Well Have decided to up the training with Gabby obviously needs the little brain box going so have decided on teaching her the articles. Well blow me dead the dog has worked out what I wanted and in two days can do a full set of articles not tied down check them out and get my scented articel (might add rubbed with hot dog) now I am impressed. She thinks its a great game she flies out majority of the time she has got it before she even got to the group but she will check it out if she hasnt worked it out as she has got there. I am impressed none of my other dogs have done that before. Its either my training has improved or she is a smart bugger. I know alot of people are against my way of training but I dont really care as my dogs have always done this exercise correctly. I use lots of food ie fritz hotdogs and I litterally spread it all over the article that is suppose to be my scent and than I just rub it on my hands and than hold the fritz and that is basically how I ween them of it. It seems to work and they are always successful. I also used a tablespoon of fishy cat food and dog biscuit in her bowl for a correct article so that helped as well.
I also was teaching her the retrieve the dumbell over the jump and she goes straight over and straight back but now I do have to teach where ever the dumbell goes you must come straight back and not go around but we will get there.
Ohh and we did manage another naughty thing another hole to China arghhhhhhh
cheers
Danni

Doesn't matter what other people think of your training methods as long as it's not cruel & it works, now when can I get you to come & help me with Izzi's barking problem . I can fix the digging holes, just come & live in Murray Bridge we've got sheet lime stone, but Izzi did dig up the little garden by the back door, yup it ended up in the house, ahh well that's what vacuumes are for. We're picking up our Aussie Shepherd next Saturday, going to SACA park to collect Pebbles, very excited & nervous. I'd like to do Obediance or agility with Izzi & Pebbles, there's also a tracking club at Monarto but guess we'll see how things go. At the moment we're in training for the 100km walk in October & Izzi has no problem doing 24km then coming home & doing laps with her favorite squeaky toy, I need to do something with her & she's got the longest legs & jumps like a stag. Well better not stay on here all day I'm defrosting the freezer & got a horse to start breaking in.

Interesting way to teach it. Would really build their confidence that they understand what they need to do in the early training. Bit like training tracking with treats in the food steps - then you transfer the meaningful stimuli to the ground disturbance and scent rather than the lolly.

Does Gabby mind holding metal things? I've never trained scent discrim with Wal but when I've messed around with the idea of doing it he always says 'I'm not putting that in my mouth'.

Hi Dogz6 I'll try again. Dont know what happened to the last email. What day are you going to SACA. Saturday night we will be going to South Australian for an obedience trial that is held at the parklands. We will be there about 4.

Done tracking many moons ago with my kelpie and german shepherd x dobermann. Not doing it now as I dont have the money nowhere to train and the time when I am doing both obedience and agility every weekend. Who is instructing down there. The last I heard was Carol Wright Joy Rowe and I think Josie use to take a bunch down to monarto for a training session when they have walked the tracks. There isnt much happening down in Adelaide as all our training area is all housing areas now. Have fun doing it if you do get a chance at it though.

Where are you getting the aussie from. Is it Tuscamada, Shartoozi or Shadebush? What colour etc
Yah Gabby is quiet yipeeeeee
cheers
Danni



Hi KoolieMum I use alot of food when I am teaching and I still use alot of different things for my older girls. After they have finished there obedience round they get a little bowl of cat fish and dog bikkies. That is what they work for they absolutely love it. Agility they get a cookie. There punishment (as such) if they play up on me etc they get taken out at that point and they loose food it goes to the other dog and they hate it and normally next class I get 150% cause they want that. Depends on what they have done there other punishment is they have to go away from the pack (put in the trailer) to think about what happened and guarranted I will have the 1st place litterally. So they get there reward a bowl of cat fish and being with the pack. I do get 80% success rate. I dont do that the punishment if they are learning or anything else like that. Only when they are experienced trialing dog and knowing what is right or wrong. Not confusion.

Never had a problem with Gabby holding metal. Once again lots of food. I do have a metal dumbbell that I train with. None of my dogs did I have trouble with metal. She just thinks its great fun doesnt matter what article
cheers
Danni

Have you guys seen Sylvia Trkman. Check out her web site. It's absolutely awesome. She has one of the fastest running contacts. It's very interesting and is a very nice person I did write an email and answered me. Awesome
Danni

We're going to SACA some time Saturday morning, don't know what time we'll head home the horses get a bit cranky & yell at the neighbours if it gets to late though. Pebbles is coming from Broken Hill, don't know who bred her, she was brought for showing but didn't grow her hair, what ever that means. We originaly got a Koolie from these people, 13 years ago, I got back in touch with them when we found out Dova had Leukemia to see if they had any Koolies. Then when our Kelpie pup was run over Lee offered us Pebbles because of her not being a show dog, but she's soooo cute & is a tri colour.
I've never done anything with dogs other than work them so I've got a lot to learn, spent all my life doing dressage & showing horses, still love dressage but I'd rather eat dirt than show , so any advice will be appreciated.

Here is a printer copy of Pebbles that we pick up next Saturday.
Bill

That's a beautiful face, isn't it. She looks like such a sweetheart.

