Hi guys

I went away this weekend and went to see a working trials competition, i have never seen it before but i am completely hooked, i was so amazed by these dogs abilities and now i am desperate to get started with my gsd, he is 22 mths.

The plan was to wait around afterwards and ask some questions but unfortunately a huge thuinder storm started and completely freaked one of my dogs out so we had to leave before i had chance to ask.:rolleyes:

I live in Kent and i am trying to find a class but i would really like some tips on things that i can start doing in the meantime until i find a class, and also what level of obedience does the dog have to have? Alfie has all the basics and a brill recall, although he is still really distracted by other dogs. Also the other thing that i noticed was that all the dogs on the day were quite a lot older than Alfie, is there an age limit etc??

Look forward to hearing from you......................i am so excited

Try the Working Trials website & here

I'm sure Tohme will be able to answer your training level needed for your dog. IMHO your dog needs to be upto class A standard in Obedience-which means being able to do heelwork without commands, retrieve a dumbell(plus do a square search(find articles in a set area that have been left by someone else))

Hallo, if you live in Kent you are in luck I think :)

There is an Introduction to Working Trials day being held at Ruckinge near Ashford. It's with Anne Bussey (an excellent clicker trainer who has won the KCC TD stake once and come second once). Very nice lady. More info:

An Introduction to Working Trials with Anne Bussey
Sunday 28th May 2006
Let Anne lead you through the working trials exercises using reward based training methods.

If you are interested, PM me for more details  :)

Tohme on here is very experienced, I think there are a few of us at a much lower level. I do love trials as it is so excellent being out of doors and seeing dogs working using some of their natural abilities :) Dogs are required to have a good obedience standard but you don't need as much accuracy on say heelwork as it's essentially a practical sport and you may be working in a hummocky field around cow pats or mole hills!

Lindsay
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Hi, as Lindsay says, Anne is doing an introductory course this weekend, ring quick and find out if it is fully booked, if not she does take private and semi private lessons.  Ann works her dog in C in obedience and it is a WT Champion.  She is also a very good trainer experienced in many breeds.

Basically there are 3 sections, nosework, control and agility, you must qualify in each section (min 70%) and gain 80% of the overall marks to qualify your dog to a title.

Briefly

Control

Dog must do heelwork on/off the lead at slow, medium and fast pace with no commands.  2 min sit and 10 minute down stay out of sight (unlike obedience this is not graded it is all or nothing, so if your dog stays down for 9 minutes and then gets up you get nil point!). Bark on command, sendaway up to 200 yards and then redirect up to same distance. Be steady to gun, recall, retrieve a dumbell.

Agility

Clear 3ft high, 9ft long and 6ft scale twice with a named position on the other side of the scale.

Nosework

Complete a track which may vary from 8 - 30 legs, and from 1/2 to 3 hours old and recover up to 3 articles.  Search a square for up to 4 articles in 5 minutes.

Because of the jumpiing requirements, dogs may not enter prior to 18 months of age, some of us do not enter dogs until they are ready to compete in the senior stake, there is no rush (although with a GSD dogs tend to have a shorter life span cos things keep falling off em) :D

HTH

Hi I started working trials training with my last dog..it is fun. 

The only gap we had was for social p trainingI had taught a strong 'leave' for anything not meant for dogs. But in WT they need to be able to sniff out and pick up something which could be anything. So it was hard trying to get him to pick up these things so we had to try to play tug and fetch with a wide assortment of different types of things to get him to pick them up.

Also my dog was very good at jumping and the 'trainers' were over enthusiastic in getting him to rush straight into full heights/lengths because they were not trainers people all just seemed to muck in offering advice. And my dog got a little hurt jumping the 6ft scale and it put him off.  So make sure you get good safe instruction and progress patiently.

The rest we made good start on''it is a fun and versatile mix of activities so I really enjoyed it. Have fun.

Is there anywhere good in the North West?  I live in South Manchester.  I would think that at least two of my swd's would love this

North West Working Trials Society,
NWWTS Secretary, Miss Kim Astbury, 8 Shakespeare Close, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7GB, 01606 330991, kimk9@supanet.com

The NWWTS are hosting the Kennel Club Championships in October this year, where the top handlers compete in the PD and TD stakes.

Thanks tohme that's not too far away!

My view as well is that you can get local groups (not often all that local :P ) but as has been mentioned the people there may or may not be good trainers. I found it was really  helpful to go to a  few workshop days here and there and listen to "experts". I train reward based so headed for Anne Bussey who held regular days/ training sessions, and further up country I'd suggest John Rogerson, but there are lots of others and I expect Tohme would also know of some others.

RE jumping, my view and I would think the view of most, is to build up the confidence of the dog and also the actual muscles needed. For example when scaling, the dog needs to use back, shoulder and stomach muscles so it's beneficial to play lots of games of tuggie ;)

I must admit I do personally find the scale daunting, I am in a quandary as to go further with training for competition, but that's just me and plenty happily go ahead and scale. Some dogs are trained to go down the first 2 foot or so and so only end up jumping from about 4 ft and if not, the dog can drop down.

WTM magazine is a good source of info, (Working Trials Monthly) and has recently had some good basic tracking articles by Rod Roberts.

Lindsay
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