Dog Training~~Upcoming Events

Remember, Westminster is next Monday and Tuesday, so be sure to stop over at their website to catch the streaming videos if you can't catch the actual show on cable. It can be a really thrilling thing to watch the top dogs in the country compete. They are really beautiful.

I tried the videos from last year on my dial-up and it worked okay, if you let it load. Best bet is to make sure you have the latest Flash download, as I think it helps it all do.

Coming up next month is Crufts. The dates are March 9-12, 2006. It's the oldest and largest Dog Show in the world. Their website is here: Crufts. IF you ever have the opportunity to attend this show, I urge you to go. The NEC is a fabulous venue for the show and Birmingham, England is lovely. In March, the flowers are beginning to bloom, although it's still chilly in England this time of year. You'll see breeds there that AKC and UKC here don't recognize--like the wire-haired Vizsla and too many others to name here. Their schedule is:

Crufts 2006 Times and Dates:

Thursday 9th March
Working and Pastoral
Friday 10th March
Terrier and Hound
Saturday 11th March
Toy and Utility
Sunday 12th March
Gundog

Open 8.15am to 7.30pm every day

You'll notice that they don't call their groups exactly the same as we do here in America. Gundog would equate to our Sporting, Utility would equate to our Non-Sporting, and Pastoral would be our Herding.

If you've had a chance to look at the pictures on the Agility page at DP, you'll see pictures I took at Crufts a few years back. It will give you a tiny clue as to the size of the NEC building where they hold the show. It is quite an event to attend. The vendors are on the lower floor of the NEC and the show rings are on the next floor up. There is a huge arena set up for Group Judging, Agility, Freestyle, and Best In Show. They don't bound their rings the way we do with baby-gating, it's just the chairs of the observers. Well, lol, if you EVER get the chance....

I'll be offering my first ebook on dog training soon on eBay and a couple of other auction sites. Figure that is the quickest way to get them noticed. The first one is titled, "Teach Your Dog a Trick: Dead Dog," and outlines the steps to teach your dog a fun trick. Keep an eye out for an announcement on when you can get your own copy of this fun book. This is stuff I've taught my own dogs, laid out in easy to follow format.

Training Tip:

Talking to your dog as though he/she can understand you in normal tones is a great way to expand your dog's "vocabulary." As you teach the dog various words for things, such as "out," "supper/breakfast," "ready?" (I use that one to crate them) and other things, your dog will learn to understand much more than if you rarely talk to them. It expands their intelligence, I think, much like letting them work with puzzles like the cube or ball you put treats into and the dog rolls it around to get the treats out. Just like us, if they have to exercise their brains, they are smarter.

My dogs know things like: Excuse me, please (means get out of the way), find your.... (sends them to search for a specific toy), who did...? (means one of you did something you ought not have and I know who), and other phrases you wouldn't expect them to comprehend. Because I talk to them much like I would a child of two years of age, they have learned a lot and respond much better to learning new commands than a dog that is left outside with little human interaction. Give it a try!

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That's it for now. Be sure to visit Dog Potentials, where you'll find lots of good information and articles, and please visit our sponsors there. They help make all this possible.

See ya at the shows,
Chris
www.dogpotentials.com
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Legal stuff:

I am not a professional dog trainer, but have spent time training dogs in conjunction with 4-H and as an instructor at PetsMart. Information in the blog and at Dog Potentials is from my own experiences and research. I cannot be responsible for what you do with the information provided, nor how you interpret that information. If you use tips provided in my blog, on the site, or in my articles, you do so at your own risk.