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That's a big improvement To answer your question on 2 jumps vs sequences, I do probably half and half. Mini sequences I grab from sections of courses we've ran and either not managed that part at all or ran it but not as clean as I'd like. While it's up i then do as many variations as I can with that format. Like caffy I do like to put bigger sequences together to work on the running from behind stuff that I can't mimic as well on mini sequences. I also find these are more suited to my novice dog given the openness and flowing nature of our novice courses. Now she's in Jdx I will take her back to mini sequences. I only run courses if I go to training or trial. It was one of a few reasons I stopped club training a year or so ago - always running courses but not really having the time to work on the skills needed to run those courses.

A good friend and I drove to Sydney and back a few years ago for an agility seminar, round trip of about 20 hours. Funnily enough the topic of the perfect agility set up came up, if money was no objection. Was a pretty sensational set up - I can only dream

Probably a strange question but I've reached a point where I'm starting to look at upgrading to more land in the next year or so (I hope!). Currently on a 1/4 acre of quite slopey ground. I know a few people have their own agility set-ups and I'm interested to know what area you've got set up, how it's set up and what you've found works and doesn't work? Pics would be fantastic if you've got them :D The reason I ask is I'm trying to get a feel for what you can set up on what area and what would be the minimum amount of land that it would work on. No point upgrading to a slightly bigger block only to find it's still too snug Ideally I'd like a 1/4 acre round the house as an everyday yard for the dogs, and have the agility area as a separate area which is only accessed for agility. In the perfect but realistic world I'd have a grass area for flat work, a contact area with enough room for a tunnel etc to practise discriminations, an area for box or grid work, and then a basic course area for setting up reasonable sequences. In my dream world I'd have a few million to spend on a set up but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon

PM Pippi, she's not that far from you and does some work around the Ballarat area. You might remember her from the K9 Force seminar a few years ago. ;)

Not here either, but I'm only doing agility these days. I give my two a break at the end of the calendar year just to give their bodies a rest and a general break for all of us. They would happily do agility training several times a week and trials every weekend - it's me who needs the break, especially when most trial days are a 16 + hour day for me.

I've heard the jumping from A-Z is good, will look into it. Of course will need to make the most of US postage - looks like the credit card is about to get another hiding. ;) The more I think about it, the more I need to be shot for not roping people into taping the occasional run for me; I suspect I would know what was going on if I did. A friend said to me a few weeks ago - you don't see what we see given you're running her, interestingly she was commenting on Darcy's ability to throw in those small extra strides and the resulting tight lines she runs. Maybe she just pushes it a bit too hard sometimes, if that makes sense. I have no idea about local vets as I don't live up there - I'm over an hour away. The vet I use is Dr Kim Lim who works out of Highton Vet Clinic in Geelong. She does just about everything and she's great with the dogs, very willing to listen and thinks outside the square.

NFC is a great idea - wish we had it here but have no hope given I've heard our committee is so against it. When I was retraining Darcy's contacts I worded up a few judges who I knew would turn a blind eye. You just need to pick your judges, the Vic judges are having a bit of a crackdown on training in the ring at the moment, especially in Novice. I would rest her until you find a good sports vet or the like - ask around your club for some recommendations or even on here if you're happy to say whereabouts you are. I don't bother with my standard vet for suspected soreness, chances are they wouldn't pick it up, and even if they did would probably recommend rest and that's it. The girls' sports vet will be much more proactive at finding and helping fix the issue.

Thanks for the response Vickie - I have done this exercise in the past, but not in this specific format recently and not bent. I will add it to my training list for the week, will be interested to see how she goes. Will get the video camera out for this one. I will do this as well - at least I can do this one in the backyard I'm not entirely convinced that leaving a bar up is quite so black and white though. Darce is pretty good at training - I will admit I stop these days when she drops a bar in training, say nothing, reset the bar and get her to do it again and reward when she completes it with bars up. Not something I'm that comfy with but she is very obstacle focussed and it seems to be working without knocking her drive and confidence. How do you get that "leave the bars up" message to flow over into the high energy environment of a trial?

Keep running, reward and reward.

