Lawgirl

What a gorgeous guy! Bless you for rescuing him.

What a gorgeous little guy! Feel free to post puppy pics whenever. I second what D'Elle says. Sometimes puppies need a bit of movement to get things moving, so to speak. He is too young to be doing anything deliberately; he just has different priorities. The suggestion about not making the fun stop when he does something right will also apply when you are training recall, for example. Call him, reward and praise and then let him go back to play instead of immediately taking him back inside, or he will associate coming to you with the end of fun every time, and start staying away instead.

Google agility fundamentals, or agility foundations. It sounds like you are doing the fun agility basics, but a lot of the foundation work is less showy, but more essential. That does not mean they are not fun for your dog - it will still challenge his mind and if trained in a positive manner, be loads of fun for him, but will be the building blocks that mean when he needs to learn something new, it will make sense to him. To be honest, I have never trained them properly, so can't explain them well. I just wish I had...

It was an absolutely great final at Crufts, especially in the medium grade. That 12 year old dog! .008 difference in the final placings! It is hard to see if you don't really know what you are looking for, but try watching the video again and there are a couple of places to watch how the different handlers dealt with places in the course. The entry to the first tunnel was a tough one, and was handled quite differently by people, depending on what best suited their dog and them. The move between the jump and the tyre was also interesting. I think I saw one person right at the end do a front cross (change handling sides by turning towards and in front of your dog). Pretty much everyone else did a blind cross (change handling sides in front of your dog with your back to the dog). A blind cross means you have to trust your dog to pick up the change in handling side. And they all did. Also I found the handling interesting in the jump coming out of the second tunnel, where they had to call the dog past a jump. One lady was on the opposite side of the jump from the tunnel, called her dog to come to her over the jump and the dog came to her and then jumped back over the jump, and was disqualified. You will also notice that some handlers are more verbal when running their dogs and others are far more focussed on their positioning and body language. It can be hard to tell with the commentary though. If you watch it again, I thought most of the faults/disqualifications were either contact errors by the dogs, or were handling errors where the handler moved too far, was in the wrong position or mis-timed the cue for the dog. It is so easy to stuff up, it is amazing so many actually get clear runs, to be honest.

That is beautiful!

I have also always found agility folk very welcoming to interested (and helpful!) people who are are thinking of joining the ranks of the agility obsessed. It is a disease and you will catch it. I am sure Quinn will grow out of a lot of his puppy distraction. It sounds like he is already pretty 'switched on' to the fun of agility. Channelling his drive and focus will be the challenge. The question of specific cues is a very vexed one in agility circles. Search the topic of 'handling systems' for endless debate about various different systems, verbal based versus motion based etc. Some people are wedded to a particular handling system. Others will go to multiple seminars and take what works for them and their dog from what they learn. My problem is I get out of breath on the course, or mistime my verbal cues. Body language is equally easy to mistime, but at least does not require breath, so I tend to rely on both. Dogs will respond to both, some more to one than the other. You will find out which as Quinn develops. Videoing yourself with Quinn as you start to string runs together will be invaluable in working out what works and what went wrong.

What alligande said ^^^^ I think obedience is useful in terms of building a connection between you and your dog, but similarly to alligande, Oscar has a pretty decent obedience stay, but in front of the first obstacle on a course, nope, no way, uh uh, ain't happening. That was why I recommend working on obedience stay AND agility stay from early! The idea of having specific agility commands is a very good one too. Recall is also important - not necessarily the formal obedience recall, but the active, proofed-against-distractions recall. When you are in a trial, with lots of dogs, maybe a thumping teeter totter/seesaw in the ring next door, and a barking dog running the course not far away, you need to be able to call your dog back and get his focus again IF he gets distracted. And some things from obedience can actually be unhelpful (if that is a word) such as the insistence on working on one side of the body only. In agility you need to be able to swap sides whenever required and work with equal ease on both. I would go so far as to say formal obedience is not actually very helpful, but general obedience skills, like recall and stay are helpful. As for finding a trial to volunteer at, you can start by searching for agility events on websites of places such as the AKC, NADAC or other agility organisations (I am not sure about what there are in the US). For example I just did a search and located an AKC agility trial at Reva, VA this weekend, with more in Chatham, Hampton, Doswell, Mechanicsville and Lynchburg in the next month or so. NADAC has comps in Blacksburg and Chesapeake in April. I have no idea how close any of these are to you, sorry. I have found volunteering is a matter of contacting the organiser of a competition, saying you are someone interested in getting into agility but want some experience with trials beforehand, and asking if you can volunteer to help out with their trial. Maybe someone will say no. If so, no harm done. That has not been my experience, however. Even just going to watch is a very good idea. I first volunteered to help out at a trial run by my club because they were short of helpers, and I had some idea that I might be interested in agility with my Oscar but had no real idea what it was like. I helped out over two days and was a lead steward, collecting leads from people at the start of runs and taking them to the exit for the competitors to collect at the end of the run; I was also a ring marshal, getting competitors lined up ready to go in the ring in order and making sure there was always someone ready to go into the ring so there was no delays. I helped set up and change courses between classes, to change heights for different dogs and to put up bars that had been knocked down between runs. At one point I was a backup timekeeper for the electronic timing. In later trials, I learned to be a scribe, to mark up the official score sheets for the judges. Those are jobs in Australian trials. US trials may be different. What I loved was seeing how people interacted, how people cheered each other on, congratulated their competitors on a good run, commiserated when there was a near miss, and how even the best competitors could stuff things up. It really gave me courage to see that every one had a bad day, could have a bad run, and still go out and try again the next time. It reassured me that I should have a go. And most of all, the focus on having fun with your dog was comforting for me. That was my experience with a country trial in Australia, where almost all the competitors know each other and are friends or friendly. I do not know if the same atmosphere is in every trial in every country. Hope this helps.

