ness

Yes I can imagine Northern Suburbs would run great puppy classes. You could always give them a call and see if they can't recommend somewhere closer. There are lots of great and highly experienced trainers there and they are sure to have contacts.

Hey PW, Since nobody has really given you any information I can say that a 36" would be pushing it for an adult standard poodle. My BC girl is 18" at the shoulders and has a 36" vari kennel so my presumption would be that you would require something larger then that.

Hmm usually to get me to actually enter a trial requires some gentle prodding :D . CD I entered our first trial to keep a friend company - came away with a quallie and second on countback. Another 2 trials another 2 legs and then another extra trial on a 2 day weekend and 4th leg of our CD. Open well I had a trip planned to Perth with the intent on catching up with a few friends for some obedience lessons and also to enter some agility trials. I had sent about 30 prewritten entry forms off to the person I was staying with so that they could send in my agility entries for me with theres. Anyway I had been saying that my instructor here thought we were nearly ready to trial so they were like so enter some obedience trials while your here - I was like no way. Any way about 2 weeks before I went I get an email saying I gave your entry to the trial secretary yesterday evening and since I have paid for you to enter you must at least entertain the idea and no scratching till the day. In the meantime I thought what the hell I would get her to put an entry in for the trial the following weekend as well. Fast forward another 3 weeks to the end of our first week in Perth. The trial just so happened to be the Perth State Obedience Championships - not like it was a small trial!!! Any way we walked out with our first pass in open from our first trial. There was 1 more obedience trial before I was due to fly home which I hadn't at that point entered but posted the entry off first thing Monday morning. Weekend 2 of my trip - second dog in the ring and second CDX pass. Finally we get to the Friday before I was due to fly home. You can imagine I was pretty stressed thinking wouldn't it be lovely to come home with our title. Ness had been attacked at training on the Thursday night and had since refused to even acknowledge that her DB existed so I wasn't holding much hope. We got through the heelwork just - she missed every drop prior to the figure 8 but you knew the judge would give you one last chance after the figure 8 - which she did and she dropped . After every exercise the judge would keep saying that I could relax and stop stressing so much now - ROFL. She knew we were sitting on our title. Any way we got through - wasn't great but hell CDX in straight passes out of an interstate trip is nothing to be sneezed at. So I guess that is a very long winded way to say that I am never sure when to enter and like to have somebody else suggest that we might be ready. We entered in Perth with a lets see attitude. I knew she could do it the question was with what level of enthusiasm in the ring. It wasn't pretty and I learn't so much over there I know if we entered now we would probably do better. I guess you need to be careful that you don't overtrain the dog to the point where they are bored with it. I think I did wait too long to enter novice and open but I was training by myself and didn't really have anybody to say look your nearly ready or enter and see how it goes. As for when we get to UD - expectation 3 from 3 on a return trip to Perth . (Just kidding!!!! but a return trip for our first trial is on the cards)

And I would argue that WA is miles ahead of any where both in agility and obedience ;)

Your spot on Mrs D - if I had wanted to take the easy option I wouldn't have persisted with Ness to get her to the point she is at. She would have been left to be a couch potato. Just because its harder for me to try and get her UD title doesn't mean we aren't going to try - even that is in 3 years time - we had a huge up-hill battle to get through open and as it happens UD is coming together better then her open did. Sure its going to be a while before we are in the trial ring to trial standard but she is enjoying herself. Just goes to show sometimes early on you might think the dog isn't enjoying it only to persist and find the dog start enjoying themselves . There are any number of reasons why a dog regardless of breed may appear dumb but surely that doesn't mean we should right them off totally at such an early age. My experience with BCs is that a lot of them appear to be quite sensitive and yes they can go and go and go and go but if for whatever reason they don't get it they just switch off. The other thing I find is that you can go away from a training session thinking the dog hasn't got a clue and then 2-3 weeks later you might try another session and find the dog has just got it. Sure its the same for all breeds.

There are also easy and difficult dogs within a breed. Its not possible to make a blanket statement about any breed necessarily. I know I haven't had it easy with my girl (yep she is a BC) but when it comes to doing things she has no where near the drive or energy of a "normal" BC. I have seen Golden Retrievers and Labs with far more drive and enthusiasm then she has. Some is due to training (you never quite know what to encourage and discourage when its your first) and some is just her. We have got our CDX and are now training in UD and compete competently but nothing flashy in agility/jumping. We also dabble in freestyle. To take this back to the topic I got into dog sports through my original obedience club. Freestyle I got involved with after reading about it on the web. Best of luck with whatever sports you choose to get involved with. (They are Pets First and Trial/Sports/Competition Dogs Second!!!)

I can't get it to work either wagalot.

Something funny contact related. I have been luring and back chaining a 2o/2o for both the scramble and the dogwalk. Ness seems to have cottoned on relatively quickly for the most part. Dogwalk still confuses her as she isn't quite sure where she should stop. Scramble at full height is a struggle. We had a see-saw out last night and little bugger decided to go up the see-saw halfway turn around and come back and offer a 2o/2o. I had to laugh at that. She obviously saw slope and thought she was suppose to do that. She doesn't have a really nice see-saw mind you but I am certainly not wanting a 2o/2o. I am thinking a run to the end and drop. What do other people use?