Bar knocking issues I'm at a total loss with this one - especially confusing now Zee is trialling and is clean as in her jumping. I've gone through a lot of the Susan Salo stuff with Darcy (given that I need to take gear out elsewhere to do grids), have made a massive effort to ensure she is warmed up, stretched & cooled down. She gets a seasonal check up with a sports vet and at any sign of issues. I no longer work her at 400 and haven't for quite a while (club thing) and insist that bars are put up to 500 if I train with the club. Every week I work on her jumping. Yesterday we had a really technical JDM course which required some real handling to get through it - she didn't even tip a bar. Get out into the speed section of straight jumps (no funny angles) and she drops a bar. Every course yesterday we had multiple bars come down and I'm getting frustrated with it blowing so many really great passes. Double trial recently she blew every course with bar dropping on the Saturday, Sunday she never touched one. Easter trial 6 runs a day/two days and she dropped one bar all weekend. Her jumping has improved since we stopped training at 400 but this inconsistency is driving me bonkers. I suspect there is a bit of flattening out in speed sections but there is no predicability to it at all. Working on jumping every week is taking a lot of time out of handling and skills work and given I lug my equipment out for every training session that's a massive time drag. I'm wondering if anyone has ever pulled a dog out of competition to work solely on jumping for a few months and whether they got any results from it? The other thing I'm considering in total desperation is training her at 600 to encourage her to not flatten out. Any other suggestions would be welcome. I do need to start recording her runs more in trials but isn't easy when everyone else is busy running dogs as well

Oztrail make them using shade cloth, they can be used under tents to protect the floor or they can be used as shade walls. They are on the Oztrail website as Ultramesh Shade Tarps.

For me it doesn't fit and that's just the way it is. And that's without an OH or kids to worry about. I do the best I can with what I have. I'd love to have a set up in my own backyard and work from home so I can go out and train my dogs for 5 mins x 3 times a day but I don't and I can't. The house getting messy drives me nuts but in the big scheme of things, does it really matter? I'll get to it when it drives me sufficiently nuts or when I have a weekend free.

Sorry to hear your girl is injured - next year must seem like a world away There's no risk about it - she's trained both reliably to separate commands and will use whichever one fits the bill at the time. Someone asked GD about it back in Sydney. He said even those flogging DVDs on training running contacts are having issues with 100% reliability. At that stage he was impressed with SG's method of teaching running but was sworn to secrecy and thought he would look at using SG's method if she could show continued reliability with it at top level. I haven't done running contacts here, I know kelpiechick has played with them. There is several Victorian's trialling with them at present (actually trained, not point and pray!). One is Aframe only, has own gear and used the pvc box method and seems to be going well (green dog). Other is a big striding dog doing both, retrained and occasionally misses the dogwalk contact. It does take a lot of repetition which would bother me, but 2o2o can be hard on a drivey dog too. I've given up on contacts with Darcy - we review it whenever I have access to gear, and she occasionally misses a DW contact but sh*t happens. I'm incredibly strict on Zee as a result - to the extent I blew her first ever AD pass this past weekend by putting her back on the dogwalk contact cos she left it before I released her.

A fellow trialler had this on their FB earlier on, saying that they cancelled after they'd set up and checked in. Apparently the grounds were fine at 5 pm Saturday. I feel for anyone who's travelled from any distance only to find a trial cancelled on such late notice.

There's a few familiar faces in there :D Tammy with the Rottie and the lady with the GSPs who used to go to Warrnambool as well (I can't remember her name ) I still see them occasionally down at Killarney. Glad the weather held up for you!

Try the Black Dog Snub Leads, not a handle but a knot type thing at the end which makes them easier to hang onto. Hard to explain but google Black Dog wear and look in the leads section.

JJ - great story. Love karma!! :D PGD is just crap across the board, the one at Geelong is nearly as bad as the Wbool one. I do most of the shopping for the girls online - much better range and so much cheaper. That said, I always have a look in Best Friends at Geelong I won't make MPW tlc - did two very long days with meetings Thurs & Fri and was up at 4.15 this morning to go to Bulla's trial - so I don't think I'll be going anywhere except maybe to unpack the car Had a great day though - 2nd and a 4th in Masters Jumping and Agility for Darcy, two 1sts in Novice Jumping for Zee and her Novice Jumping title. :D Have a great day tomorrow :D Hope the weather is good for you!

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking JJ but didn't want to put it in writing in case I was wrong - I've been in there a few times asking for a particular product that they have stocked in the past and I've been getting the "hard to get" story but the stock levels looked reasonable. Today was shocking - looked like they were either selling up or in stop credit with a distributor. Maybe if they stocked it with some decent stuff and put some reasonable prices on it then people would shop there. Bugger it - has been convenient just to grab Sasha's food in there on the way through town. From memory Petstock's stock wasn't that crash hot either. Good thing my client base takes me over Colac was so much these days. Petstock Colac is so much better

Has anyone been into Pets Goods Direct lately?? Ducked in today to grab some furball food for Sash and the food shelves are nearly empty except for the stuff that doesn't sell much. Asked the person in store and she said they haven't had a delivery for ages and didn't know when they'd get their next lot.. dunno what's going on there but it didn't look good.

