Reddii

It might also pay to see a really good animal chiro. I take my guys to one (vet qualified who also practices chiro (has his masters in it) and accupuncture) and he can pick up stuff no one else has a clue about. He's an old school bush vet who knows working dogs, but has kept learning and now swears by some forms of alternative therapy. If you can find a guy like him it might help point you in the right direction. Cheers. Tony

We have a club member (foundation member actually) with a 7 year old dog who has been doing frisbee since he was very young and is showing no signs of slowing down. This dog is super quick, does agility and frisbee and is the envy of many owners.

Nah...... Monday's (not this week because everyone is away), Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sunday week in, week out. Not sure I could do 7 days though.

We compete in flyball, frisbee and agility. Xena our 27month old BC girl is titled in all three and is going really well. CK our 22 month old BC boy is titled in frisbee and flyball, but is yet to find a happy medium between no and go in agility. It's either no, not interested today (usually because he is a bit confused and I have asked too much of him) or about 1 million miles an hour and he misses obstacles. Fortunately it's a bit more of the latter at the moment. Once we get him on track not too many dogs will keep up with him. Just have to get the handler right now! Both the dogs run in the same flyball team and should be running in the sub 5 second club by the end of the year. (CK already is - Xena just needs a little more box work to get to her potential. CK is great at toss and fetch frisbee, but isn't really drivey enough to do well at freestyle, but we are working on it. Xena is a born frisbee nut and lands brilliantly on all four from any angle. We are debuting in our first freestyle comp early in October - I can't wait. It's a really full schedule, be we chose working dogs in suburbia and it gives us a brilliant social life, even if others think we have no life. How many people do you know go to a party with their dogs just about every Saturday night of the year!

I can only echo what Tassie has to say. 1. Make sure it is always fun for you and Poke (cool name btw). 2. DO NOT RUSH with moving to new levels. I'm having to go back a retrain a really good dog at the moment because I rushed things and wanted to compete with her before she was REALLY ready. (first dog didn't realy know what I was up to.) Best of luck. Cheers. Tony

OK, looks like I might have been wrong.....(I hate that).......Tonight we had a really good look at her contact behaviour and it seems that we have all missed something. As she comes off the dog walk or over the top of the dog walk she is looking AT ME - TOTALLY FOCUSSED ON ME - to the point where she is ignoring what she should be doing. It seems the reason she gets the contacts right isn't so much that she knows what to do, rather that I've been able to put myself in the 'right' position on the courses we have been running. Now to go about solving this focus issue.......At least we have a starting point now.

Some puppies just seem to do it naturally...... Not our best effort, but shows her early on in her career (just shy of 2 y.o. - now just over 2) landing most of the time nicesly on all 4 no matter what the jump. My Avatar shows one of her more spectacular leaps caught on film. Other puppies take a LOT of work to get to land properly. this is my boy at about 18 months - the night after the video above. i still spend a lot of time doing rear end awareness exercises and core strength exercises with him and getting him to jump over my legs while I am sitting and having him catch the disc about 3 feet from me. This makes him land on all 4. Since the video was shot he has really begun to get the whole landing thing and develop a LOT more drive. He'll never be a nutter like my girl, but we have managed to get him very keen and playing safely.

I haven't pulled Xena off a course yet, but know that when I do she will know what it going on and why she is leaving the course after she has to do it a couple of times. When we are working in the back yard she can get preoccupied with possums and forget she is meant to be working. I take her straight inside for 10 minutes or so and then bring her back out. If she chases after them again we go back inside without a word. I never have to do it more than twice. This is with a totally obsessive dog, but one that will get the message pretty quickly.

Sadly I think this is the road we are going to have to travel down. I can't pick the difference between Xena's state of mind in a trial or at training - totally high drive and exactly as you say the behaviour is self rewarding. At training I push her further than in a comp and she performs well. As with you my this would break my dog, but with X she just figures I've made a mistake and will tell me off. I've videoed trials and training and my handling doesn't seem to differ - I'm sure she's worked out that there are no treats to be had and it's quicker to get to the next obstacle if you don't have to work that pesky 2o/2o thing. Fortunately she's still only a very young dog at just over 2 so we have plenty of time to work it through. Thanks for the input one and all.

