Recent content by chelsey

Haven't been here in a while but I wanted to post the vids from Wiley's first agility trial weekend. It was a 2.5 day UKI trial Eastern Spring Cup. Tournament style weekend. Go big or go home, right? Well the open entry classes - agility biathlon, masters heats, etc kicked our butts with...

I think the sledding people would be very offended if we renamed their harness ;-) We use leashes and bungees in agitation training too, we don't rename them agitation leashes... lol! Again a properly fitting xback doesn't have enough room to spin on the dog.. you should go talk to your...

What is "This Country" ? Why do you assume we know the same people ? You make so many assumptions.. My primary training decoy is from a club in France and he brings many of his friends to Canada to train. We train around Toronto and Sudbury primarily. Lifework was a typo for bitework, was...

Do you do both sledding and bitework? Using an x back to "pull things" doesn't give you any experience with sledding, or the equipment we use, sorry... We've been using them with no issues and the dogs can actually breathe properly over the session and have better endurance. We work on...

We've started using X back sled harnesses instead of leather agitation harnesses because we found that some dogs who push hard into the chest plate, where there might not be a perfect fit have trouble breathing when in tension. Our decoy guy was like OMG wrong and was sure the rope tag would...

Don't hate on me for say this... mals are definitely a learning curve. But in working with mals and people who have many mals... When you see drive leaking (which to me is wasted energy, not conducive to working), some of it is genetic yes (some dogs raised equally are more likely to exhibit...

I know how hard it is to come across old vids and how meaningful and cathartic it is to train your new pup. Phelan looks great - great engagement and work ethic can tell he is just pure joy to play with :-)

Agility U has different instructors - so just be aware of that when you sign up. I took an Agility U class with Tracy Sklenar and she was excellent but I didn't think I got a lot of material for the cost of the class. The best deal by far for me has been Trkman's foundations. I originally...

I'm happy that you and your wife take responsibility for your dog's behaviour. That's the biggest hurdle sometimes. I second the suggestion of finding a trainer but I do have one piece of advice... To have success with positive training, management is your key. That involves constant...

Nice video! Great pictures of Ace, you can tell he really loves it. Here is a quick video of Wiley from a couple weeks ago at the seminar I mentioned above. These are the two bitework exercises required for his Brevet (entry level title) the face attack and defense of handler (and then...

Awesome job Crossbone!!! Such a fun party trick. I like how you weighed down the base, great idea. Just played some retrieve games with my puppy Slice last night (clips of backup and side legs). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Q2ao-Xs2g

Last weekend we had a handling seminar with Sarah Mairs up in Sudbury, who is a fantastic experienced instructor from Southern Ont, she is a lot of fun, and is great at tailoring to the level of each team. Wiley only got to work for 1.5 of the two sessions because he burned his paw pads on...

I had excellent experiences with Silvia's class. I find her comments to be to the point, and very observant. I also find her to be supportive and encouraging. I was enrolled as a repeater in the last set but didn't submit too much because I've been busy with other trainings and classes, which is...

Here is what I would do... Clip her leash on while feeding a cookie, then use treats or her food bowl with her meal to encourage her to walk towards you while having the leash on. Practice this a few times, don't put any extra tension on the leash, just encouragement, stepping a few steps...

Thinking about Piper and Bug while discussing tollers in another thread... Coming up on the 1 yr anniversary of their passing, I wanted to share this.. July 21/12 the unthinkable happened and I lost two of my best friends hours apart. It was a normal day, packed up the dogs and went out...