HKM's Mom

Cindy, I wasn't attacking your choice of using a prong I was just curious how you planned to use it to correct the behavior. Pronging a dog around with verbal corrections at this stage (IMO) isn't fair. If she can't control herself the prong won't help her w/o risking damage to the relationship. To avoid her associating the prong w/ you you could let her self correct but how many times will she self correct before she "gets it" if a head halter has left marks and done nothing to curb her behavior? If she stops flopping like a fish but barks, screams, etc how does the prong self correct? Does this make sense? This is why I was curious what the prong could/would do for you at this stage. Reread my post about the rap over the nose or under the jaw. The correction is done AFTER the dog understands the exercise completely........com-plete-ly. Done correctly this takes one or two corrections at best. My dogs are not hand shy in the least but they do understand that down means down and sit means sit. Again, at this stage your dog doesn't understand her OB exercises at the agility field. If she did you'd have control over her. THIS is why I didn't see the prong as an answer. If she understood the exercise a prong might be an option for her but she doesn't understand. Regardless of what you choose to do make sure you maintain the relationship with your dog. That should be more important than anything else. Good luck

If you plan to use a prong what do you plan to do with it? I'm not saying it isn't the answer, but I'm curious what you can do with a prong in this situation to gain control and not damage your relationship with the dog. Before anyone accuses me of being "all positive" I'm not. I would appreciate it if you would share your plan to control this behavior by using a prong.

Does the dog have a reliable down? First, down means down. It doesn't mean bark, whine, wiggle, or anything but thinking about the down. If you have this type of down you can try this exercise: Get a few private lessons where the instructor has another dog to run the course. Bring your dog out of the car, potty break or whatever you do and approach the field. A few feet from the field make the dog down. Stay next to her and make her stay down for 2-3 minutres. While she's down there are NO other dogs on the field. After the successful down do a brief run and take her back to the car or somewhere else away from the field. Wait a few minutes (2-3) and repeat the above sequence. Ideally you should be able to do this exercise 10-15 times in a 30-45 minute long sesssion. Once the dog can complete the down before her run. At home and other places enforce the down with lots of distractions. You want her to understand that down means only to down. You must correct any other behavior she displays while downing. Once you've done this for two or three weeks (lessons) add ONE other dog. Walk to the field and ask for the down. This time step on the leash close to her head but without tension. The second dog enters the field and does one jump (which should stimulate your dog enough). Remind her she is on a down and correct if necessary. She does not get up until she has completed the proper down. If she remains down while the other dog does one jump, that dog exits the field and your dog gets to run. She is being rewarded for the down by running the course. Repeat the one jump distraction until she isn't going nuts and add a dog walk or more jumps. Do not add the weaves, teeter, or A-frame until much later. If she forgets her down you can ask for a focus on your face while she's on the down. Since a dog can't bark, scream, wiggle, etc while it's on a down she must behave or get corrected for breaking the down. Then, when she has been good she is rewarded by running the course. Work up to her downing while one dog runs an entire pattern. Any whinning or misbehavior should be corrected. My choice of correction is a sharp rap over the nose or under the jaw and a "NO! Down!" for verbal offenses. A rap over the shoulder for attempts to move coupled with me standing on the leash so close to the neck that the dog can't move it's head. This is the method we use to control protection dogs when they must do obedience during their bitework routine. They are in high drive which we want (so is your dog) but we must also teach the dog to raise and lower (control) it's drives as necessary. Once you teach the dog this control yo ucan have some great runs and have control. Just knocking her around will teach her to supress her drive if it teaches anything at all. That leads to flat runs which you don't want. I hope this makes sense.

