That's it! Time to show off what you've learned in the class! Please post your graduation videos here. Also, let me know which one of the training videos you would like to get as your graduation gift and I'll send you a download link.
Puppy Oct graduation
 Silvia Trkman is known for bringing every dog, from her first dog on, to the very top of the sport. Her dogs are known for great speed, tight turns, running contacts and long and injury-free careers. Silvia is in agility since 1992 and is– 3x World Champion (with two different dogs)
– 5x European Open winner, with 4 different dogs (Lo, La, Bu, Le)!!!
– National Championships podium and World Team member with every dog she’s ever had – National Champion for 22-times (with 5 different dogs of 3 different breeds) – World Team member for 19-times (mostly with at least two dogs at the time – sometimes four 🙂 ) |
Copyright Silvia Trkman, 2010-2016; All rights reserved
Hi Sylvia, please could I get the healing video. Thank you so much have loved every minute.
Sure, but the process is to first send the graduation video and then you get a certificate and a video as a graduation gift.
Working on Kalhy graduation video. Hope to show you our work tonight!
Yay! 🙂
Hi Silvia, Hi classmates!
So that’s Kalhy graduation vidéo!
We really enjoy the class, that was so fun, so instructive…
I’m a little bit sad that’s now over. Hope to see some of you later, maybe in an other class 🙂 I want to thank you all and specially Silvia for this great adventure. Take care of you!
Very cool video, GREAT job with the tricks! What a handstand!!! Loved the side legs too, what an impressive balance! Great speed, focus and enthusiasm too, a real joy to watch! Let me know which video you want for graduation!
Very fun video ! Fine that you go on to master many tricks that I still not have enougth time to do !
I can REALLY encourage you to join foundation with us : she will do great with her entousiam in agility !!!
She is PERFECT! Congratulations!
Ups, it was me not logged in 😉 Really like your job and your pretty puppy 🙂
Great video, Iris! And yes, come join us in AF!
I would choose Speed & Conditionning please! Thank you so much! Maybe we will join Foundations class in the next day… 😀
O.k., sent! Hope to see you in Foundations, I’m sure Kalhy will love it!
This is my graduation video, which is unlike the others. I’m not very good at movie editing, and the simple program I use takes forever to put anything together. And I have all of Silvia’s DVDs anyway. But I did want to share this. I took this class with my puppy Tat who is now almost 8 months old. Today I just sat in a chair with my video camera and stared at her for 1 minute to see what she would offer. How many behaviours do you see that could be shaped into a trick? 🙂
All the tricks are certainly fun to have, but the best part of this class in my opinion, is developing a thinking dog that wants to interact with me. Thank you Silvia!!
Brilliant! 🙂 She sure looks ready to work!!! 🙂 Next video coming out next week, so you can that one! 🙂 Sending the graduation certificate!
Ha! Very cute, Louise!
Sammy graduation video is done. Just disputing the copywrite issues. I used the same argument Diane did. Lets hope they let me use my choice of music -- it’s perfect, since we live in “Africa”!! 🙂
You still didn’t get approval from YouTube? Looking forward to see the video!
No -- it’s pending and says should be resolved by 15/04/2012. Which feels like ages away but hopefully they sort it out before then.
Hi all, I don’t know if anybody is still checking these posts, but I thought I would write anyway.
Dash, the now 13 month old Papillon in Istanbul, just earned his “Trick Dog Champion” title today. This is from Kyra Sundance’s organization: Do More With Your Dog. First you have to earn four earlier titles by doing increasingly-difficult tricks in front of a witness or via video.
The TDCH requires video that is reviewed by Kyra herself. The dog has to show tricks in 9 different categories, as well as many tricks at a distance or using only hand signals.
Thanks to this class, Dash easily qualified for the first 4 titles. I taught him a few more tricks (such as scent articles, speak, and distance work) for the TDCH. If anybody is interested, I’ll post our TDCH video here.
I highly recommend doing these titles if you are interested. They are waaay cheaper than something like an obedience or agility title, and can be earned from anywhere in the world. The staff at DMWYD is fast and professional. This is a perfect way to commemorate the tricks you learned in our Puppy/Tricks class!
What an enthusiastic dog you have! 🙂 can I ask you how does TDCH works? Like you subscribe, get a list of tricks to teach, and then send your video? Or you can choose on your own what to teach? Any other rule? Thanks!!
You can find out all about it here: http://domorewithyourdog.com/pages/trickdogtitle.html.
The first 4 titles can be earned with only a witness signature. The witness can even be a family member. In fact, if you do it online, you simply check boxes for all the tricks your dog knows at each level. He must know a certain number of tricks from a level to “pass” that level. Then send $20 per level to get your certificates. So basically, it’s on the “honor system.”
There are about 50+ tricks listed for each level. Your dog has to know between 5 and 15 of the tricks, depending on the level. While it seems a bit “hokey” to do titles online with no proof, I think this is the only viable way to get this program off the ground. (I think “tricks” will be a real AKC-type titling sport in my lifetime). I was impressed with Kyra’s organization. They have obviously put a lot of love and hard work into planning everything, give fast replies, and I don’t really think anybody is abusing the system.
