Hiya
My pup did her first bit of showing at a companion show, but she kept looking at me as we have done more obedience.  I am finding it hard to make her l;ook ahead, have tried using a target stick, can you suggest anything else?  I can't do ringcraft as work in the evenings.
Gina

Stand in front of your dog, so that she looks at you and is still standing straight. This is how free-standing breeds are shown, and it looks far more natural than stacking.
:)

Did you mean when you are standing her, or when you are moving? If it's when she's moving, it's much harder to cure - you can nearly always tell obedience trained dogs on the move & it's quite difficult to stop!
Doesn't matter much, unless she's throwing her front around while she's turning her head.

I think you mean when the dog is on the move - I have the same with my dog, and he also stays close to my leg rather than there being a gap.  He's been to a few shows, and the judges didn't seem to worry about it really.  I do want to do competition obedience, so don't actually want to teach him the opposite again!  You could probably do it using a clicker, perhaps teaching him to look ahead first (starting off whilst he is standing still), so that when he knows the command for looking ahead, you could try it putting in a few steps forward.
  Hilda

Yes it is when she's moving.  I do want to do competition obedience with her and will be doing more of that than showing in the furute.  But I would just like to get it right, so it doesn't matter too much that she's looking at me on the move then?  Her movement is the same and she doesn't throw her front round, just her head is turned.  Thing is she's looking up at me which makes her ears fall back which makes them looked pricked instead of tipped - she's a sheltie.

Gina

Hi Gina,

We had a huge problem with Tia, as she would much rather do her heelie ups than trot calmly round a ring!

In the end, we solved it by not looking at her, not saying anything to her other than the initial "trot" command. Also did not hold my hand anywhere near the heelwork position so there was no way she could have got confused. We used the same collar, only a different lead. It took a couple of months before she would not look at me at all, but she doesn't have a problem now.

Char123

It is possible to show and compete in obedience/working trials etc successfully.  I use a different lead and a different command in combination with clicker training so that my dog knows exactly what it is supposed to be doing and when.

I never really bothered with ringcraft except to get my dog used to be gone over.

A good book for clicker training show dogs is Click to Win by Karen Pryor.

Tohme I'm glad you mentioned that book as one of my puppy owners has bought it, though has never read it and he said that he was having problems with his pup retrieving.  Is there anything in the book about this as I was advising him to start clicker training when he told me that he already had this book.

I've only just started clicker training so I wasn't much help to him

Would suggest that you continue with a target stick and get her about 2ft away from you and 2 ft in front and call it 'Trot' or something and long as it is totaly different from what you use for heel which I expect is heel or close. Expect you know that it would be easier to have someone else with the clicker leaving you with the target stick and the reward.

You may find it easier at least to start with to move her for the show ring on your right instead of left until she knows what the cue word means and also use different tack.