Brad

Thanks, got a good laugh out of those!!

laughingdogpress.com appears to be offline now, it has a place holder site, not much else...

Ok, old post, but I've never seen this. Anyone have a current working link to this article?

My guy just suffered from this tonight. I had four dogs out chasing the ball tossed with a chuckit, and I noticed they were starting to look a bit ragged so layed them all down for a rest. After about 5 minutes we got back up, and Rig staggered up, was dragging his back feet and started vomitting. He had been drinking some water, outside temp was only about 14C (high 60s??), so not really a heat thing. The other 3 dogs were all fine, but Rig took about 30 minutes to fully recover. I was beside a stream, so took him it up to his shoulders, which seemed to help. This all happened in a period of about 15 minutes of sprinting. I recall he had something like this once last year, but I didn't recognize it as anything other than really exhausted. It's odd, since he can run a full weekend of flyball, train in July sun for an hour at agility or chase stock around for an hour and no such problem. He also runs 10k with me frequently without issue. Seems to just be the sprinting when with the other dogs chasing the ball. I wonder if there is a mental trigger to this?

My boy is almost 2 yo now, and the butterflies still throw him off At 4 months, I wouldn't expect a great deal of concentration, there are a lot of cool things to see and chase. Sounds like one of the important tricks to work on is recall. Start in the house, work out to the yard. If you call him from the yard and he doesn't immediately come running, go get him, or at least make the movement to go get him until he shows that he's coming. Serious training can start at a young age, he doesn't need to be a real dog. Serious should always be short fun sessions, I train for 2 or 3 minutes at a time, with a play break in between sessions. Keep it fun. As for discs, make sure he doesn't do any jumping until at least a year old. For fetching, roll the frisbee across the ground. Don't be in a rush for any of it, it all comes way too fast.

If it's a solid pill, can you grind it up and mix it with a bit of peanut butter?

lol, it's my day off, and I hung out in bed for a while with the gang. Ya, I don't mean to sound like it's the norm, in flyball or any other sport, just makes me shale my head when I do see it. Especially for me, although I'm fairly competitive, and like to run fast, I don't care about winning the T, and I have no idea how many points my dog has. I plan to retire form the sport one day still not knowing. for me, it's a social activity for me, and a great way to spend quality time with my dogs, not about points or titles or reputations. although we're getting a rep for drinking afterwards....hmmm:)

That's fine, and in fact how I ended up with a BC. I always wanted one, even before I knew dogs sports existed, the activities just sort of cinched it for me. My point was that I know people that get dog breeds they don't want, simply because it's faster than what they really would prefer. case in point, our team constantly gets comments about one of us needing to buy a height dog. We reply that none of us really wants a breed that could be a height dog (the smallest we have is a coolie). We then hear that it doesn't matter, one of us HAS to get a small dog, because the team needs one and someone needs to make that scarifice in getting a dog they really don't want. Seriously?? I don't think so Now these comments are presented in a light hearted joking manner, but not really. But I do know people that have made this concession, getting a dog because it's a great potential flyball dog, not because they wanted a dog just like that. Not saying that they hate the dog, or don't treat it well, but it wouldn't have been their first choice if it weren't for the sport requirements... Not sure if that's as bad as I feel it is, but for me, my dogs are my family, and those requirements come first. I'm all for getting a dog, from the breed you want, with the best potential, but the underlying theme should be that it's a dog you want. My new pup was picked from a litter bred for stock work, but I still wanted the dog for it's "pet ability". If for some reason BCs suddenly took second place in herding to a more capable breed (ya, right ), I wouldn't try to "upgrade" to that better breed. Am I making sense? Haven't had coffee yet

Maybe we can call it the "annoying instinct" ? My boy does the cirling thing when playing, but does not do it on sheep. He also body slams my pittyx, but never anyone else. mostly annoying for sure!

It's weird with the tuggie thing. Rig LOVES his tuggie, but when he's playing flyball, he has no interest at all! Luckily he loves to run to me, so I don't need to carry anything on deck The good thing about tuggies tho, is that at the end of the lane, if the dog is attached to a tuggie, then you have some control over them.

To add, when I got here, I was on a list for a pup from a very strong sporting line. After reading all the posts here, I realized why it wasn't neccesary to get a sport dog to do sports. I recently did get a pup, but choose to get one from working lines, BECAUSE of the info I got from this board. Cricket, my wonderful little working dog, is no more or no less "wired" than my regular ol' BC And she certainly has a great disosition AND an off switch. For me, I feel both my BCs are just "nice to have around" companions that in fact have an ON switch, meaning when it's time to go, whether in flyball, agility or stockwork, they turn on. Once we're done, it's back to just nice hapy CALM dogs. In summary, I choose my newest pup because of the info I got from this board, not in spite of it.