Whippet's In Obedience

[turb065]

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Has anyone trialed or done any form of obedience with their Whippets. Comments and bragging appreciated. (showing is not obedience)

 

[liza]

Has anyone trialed or done any form of obedience with their Whippets. Comments and bragging appreciated. (showing is not obedience)

i have tried doing obedience with one of my girls katie she failed she was only good on the recal she thought it was a game

one of rosie's boys is starting agillity training and he loves it

 

[turb065]

well i guess one is a good start

 

[posh totty]

most of my whippets are obedience trained as i work them , however they also do the kennel club good citizen scheme too as do my iggys , i find them fairly easy tbh in training to a high level , obviously true obedience trainers may feel different , at least 3 dogs ive bred have acheived kcgcs gold level

 

[jakers]

Yes Mr Zig has his bronze and silver good cit awards he is very clever and had acheived both before the age of two years - likewise Mo also does obedience not quite to the same level as zig but once we have perfected the stay hopefully she'll be ready to take her bronze. The both also do agility and love it .

 

[rls22]

Two of ours have done KC Good Citizen Scheme up to Silver level before 18 months old.

However, they could go some weeks and not even sit and the next do everything at first time of asking. It could be really frustrating and embarrassing for my poor Dad!! :lol:

 

[alfie]

My Whippet Alfie and I were members of the Whippet Obedience team, and have done several displays at Crufts and some of the championship shows in the past. Although we still have occasional training days, there are not really enough of us to make up a display team now :b

There are obedience classes at the Whippet club show in September, and some of the Whippets competing are of a really high standard.

Liz and the Monellis

 

[Beerhound]

My two have done the Kennel Club Good Citizen Award Scheme and have both passed GOLD!

I also trained my Joshua's mum who passed her gold at over 9 years old! She was the only one whi took the test who hadn't done the training, I was at the club and they were doing the test and said "Try her". She was the only one who passed and the others had done all the training!!

 

[chelynnah]

A lot of whippets in the States do competetive obedience. I took some video at the Obedience trials at the National and will try to remember to post a link here when I get it sorted and up on the web.

Here's the link to a blog of a friend of mine who does agility, obedience and rally obedience with his whippets http://goodwhippet.blogspot.com/

Wendy

 

[Wayward_Angel]

I had a go at it with one of mine Rocks, both Obedience and agility, no bragging here, as Rocks thought there was no need in rushing and walked everything!!!! Recall he would walk back to me, the Agility course he would walk, when he would do the weave he would get slower as he weaved. -_-

I would like to have another go at it with one of my others India who is a wee speedster!!

 

[Happy Humber]

I think the Whippet club has an obedience section.

 

[~Sarah~]

I do a bit of obedience and agility with my two.

Dolly nearly passed her Bronze KC Award, but failed on the last element (the sit/stay). :- We will have a go again in the future. I also completed a short Beginners Agility Course with Dolly a while ago, and have just started to attend a local training session with Dolly and Remmy which is fun.

 

[Seraphina]

I have never done obedience myself, but I have heard that several of my my pups do it successfully, some of them going on to do agility, in which they excelled.

 

[whippetfan]

There are several Whippets in Australia with Companion Dog Exellent (CDX) obedience titles and at least one Utility Dog (UD) title. That's no mean feat for any dog. Scent discrimination and directed retrieving for a sighthound is an awesome training achievement.

There are also several Whippets with both higher agility titles - Agility Dog Masters (ADM) and Jumping Dog Masters (JDM).

I currently have a young Whippet in the early stages of obedience training. He knows sit, drop, come, walk on a loose lead, we are now working on heel work and stays. After training 3 poodles, he presents some new challenges but once I have his attention he is very responsive. Holding that attention when there are distractions around is also challenging at times. We will go on to agility when he is old enough.

I think more positive motivational methods work well with Hounds - it ticks the "what's in it for me" box that more aversive training methods do not. I think the increasing popularity of these methods will see more hounds entering dog sports. We have two Ibizans in our local area that are titled in agility.

The challenge with any dog is to keep the dog focussed on you and to keep it interesting. You can't drill a Whippet (but let me say that you can't drill a lot of breeds including poodles in my experience) - they just turn off. The training book "So Your Dog's Not Lassie" would be a good inclusion in any Whippet owners library.

