Jazz the OB dog

Oi. I have never met a dobe like her. She HATES working. She does a half @ss job, just enough to get by. I am taking her out of OB perminately. Maybe later this summer I will put her in agility.

We have done a rally compeition 4 times now. 3 out of the 4 times we werent even close to qualifying. So at this rate we will have to go in 8 more times at $25 a pop thats another $200 plus the $100 I have allready spent for a grand total of $300 just on entry fees for a RN tittle.

Rally is alot less strick that OB Im not even going to attempt that. God.

She pulled of a 90/100 the one time we did qualify.

Its just not her thing. i know Im complaining. I justed needed to vent for a minute. Shes lucky she cute and I love her.

stop making it work and start making it a game?

Ive tried. Trainers have tried. Its just not her thing. Every dog has things they suck at and just dont want to do.

Dont get me wrong I still love her just as much. We will just try something else.

Then you come down to should a doberman with no working ability, be bred? After all, a doberman is a working breed - if you cannot motivate her, or get her to work for you, then arguably should she be bred?

Just a thought to ponder... It's one thing to say "oh my dog could do it if I had the time" (which I think can be an excuse for some people) - it's another thing to sit here and say your dog cannot even earn an RN because she doesn't like to work. There is more to the doberman breed than stacking and looking pretty - there SHOULD be, at least. (Not to say that earning an RN then means she deserves to be bred - an RN is a very basic title at best in terms of working ability)

JMHO, as the owner of dobermans who LOVE to work, and as someone who appreciates the working aspect of the breed and cringes to see people so cavalier about the disappearing working nature of the breed.

Im not saying she doesnt have any working ability. Im saying she doesnt like doing OB. There is a difference. She has done some agility and loves it. Why would I put her into OB class after class when its clear its not something she enjoys doing. To satisfy me want of another title? NO. Thats not fair to her.

I dont doupt her working ability. I could title her in Sch if I wanted but I dont. She has rock solid temperment and actually does have the drive as I found out, when I went to a local Sch club a few times to see what it was all about.

She just doesnt like OB. Likeing somethign and having the ability to do it are 2 different things

Not to mention the nearest decent OB trainer is 1.5hrs away, I am not willing or able to do that drive 2 times a week. Nor am I knowldgeable enough about competitive OB to train her myself so that is also part of our problem.

My dog isn't crazy about OB either, I've never even tried to do Rally. She is my demo dog when I do classes, so her job consists of doing something she's done exactly the same way a hundred times, and then going back to sleep in her crate. I seriously feel like I could tell her "Ok, it's time for the Stay Demo" and she'd go out and do it with me perfectly well. Anyway, that's the extent of her OB.

Agility, though? THat's a lot more interesting because there's running, jumping, climbing, etc. involved. Agility and OB are almost completely different, so she LOVES it.

You do know that there's a serious obedience component to Schutzhund, right? So if you "wanted to" then you should be able to title her in obedience.

If she enjoys agility, why not mix that in with the OB work to make it more enjoyable for her? Use the agility obstacles that she enjoys as a reward for heelwork, etc. I agree that dogs often prefer one thing over another, but I also think we have a lot of control to influence their feelings about things.

And I agree very strongly with Kim that if you're thinking about breeding your Dobe, you need to be putting in the time and effort and work to prove her working ability.

I know OB is a part of Sch. I had her tested to see if she had the drive and temperment to do the protection part of it.

She simply enjoys agility much better than OB so thats what we will work on. I think she knows OB isnt my thing either. I prefer conformation and agility ALOT more than OB. I wanted to do OB for a ROMC then go get her agility titles. Now I am planing on getting her agility titles for her ROMC.

She is also trained to retrive ducks and I am looking at doing a few herding clinics this summer since she has shown a interest in it.

Tsk tsk.

I have to say I agree with Doberkim. If your dog is unable to do this basic sort of work, then one must really look hard at the motives for using her genetic material.

The Doberman is a working dog. Bred SPECIFICALLY to work WITH people, in obedience, and man work.

What exactly are the reasons why you are giving up on obedience with her? In my experience both as a handler and a trainer, when a dog is performing in this manner, it is a basic issue with the TRAINER. Not usually the dog.

I would guess that neither you nor she is properly prepared for competition. I would bet you have issues with dog attention and heel position, that neither has been properly trained and proofed.

My opinion is your dog deserves to be titled before she is bred. She is young, you are just getting started, it's pretty early to just give up.

If you dont mind me asking what type of methods do you use when training?

In all honesty, I hate Ob with a passion. Least anything formal at all like. I put off teaching Cider anything other than sit, down and wait really.. We started agility and we had fun. Classes ended so we tried rally. I scoffed at teaching Cider to heel as it really didn't interest me. She's so drivey though that she wanted to play the game.

I found at least rally mixes things up. I like the non traditional signs.. figuring out how to teach things that we can't just do already.. We have two advanced legs to go. I'd like to try real Ob, but I'm not sure we'll ever be there. I can for see getting our excellent rally title though.

thats what im trying to say Red. the closest ob trainer is far away and i dont have clue what i am doing. thats why we arent doing well. its not that she cant we just need to be under the close eye of a pro trainer and our agility trainer said she will not teach competitive OB

Have you just tried playing around with a clicker. Obed is not rocket science, its not like you need a fancy trainer for novice. Just decide what you want, break it down and go for it. If your dog will do agility, she will do obed. Just never correct and make it the most valuable thing ever.