lab and poodle

K9, you again didn't answer the questions after making assertions,you didn't debate the point , you had another go at me, yet you don't know me. what the hell is wrong with you? I really wouldn't want to be associatted with you or your methods if this is how you behave. Of course, you must know everything, and my input on shock and associated issues is not valid. I am glad you have 27 years of experience with electronic engineering and can completely bypass this. You wont give me the data, yet you continue to assert stuff about the safety and nature of the collar. I promise you that if I had a need to buy one, I wouldn't buy it off you. To the moderator: I have no desire to be on this list, it disgusts me. BTW if that vid for your pysio friend was meant to be a demo of prey drive training, it certainly didn't do anything for me. Some one should tell her.

I so feel for you. My OH got stalked by a colleague on a course which dealt with mental health issues. We were dam worried and she wasn't a realtive. As my OH has had 16+ years of experience in the mental health field, and we both have experience in using dogs in mental health settings (there is amazing stuff going on) . You can PM if you want for some suggestions, contacts. It is tricky, sometimes scary, and sometimes a bit hurtful. It can also be very uplifting sometimes. There isn't a lot of room for generalizations though!

"[if you knew RT's or e-collars, you'd know for descriptive purposes it's less of an electric "shock" and more of a "stimulation" (albeit aversive/unpleasant)." I would disagree on the wording (stimulation instead of shock), but agree with the main thought with what I can glean. I would happily post my sources for my disagreement, but frankly it is a red herring and IMHO a distraction form the real issue.I should have isolated Dr Holmes comments "but were far from a desirable training method" about training as you might not agree with this. For this I am sorry.

I am going to state my opinion which is founded on the little facts that I have been able to collect. I am paraphasing Dr Holmes who appeared as a witness for an E collar company in a case against Hugh wirth et al.. He said approx that the e collars were unlikely to cause damage to a dog but were far from a desirable training method. He also suggested that they acted as an unpleasnt slighly painful agent. I believe in this case that the process of discovery allowed that this was so. Erny agreed with tis finding in an earielr posting. I do not think that e collars are a worse /better adversive than many others. The question mark is a) Do we use adversives b) When do we use adversives, what situations why? I am annoyed with the unwarranted perrenial personal attacks in this columns. As far as I am concerned they say a hell of a lot about the self discipline and subject content of those that to do it than the recipient. I always wonder what is going on that it is requred that people stoop to these levels? We aren't pollies! It does not attract me and believe you me I read very widely, search widely,can easily put aside differences if neccessary and incorporate lots of different parts of methods into my work with my dogs and others. one may wonder what the hell ther is to hide when stuff like this happens. I have a further question from K9force. How is it that the level from an "e" collar is regarded as a stimulation? Is it to do with the drive model of a dog's behaviour, or is it in comparison with a TENS machine in physio? How do you compare the operation of each? I would like to see facts, figures, and references please. As you can imagine, I am an Amateur, and do not spend a lot of time musing about these devices. Such info is easier for you to find, my be your physio friend(s) can help you. I don't mind interpreting data in my role as an engineer or have another do it to once and for all get a reasonable idea of how these things work. BTW MDS sheets are a cop out crock of shite. I think with a MDS sheet was written for water, they would have to warn of its drowning and overdose effects. I am suprised about the citronella /electric collar comparison. Last I heard it was the other way around.(80/90% success rate, Dr John Fisher mentioned in his book Dogwise). He also suggested that based on reaction tests done on dogs in a controlled trial, they reacted in a completely different way to cintronella. I would like to know how to got to your number, how many dogs you tested, what variables were in the trial. etc. It is so different to these other numbers that I wondered whether you had considered publishing it along with your methodology in a peer reviewed publication so others in the dog world may share your knowledge? It is so startlingly different to these results, truely remarkable.

Look I think the tests are perfectly fine well balanced scientific foolproof tests as it makes both of mine look like einsteins and they are the two best dogs in the world . I am not breed , owner blind , or searching for a particular set of skills either.

I think your timing must be very good, you must have an innate sense of your dog's needs to be doing so well. I have a poodle, who isn't a foodie by any stretch of the imagination. If I put her tea down and asked her to drop, she would but would then try and get me to pick her up and have a cuddle first. So I gathered that she likes cuddles. So I just have to make sure that the nighbours aren't watching before I do any training. Some practicals:IMHO with classes, about 90% of food troubles are If you are grazing, it might be time to stop. My vet says it aint so hot for the dogs in any case. Sometimes (of course I don't have trouble with this!) we have a tendency to overfeed our dogs. The old rib feel test is not a bad one. I sometimes train her before breakfast. Thats as far as I go with meal manipulation . My top total winner food treats are 1) herb sausages 2) Dried Lamb 3) Dried Fish I use about 5 or 6 others too. If you PM me, I will give you the email address for lamb and fish When I have time, I will post a topic on simple palatability testing for your dog . Did you know some labs can actually distinguish between the meal and the plates?