I think dogs have an amazing ability to live up or down to our expectations of them. If you don't train for something, you'll never see it. I think recalls are a case in point. Howard has a good fast recall under low distraction and I need to build on that. He is rewarded EVERY time he comes but I know better than to rely on that recall if there is chase opportunity available. He also retrieves a ball to hand.

Thinking outside the traditional food rewards associated with more positive training methods can also bring good results.

Howard has a ton of prey drive. Identifying your dog's strongest drive and training in that drive brings opportunities for the dogs that aren't motivated using other methods. I've directed that drive onto a furry tug and he will work hard for that. He gets to pounce on and kill it as his "jackpot" reward. No point shoving food at them if that's not what motivates them really.

 

[whippetfan]

There are several Whippets in Australia with Companion Dog Exellent (CDX) obedience titles and at least one Utility Dog (UD) title. That's no mean feat for any dog. Scent discrimination and directed retrieving for a sighthound is an awesome training achievement.

Oops, just checked with a more knowledgeable obedience friend.. the UD dog may be trialling in UD at this stage but not titled.

 

[aslan]

Not 'obedience' as such but two whippets that I've bred are into tracking and doing very well at it. Freddie passed his first test at just 6mths old! I think this is a testament to their trainer. "Schmick" - k9 member - is their owner/trainer.

 

[Mychaka]

I've put 3 of my whippets through obedience when I was instructing, then later when I was the chief instructor for the obedience club here I started to lose interest when too much politics came into the club and spoilt the enjoyment of training so we haven't done any for a few years now although all my dogs get trained at home instead. Coming from Dobes I found the Whippets to be very easy to train and learn quickly, probably why I don't have Dobes any more

My old boy, Cochise (13yrs) enjoyed obedience and especially agility - I was amazed how quickly he took to it although sometimes I'd be going onto the next obstacle to send him to only to look around to either finding him standing on the walkway smiling away or flying back through the tunnel. We were going to try tracking but I was too worried about snakes. We've also dabbled a bit in lure coursing but it's not really available here.

I encourage my puppy buyers to do obedience and include a small step by step manual of mine on how to achieve the basic's to each new owner.

I'll have to do a search and see if I have any pic's of the dogs doing obedience or agility.

Cristina

 

[turb065]

Agreed Whippets can be a bit hard to train compared to other breeds, but thst is the joy of training one. Agreed they do seem to have a bit of ADD which i dont think is abnormal for a sight hound. Luckly for me crispy is very food orientated, although she tends to vauge out after about 1/2hr of training.

For those O/S what does your bronze/ silver/ gold standard mean, as in what must they achieve to get these standards. To me bronze sounds like a trained dog certificate to me and gold sounds like CD title?

My biggest prob training crispy is seperation anxiety, which is a massive prob in grade 4 as it entails doing a drop stay for 3min at about 5m distance to pass (see my prob). But as they say repetition is the best way of learning. She is wicked at recalls up to 50m and covers theat distance pretty quick to and luckily pulls up without sending me flying lol.

Its good to hear that some people are into obedience traing whippets too soonwe will rule the agility ring lol

 

[turb065]

Agreed Whippets can be a bit hard to train compared to other breeds, but thst is the joy of training one. Agreed they do seem to have a bit of ADD which i dont think is abnormal for a sight hound. Luckly for me crispy is very food orientated, although she tends to vauge out after about 1/2hr of training.

For those O/S what does your bronze/ silver/ gold standard mean, as in what must they achieve to get these standards. To me bronze sounds like a trained dog certificate to me and gold sounds like CD title?

My biggest prob training crispy is seperation anxiety, which is a massive prob in grade 4 as it entails doing a drop stay for 3min at about 5m distance to pass (see my prob). But as they say repetition is the best way of learning. She is wicked at recalls up to 50m and covers theat distance pretty quick to and luckily pulls up without sending me flying lol.

Its good to hear that some people are into obedience traing whippets too soonwe will rule the agility ring lol

 

[jezza]

My signature describes what my whippets think about obedience :lol:

In fairness, I think that their rubbish trainer is to blame :-

I took Molly for a beginners course of obedience and she actually suprised me, she was quite good. But I think unfortunately I have a shorter attention span than the dogs! I would love to see the whippet obedience team in action, does anyone have any videos?