I hope we have not scared you off OP! I really am out there to have fun with my Oscar, and we have an absolute ball every time we are on the course. He absolutely adores his trials and his runs, even when he decides I am not fast enough and he is going to make up his own course. Are we going to be a top level competitor - no way! Am we going to keep having fun - absolutely! I do what he enjoys. Picture for demonstration of the grin on Oscar's face every time we run a course. (This was just training)

I would really suggest, as a minimum, volunteering to help out at a few trials in your area as ring staff/stewards. Watch different levels of competitors. You will see the difference between those who know how to get their dogs around a course versus those whose dogs know how to do each obstacle, as CptJack says above. It is not all about what your dog can do, it is about what you know too. You have to learn a new language - serpentines, threadles, front/back/rear crosses, blind crosses, standard course times, rate of travel, walking the course etc. You need to learn how to run the course with your dog and get him around most efficiently and effectively. And that is not something you can work out by winging it - you will need a lot of help. So a year of training sounds about right if you want to do well. I didn't do that and I wish I had.

I am by no means an expert, and am still on my first agility dog. I did not start training in agility with my dog until he was about 18 months old, and that was mainly because he was a bit reactive and I was not really sure about him off lead. I am in Australia, and all the agility I could do would be outside in unenclosed rings, so I was worried about it. Turns out he adores jumping and agility and is so focussed in the ring I have never had to worry about it. I trained for about 6 months, but should have done more. I just entered our local trial for fun. The first time in the ring, Oscar (my boy) pretty much forgot how to jump, and even what a tunnel was for, but then he strung together a beautiful run for the last 6 jumps home as encouragement. At first I kept my goals small, not to be disqualified, then one fewer fault in the run etc. It took a year after our first novice pass to get a second novice pass. I was initially training almost every weekend with a friend, for about a couple of hours (with setting up and taking down the course, running in turns, filming each other and looking at it, letting the dogs have breaks and us catch our breath). I live in a fairly isolated country town, so only trial about five or six times a year. My friend trained a lot more, at home and coming out during the week. She and her dog are now in masters agility and jumping working on those titles. I am now so busy with work I rarely train at all. I also do not compete in agility, only jumping (no weavers) because Oscar hates them and completely shuts down in the weaves. I know I can try to train that out but I genuinely do not have time. We have never got an agility pass, but are now in excellent jumping (one title, five passes to get there). We have one pass in excellent, and lots of near misses (single faults, not bad with no training). We also have one snooker pass. Whatever you plan to use if you trial, train in. If you will run your dog with nothing on, train with nothing on (harness, collar etc). If you will run your dog with a collar on, leave a collar on. Where I am, you can only have a flat collar on a dog running agility, for safety. So that is the most you should have on, ideally. When you start training, and before your dog has a reliable recall etc, some classes will let you use a lead, but if you are training alone, and once you are adding any speed, forget it. Flat collar only, at most. Practice sitting your dog in front of an obstacle, removing lead/harness/collar, then leading out past the obstacle. You need to proof the contact. Find a long plank of wood, same width as a dog walk. Lay it flat on the ground. Paint either end of it yellow. Practise walking your dog along it. The aim is to reward for touching the yellow. Some people like a stopped contact, some like a running contact. Google will tell you how to train each, or someone else on these boards. You can get two such boards, and nail a half piece of round wood under one, to create a small teeter totter, to get your dog used to the board moving under his feet. This is all very low, so it is still safe and low impact. BUT the other biggest piece of advice I can give is to train other things, which I did not do. Train your dog to wrap around obstacles, so he can turn quickly on a command. Train him with a rock solid stay. Train him work at a distance. Train him to have a drive away from you. Train him to have good core strength and balance. Train him to have good rear end awareness. All of these things don't seem to be obvious agility skills, but I promise they are the difference between a dog that can do well in agility but struggles when things get difficult, and one who can keep learning and doing as things get more complicated.

I would not be too worried about hard running in a big wide circle, at least not until she wears a running track bare in the grass!

I have one dog who is so bite aversive that even when you are hurting him - i.e. pulling burrs out of fur, cleaning a wound, etc, will turn and lick your hand , even while whimpering. Not to say that he could not bite - any dog can. But he is so gentle.