"But that's what these working dogs are SUPPOSED to be like!! " I sometimes wonder wheter the popularity of the lab as a "Family dog" has detracted some of it's working dog ability's. So many I see in class seem well, flat with no get up and go. A few can't even retrieve. I notice that a lot of these do orignate from backyard breeders.

"are they pure bred labradors, they move so fast and jump so well". I often got asked this question with my boy, sometimes by judges in obedience, sometimes by otehr Lab owners.!! Now it is he isn't 13 is he? he is so lively must be 6 or 7. My lab can't move that quick. Yes they should be muscled and fast and have a ton of endurance, and they shouldn't be huge.They should have a waist and be on the move and you should feel and see their ribs. They should go up steep river banks like there is nothing in the way. If they can't, they are a show pony. My preference is towards the working end, and been the great working dogs they are if you chucked them in the agility ring they would pluck an AD from somewhere. The problem is that "the pretty little black thing" (that's what i think my old boy calls her) that I also have would have been around the ring 1/2 way again. Also, got to give something else to the BC's to bloody win!

intelligent, they can turn the most sternest trainer/handler into a quivering mass of malleable softie!???? I don't know, but if someone told me ten years ago that I would have a poodle and having lots of fun with her, well I would have laughed my socks off. She can manipulate me into letting herself sit on my lap, she sometimes gets "taxi rides" to the door (she makes me pick her up) you know the rest of it. On dobermans, I must say I have heard the comparison about GSDS and Rotties and what the police say in other countries as well! The one I heard is that GSDS would go for it and go on about it aftrewards, rotties would simply go for it and be slow about it, and dobermans would send their masters. I have met a lot of fine female dobermans, one biting my own dogs bum (he nearly deserved it. They seemed to snipe at each other for ages..weeks and weeks) and a couple of very intimidating males. One time my OH let me sit while we were visiting some people while this dobe sat in front of me staring me down, wouldn't let me move or speak for at least one hour (I think) until his dam owner stopped yabbering and noticed my plight. She then suggested that our dog play with him. we let him out the back, and 15 sec later, I swear there was a brown lab trying to knock the door down and get let back in. I guess he got a bit of his own medicine.

Based on one on one samples, My poodle is smarter than my lab in most things, but dosen't get close to him in some street smarts such as "since i am not allowed to have a bone in the house, if i balance it on the door frame will that count?" and stuff like that. He has a superb memory. It is very easy to see why they make such good guide dogs. You might try to use say three destinations from your house and attach names to them, and see how quicky your dog learns them. Form my observations over a decade or so, not being objective either, I would have to say that the BC's I have seen are generally very smart, almost too quick for their owners. GSD's are usually very good too, if you can get past some of the temperament problems. Goldies are consistently smart,right up there.I saw a goldie out perform my little girl from week to week, but tailored off due to lack of owner interest. I have a theory that JRT's are often over looked becuase their owners are just not quick enough with them. Now I haven't seen a slow NSDTR either, (sometimes a bit shy tending towards fear aggression??) and I would fancy my chances if if they didn't have a long coat. That way I would get my OH to agree to have one. I think that choice of training method is important too, becuase some dogs aren't that good with some training methods. To be honest, there are only a few breeds I wouldn't do much obedience with, but I still like the dogs and can appreciate them for what they are. These are dogs roughly in the hound and mastiff sub groupings. There are a few toy breeds that are a bit hard to work with too!!

"Sue Hogben" .You super lucky people. I can't believe your luck. I think i will shift!!

I don't live in Perth but, Northern Suburbs Ob. Club has an Aus. wide reputation since Gina O'Keefe (Head Instructor) there has been running seminars in the Eastern States. Gina has top trialling results with scores of 199-200 and the club is run using positive reinforcement techniques. You lucky perthites. I would travel many miles to go to a club where she teaches....

I am very happy with how my young dog is turning out. I have taught this one with positives, Mostly R+ P-) mostly clicker, but a bit of drive developement and manipulation too, but in some ways layerered her experiences which is very sound educationally. Other than the basics, I have taught her the foundations of many things including retrieve, SD, heeling etc.In many dog club structures the dogs get heeled to death and turned off at a very early age.If they get this near perfect then they go on. ( i sometimes joke that this is the way BC owners make sure gundogs don't take over the obedience world )This isn't a great way to teach handlers or dogs. By the time a few dogs get through this and get to trial, the only ones that then progress are those that have an enormous retrieve drive. Time to check the retreve end of things out is at 8 weeks when you bring him/her home. I don't do the detail stuff too often yet, keep the sessions short and sweet almost tease her a bit. I have done tracking with her, and am progressing this as she took to it like a duck to water. A real pleasure to track. Great in dog school class too, I am very proud of her. I have no intention of trialling her in obedience till she is quite a bit older.(18 months+). Here is a photo of my dog retrieving a SD article at 5 months. I must stress I am not the pushy type with dogs. I back off very quickly when I sense confusion or too much stress.