Yep loved the video. Well done. :D

Nothing wrong with teaching an "informal" drop in the middle of playing and I'll throw your toy again. Drop from a stand is one of the choices available in novice. Even a DOR shouldn't matter so long as you keep the number of straight recalls far greater then the number of DOR you practice.

Hey Shoey, Just watched the video. Glad to see your so enthusiastic about it. First thing did you plan what you were trying to achieve with the session. Looks like a whole lot of different things and sometimes it was hard to tell if you were just turning around or actually doing an about turn at the end and wanting Ed to maintain a good position. You need to break it up more so it just doesn't turn into walking to one end doing something then walking back the other direction and doing something else - does that make any sense. Also watch what you are rewarding. For instance on the finish Ed has his paw up when he comes back into heel and you rewarded that. You should have either waited for the paw to go down or broken it off and started again. Getting a stafford to give shoulder contact - if that is what you want as your criteria - try using a target stick. Or you could even have a target (disc, piece of tape) which you stick to your clothing which is slightly lower which could be a nose target - in the right place it would produce a shoulder contact or if you wanted you could try and actually teach a shoulder target. Also heeling in confined places - next to walls etc teaches them to come in closer. You can also set up a series of chairs. I was practising tight about turns so I had 2 chairs with Ness and I standing in the middle and the just turning on the spot. Hope that is of some help.

Hmm sas no I just know that to qualify in UD I need to pull my act together. I can't afford to be throwing away any points due to my handling. There is enough for the dog to mess up that will cost points without the handler losing them as well.

So when do we get to criticise .

ROFL yep its always so obvious on video

The tollers heeled better than my BC but that would have something to do with the training ROFL because since then I know Ness can heel in exactly the same way if she wants. Ness isn't your typical BC as she is more like Moses. Super food motivated, clicker savvy and great attention. I think your comparison might be a bit unfair though as your comparing a pup to a grown adult. Better to wait till they are grown up. Other than if I wanted to switch breeds I wouldn't mind a toller I didn't find an aweful lot of difference although apparently tollers are much more likely to have blonde moments then the BCs do.

Thats why its a fantastic idea to get your footwork right without the dog before adding them into the picture . Although like I said before good idea to either tie the dog up or practice when the dog isn't around because otherwise you might suddenly find they have decided to join you .

Getting the reinforcement issue right is one of the hardest things to master. Yep I still lure occasionally as I was trying to get her nice and tight and I got some advice from somebody in the UK last week. Her advice was that as long as you could fade the reward from the left hand and still get the same enthusiasm that she would in training have the reward (toy or food in the left hand) during training. So she would work through fading to a pocket, then to a bag on a table and then put the food back into the left hand to maintain the nice attention. If you watch her dogs heel they will quite happily heel for 4.5 minutes in a trial ring so obviously its not such a big deal. I have come to the conclusion its more a handler developed reliance on the food. During my trip to WA at the end of last year I had the good fortune of being able to train with one of the top obedience triallers over there (completely into positives). During that time it was interesting as she noticed I wouldn't ask Ness for anything (in terms of trial type work) unless I had loaded up with food first. She got me doing stuff without having loaded up my pockets first and I tell you it felt very strange to start with. By the time I got back after my 3 weeks it seemed more normal but still was a struggle. Now I will on the odd occasion make sure she is fired up and then set her up and do a small amount and reward her with something other than food. All the video I had filmed a few weeks ago you will notice there was no food in my hand but I did continue to reward at the completion of each exercise and that came out of my pocket. Occasionally she gets big jackpot rewards but then I can do less training.

Yep SnT a hands free leash belt would do the trick. You can make one yourself by just threading a normal leash onto a belt or what I do is wrap a shorter leash around my waist (if you have one that has a ring on the end) and then stick the handle of my leash through the leash around my waist.

Nope dogdude I am in Adelaide. We are lucky we still have grass areas. That wasn't one of my usual training grounds but was still green . The two places we train both have green grass still as well. One is a baseball ground and the other is a school oval. The school oval is watered off bore water and the baseball ground still seems to get watered on a regular basis so maybe watered off bore water as well. We are only on level 3 water restrictions.