I'm sitting here playing on the computer with my Pet Store puppy lying asleep at my feet. She is the most gorgeous girl in the entire world, nice and straight, great teeth, beautiful markings, but every day I have her I can't help but feel nervous about how she will be in another six months and another after that. I hate pet shops and puppy mills with a passion.............this is my story - a story of ignorance, mistakes and learning. My wife and I decided we wanted a dog, had never wanted one before, but the time had come. When I was a kid puppies came from pet stores - so off to the pet store we went. Picked out a beautiful little man and took him home. Beautful little man was lonely and barked all the time so we went and got him a little girl friend from the same pet store (little girl sleeping at my feet). My pup was dog aggressive from the word go, he was poorly weaned (sucked on everything like he was suckling on his mum) and to cap it off started to limp at 4 months of age. If there was a mistake we made it - totally ignorant of how to raise a puppy and what to do or who to talk to when we had a problem. At this point we sent him off to doggie boot camp to be trained - another mistake, but at least we had started on the road to better behaved puppies. Long story short - at 7 months Rex was diagnosed with OCD. The only course of action open to us was surgery to correct the condition at that point with the possibility of follow surgery in another 12 months, then pain management for the rest of his life. We made a very difficult decision and had Rex put to sleep - I couldn't see a totally psycho high drive puppy living a restrained life and being perpetually medicated. The upside is that we now have two very well trained dogs who compete in agility, flyball and frisbee and will one day enter the obedience ring if ever I get to it. My boy is a beatiful pedigree BC and my little girl BC is just the most amazing dog. Even so a lot of our friends (all dog people these days) shake their heads in wonderment at how anyone could sell a dog like her to complete novices with no real knowledge of the breed. These days she is perfect in our dog sport mad house, but if she was unlucky enough to end up in another home she would be an ideal candidate for a quick trip to the pound - high drive, pushy, totally destructive if not constantly stimulated. I just wish there was something that could be done about people who just breed indiscriminately or worse still with intent and then ship the puppies off to the highest bidder.

It's always hard to give advice without knowing the dog and seeing him in action, but Buddy sounds a lot like my little man CK. By way of background CK is a VERY soft dog who was jumped all over by a bouncy goldie when he was 4 months old. (I know, I should have been looking after him better, but first time dog owner, ignorant etc etc). At just under 2 CK exhibits most of the behaviours you mention, except he's not great at warning and goes straight into dominating mode with dogs he doesn't know who annoy him by jumping in his face. In a formal environment or with dogs he knows and trusts he is VERY tolerant because he knows he won't get hurt. (Think mega quick BC in a flyball ring actually lying on his back begging pats while every other dog (5 other BC's and 2 Kelpies) in the ring was going nuts when the lights malfunctioned.) First thing we've done is not to put him in situations where he is likely to encounter unruly dogs or dogs that will threaten him. (Dog parks and dogs we don't know.) Next and most importantly......... I was at agility camp a month or two ago and saw something that is working wonders for us. Basically you shape the behaviour you want - looking to you for guidance. Whenever we get into any situation CK isn't comfortable in I wait for him to look at me and then say 'yes' (cue word for - you do good) and then treat. At first you have to do this at distance so that he has the opportunity to do it, but you work up to being closer and closer to the 'problem'. After 2 months of being really dilligent with it (painful bc you have to carry treats everywhere) whenever he now feels uncomfortable he looks to me immediately and waits for a treat or an instruction (next step). On the day in question one of the trainers was using the technique on a DA dog that had only ever been corrected for growling and barking at other dogs, not trained positively. (not sure why a dog like this was at agility camp, but that's another story.) Within 10 minutes the dog was beginning to calm down. By the end of the weekend it was working (close to it's owner) off lead. Hopefully you find this of some use - it may be no help at all, but is certainly something that is working for us. Cheers. Tony ETA - I've also found with CK the less pressure on his collar/lead the less likely he is to have his little snarl thing going on. Maybe your pup finds the hand under the collar less restrictive and feels more secure - almost like being off lead.

Xena is a little cow. We had a 2 day trial over the weekend and while I sent her the wrong way a couple of times (novice handler, quick dog, bad combination!) the rest of our faults were things she KNOWS how to do correctly, but knows she can get away with in comps – with hind sight I’ve let it sneak up and become a problem. Contacts - instead of the nice 2 on 2 off we had trained she now decides to launch from about 1/2 way down most of the contacts - much quicker that way (fortunately she still respects the see saw). I know I have caused this by letting her run through her contacts, she still understands at training and releases to my cue, not my movement, but in a comp........... Weavers is the other problem - still a little more proofing to be done with entries which I can accept, but she is now at the point where she knows exactly what to do and is weaving well an quickly, but it is too much effort to go through the last weaver and far more exciting to race on to the next obstacle. Any thoughts on how to fix? My boy is another story entirely, but I'll worry about him once we have all his equipment issues sorted!

This is funny - thinking I had found somewhere new and it wasn't new at all. Great to be here amongst friends!

That would be me!

Hi, Our names are CK and Xena. We are two young border collies with a very inexperienced handler, but we have a lot of fun playing agility, flyball and frisbee. Xena particularly loves frisbee and hardly ever drops the disc, and is just learning her first freestyle routine. Agility is her other great passion and she has just achieved her starters AAD title. Mr CK is a big softie who just loves to run. He's still learning how exciting agility can be, but is an awesome flyball dog with a best time of 4.4 secs and he still can't turn all that well. Frisbee is his other great love, but his Dad doesn't think he's got enough drive to be really good at freestyle, but toss and fetch is great. Look forward to playing with all you other BC mad people. Tony, Xena and CK.