Sports and performance activities will be found here
All of our training is reward based; for instance, when the puppies are very young they learn that white tiles are places to find portions of dinner so they are classically conditioned to want to go to sniff the square, white scent cloths when it comes to competing. For the distant control exercise, we play
Going to a National Championship with a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, is kinda like going to a sword fight with a pocket knife. But I know that going in. I have shown performance Staffies for almost 15 years now. I just love the fight!! The fight with myself, to prepare my dog to his or her…
Trilby was the oldest Stafford I have ever had in the thirty six years that I have been lucky enough to own the breed. She was the last of my dogs to be directly descended from Staffords I bred and showed years ago but she was never destined for the show ring, although, on the…
Do you discourage or encourage fellow competitors? Do you tell them their goals are too lofty and their dreams too big? Are you trying to be helpful or trying to keep them from accomplishing something that you never had the ability or perseverance to do yourself? It is equally as harmful to steal joy by…
…at this level, we owe it to this great breed to teach them social skills. Many people do not understand the Staffords temperament, that they are second to none with people and yet their interaction with other dogs can leave a lot to be desired, the way forward for our breed is as Good Citizens.
Staffords are not normally associated with Obedience or any of the other dog/owner related disciplines but there are many Staffords competing in these sports, successfully throughout the world. Whilst excepting that not every Stafford should or would be suitable to compete competitively, early socialisation is very important to teach an acceptable interaction with other dogs…
The first time I watched handlers walking a Rally course, talking and giving hand signals, pretending their absent dogs were performing the exercises, I thought Boy, this is dumb. On that day, my Staffie Ace and I were entered in the obedience Open A Class. As it turned out, he never earned his CDX, (Companion…