Yep can never have to many leads As for the whole rewarding issue and fading them don't bother going to any form of variable reinforcement till you have the enthuasism you want. Its a great idea to mix it up - sometimes use a toy (tuggy is great), sometimes food but if you want precision its much better to reward in position. I train with food in my right pocket or right hand so I can have it ready to reward when I need. Although rewards always are given from the left hand and close to my leg because dogs gravitate towards the reinforcement and where you want them for heelwork is ideally as close to the left leg as possible. Its a struggle to find the right balance but what I am coming to the conclusion is don't be too cheap intially. Sure one the behaviour is starting to come together you can ask for more but initially keep the rewards coming. Like I said I spent the weekend heavily reinforcing a close position with lots of treats - yep sometimes I was even luring but I would lure then reward pretty quickly and have a few treats in my hand and keep going till I ran out and then maybe ask for another one and reward from somewhere else. It certainly paid off this morning when I took her to the park and asked for some work minus the treats in my hand. If you break it all down like I suggested in my first post and reward at each of the relevant intervals you will find you can eventually fade the food out but if you want trial type work it will never go eventually. At least from my observations from chatting to various triallers (all with UD dogs) is that during a training they will never not include a food reward somewhere. If the dog puts in extra effort don't be hesitant to break off and reward a brilliant position or a brilliant turn.

ROFL I need to write shorter posts as while I was writing out my huge long one I see you posted that you tend to use only positives shoey. Well my post still holds true. If that is the case I would either tuck it into a pocket or waistband if you want to leave a lead on or remove it completely and add it back in later. When I had a lead on for novice I held it with just my left hand and my left hand was still placed on my waistline. Actually if you look at my video with Ness heeling off-lead it would be roughly the same position. Its probably a fraction lower then ideally I would want it and I might try and raise it a fraction higher. You want a lead that is long enough that you don't have any extra bunching in your hand and its just long enough to have a nice loop when the dog is in the correct position.

Either or Dogdude I just find the lead is one extra thing to have to manage and as shoey suggested it was causing her a few problems that it might be easier to add that into the picture once she had the rest sorted especially since her dog's preferred reward would seem to be a ball rather than food. Remembering that eventually you have to have the dog offlead in the higher levels anyway. Also if she finds it easier to get her signals more consistent without the lead then it may be better for the dog. Sure if you want a lead on, maybe tuck it in your pocket but like shoey said she trains without a lead on when she trains at home so I would see no reason why she should put one on at a park so long as Ed isn't going to run off. I am not going to push onto anybody my training views, merely I was posting what I had been suggested to me which has certainly caused a huge turn around in 3 months for my girl. Yes I train using totally positives but I will say I can see no difference at the learning stages. Even if I was into using corrections then the place for them is at the proofing stage and there no way I would introduce those until I thought the dog had some concept of what I wanted. Sorry corrections don't build the enthusiasm also all I suggested was make sure she planned her training rather than just training for the sake of doing a session of heelwork. Sure if you are into using correction then you can factor that into your training plan. Its just a matter of knowing in your own mind what you are doing before you are going to train (that may include what you want to reinforce and how you are going to do it (in my case) or even what you aren't going to allow and therefore correct and how you want to correct it). Even you yourself said that she needs to builds Eds drive with bigger rewards. I don't see shoey using leash corrections (at least the video doesn't show as such) if the dog isn't holding position so presumed she was using some sort of positive methods. I also have read in other posts that she uses the ball to reward Ed so presumed she is into rewarding when he does right even if she does use corrections as well. As for adding in distractions sure I would in my training. Its crucial for your dog to generalise and therefore perform well in a ring that you take it to as many places as possible. In places of great distraction initially you may have to lower your expectations and work through like you have at other places in order to reach the same level. I don't agree with making a situation unduly difficult before the dog understands what you want. We are only starting out on our UD training so naturally I try and limit the the distractions to as few as possible. A few weeks ago when she was struggling to get the concept of scent I had a few bars of soap out to force her to be more considered in her approach. I made a mistake a few weeks ago trying to introduce toys on the ground into my box sendaways. I presumed toys to be a fairly low distraction for my food obsessed but take it or leave it with toys girl. She ended up trying to fetch the toys so what did I do I set it up so it was easier for her. I put the toys further away and reduced the distance I was trying to send her. She also spends a lot of time doing various tricks and just mucking around with freestyle stuff at places like the pet expos so gets use to working in environments which may be overly distracting so gets opportunity for training with distractions outside of formal obedience. As I mentioned previously we also introduce distractions just as food pots as figure 8 posts.

Yep we do freestyle - not very well mind you (I think we are doing demos at the Adelaide Pet Expo). I would hope she would be better now as I have worked out the whole switching on bit. The freestyle clip up there was taken on a boiling hot day - I had her totally soaked and she was bone dry by the end of her routine. She had also sliced her pad up at the property and had been limping quite badly.

ROFL CTD, Go to WA there are heaps of tollers working in obedience and boy do they work nicely I even got to borrow two for a bit of heelwork when I was there and it was such fun working then. I even have them on DVD to watch whenever I want - must burn a copy before I have to return the DVD.

Yes I would recommend maybe not using it at least when you training by yourself. You can then progress back to sticking it into a pocket and maybe when everything else is working right you can worry about adding the lead back. I find it easier to mix the heelwork up a bit because you can break off and play a game or something without worrying about a lead. I have other clips up on youtube if you want to have a look from that same training session - some scent discrimination stuff, gloves, signals and sendaways and directed jumping. This is the sendaway and directed jumping link - mostly because Ness really enjoys this exercise the most.