For the TDCH title, you have to demonstrate specific skills (such as scent discrimination). There is a little leeway, but there might be 3 choices, and you have to do 2 of them. And you must make a video, which is reviewed by Kyra Sundance in person. So that title carries a little more weight than the ones with witness signature only. That title is $110 for the processing, which is understandable because somebody has to sit down with a very complex checklist and a 9-15 min. video and make sure all the tricks have been done according to the rules.
I highly recommend Kyra’s trick titling organization, and the price is very reasonable. I doubt very much they’re making any profit off of this. It seems like a “labor of love” to me at this point.
Oh, if I would charge 110$ for every 15min of a video I watch AND comment! 🙂 But then, my only two titels are World Champion and National Champion 🙂 -- we don’t earn any other titles in Europe 🙂 But I certainly agree it’s a nice way to promote doing something with the dog!
Ha ha! Well, the first four titles are $20 each. Only the final title is $110, because it is reviewed by Kyra Sundance herself. And only 35 dogs have ever gotten that title, so she’s not getting too rich from the trick titles. 🙂
Ok, thanks a lot! But I agree with Silvia, it’s nice to promote activities to do with the dog, but it’s still not very cheap… And Silvia, what’s national champion title? Is it like a winter cup, something like that?
It’s when you win National Championship… Not sure how to describe differently… Each year, we have three National Champions -- one in small, one in medium and one in large -- just like World Champions, just that it’s on national level. I basically just wanted to say titles are very US thing and I don’t think many Europeans will decide for that program.
Ok, so you have a certain number of trials that count for national championship, then those that pass it go to finals where the winner is national champion? We don’t have a thing like that in Italy, just a single trial at the beginning of the year, only open to pedigree dogs, which winner is national champion…
Dear Anonymous,
I’m not sure what country you’re from, but $20 to earn a “title” is unbelievably cheap in the USA. For an example, in AKC agility there is a 10-20% chance of getting a passing score at the upper level. The dog cannot make a single error, hesitation, or knock any bars. And you need 3 qualifying scores (i.e. perfect scores) to earn the title. This means that you’ll spend an average of 10 full weekends to get that title. And a weekend including entry fees, gas, hotels and food averages $200 if you stay in the cheapest hotel (or sleep in the car, as I often did). So about $2000 to earn an agility title. Even a very accurate dog at the novice level is going to cost about $400-800 to earn a title.
For agility or obedience championships, which require many more qualifiers, the typical number people say is $10,000 for the entries, travel and hotels.
Even with this, there are many Americans that have dozens of titles on just one dog. I have never been rich, but spend every penny on dog sports. My 9 year old Border Collie has 25+ titles in 8 sports, and I’m sure this probably represents at least $2000/year in expenses each year of his life. This does not include training classes or seminars, or gas driving 6 hour round-trips for sheep-herding lessons. 🙂
So a $20 title, or even a $110 one looks like quite a bargain to me!
For Silvia: I thought FCI had classes A1, A2, A3. I assumed they also gave titles like A1, A2, A3. But I read the rules, and there’s actually no mention of titles. I’m shocked. So you can have a great dog that beats hundreds of other dogs… but if it’s not the BEST in the country, you get “nothing”??? Eeeek!
Exactly. If you don’t win, you get nothing in terms of putting behind your dog’s name 🙂 But we see it differently here. We don’t travel to trials to get from one degree to another (that’s easy and being in A3 doesn’t really mean so much you would need to put it behind your dog’s name -- every reasonably fast and accurate dog will get there) or earn titles (as we don’t) -- it’s just a life-style, a social event, an opportunity to compare your dog’s times to others and to check how good you are at getting through the courses. That’s our reason to do it. It’s much cheaper sport in Europe as in US though, so we mostly have young people, students and high school.
Sharon, it wasn’t an accusation, I wasn’t saying that I think Kyra Sundance is making people pay a lot of money to have fun with their dog or things like that, I was just saying that TO ME it’s a bit expensive… Of course if the only other possibility is, as you say, $2000 to earn a title, $110 is very very cheap yes! 🙂 And as I have already said, I for sure find it great to promote activities with the dog! 🙂
Sylvia
I don’t know if I should call this a graduation video. Maybe an end of class video fits better. What with switching in the middle of class from Lance to Tessa due to injury and other things going on in life, we didn’t complete much of the work. I thought Tessa and I would work on more this spring but then she hurt herself and was on crate rest for a month. Rather than drag things on, here’s Tessa’s video…
Great job! Tessa is so cute, love her fast little feet! And you actually mastered quite some tricks afterall! Let me know which video you want for graduation!
We definitely need your “Tricks for Balance, Strength and Coordination video.
In your mail! 🙂
Yay the copyright dispute for the music on my graduation video has been resolved!!
So here is Sammy’s graduation video. We thoroughly enjoyed this class and in between Agility Foundation continue to work on the various tricks.
Sylvia if we graduate please can we get your “speed and conditioning” video. Thank you for a great class.
Very cool! Great job! The video is in your mail!