1 horse leather lunge lead 1 4ft leather lead 1 lab symbol lead 2 lab symbol collars 1 leather collar for lab 1 leather tracking harness (which anyone can have if they give me a good story. too bloody heavy) 1 preimer harness from pawmark.com (very nice) 1 premier easywalk (not used yet) 1 figure 8 harness from sarda workshop (very useful) 1 polyprop lead from sarda workshop (really nice) 4 lab sized dumbells 3 SD kits 1 set of Sd leathers for seek back 3 sets of white gloves 1 Halti for lab Untold toys for lab UD frame buckets plus planks for jumps broad jump set box for jackpot Poodle 4 leads 3 collars (including poodle one) 1 premier harness (really nice) 1 polyprop tracking lead from pawmark.com (really nice) 1 Halti 1 set of light weight jumps (on the way) 1 agility tunnel 5 dumbells 1 set of 20 UD metals Untold toys and she is only 7 months. don't worry she doesn't get to use the jumps yet.

"Can I train my labradors to herd? Sure with training. Are they going to win and/or be good or naturals at herding NO. Would they be suitable as guide dogs for the visually impaired with the correct training. No. " This is a good point. I got a poodle becuase I wanted an agility and obedience dog who could do tracking. With all the will in the world, you couldn't call Labs elegant precise dogs. I personally wouldn't put a Lab around an agility course that was built to standard. And I certainly wouldn't expect them to do completely brillantly in tracking, (becuase they trail and becuase I probably wouldn't be bothered about it) BUT I think they are bred to be a retrieving dog par excellent, and If I wanted a working sniffing,SAR hunting dog I wouldn't look further. I would probably do a little obedience to show what they can do . The poodle is an entirely different type of dog,and mine could do well in any of agility ,obedinece,tracking becuae she has the innate drives ability and temperament. But if I got lost in the bush i sure as hell hope they send a lab after me!

They often then choose to ignore them and try and dance around their lack of knowledge with the "dont like small dogs" quip, or "keep going and he will get there eventually". Yes. I have seen a fair bit of both sides know, and having a bad back myself, I have a few things to offer some folk who have smaller dogs. I have become a great fan of targetting to get behaviours, and getting dogs to catch treats early on. There isn't much point luring with a treat when you are like me and your dog is well out of reach. Of couse clicking or bridging is pretty good too. Getting the food drive up a bit can work too. With a bad back, bad left side, i had a hell of a time teaching my little girl to heel, but she does and is geting pretty good. Talking about nerves, how many dogs could take getting stood on 5 or 6 times and still come back? Not a hell of a lot.

"Obedience Trials". You enter them as an Associate. My old lab is registerd her as an Associate because we didn't export him properly from NZ.

Answering both. We got our first dog together a lab as a pet and occasional hunting companion. He is a high drive dog, (Prey, fight remarkbly for a lab ,and Pack) and it took me ages to learn how to use it. Which is why I got involved with dog training in the first place.Structually, he leaves something to be desired.He couldn't meet his ability becuase of his structure. Dam. Quite hyper for a lab. We will be buying another lab some time, I have things to do with a Lab. I will be looking for lines that have tons of energy and drive and good structure. I have only seen a handful of dogs that get close in Victoria. We could well move in the wrong circles though, as I would think they would be in rural circles. I could not imagine having a low energy dog ever again. Our little poodle is very very good. For a poodle she has strong prey drive and that is pretty strong. (Poodles were originally hunting dogs)She is very fast,confident and elegant. Nothing seems to spook her. She is very well bonded to me. Structually she is very sound and strong and has a lovely face. She is very smart and has very good duration between rewards already. She is a good tracker. Our next dog will be a Standard poodle (size difference to avoid the perpetual status jostling). We have an eye on the sire but you know how things go. if she doesn't get right to the top, it won't be her fault.(jeez that makes my life hard!!)

Daim's my "old boy"..(sadly recently passed) could be left in a room with a steak on the floor & wouldn't touch it, as long as I didn't leave the house itself....Zillah's well on the way to learning that ...mind you..the "stand down" command is taking a bit longer...the new pup next door is just too interesting! rofl! Aus My still living Lab can be left in the car with the groceries next to him, and he won't touch a thing whether we are in the car or out of it. He gets excited when we get to the end though becuase he might get a treat. I have no problems dropping food on the floor and he certainly wont go for it. I also leave my treat pouch in the car next to him when we go to the dog club. He never bothers it. I don't growl at him, and it would be several years since I did.( I am not suggesting that a reasonable growl might be a useful tool sometimes) He is no softie at all (He was quite a "leadership challenging" dog in his younger days). He sees his roll as guarding the resources for his Alpha dogs. Guarding is often the role of subordinate dogs. He knows that trying to get resources directly is very often a waste of time too.Thats my theory and I am sticking to it!!

