hopenfox

My dog, Fox has a rock solid sit stay and has not once moved during stay training in the last year. He has however dropped twice on a sit stay in trials. Both times his reasons were very clear to me. The first time a dog on one side of him was staring at him, leaning over to sniff him and he just went to pieces. His legs turned to jelly, and he couldn't help sliding into a drop. The second time a large dog with an inconsiderate handler crowded, pushed and shoved him as we filed into the ring for the stays. He was quivering with worry as I went to leave him beside this dog. After taking two steps away from him, he lay down. Except for getting him more used to close scrutiny, and crowding by strange dogs, I don't think there's much I can do to fix these stay breaks. Hope used to lie down on a stay every now and then, and I've found the best way to train her not to is to return regularly to pop a tasty treat into her mouth and then without saying anything leave again. I alternate the length of time between treats, and I've now found that she not only sits nicely she also alertly watches for me, which I love (she used to sniff the air and the ground and look behind her during stays). She's now in Open and is quite happy to sit for the full 3 minute out of sight stay. Training like this (returning randomly with treat) also reasures the dog that the handler will always return, which is often the cause of a lot of dog's stress during stays in trials.

Hey herding_guy...Did you get my PM? I'd love to come, but need to know dates...? Please don't forget me!

Nicky (Cavaliar) does this after every bath, bone and sloppy meal. I think it must feel pretty good and in his oppinion, wipe his mouth clean.

ONLY 8 MORE DAYS TO GO!!! Please, please, please don't let it be too hot! Oh, and sheepdog/herding guy...Will it start at 9am again?

Hope is very sensitive and nervy and it's really hard work training her for trials. Late last year she gained her CD, so I'm looking forward to entering her in Open in March this year...but as I said - training her is exhausting! Heaps of tiny little training bits, scattered through every day. Going to as many distracting environments as possible to train. And using heaps of motivation...I've also learnt I can only enter her in one trial a day. By the second one she'll have realized toys, treats and encouraging words aren't rewarded during a trial and she'll completely shut down, thinking she must have done something wrong. Fox, my Kelpie is the total opposite. As soon as he knows we're 'working', no one and nothing else exists for him but me and the work.

I would ignore the barking and reward him for something you want. eg. take lots of his favourite treats on every walk and as soon as he starts barking, get his attention with the food, and feed and praise him everytime he's quiet and focused on you. He can't bark very well while he's eating! Make the treats really small so at first you can feed almost like a conveyer-belt...one after the other into his mouth. If you're consistant, he should quickly learn to turn to you each time someone comes walking towards you. Good luck!

Hope and Fox both passed both their Instinct tests! ;) I was so pleased with them! Hope went first and she shocked me with her excitement and enthusiasm. She raced in to the pen, straight to the sheep and stayed focused on them for her entire go! Wow! There's hope yet! Her second go she shut down and only picked up after I started moving briskly around the pen. She only just scraped through with this one, but she did pass! Fox surprised me too - with his almost total silence! I think he barked only once at the very end of his last go. He was very calm and focused and did very well. he even won the 'Runner-up best over both trials'! ;) Congratulations wagalot! Now I can't wait for the end of January to see how Hope and Fox act at the Herding day! They seem to change each new time they see sheep. 26 days to wait! Sorry you missed out Sparty :D ...I hear you might be hosting a trial/training day soon at your place? (If you can't come to them. get them to come to you! :D )

I have a couple of questions about ANKC herding...Will Fox's barking while herding affect how he goes in his HIC tests? Is barking frowned on? Also Hope works best at the moment with sheep when I encourage her (eg. "go get them - bring the sheep")...Am I allowed to talk to/direct her? I mean she's OBSESSED with herding ducks, so her instinct is really strong, but she's only just learning that sheep can be herded too. I thought since the test is only $10, I would give her a go now... Does play-bowing and doing zoomies around the sheep count as interest?

So if it starts at 8:30am, do I need to be there before then to enter? Like at 8? How will everyone know if it's too hot (what is too hot?)? Will everyone just turn up, coming from near and far, and be told on the Friday that it's been moved to the next day and to go home and come back tomorrow?

Does that mean it will only be held on the 31st if it's too hot the day before? ie. only held on one day, not two like it was going to be?

Sparty, I emailed the coordinator and haven't heard anything back. Have you heard yet if the Saturday tests will be happening? Could you please let me know when you do? If it is on I'll be coming with my two dogs, a friend with her two and another friend is a strong possibility with his two...That's 6 dogs for the HIC tests! I think as there are so few Herding things to go to, I may have to skip work to go to the Friday one if they cancel the Saturday one...

Hey, Sparty, if it's not too hard to find, I wouldn't mind coming to watch and maybe enter Fox...How much will it cost?...what time should I get there?...where in Lancefield? Are the details in one of the Vic Dog magazines? Or somewhere else? I really want to come! And where on the internet can I read VCA Herding rules? Is it Herding Instinct Test (2 passes?), Herding test (how many passes?), and then what?

Hi dogdayz, No, it was taken this year...maybe it's the angle?