Laura, You must first separate scent and sight tracking. If your dog is seeing mvmt. in the woods that stimulates her prey drive that does not mean teaching her to use her nose will make that problem worse. If she is rewarded in chasing by catching the prey - that will make her chasing worse. It's self rewarding. When you talk about scent tracking you have to again separate a high nose from a deep nose. A high nose uses the wind to help find the target - commonly seen in law enforcement, SAR, etc dogs. Deep noses are seen more in Schutzhund dogs. Deep noses are tracking step by step. Scent tracking won't stimulate your dogs prey drive anymore than it already is. If you teach long tracks , corners, cross tracks, etc you will develop the dogs ability to concentrate more, determine the fresh track, and scent out her prey much more effeciently than an undeveloped nose. My tracking dog is much better at working any scent (treats, human, prey, whatever) than my untrained dogs. She can maintain the track much longer than they can simply because she's been trained to do it. I won't mention how dangerous it is to have a dog that chases prey through the woods. Those dogs can come up on a very mad coon, cross the path of bigger predators, bring other predators to the area by crashing through the woods, etc. One advantage of teaching real tracking is that the dog learns to work 30 feet or so away from you. If you teach the articles on your tracks you may learn more control over the dog at a distance. I am not on this board much anymore so if you want more info just send me a message.

RedDawnZoe, E-mail me at: lv4running@yahoo.com I have a deaf BC, live with several BC's, know the kennel you got Zoe from, and have several options to help you place her with people looking for a deaf dog. I am also on the deafdog web site on yahoo. CJ

Denise, It seems we keep losing something in our reading of one another's posts. My initial post that you reposted says I don't think BYB will make it impossible to find a good working dog but that I agreed they dilute a breed down. You then posted that you disagreed with that. It seems that as we continue this we actually think along the same lines but can't seem to be clear enough in our posts to meet in the middle. As for the genetics topic I didn't want to verify anything you wrote I honestly find such topics very interesting. If my request made you feel defensive or that I was doubting you, I apologize. The show people don't bother me like they bother other people on this board. I may not agree with what they breed for but I respect their right to do it. I started in the AKC show world back when I was eight so I am not ruffled by any of it. I just say a Serenity Prayer and move forward. Thanks for the link

The quote from Bill is my exact point. Denise initially said this was how we lose a working breed completely and I disagreed. I did agree that it's how the breed as a whole gets diluted, but we don't completely lose them this way. Yes, overbred breeds get diluted to the point that not everyone sees them as a working breed but that doesn't mean there aren't working lines or working dogs anymore. I mentioned the working lines because the subject of "working potential" was brought up. We can't determine potential if it's not tapped so determining potential is a pure guess. Tapping it is up to the people serious in the sport. How do we keep new human blood in the sport? Read on I keep using the GSD because it's a breed most people recognize as overbred and has strains that have been ruined by show people (overangulated, etc). Within the breed there are still great working dogs and great working lines. Heck, the American GSD is known to have what we call "show" lines and "working" lines within the working kennels. This is within the group of working dogs. I'm not talking AKC show lines, but dogs that title in SchH and such sports. Working lines are all about the ability of the dog (the red dogs if you will). Then we have the show lines within the working lines (the orange dogs), then the rest. No working GSD owner would ever breed to anything but a red dog. If you can't find a red dog in the US then you import, get frozen semen, or ship you do there for breeding. The number of working lines being worked is determined by the number of people we bring in to the serious aspect of the breed/sport. If we run all the newbies off by being rude, being to closeknit, and being snotty, then our definition of a working dog may very well die out. Heck, we all can't live forever and keep herding/working dogs forever. As for the example dog you gave we see those in all working dogs. The question you have to ask is why must he be on leash? Was it poor training, incomplete training, poor leadership, inability of the dog to control it's drives (which I see as a training issue). It's always a problem when you talk ability because the human factor is so big here. The dog may have been a red with a different trainer/handler. He may also have been a yellow or orange. That's where knowing bloodlines, etc can be a big factore in the breeding game. A great dog can work like crap with the wrong trainer/handler. An average dog can look good with the right trainer/handler. But this is not really the issue it's simply a cog in the wheel of what makes a dog crap, average, good or great. Cindi Bill wrote: There are some real serious working lines within the Australian Shepherd breed, I'm told. But the breed as a whole is not what I would consider a working breed anymore.

