For those interested in participating in another contest, here are my thoughts but I'm open to suggestions/ideas prior to the "offical" post...

Participants may select one of two behaviors; tracking (either FST or Circle) or object identification.

Each behavior will have three levels: Beginners / Novice / Advanced. Votes will be tallied in each of the three levels so beginners are not competing with the pros...

Beginners: Trainers who have not trained many behaviors and/or are just getting started with their training skills.

Novice: Trainers with more experience but who have not competed in formal competitions and who do not participate in Schutzhund/Mondio, etc... This will probably be our largest group.

Advanced: Those trainers who have competed professionally and/or who train formally with a Schutzhund/Mondio group.

There will be a deadline toward the end of February.

Prizes for this competion will be braggin' rights and the warm encouragment from all the wonderful folks on LB (actually, everyone will get this).

I'd encourage folks to film from the beginning through the end; we all love seeing the progress and I know I learn something every time I see someone going through the process.

I encourage EVERYONE to vote. No feelings will be hurt - we are all here to learn and become better trainers. NO VOTING FEAR NEEDED. (Don't make me call anyone a voting weenie... )

Any other ideas/suggestions?

I am in! beginner with mt 2 boys!

Would like to be part of the next training session but as for me I am unsure how to train any of the three and
don´t have a clue about tracking...
Maybe if someone would like to post on the basics of training that...don know...

 Quote: Elizabeth Anderson

Would like to be part of the next training session but as for me I am unsure how to train any of the three and
don´t have a clue about tracking...

Then I would choose beginner's object identification.

This can be a very fun thing to train as a kind of variation of fetch, for example, or just touch.

And in fact, for beginner level, I imagine that you might limit it to just two different objects. Barbara?

Great! Let's have a contest!

Here is the tread with some great info.

Can I use some of the tracking videos I've already made with Danni?

Great idea Barbara! Love the levels and the behaviors selected!

I do have one suggestion - what about changing the "Advanced" category to - Those trainers who have competed professionally and/or who have trained formally with a Schutzhund/Mondio group for over 1 year.

I think folks just starting out in a club can really still be learning the ropes of everything themselves.

 Quote: mara jessup

I do have one suggestion - what about changing the "Advanced" category to - Those trainers who have competed professionally and/or who have trained formally with a Schutzhund/Mondio group for over 1 year.

GREAT suggestion - just what I was looking for in this post.

And YES - we can limit the item identification portion to three items.

Ana - thank you for attaching that link; I would have been searching for it prior to the "official post" and REALLY appreciate you digging it out.

I'll wait until tomorrow for the offical post to give other folks time to chime in.

And YES Katie - you can use videos you've already posted - just in which ever category you believe is the most appropriate. This one is not restricted to a "new" behavior since we are including those folks who have been training "professionally" - they will have already introduced tracking, most likely. I would assume for most of us however, it WILL fall into a new behavior category.

I agree with Mara! I DO formally train with a SchH group, but we're still total noobies to the sport. (Have not done our BH, or TD title yet)

Having an 'untitled SchH folks' and a titled category as well, maybe?

How about Beginner, Novice, Advanced and Professional?

Advanced will be those involved in sports/competition for under one year/not titled; Professional will be over 1 year/titled.