Obviously it's a bit late now, but can someone tell me where the Melbourne session was advertised - I would've loved to have gone. Will look at getting her book as well.

I would think higher drive dogs would naturally be easier to keep fit as they are more likely to self exercise. I think it would also depend on their training/background and values. I often look after my Dad's working kelpie if my parents are away, and take her out with my dogs for a run. My dogs are a lot fitter so they will run and keep running while Jet stays close with me and doesn't walk any further than I do. If I want her to walk 5 km then I need to walk every km of that 5 km with her. Jet won't chase a ball or even have a game because she's never been taught that kind of thing. Bring some sheep into the equation and it will be a very different story - who would run the furthest given equal fitness levels? Good question.

I keep my dogs as fit as I can with free running, even that was an issue earlier on this year until I did a deal with the local ranger :D So while they are fit, they aren't as fit as they've been previously or as I'd like them but I do the best I can with my limited resources (it's a common theme with agility and I ). Once the weather cools down and becomes less snakey I walk the 5 to 6 km around the inside of our local lake/crater while the dogs go feral up the inside of the crater hoping to flush bunnies. Best exercise ever but I won't do it while it's still so unseasonally warm. The lake itself is also a great fitness tool if it didn't break out in blue green algae every November Elbow to shoulder deep water retreiving is my summer exercise of preference but not in a lake with off the charts BGA levels. So in Summer I drive 2 hour round trip after work 2 to 3 times a week so they can spend an hour plus at the beach. There is nowhere safe to bike around here. So at the moment free running is it, I do the occasional frisbee session maybe once a week at most but I don't like doing anything repetitive with hard driving dogs. I also do regular core work with both dogs - balance work, rear end awareness etc. Both dogs see a brilliant sports vet every 3 months, she's also qualified in several other holistic areas and does a brilliant job, especially with Zee who is a little stressy occasionally. She won't manipulate my dogs (despite being trained in chiro) but works deep into the muscles and trigger points. I'm not a fan of chiros for humans so I won't do that do my dogs. I make a big effort to warm both dogs up before every run and warm them around before putting them back in their crates. Even with Zee just starting out and having 8 to 10 runs a day between them I'm still managing to do that. It is non negotiable, and if I miss a run because I won't negotiate on that one then so be it.

In an ideal world yes you would have the ability to use both toys and food for agility - tugging especially given the interaction required between you and your dog. The more you have in your toolkit the more flexibility you have in rewarding. Depends on how far you want to get into agility too - some people are happy to rock up to training, have fun for an hour a week and not work on developing it any further. Others are far more addicted and want to get the best they possibly can from their agility partnership with their dog. As you've found, not all dogs are naturally toy driven - but with some work you might get him there. Start taking notice of when your dog will "play" with you or interact with a toy. Is it something he does when thoroughly excited with heaps going on around him, or something he only does in the comfort of his own lounge room? Is there anything that interests him at all toy wise - grab one, use it only for training - not as an everyday backyard or house toy. Tease him, move it away quickly, don't shove it in his face, make stupid noises if that's what is working for him - pay close attention to his body language which will tell you what works for him and what doesn't. Once you've got something happening - end on a fun note and finish while he's still interested in the toy, even if it's just 10 seconds. Pair that toy with something that he loves straight away - something that he finds heaps of fun, you said he likes chasing and zoomies - is that something you can use as a reward for his interaction with a toy? Then keep building on that 10 seconds. What you're trying to do is build an association with fun stuff with the toy, which in turn then builds value in that toy. In the meantime, jackpot toys are a great bridge - make a big game out of running to the jackpot, mimic whatever you've done with the toy you've chosen to use for a few seconds and then open the jackpot toy and let him get his nose into it to get the treats - don't use them like a treat bag. It is really quite hard to get a dog to interact with a toy once they know there is food on offer though - even my two toy obsessed dogs will hold out for food once I've handed over food treats. It's a topic which could fill pages so I will leave it at that. Is there someone at club who might be able to give you some hands on assistance that could help as well - especially someone who's been there done that with a dog who wasn't overly toy motivated? Good luck

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter This is probably a silly question but I've never been to the races before - is anyone familiar with the dress code for the May Races? Workmate and I have tickets to one of the corporate marquees for the Thursday. I don't do the big dress up thing and would prefer to be comfortable (and warm given the forecast!!) as long as I'm not underdressed. Was thinking good boots, dark denim, dressy shirt with maybe a nice vest/jacket over the top for warmth?

That's what I got for the decking. The anti fatigue mats are quite big and they cover the dog's path easily. I can't see myself living in the same place for long enough to justify concreting or laying bitumen. I plan to move out of town as soon as I can afford it