OzPetRescuer

Southern is a great club - wish I had a car cause Id still be going there with my new dog but no, I live wayyyy too far away

You Southern members know you can use the grounds right? as members, unless things have changed, you can go run your dogs any time there isnt an event happening. it is for members only though I believe.

cricket season may be over - but - can anyone smell that? -Yes it's the acrid stench of dirty footy socks!! Most grounds where cricket was played will now be home to the grand old game of aussie rules football!

leopuppy - personally I do not click unless it is the end of a behaviour and I am going to make a change. that change may be to do the same behaviour again (keep the mutt thinking).

So yes - my dog doesn't break when I click but that is probably more closely associated with the release command than anything else. The clicker is a marker of correct behaviour and more often than not it marks the end of a behaviour. I would never however use it as a keep going signal.

Also, Personally I dont reinforce stay - I reinforce what the dog is doing - sit, drop or stand.

Once my dog knows sit drop and stand I teach stay - they learn stay means dont move, but I reinforce the position while training. Stay it really a little superfluous.

Sit, Stay

Sit

Sit

Click/Treat/Release command

Leopuppy - I agree with what you say in so far as when I am teaching a trick or a new behaviour I will break it down and teach the elements. For instance for a spin - I click and reward a head turn, then a part body turn, then a half turn, etc but once Ive clicked the "more advanced" behaviour I would no longer click for simple head turn and so on.

Not a stupid question - actually one of long standing argument.

A click marks a behaviour - but does it mark the start or end of one?

IMHO it marks the end because a treat always follows the click. So if you want a 20 second stay - you click at the end of 20 seconds - if you want a 2 minutes stay - the same applies

You can use a "keep going" signal to help

http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/archives/keepgoing.txt

Sounds like a practiced and learned behaviour

Does he dive straight in under their heads to give them a lick? Gun dogs tend to have a naturally confident stance and that coupled with you saying he does it to dominant dogs suggests that he is envisaging himself as a low member of the pack and is going in with the idea that if he prostrates himself in front of the other dog he wont be killed.

Some dogs pee on seeing other dogs, some dogs lick, some dogs drop

I would suggest some socialising with unthreatening dogs - dogs smaller than him, females, etc. Lots of positive reinforcement when he plays properly (although the play in itself will be reward enough)

And yes, please keep your dog on lead until he recalls - for his own safety.

is the westerport hwy the extension of the cranbourne frankston or the dandenong hastings road?

RIP Thomas

What a gorgeous old girl - RIP

Congrats

Sorry for your loss sags...still love you - have smsed

Thanks for that - it does make me feel better.

For "new" stuff or very distracting environments (ie., dog club) I am using the highest value treats I can. For Stormy these are chicken sausages cut into tiny pieces. Strange that sometimes she seems to prefer liver treats, which, for her aren't usually high value. One of my biggest challenges up to this point was that she didn't appear to be particularly food motivated. One of her biggest things is that she likes to meet new people, but I haven't quite worked out how to harness this into her training.

perhaps not feeding the night before training might help - or using a toy? My dog loves a game of tug or fetch as much, and often more than, food

Kabana?

Liverwurst?

Cheese?

Blue cheese?

Liverwurst and blue cheese are messy - but whats a bit of mess between friends?

I am interested in what you mean by getting my "marker and treat tighter" - I'm afraid that I don't understand and I am definitely open to suggestions.

I mean the time between the click and the treat. It needs to be as instant as possible. Perhaps go and charge the clicker again? practice without the dog. get someone to hold something - a ball, an erase, anything heavy enough to drop without breaking stuff - have them drop it at intervals - your goal is to click as soon as they open their hand to drop it - youll find you get more and more accurate with practice. this will help with capturing behaviour.

And then in the last week or two, she suddenly seems to be beginning to understand "training" - starting to link commands/hand signals to the required action and beginning to understand that she has to perform the command to be rewarded. I am concerned that I will take to long to phase out treats and that she will become "dependant" on them. I'm not in a hurry, but I'm not sure how to tell when is the right time.

Is she understanding more or are you getting better as a trainer?

There is no such thing as treat dependency for dogs - its our dependency that is the problem - once you have a behaviour as you want it - then start to wean - but someone will need to teach you how to wean effectively and this isnt the thread for that Im sure

You sound like you're doing just fine - congrats!

squeak - if it makes you feel any better - it takes at least 6 weeks for a new rescue dogs real personality to come through and then another 6 weeks for them to really bond - in most cases, especially if theyve had no real leadership before

perhaps you do need to work on getting you marker and treat tighter - perhaps use more high value treats - etc - but in essence you are only now starting to work with the real dog - from here on in take it as a new thing - go slow and most of all enjoy yourself and your dog

NW - would never phase treats out til I felt the behaviour was well and truly learned

Say I have a dog - I want to teach it to press that button...

It does it within 5 reps

I go away then come back - dog immediately does the behaviour

I consider that learned - however there would still be generalising and proofing to go through to make sure the behaviour is really learned

A human example might be driving

you learn to drive - then you can drive - does that mean you dont get more adept at driving as you have more experience?

I think I just phrased myself badly in the last post - I can see how you would read it like that

I meant I would not consider a behaviour fully trained til the dog was weaned off treats and was able to perform the behaviour on cue in most situations without need for reward

spoke to my vet about the exact same thing last night

he suggested a laxative - human one - nutralax? said just give her one.

a behaviour is a behaviour - if it is reinforced it will be picked up and kept

it just seems that unwanted behaviours are picked up more quickly because they annoy us - like my latest arrival learned from my senior cit to bark and scratch at the door for attention

It would depend on the value of the behaviour to the dog no?

say I wanted my dog to push a button - if every time he pushed the button a treat fell out - and he was food focused - he would learn the behaviour quicksmart. If he wasnt food focused...then it wouldnt be as quick

Dogs do things to get what they want - quickest way to teach a behaviour is to make the dog think that what you and they want are the same things!

However, I also think you need to generalise a behaviour and wean off treats etc before it is well and truly learned - I guess it is up to individual goal identification