I've been DYING to get back onto the internet since Sunday, to have a look at any photos posted of Hope and Fox and all the others, but haven't had time till today... Thank you so much Dave and Geoff for the amazing day we had. I was sooo looking forward to it and it was every bit as great as I hoped it would be! Fox astounded me with how good he was. His last time with sheep he spent a lot of time chasing them everywhere and crossed between me and the sheep so often, I was starting to wonder if he'd ever get the idea! He certainly must have slept on it! I noticed though, that each time his mouth grew too tired to bark, he stopped everything, just stood still, holding the sheep, until he recovered enough to bark and then he'd start herding again - as if he thinks his voice is the only thing making the sheep move! Can't wait for him to realise differently. And I was so pleased with Hope - an amazing improvement to the other herding workshop we went to, where I was struggling to get her to even acknowledge the sheep's existance. I'm really looking forward to giving her more chances to develop her interest. Thanks, Dave...you should have seen me at the other herding workshop I went to. I was a totally useless tree in the middle of the pen, trailing a stick! Something must have sunk in! I can't wait till my next visit, I really want to go somewhere with herding... Thanks so much Hedds for posting those photos of Hope and Fox. I would love to have any photos you have of them, if you could email them to me when you can? And anyone else who took photos of Hope and/or Fox, could you please send them to me too?

Nicky's doing so well! His stitches come out tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he looks without them. Thanks for posting that photo Cordelia! Here's an updated photo of Nicky...we're all looking forward to his bath next week...so good to wash out all those stains.

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The best treats to use for training are soft, small and easy to swallow quickly. They also need to be LOVED by your dog. I use either thinly sliced, cooked sausage, small pieces of roast meat (chicken/lamb/beef), little bits of cheese or popcorn. And remember to vary the types so he/she never gets tired of them.

Thanks, Pippi, I will enjoy herding (if I don't get lost on the way!)...only 8 more days... And I aggree L.B., he probably hasn't seen properly out of that eye for more than a month. Yes, and maybe even more so if he wore an eye patch!

8 more days...........

Nicky is heaps better today. He's much happier and his 'eye' looks very good...I think he'll look quite cute when it's all healed up! He seems to be having no problem adjusting - he's pretty much acting exactly as he did with 2 eyes (no crooked walking or bumping into anything).

Thanks everyone for your concern. It's nice to be able to share this with people who care. And even though I'm sure he'll be fine, its nice to be reasured! Well, Nicky's home now...The op went well. He's still a little shakey from the aneasthetic (his age maybe) and his 'eyeless area' looks pretty horrific at the moment - shaved all around with thick dark red ooze coming from the corner of the stitches, which the vet said was normal and to leave there...He also has blood smears on his head and muzzle which you'd think the vet could have cleaned up a bit...He's sleeping a lot now, which I'm glad of. It's so sad that he can't understand why these things are happening to him. My brother took a photo of Nicky's face, so when he gets around to emailing it to me, I'll post it here so you can cringe with me... Thanks for posting the pic of Irial, TigerJack; the area looks very neat and she looks very happy...My only experience with a missing eye was with a one eyed cat who had lost the eye to an injury and there wasn't enough skin to sew the area shut, so the empty socket always looked pretty gorey.

PossumCorner...I'm in a Ballarat team with Hope (Koolie)...I feel a bit bad though, pushing in at the last moment...I hope I didn't dislodge anyone from a place in a Ballarat team? Stolen??? I went willingly! Yes, I'm coming to your training tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully Hope and Fox will get to know all the Ballarat dogs a bit better before the comp. Getting nervous........

Poor Nicky has just spent the last few months, struggling to recover from an eye ulcer. At 12 years old healing is taking forever. Already partially blind, the massive ulcer has permanantly ruined his sight. It all started with the simple pleasures of skink hunting in the garden. Slow reflexes and dimmed sight caused him to scratch his eyeball on a twig and by the next day an ulcer was developing. Off to the Vet, given some eye drops and antibiotics. A week later no improvement, maybe even a little worse, back to the Vet. Different drops and stronger antibiotics. A week later the ulcer is massive and the eyeball is red, inflamed and swollen Back to the Vet and this time his eye is sewn shut to help protect it. 10 days later the stitches are removed to expose an even more massive ulcer that the Vet is worried will burst at any moment. Home with more antibiotics and eyedrops. A few days later the ulcer begins to clear up, but the eye is still cloudy and the eye socket is swollen and red. Today's visit to the Vet left us with the knowledge the eye has been permanantly ruined and to leave it, so vulnerable and painful, would be asking for trouble. So Nicky's off to the Vet on Wednesday to have the eye removed, so there'll be no more pain for him and no more wory for us that he'll impale himself again. I can't wait for his pain and discomfort to be over, and now all I have to worry about is the anaesthetic risks during the op. And then I'll worry about the empty socket getting infected and how he'll learn to cope with only one eye. Poor Nicky...

I think my dogs would have heart attacks! Hope shrivels up just at the sight of it! edited - spelling

I'm sooo excited...counting the days down...12 more to go... :woof: