I hope you can sort it out with your boy! Your pup sounds like he's coming along great! What breed do you have again? I know I'm not the first, nor the last to have a mouthy dog who will bring back a bird to be embarrassed about. I know it must be partly genetic, but I believe it is mostly learned behaviour and stressing. She carries soft toys around ever so gently, has to keep bringing me slippers, socks, thongs, you name it, all without asking. She also loves playing the "another one" game inside with finding me my other slipper or shoe But she started learning a horrible mouthing behaviour with the obedience dumbell which I never got on top of, and it has carried across to other items. The mouthing was worse on those times that I grumbled at her to get back into heel during the heel between the flags (and yes, funnily enough, the heel BACK was great! The excitement of getting to the flags before me took over, and yes she knew what they were about! She'd get there before me and sit, watching eagerly for the bird!! ). Was also a bit worse when I didn't talk to her on her return with the bird. Oh and to make matters more difficult, I can't talk too excited or she gets excited and chomps down, too! Oh dear! If I could get on top of the bird thing, restricted isn't necessarily completely out of the question. I just have to learn to train in short bursts, but when you rarely get the chance to head out with someone to throw dummies for you, sometimes you like to cram as much as you can in which can have a negative effect for us! And of course there's the heat. She doesn't "do" heat

Nice to read your updates once again, TSD :) I'm focusing most of my training efforts these days on getting Ruby's UD title, it's something I would be so over the moon to achieve! That being said, I would still love to return to retrieving to at least get our final 2 finishes for her QND title. It's something that tugs at my heart every time I think about it and how much I want to get back to retrieving. However, I am extremely terrified about doing this More so than I was last year when we were still yet to enter! We have quite a mouthing behaviour going on She's a bit of a stress head, and while I noticed her marking skills were starting to get SO much better from the trialling experience, I think I was putting too much pressure on her and she was taking it out on the bird. It got worse as the trialling season went on. I pulled her from a trial and never returned She's never going to be anything but a novice dog, and I'm ok with that. She just doesn't have the drive to take repetition so trialling for restricted would be an uphill battle. In a few years when it's time for another dog, I will aim for bigger and better things in retrieving, but for now, I would just really love to give novice another bash! (TERRIFIED!!!!!!!) I'm hoping to meet up with some more experienced folk to get some more help this season, but in the meantime, I am chugging along, back to basics with holding frozen birdies and heeling with them. I have my own thrower now, but noone to operate it for me So it's gathering cobwebs!! Hope it starts to cool down soon so I can get back to some work with dummies on the local oval. It's just been WAY TOO HOT!! Stupid Perth weather!

While I agree a mentor is a great thing to have, sometimes it's very hard to find one, especially those new to the game and are unknown. Even once you've proved yourself, you still have to find someone who has the time and the "want" to take you on. A mentor is a priceless thing to have, so if you're lucky to find one, good on you! I agree with you about having too much info can be confusing and overwhelming, so that's why I would recommend only 1 or 2 DVD's that train in similar ways, as not to overwhelm the new puppy owner with too much info at once and conflicting ways of doing things.

Ditto Actually got out some of my training DVD's yesterday and was blown away by how little of them I have actually watched, either all the way through or not at all! I actually put the Mary Ellen Barry one on yesterday, and while I glossed over the first 2 DVD's as it covered a lot of what I've done already, I picked up a useful game to try with Pippa. Tugging in the face of distraction (ie. food!) She's a little piggy and while she loves to tug, would much rather the food!!

Is it the foundation one by Mary Ellen Barry? I'd recommend it for real definite newbies, as it covers a lot of good foundation games. Success with One Jump is also a good one, as mentioned by Kavik. Also agree with Kavik in that while training classes can be good for some foundations, they do tend to gloss over a lot of good foundation skills as the majority of the public that attend classes are just keen to get on with it and onto equipment, so unfortunately clubs tend to cater for these folk and skip a lot of good foundation skills. If you're serious about agility, and can't afford a one on one trainer who will show you all the basics, some of these DVD's are a great start :) I'd also recommend learning more about shaping if you don't already, so much fun to do shaping games with puppies, and it helps them learn how to learn a whole range of skills as they get older

Gonna buy some mini schnauzer stamps, too cute! Wrong colour, though, should be black :D

Thanks for the link. Think I'll sit that one out

Where was the video?

That's interesting, mirawee. I can't tell if they are only after show dogs, or obedience/agility ones, too. It is calling for obedience/agility judges, but mentions its open to show people. So I dunno I wonder what the project is, does anyone have any inside info?

We're a boring lot lately, aren't we? Someone must have some news, or something to talk about?! Not me, nothing going on here 2 more week until I go back to uni, so there goes spare time! But I'm at the stage now where I'm looking forward to it for something to do :p Ask me again in a month and I'll be over it again!