Well, I am neither inexperienced or a non-working breed person and I still see probelms with the theory if you are using it to explain how we will eventually lose the herding ability of working dogs completely. Again, I would agree that the theory explains the ruination of a working breed OVERALL, but it still does not explain how a breed loses it's working ability because of the pet breeders. I would be interested in reading the list you refer to since I would completely agree it explains a breed as a whole but not a specific part of the breed. Would you please share the group link where you posted this theory to the experts? I'd be very interested in reading the thread. It doesn't matter how many crapper dogs are out there for the public to buy, if the working breeders are keeping their great dogs, selling them to fellow herders, and importing for new blood in their lines, the gene pool doesn't get diluted with crap unless they infuse crap dogs in to their lines. That is a breeders fault if they breed to crap it's not the fault of the crap breeders. The serious working breeders will alway breed to working dogs. If they don't like anything in the US they import. Sometimes they import regardless of what's local. No matter how many crap dogs they might breed their quality studs to (which is THEIR lack of responsibility to the breed) they still have the ability to import and to breed to quality dogs. As long as this is around the ability of the breed does not die, it may become a smaller portion of the breed overall by simple numbers, but it doesn't affect the small group of serious breeders. Pick one breed where this theory has panned out. The popular retriever breeds still have excellent working kennels. GSD's still have excellent working kennels. All these breeds have and still do suffer from the pet, show, and sport breeders. Are the excellent dogs a smaller % of the total breed? Sure they are, but that doesn't mean the workers are gone completely. Working lines die because working breeders let them die.

Bob, I know some sport dog people in your area. MOst were out of town for some events but I'll let you know what's available once they get back. Not all are BC people but they are still very nice and welcome new people with open arms.

Bob, Are you looking for others to do any doggie type things with or a specific dog sport? Cindi I LOVE that look on your pups face!

Start with the wobble board. If she's a shy girl I wouldn't even work on the regular teeter or dog walk yet. Once she's comfortable with the wobble board, moving around on it, doing 2on 2off on it, then I'd move to a very low A-frame. When she's 100% comfortable on the wooble and A-frame you can replace the board with a thinner one to look more like a teeter, but keep it low still. Have someone ready to slow the fall of the board as she tips it and have them catch it when she finishes her 2X2 and steps off. This is how my instructor taught these objects to the timid dogs. She's very successful and trains a non-traditional breed that is known for timid/high strung behaviors (whippets).

Buy a clicker book with how to teach the clicker and tricks/things to teach with the clicker. If you make a mistake with the clicker training it's not dramatic as if you try to teach using compulsion methods. I recommend one called "Clicking with Your Dog" by Peggy Tillman. It's easy to read, has lots of illustrations and lots of things to teach.

Try doing a search under my member number 2684, in all forums, open date, no key word. It may take a bit to sort through them, but I know it's been in the last two or so months so that will help narrow it down. The post, while I DO NOT like to compare dog to humans, uses typical human distractions to help you understand how difficult it can be to react to requests unless you've been programed for that distraction. Dogs are the same way. Make sure you scroll the finds since I my have posted more than once on that particular topic. I gotta take the dogs out to swim, but if yo ucan't find the posts, I'll retype it once I get back tonight.

Tootsie's Mom, I just want to assure you that Tootsie's lack of listening around distractions is NOT willful disobedience. Don't get frustrated and quit working her. There ia a thread from about a month or so ago where I explained why it's so different asking a dog to do something in a familiar place Vs a new place. If you can't find it doing a search, I'll post the basics of it again, but it's a bit long to retype.

At 16 weeks she's a puppy and if left alone, they find things to entertain themsevles like chewing, digging, barking, etc. Allie has made a great suggestion with crating the pup. Make sure you give her things to do in the crate like stuffed Kongs, raw bones, and such. If you can't crate I'd suggest an older dog to keep her entertained. Not a young dog that might take up digging with your dog, but a mature dog that can hang out in the yard with her. Also, make sure you're working her mind and body each day so she isn't as bored when she's left alone during the day. Hope some of this helps. There are ways to stop a dog from digging, but it's really more important (IMO) to fix the reason they are digging. If not, the dog will simply pick up another undesired behavior.