Dutch Shepherd Forum

Anyone have any new projects, or projects to firm up, for their dogs this year?

Top 4 on list:

Do not attack children even if they are: a)running. b) on a skateboard. c) biking. d) jumping. e)squealing.

Do not bite or mouth ANYONE: even if they are petting you and think you are cute.

Do not attack the cats even if they attack you. (I know, life is not fair!)

Do not bark and lunge at other dogs. It makes us both look like idiots and we both know you don't mean it.

I know. It is a tall order!!!!

Yes, I want to do a view shows with Joep and try to win three or more CAC's to make him Dutch champion in his class for the first time. I know it's ambitious but it's also a nice challenge. And with Bas I want to do some agility matches.
With the two of them we'll start a new training at the dogschool next saturday, both in obedience. And after that I will do another agility training with Bas on a higher level. That will be next summer.

Joep is so handsome, I hope you achieve your goal at the shows. Sounds like you'll be busy with the others also.

Where to begin?

(My computer is acting up...we'll see how far I get in this...)

First, I'm working with my vet to diagnose and resolve an issue Geyser has been having for a long time, exercise intolerance. We've worked thru and eliminated several things, and at this point, it looks like chronic bronchitis as a result of being allergic to something, either environmental, parasitical (is that a word?), or edible. It's too expensive to do all the testing that would nail that down, and since the treatment is the same regardless, we're going to go ahead with the treatment and see what happens. We're going to be using Chinese herbs, and I am hopeful of getting to the other side of this very depressing issue.

Meanwhile, we continue with Nosework training. We should be taking our first ORT (Odor Recognition Test) sometime in the first half of 2012, and if any trials come into our neck of the woods, doing our first trial in this activity.

We'll be doing our CGC this spring, soon as it's offered again at the place where we go for our classes.

We'll continue with out agility training...we're working on weaves right now, using the 2x2 method, and it's going great!

She's getting spayed soon, and I've decided to go ahead and register her with the AKC. I don't care what they call her. It's a venue that has a lot of opportunities for competition in my area, so fine. There's no UKC around here, so if I want to do obedience and related stuff (Rally), it's AKC. (I had considered doing SchH obedience, but for a long complicated set of reasons, am not going that route.)

Ongoing obedience, of course. More camping trips, this time without a crate in the tent.

And, a life time goal of working on confidence issues...

Everyone has lots of ambition for 2012!

Lieh: what exactly happens to Geyser during exercise? Loss of breath, tiredness, vomiting...? And of her confidence, on a scale of 1-10, where is she now?

I've been inspired by watching the free style dog competitions that someone on the forum mentioned, and have been working with Sugar on some tricks like backing up through my legs and almost have it. Not to compete, but for fun. There is an agility for fun course I'm planing to sign us up for to see how she likes it as well.

The other area is focus. I swear the girl has ADD!! I just can't seem to get her to focus on something without a sound or something moving distracting her. We'll keep working on it!

I am hoping that Ember and I have a successful and fun 2012!

My behavior goal is that Ember continue to "grow-up" a bit and gain confidence. I would love to be able to walk her places without worrying about whats coming around the corner. I would eventually like her to be able to come to work with me when its quiet during the day.

My training goal is to start Agility (first class is on Wednesday) and see where that takes us. I would also like to continue on with disc dog freestyle competitions this year and travel to a couple of dock diving events.

My personal goal is to take more pictures of her having fun! I am so bad with a camera

I want to get Boaz ready for an agility trial this year. CPE Level 1 is very easy and we have all year. And I want to get a nice heel out of him. With all the conformation shows we did this year, I've totally slacked off on obedience training. If I can get that heel back, then we will go to the next level of Rally.

I need to get back to training my Laeken for his CDX (Companion Dog Excellent).

Great topic!!

Here are my goals!

