Inevitablue

Hopefully I get to meet some of you, the plan is to enter the RCV trial at the end of September. Of course it clashes with the breed class at Melbourne Royal so pending our PT run this weekend I might just have my girl with me while I send the boy to the show with someone else. Yay!! I get to watch the ducks :) I will just enter the cattle A course

Question - I have friends with a different breed (but on the same day) who might take my boy for me as I will be in Melbourne but at a herding trial with my other dog. Can I request my dog to be benched with them?

Last time I read the ingredients list for Supercoat (~5 years ago) the Puppy was the only one with protein as the first ingredient, the others were filler. I would have said to feed the puppy to all ages. This was before any Sensitive had been introduced, I have no idea about that. Agree with whoever said make the food at home, buying meat in bulk makes it more affordable.

Thanks for the duck photos. Fascinates me! I cant wait to watch (and participate in) ducks. Weasles, your judge would have been a lady who has helped me so much over here in Sydney. She is a gem. Congrats to all the great results Question - did the Vic trial have cattle as well?

Can someone post photos of the dogs working ducks please :) Sounds like successful trialling for everyone. We have 3 trials over the next 2 weekends.

So many cute puppies growing into the most handsome dogs :) Testament to all the loving homes

Tess at 7 weeks Tess at 17 months

Thanks guys, I've had some lovely PM's and TheSpottedDevil has kindly offered to introduce her to agility

No, however a lot of traits/working styles/preferences, travel down the line ... I love watching pups 'working' pet sheep or poultry ..and being able to immediately spot the 'style' of their grandparents , etc. Yep, keep mating the shy ones and what do you end up with....boldness lost. Environment and training can assist or cover up issues but when placed under enough pressure I think most dogs revert to whats in their hard wiring. I'm thinking along the lines of Myer Briggs for dogs - adapted personality and true personality. When that bull is staring them down they either have the courage or they don't. I agree that they wont be able to make it an exact science. I was surprised when I have spent time with sheep herders that it can take up to a year to find a suitable pup for a particular handler. Soft handlers need softer dogs...it is a partnership after all.

Thanks! Do you know of anyone doing private / semi private lessons. I will send PMs but are Cosmolo or Nekhbet close?

Can anyone suggest for a friend of mine private or group agility lessons in the Croydon or Lilydale areas? Thanks!

My father is one of the organiser's for the Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans Association march. On Christmas day just gone we were discussing how they were struggling to get a VC recipient as guest of honor this year, and as a crazy idea we thought of honoring dogs of war. This march is looking to be the biggest one yet, and I'm posting so if anyone is interested. Private Sarbi (of the book Saving Private Sarbi) and her handler Sargent "D" are the main guests along with around 16 EDD dogs from the Holsworthy Barracks. There will be the usual mounted police, a caribou fly over and festivities. The details are - August 19 Springwood, Blue Mountains. The main street will be closed from 10:30 onwards. Parade starts at 11.

Bum! We have a lab at our club

Why can't you compete? IPO breaks the sections down. So you can just do the obedience or the tracking. They have the separate titles too like Ob1, Ob2 ect for each standard.

An IPO club would suit you perfectly. Just train in the A (obedience) and B (tracking) sections. My club accepts other breeds of dogs so perhaps you could see if http://www.eagleheightssportdog.org/ would too.

I'm keen to hear the answer to this. I would like to know how many other ACD's have got HSAs (or any trial herding titles for that matter). Can you let us know what you find out with the process Smisch :)

I will be very happy with a 200m cast!! :laugh: I love watching the dogs do those long, fence running casts