She's gorgeous! Look at those ears!

She is absolutely gorgous but the blues are my favourite colour.
Didnt get your message in time would have gone quickly to SACA as I didnt live to far away but I was too late
cheers
Danni

Does Pebbles have a full tail? I was surprised to see an Aussie pup yesterday without a tail - not sure if it's a natural bobtail or from WA or NT or OS. Wonder how common natural bobtail Aussies are here - think they're not rare in US but at least the original dogs that came here were naturally full-tailed. All the young-ish dogs I've seen lately have had full tails.

I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where - never remember references) that it is common for some litters of Aussie Shepherds to be mixed natural bobs and tails! Now that would be interesting gene study - merle and bobtail!!

Also read (somewhere else) that since the docking ban has been introduced some breeds of show dogs actually produce "ugly" tails so they have to look at breeding their lines to include "pretty" tails now.

When the ban first came in I saw a couple of dogs with *quirky* tails - obviously there'd never been any pressure to select for normal tails in those breeds. Although, apparently there was an experiment once where someone docked tails of mice over many generations to see if they would change - sounds a bit like Lysenko lol but it wasn't. Was a while ago, though. It was mentioned in a Phil of Biology subject I started last yr.

Something I've just been reading talks about T (the short tail gene) being lethal when TT (I've heard of it being lethal in cats, not in dogs). But I don't really trust the source - going to look into it further. Have also heard short-tailedness in dogs described as a neural tube defect, so increasing (if *lesion* is too high) risk of spina bifida. Unfortunately my phenotype predictor software doesn't have anything about tails.

Ok, I've checked now - if the cause of the taillessness is T then TT is lethal in-utero - pups rear structures are severely deformed. In their research they didn't find any TTs. But there might be other genes that can cause taillessness, as they mention (the article I read was 'Canine homolog of the T-box transcription factor T; failure of the protein to bind to its DNA target leads to a short-tail phenotype' Kim Haworth et al, Mammalian Genome 12, 212–218 (2001)) that the characteristic can be passed on as a recessive, semi-dominant or dominant characteristic. Although, in mice they've found some variation in how much of the ability to produce the relevant protein is 'deleted' by T - I'm not sure if this is a reason some breeds can get away with being all short-tailed. I don't think Stumpy ACDs produce any tailed pups? JackieH?

I really didn't understand the article - need to sit down and spend some time on it, so I might have completely misunderstood it.

Hey KoolieMum,
Pebbles is a bobtail which is a first for us and born that way as far as I remember and the look of her left ear is most body colour with some brown on the legs. I'll put a rather worst printout of her body later,
Dannimilo , it is this Saturday we pick her up 8th Mar and being country folk we will be the ones who look like we should be moved along by the boys in blue We won't be dressed to impress..
I know stuff all about the tail thing but sue may know more

Bit rough shot but printed on standard paper.
All came about as we bought Dova from same person back 13 yrs ago and after losing Dova and Bell the Kelpie, Lee offered Pebbles to us as something about her coat not growing out to be shown So could hardly say no to that face,
B

Her coat looks quite long doesn't it, wonder what they meant by it not growing in. I guess they know what they need in a show dog, but I'm surprised they can tell too much about her adult coat at this point. Anyway, it's a win for you lol.

Something I'm curious about with the natural bobtails is whether they have much 'bendy-ness' in their bodies. A vet I know who got an Aussie with a tail back when docking was still allowed here commented that her's had a flexible body, whereas one's with short tails moved 'more like Old English Sheepdogs' - they tend to hop and keep their body fairly straight. The other tailed ones I've seen are also more bendy. Wonder whether having a short-tail or having been docked is what caused that, how dogs with naturally short tails move.

I just finally managed to *find* her - wow, wow, wow. Don't know why, but when I searched on her name when you first put this up, I couldn't get anything.

Love the little Pyrenian - have thought I'd like one of those or a Mudi (but the thing everybody knows about Mudis is that they bark) - the url is http://www.silvia.trkman.net/

And she's got great taste in music ;-)

Anyone heard of an Aussie trainer teaching the handstand?

Isnt she brilliant
Her contacts are absolutely awesome
Did you see the videos of her runs?
Her tricks I cant believe someone thought of teaching them
Did you see the one with the dog that would lift the left front and the back right at the same time awesome
Nope I dont know anyone who could teach it
I think she has it in there how she teaches it I think I could be imagining it though
cheers
Danni

No, so far I've only watched the trick videos and the one of the contacts. That 2 legs up on one side is amazing isn't it. There seem to be plenty of OS ppl teaching the handstand (I've found several on youtube) but I hadn't heard of it here. I think you'd need a particular physical type of dog, and obviously super fit and strong. She's got video of the preparation (walking forwards and backwards on back legs and going from on back legs to squat and back). And I haven't read it properly yet but I think I skimmed something about training back legs on her hand as first stage.

Interesting that in one article she says that in her opinion Bu had 'no drive'!

I read some of her site - ran out of time to watch all of it but have saved it for later!! Amazing!! It was great to see the Pyr Shepherd too. I have looked at this breed previously and they sound very much like a koolie! Maybe a distant relative!! There seem to be only a few breeders in Australia at the moment.

