Joschka
 When our German Sheperd Flopje passed on, we did not have a third dog for some time. Though we missed him a lot, his aggression to other male dogs had sometimes been a burden. Boefie (Bouvier des Flandres) and Humphrey (Maltese) were both calm and social dogs who were easy to take out for walks. We didn't need to keep screening the horizons constantly. But after a while, we found this a bit too calm. We wanted another puppy. This time, we chose a large athletic dog we could do many different things with. We got ourselves informed and chose the Dalmatian. We liked the fact that Dalmatians like to always be around you and want to know what's going on. And though they are not a working breed, it's possible to do several kinds of sports with them. A drawback to the breed, we knew, was the fact that especially the male dogs are known for their dominant behaviour towards other male dogs. Oh well, Flop had that too, so we thought we would be able to cope with that.
We went to the Dutch Dalmatian club and soon we got Joschka. He was the pup with the most spots in the litter. And at 8 weeks old, he stood incredibly straight on his legs. I had never before seen such well coordinated movement in such a young puppy!
 Joschka was almost immediately house broken, where Humphrey had taken several weeks to learn that everything had to be done outside. He learned incredibly fast. Within 3 days, he sat down on the sidewalk of his own accord, before crossing the street. He could be (and still can be) incredibly stubborn, but we never gave into that. Humphrey stood above him in the hierarchy for exactly one day. Luckily, Boefie was around to teach him that he was not top dog and never would be under her calm reign.
Obedience
At the obedience classes, Joschka always did well. As a puppy and in the elementary courses he graduated with high marks, often even as best of his level. Then, when he started to reach adulthood, things started to change. The choke chain didn't impress him as much as before and he started to get more and more aggressive with other dogs. That's when I went looking for a different way and found clicker training.
Through clicker training, I taught him to do the retrieve, which had ended in disaster before. With a help from American clicker mailing lists and a good friend who had also embraced clicker training (thanks, Nicky!), I also got a handle on his aggressive side and learned to relax a bit when we met other dogs in the process.
And for the first time, I found a way to teach him to really walk on a loose lead! Before clicker, Joschka could heel quite nicely, but he could not walk on a loose lead during walks.
Agility
We thought Joschka would enjoy agility, so as soon as he got the necessary diploma, we started in agility classes. After a few initial problems with the dogwalk and the teeter, he did nicely. He was very stable with the tire and also learned the weave poles very well, thanks to clicker training. Also the fact that we could do agility, with all those dogs running on the course, was mainly due to clicker training.
Dogdancing
When I discoverd how much fun training was with this new clicker thing, I started teaching Joschka and Humphrey all kinds of tricks. For Joschka, this was great for keeping him busy between turns in agility class. Eye contact was a very important trick - by controling his eyes, I could control his aggression. And agility class provided us with some nice distractions to train on.
But other tricks were great too: figure eights around my legs which we later used for weaving. Backing up. A very steady 'stand', so steady that I could go down on my hands and knees or jump up in the air, Joschka would still be playing the standing game. Jumping over my arms. And many more tricks, partly inspired by what I had seen of dogdancing at Crufts.
This was of course a good foundation for dogdancing once I started doing that. He already knew many moves and I could quickly build up new exercises thanks to all the other tricks he already knew.
In training, Joschka is about the opposite of my Maltese Humphrey: he learns fast, but is easily distracted. Whether you get what you ask for and what you've trained for is always a bit iffy.
During our routine in our first and effectively last competition, Joschka could focus well on me at first. But later in the routine, some tape on the floor, a person among the spectators, anything could suddenly grab his attention. I could get his attention back fast enough, but in a dance, a partner who is intermittently distracted is not ideal. I was actually quite proud of his performance, because this was really very hard for him. And he still came in sixth of the 26 contenders in our beginner's class.
On the Dutch page Dans there is a video of our 'routine'.
Joschka is now quite a stable dog and a lot easier to handle around other male dogs. However we will always have to keep an eye out for trouble and take measures to make sure that everything stays calm and easy. Having Joschka has given us the ability to do that. Joschka has taught us so much. His aggression pushed me to find other, better ways to train him and he helped me find this great method which has brought so much joy and fun to all our training. I'm still learning as much as I can about dogs, and Joschka is the one who really started me off on this wonderful journey.
Joschka and Kari (Sweden, june 2006)
Josch is slightly whiter around the nose and ears
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