RossP if nothing really obvious has stood out to 3 vets, if was me, I would just check her resting heart rate when she is 6 months and 12 months old and not worry too much about it now. Great to hear she is picking things up so quickly. I have been looking at the American Working Breed Standard for ACD's Working Standard and it's even listed that the breed should be able to perform tasks after only one or two exposures. I think it is a well written standard, I just wish people wouldnt interpret 'suspicious' as apprehensive. Too many dogs are 'suspicious - scared' not 'suspicious - 'what are you up to?' It will be interesting to see if she develops her instinct for working the chooks! She has stunning dark eyes :) My guys have been little superstars at herding (which I'm not too surprised, I deliberately bought these dogs as they come from a line which focused more on farm ability than show ring ability) Tess, at 18 months old had her first competition in with the big boys, Herding Started A Course on sheep. Apart from stuffing up the cast at the very beginning she finished on 91.5/100. She normally does that length of cast ok, so I'm really excited for the next trial in 4 weeks time as she didn't loose a single point through the obstacles. I'm trying to organise a trip to Victoria to compete in some cattle trials. I suspect she is already the highest titled ACD in herding in Australia (if she isn't she will be in 5 weeks time :laugh:) My boy has suffered a little, as during his younger months when he should have been learning his craft there was no training due to summer. However he has made up lost time and last weekend got his Herding Test title. He is a handful as he is sooooo keen, while waiting around he will stand up on the fence to just look at the sheep. I cant wait to get him on cattle. I just love this photo(taken by DOLer poocow)

Your dogs were barking and lunging, at what point do you consider a dog trained?

Bit over the top! Its a rare breed in Australia, and people have already expressed their interest in following them grow.

Well I think Janba should come in here with a full report but here's mine :) Great run trial, even with so many entered there was still ample time for test move ups and the judges were fantastic in keeping the runs short and concise. My dogs just never seem to fail me, Tess did her first ever HSAs run, and apart from a big hiccup at the start where 2 sheep started to head back to the gate before I started, so I sent my (still needs to be taught a decent cast) dog to get them, but she went straight to the 3 sheep left on the peg. We collected all our sheep then started on the course. In the end if you take away the points she lost on the cast and fetch she would have finished on 99/100. We ended up with 91.5/100 and a very happy handler :laugh: My boy only came off lead last weekend (due to extreme eagerness :laugh: ) and he did his HIC, then we got two move ups under different judges to HT, so we ended the day with his HT title. Judges comments were 'lovely dog' and 'need to work on commands'. I cant wait for the next trial in 4 weeks time. Congrats to the BBC NSW for a very well run trial that ended in daylight hours! Lots of happy dogs today and I hope others come in here with their great news

Perhaps you could come to Sydney for a weekend, and learn some things on both the saturday and sunday. Some trainers only want to work with kelpies/BC's/coolies but you could try a Robert & Jenny Cox clinic. I have been to a few and he is great with rarer herding breeds. He has worked with Finnish Laphunds, Corgis, ACD's, Stumpies and that's just the clinics I have been to. If you want his details send me a PM, he should have a weekend clinic coming up in Nimmatabel sometime in the future.

Good luck to everyone at tomorrows BBCNSW trial I've heard there are 99 dogs participating :) I'm having my first Started A go

Yes, nothing stopping people from doing both :)

Spondylosis - unfortunately stem cells wont help this condition, due to extra bone growth in the form of osteophytes. The autologous technique of taking your dogs own fat is becoming outdated, which is a pain for vets who did invest in the equipment. Your correct, there is no need to cut him open anymore. If you have kept the weight off him it can lead to a bigger incision, the fatter dogs tended to end up with smaller incisions (no searching for adipose tissue) It is much less stress on the dog to have the donor cells, only one short GA if you decide on intra articular (inject directly into the joint) or no GA at all if you decide to do intravenous (just on a drip for 30min). Any vet in Australia can order the allogeneic (laboratory grown) cells. Do some research and have a look here If he is particularly sore and arthritic in his hips then delivering the cells right into the joint is the best, but if he sore all over IV can be more beneficial. In a older dog they will have varying degrees of degeneration throughout their body so the drawback to IV is that the cells could be attracted to stronger chemotastic signalling from organs and other tissue etc. At the moment it is just straight mesenchymal stem cells being used, but scientists are madly working on starting the cell differentiation pathway to what we want them to become prior to injection, that way every dog treated can just get an IV dose.