This may sound really weird, but one of the favourite non-dog-specific toys for my boys when they were young, along with the usual plastic bottles, cardboard rolls etc, was a hard plastic hose trigger gun. The sort of thing that goes on the end of a hose, that you can adjust to a thin stream, or a waterfall, that you use to water your garden. It lasted forever!

With these laps, is she making hard fast turns, stopping suddenly, jumping over things, or up and down steps? If not, I would not be too worried about some short sessions of the zoomies.

I was just typing the same thing. Routine can be huge to a BC. Your parents had their house on the market for a year and a half. That is very stressful. My Mum has had her house on the market for three months and she is a wreck. Don't think Tucker didn't pick up on that. Plus cleaning for inspections, strange people coming through the house, it is all difficult. Added on top all of the changes with his beloved person going away and coming back irregularly. His routine completely out the window. Who knows what is happening with the collar when you are gone. Look up trigger stacking. That is what has happened here. I am not a fan of zapper/shock collars. Fortunately, where I live in Australia, they are actually illegal. I never want a BC to die. I think you have no choice. And my heart bleeds for both of you.

I don't have any recommendations about the doggy door, sorry. I don't mean to be a downer, but please be very very careful about doing jumps with your puppy at so young an age. I realise that they are low jumps, and puppies will be puppies when it comes to steps, but dogs are not allowed to compete in agility in my country until they are 18 months of age, and most clubs will not allow them to start training over jumps until they are at least one year old because their bones are still growing and they can do serious damage to their joints with doing jumps at this young age. The growth plates do not join up until at least 12 months. To avoid possible joint problems and arthritis etc issues in the future, please put the jumps on the ground so he can step over them, not jump over them until he is one year old. If you want to train agility, there is a lot you can train without the jumps, just Google agility fundamentals, or agility foundations. These are still really fun games, and if you want to do agility, they will be so helpful for you. Weave poles also involve a lot of twisting and are not recommended for young bodies. Your puppy is super cute; I love the freckles and the gorgeous eyes. I hope you and he have many, many happy and healthy years together.

Absolutely this. A working dog does not work 24/7. They need to be able to work long hours when required, but they are not moving animals all day, every day. That would be very bad for the animals they are herding, and the farmer would be rightly peeved and poor with their livestock dropping dead from exhaustion. A working dog has to be able to not work when that is what is required. A super hyperactive dog is likely to have difficulty being a good working dog on a farm because of an inability to switch off. I know of a kelpie who was rejected as a working dog for this reason, not because of a problem with skill on livestock, but because of not settling when needed. You sound like you have a wonderful puppy, and I very much look forward to meeting her when you figure out how to post photos. If you can't post a photo directly, you could try signing up to Photobucket or some other photosharing site and posting links to photos of her. You will need to make sure you have authorised the site to share the photos.

Her coat looks quite a lot like one of mine, and he is all BC. His fur is quite wiry, especially around the hindquarters, although he is on the larger side. It tends to stick up at weird angles in places. He is farm bred, not pedigree. BCs were not bred for looks, and can have a very wide range of size, coat colour, texture, length, body build, ear set etc. It is their behaviour that makes a BC, as D"Elle says. If your girl behaves like a BC, then she is one. I would not doubt her.

There was a thread a little while ago about a sudden fear of a kitchen, where someone posted a Kikopup video. That showed how desensitisation works. I think that is the kind of thing you will need to go through. You need to create positive associations with the crate. Can you feed in the crate? Can you give her a yummy chew toy in the crate? Can you treat her for going in the crate but not necessarily shut the door and keep her in there? This means the crate does not always mean the end of fun. When you are putting her into a time out, you may need to change the cue word away from "time out" because that is now a negative association. Maybe not say anything at all? Or say "Puppy needs a nap"? Something that will either sound positive or at least neutral.

The vet was saying it is the weirdest place for a wound that she had ever seen, and a definite first. The things they do!

So I got a somewhat panicked message from my OH yesterday afternoon. He had been out watering the garden, and noticed the other dogs were paying a lot of attention to our George's rear end. This is entirely unusual, so he went and checked to see what was up, and found that there was blood under George's tail. So we managed to get into our vet that afternoon, thinking prostate problem, internal bleeding, badly infected anal gland... In the end, there was a shallow penetration wound under the tail, so it has been washed out and he is now on antibiotics to prevent infection and some painkillers. As near as we can tell, George, who likes to poop in cover, backed up into a bush preparing to poop and managed to stab himself in the ass with a branch. And he is actually the smartest out of our four BCs.

I am so happy to hear that the mystery has been solved as to the cause of the problem. Even more importantly, Kenzi is back to being a happy dog again! Yay!

OK, my first agility dog. First photo taken when he was about 7 months old Second photo taken about one year later (with his brother) and on slippery tiles. I really really would not worry about his front paws. Although I totally understand being overprotective; aren't we all?

I know that in America you have ticks that carry Lyme disease, but proving the theory that everything in Australia is trying to kill you, you need to Google paralysis ticks. I may have mentioned them on another thread before. Trust me when I say that you do not want any of them showing up in your country.

Just thought I would update: Nike the snake has made a full recovery and has been released back into the wild! Fortunately for my peace of mind he lives half a continent away from me.