Vader - Matt's dog
IPO 1 & 2 (hopefully also 3)
PSA PDC and PSA1
Herding Instinct Test

Balis
IPO1
PSA PDC (maybe PSA1)
first flyball titles (but I don't know what they are

Ziva
IPO1
PSA PDC (maybe PSA1)

Salix
Certify Narcotics
Kick some major flyball ass

Emma
Certify Narcotics
Get comfortable enough to atleast use the flyball box and do recalls at practice

Dante & Willow
Cherish every moment as they are turning 15 and 11 respectively.

bestlind wrote: My personal goal is to take more pictures of her having fun! I am so bad with a camera

AHHH--So I'm not alone! Can't get a good picture to save my @ss.

Raven wrote: Lieh: what exactly happens to Geyser during exercise? Loss of breath, tiredness, vomiting...? And of her confidence, on a scale of 1-10, where is she now?

Re the exercise thing: She looses her breath, has to rest constantly. She'll fetch a few, then have to lie down and pant until she's ready to go again. Also overheats very easily (which I believe is related...the oxygen just isn't getting thru well enough).

Confidence wise, it depends on the situation . At home, she's King, and very confident, of course. She's unsure of new people. She's a complete mess at the vet...shaking horribly, heavy panting, wild eyes, has shown some signs of potential possible fear biting. (And, yes, we go there when there isn't an appt and work on this with play and treats.) If she meets a couple of friendly dogs, she's very unsure and scared, until some time passes and she finds it's OK and then she's fine. She startles very easily. So, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very confident, I'd give her a 2-4, in situations that concern her.

Christie, by any chance was Ziva a 1 year old from Florida?

alspyce wrote:Christie, by any chance was Ziva a 1 year old from Florida?

She'll be 2 in May, but yes. She is out of Vrijheid's G litter. Ash asked me to take her and evaluate her. Now she's here for keeps.

I'll start of by trying to raise 7 brindled beast to be big fat healthy pups leaving our home at approx. 8 weeks old, after that it's back to tracking and finding a new, better dog-club that can actually teach me stuff about tracking/defense, and maybe do some agility with Ivil.
At the end of summer we hope to add a small striped monster to our family... and well, you cannot plan anything after that

I look forward to getting Merlin more comfortable with his surroundings. He is finally actinging confident, but somethings still startle him. I want to get out with him more and do some tracking/scent. Most of all I am looking forward to working with him in obedience. He is already doing so well, can't wait to see all the things we can teach him He actually gave me a great recall the other day when a dog had decided to come in his yard! He was at a full out run toward the dog and just turned and came back to me....so many hugs were given he thought he was king!

Ellie is starting her CGC prep course in February. I'm pretty excited about that. We're continuing with her circus training, and I resolved to do a training session a day with her (nothing too big, just as long as we work on something - she's too smart and I'm just holding her back by not working with her).

I'm excited for 2012. We should do a follow up post at the end of the year to see how everyone did.

wahinelf wrote:I'm excited for 2012. We should do a follow up post at the end of the year to see how everyone did.

I'm thinking more like quarterly .

Also, remember that you can do little sessions, like 3-5 minutes, and they're very effective . It can be hard to carve out "training time," I know.

Christie, like the goals, please keep us posted. Sure wish there was a Ring or IPO club close by but since there isn't, plan on concentrating training HR S&R (maybe some water) and tracking (GSD & DS). Love the scent detection work. Have a friend who is a tracking judge so may pursue titling with the GSD.

Getting the 4 pups ready to work; hunt and scent/search work, some bite.

Now with the Cattle dog and Aussie - herding, not for titles, just practical application on the farm, fine-tuning them (and myself) working as a team. If I can get enough large balls (dont laugh yall may give the Treiball a try, just for kicks and giggles but only with these two. Cant afford to keep enough balls around with my big guys.

Most of all, not going to stress over anything in training, been there, done that.

Teach Odin a good "out", along with the basics. Want to teach some nose work on a scent pad too.