My lab ate his way through one of the big ones to get at the treat inside. He is the sort of lab who would file his teeth on the footpath to eat old vomit,. My poodle likes it as a toy but isn't in the top echelon even with treats.

"I have to say that Paps, Poodles and Shelties and a few other breeds whilst not "real dogs" in many serious obedience types eyes, are grudgingly acknowledged as able to compete with the best of them." I have to say that when I got my min poodle, I wasn't interested in making up the numbers. They seemed like an ideal obedience dog to me! She is very nearly as manic as my Lab when it comes to retrieves, and is a great tracker. She has the most wonderful gait is naturally elegant and precise, and learns so fast, I feel like it is cheating. As you can see from my moniker, i also have a Lab so i have seen both ends size wise, but being the naive Kiwi that I am, i never would have thought how much predijuce exists towards smaller dogs until I got mine. Papps are very much flavour of the month in USA agility. They are smart, clever fast gutsy little dogs. In Victoria thare are at least three tracking champion paps. I would never turn one down!!

Yeah, I know I am as soft as butter and I train using "Positves" BUT No dog of ours is allowed on the furniture No dog of ours gets to be on the bed till they have an obedience title, and they are fully compliant with off. My old dog sleeps next to the bed in his bed, my young dog in her crate in my line of sight in an adjacent room. In the early days we used a cover. I find that a bit of exercise and some training really helps the young ones to sleep through. We sorted all this stuff out well before we got our new pup. My young dog is much smaller than my old dog so the hierachy is hopefully very clear. It is. It is important to establish leadership, and i know how hard that can be, but you need to move on after clearly establishing this. I have found that the hard words and shakes etc are just not needed and can be counterproductive. This dosen't mean that you don't need to act in a firm and fair way. We have dogs as companions to enjoy their company, not to have another pain in the bum like an unwanted relative or workmate. As for the whining, I have just been through that, and we chose to treat it as an invitation to go outside. worked really well. Pays to pick up toys etc before nightfall though. I was really agin correcting for whining becuase I don't like picking up messes off the carpet becuase my dog is too scared to alert to wanting to go outside.

"How did you teach scent descrimination first? All the books/articles I have read on scent descrimination for obedience assumes your dog already retrieves." This process is very long to explain, very short to do. My old lab had a very strong retrieve drive and when presented with a pile of discrimination articles would go out and get the first article imaginable. I tried nearly every method known to local trainers and in the end, sent away for Dawn Jec's book. I set up a pile of 20 metal objects (not so nice to retrieve) and scented one with a small treat on it. Well, within five minutes he had the guts and within 10, he was discriminating all types of articles. I tried for over 4 months to get this,and I am no flakey when it comes to effort. it was one of my better moments in dog training. I had one more minor problem, but you can have the fun of sorting that out yourself. With my poodle, I set a pile of 10 metal objects up, and put them to one side of the door.I scented them all. For about three days, I would walk her past these object as we did her training. On the third day I "let" her have a look at them as a reward. I cued a word "look" to her first reaction which was to sniff all over the articles. I then started adding unscented articles, which she would visibly ignore. I clicked and rewarded for this. I then had only one scented article left which she searched for , found, couldn't help herself picked up and bought back to me.I "let" her bring it back to me, and then she ran around and around the garage with the metal article. She will reliably scent discriminate now, and thinks metal objects are fun. This method is contained within the clicked retrieve by Lana Mitchell I have used compulsion on my lab for tracking corners and faster retrieves, in the past, and it had less than satisfactory results. It just seemed to confuse him, slow his learning process down, take ages to fix. Hence, I would sooner not bother.If it is neccessary in the future , we will stay at home and smell the roses. It is a bit more fun and effective for us.

I would never ever do that to any dog for any reason what so ever. I would check the inherent prey drive and if it exists work on it, if it is very poor, I would look at Shirley Chong or Lana Mitchell "The Clicked Retriever", and to really throw a bit of confusion in the mix, if you dog has very low prey drive, or very high retrieving drive, I would read Dawn Jecs and teach scent discrimination first. I taught my little poodle to do scent discrimination and return with metal articles at the age of 5 months. I can show you a photo, and am only too happy to help if you PM me. There was no force, a lot of fun, and a bit of manipulation.

And I always though clicker training was so unreliable... Must tell my two!