Bluedog - did you read what she had to say about 'FearShep'? There are obviously some behavioural quirks in the breed, but they look like so much fun.

I'm really interested in what she says about not caring whether a dog is fearful, if it has enough drive it doesn't matter. Not sure what I feel about that.



Big day today dogz6 - have fun!

KoolieMum

STACD's do occasionally produce long tails. We were offered a freebie in a STACD litter because it had a long tail, apparently to the dinki di STACD breeders this is a no no, but nowdays people do not realise that the STACD and the ACD are actually two different pedigrees and I guess in the past if they had a long tail they just got it docked. Also people cross the long and the short tail's all the time so you get mixed litters.

ACD's are very popular up north here and are extremely common.

I have noticed that a naturally short tailed dog tends to have a sloppy back (this includes Smith who has a decendant that was a STACD (His grandfather's father I think but it was a fair way back)His back unlike my other Koolies slopes slightly and he tends to roll a bit when runs, a bit like a bear).

So I think that confirms what I thought about Stumpies not having their taillessness caused by a lethal gene - if that was the case you'd have to have mixed litters, so that you'd get Tts with short tails and tts with long tails and all the TT dying and being reabsorbed in utero. So I wonder whether this is a different gene or whether there's some other modifier gene at work (here we go again...)

Do stumpies have consistently short tails or does it vary? (like in Manx cats, which do have the lethal taillessness gene and have varying tail lengths when Tt.)



I didn't realise there were any in Australia. I'm surprised we're not seeing them in the agility ring. They'd knock the socks of the Shelties ;-)

Yep - have now read it. Not something I came across when reading about them. http://www.pyrshep.com/geninfo.html One article with general info about them. Although when rereading this particular site it does mention socialisation quite often so perhaps like most dogs if kept in a "safe" environment the dog doesn't learn how to cope with different situations.

It is interesting that both long and short haired varieties appear in both litters! Some of the long haired dogs look a bit like Chewbacca from Star Wars.

One claim is that these are the original dogs of the Cro Magnon people and is drawn on cave walls from 25,000 years ago!! http://pyrshep1.homestead.com/pshistory.html

Lol. Older is better, of course ;-)

You can often tell alot about a breed by reading between the lines. Such a lot of breeders either really don't know much about behaviour or do the 'this is the perfect breed for everyone' routine. Or the 'this breed is perfect if you're worthy' - when things go wrong it's the person's fault - routine.

My new latest fave method of getting info about a breed is to search for them on youtube - you can tell alot about a breed from the trends in the behaviour of the dogs you see, IMO.

I've never actually watched a single Star Wars movie, but I think I can work out who Chewbacca must be.

Hi guys
Thought I would give a little brag about my little girl Gabby. I am so proud of her. We had a mock obedience trial which you actually do an obedience trial but can correct or praise your dog. It's run like a trial and you get your number and you wait for your turn and the judge will judge you and score you but will give you hints where you have lost your points.
I had Gabby in the new class CCD. It's out of 100 and we got 96. We lost 4 points in the heelwork and I managed to loose 3 of them by forgetting how to do my left about turns. I usually do a left uturn with her but with my border collie I do the left about turn military. Poor Gabby had no idea what the heck I was on about and we lost 1 point with a slightly in front drop position. We will be in a trial at the end of the month. So proud of her
cheers
Danni

Hi Danni
Well Done, Gabby works brilliantly and certainly leaves Ash in her wake,well we do know the males are a bit slower than the females!!! it is hard to remember these pups are only 8 1/2 months old as they show so much eagerness to learn.
And to think I was nearly going to put Ash in the mock trial, the weather put me off was bucketing out my way, but not where it was on!!! (an hours drive from my place)

which obedience trial will you be going in?

Here is a photo of the "twins!!" Ashwyn is on the left and Gabby the right, we won't mention Ash decided to pay Gabby a visit soon after and she didn't even look like moving. the other photo says it all with body language!!!!

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn164/l.../DSCF4135aa.jpg

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn164/l.../DSCF4138aa.jpg

Cheers
Linda

Hi Linda
Going to put Gabby in at Dover Gardens being that is where she has been training and we have Keith Millington which he will be a nice judge LOL
I have to say those pictures are the best that is being biased but gee have to say they are like bookends though especially that second photo they even lean the opposite side as well. You were a chicken it was a very nice day and Alison had been very informative. It was funny mum was watching Gabby watched the recall but she was waiting for her to do the off lead heel work LOL she obviously hadnt been seeing the new rules obviously LOL
cheers

Well done Danni and Gabby!
Those photos are uncanny - even their hair whorls the same! Sure is a family resemblance there!

Danni I'd be strutting around like a banty rooster if I were you, Gabby's a little ripper. Wow the photo of Ash & Gabby looks like a mirror image, except one's a girl & one's a boy of course LOL. Pebbles starts the beyond basics class on the 7th of May, she's such willing girl & quick learner, might do the Canine Good Citizen class with her later, she has to be 1yo. Anyway keep up the good work with Gabby sounds like she'll be going a long way.