Tabata

This link should be it: http://www.youtube.com/?v=HH8vCblvlSQ Bet you're glad you had that glove on arianwen!

Nat, have you tried free shaping a sit? (you didn't mention it) There's a cute little demo page here: http://www.magicpaws.com/shape.htm

The head in the hole filled with water is, I think, a Koehler method? Similar to his cure for chewing things - take the chewed object, put it into the dog's mouth and gaffer-tape his jaw shut. Here is the passage from Hearne's book "Adam's Task" which contains the extract poodlefan quoted: http://acad.udallas.edu/phildept/wfrank/vicki_hearne.htm

pgm, what makes you think that social reinforcement is excluded from a behaviourist viewpoint? It most certainly isn't. To any socially-oriented species approval and feedback from others can be a powerful motivator. If a dog behaves in a certain way in order to get social approval, that is a reinforcer consistent with operant conditioning definitions.

vpzn, your post reminded me of an article I have bookmarked, written by Bob Bailey about the importance of keeping things moving in agility training - basically saying it is the handler who sets the pace. I wonder if you've seen it - if not, it's here: Bob Bailey on keeping things moving

In OC terms: he is responding to a cue (the other person or dog) which you have trained. Cues to behaviour don't have to come from you. His reward is to go back to what he was doing. This is a game I play all the time with my dog on walks - she starts to sniff something, I call her away, her reward is to go back to the sniffing. We built it from a low level until now I can call her off truly fascinating smells and she literally bolts back to me.

pgm, you say that dogs derive inherent satisfaction from achievement, and that is the internal state which motivates the dog. And yet you define achievement entirely in your terms: “what I mean by a trained dog is a confident, healthy, well balanced, obedient and reliable animal.” Can you tell me what “obedience” and “reliability” might mean to a dog, and why they would aspire to achieve them? What inherent satisfaction would a dog derive from achieving, say, a ten minute down-stay? As far as the definition of reinforcement goes, it is quite explicit in OC. A reinforcer is anything which increases the behaviour on which it is contingent. It is defined entirely by its results. So anyone who understands OC would have absolutely no problem with your statement “…that physical corrections can be … positively reinforcing.” Of course they can. If my dog jumps up, and I give him a leash pop, and as a result the dog jumps up more often, the leash pop has positively reinforced the jumping up behaviour.

I've posted this before, but it's worth repeating: get Turid Rugaas "On Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals", and get the video which goes with it. http://www.canis.no/rugaas/books.php

I think you'd also find plenty of nutritionists who would tell you the exact opposite, that the fundamental principles of good nutrition are a balanced variety of foods, which provides all the vitamins you need and that unless you're treating a specific problem very carefully supplementation is useless at best and dangerous at worst. A good example I can think of would be beta-carotene. It was found that foods high in beta-carotene seemed to protect against heart disease and cancer, but two large clinical trials showed groups given beta-carotene in supplement form actually had increased risk of lung cancer. There's lots of other examples of supplements having unexpected effects. I've never given a dog a vitamin supplement in my life and don't think they've suffered for it. What I do feed is plenty of varied meaty bones (REALLY meaty, way more meat than bone), some fish, a few organs, and a bit of veg. Thats about it really. I can't send you any recipes because I don't use them. The main thing I noticed about the Volhard diet was it all seems SO complicated, I just couldn't be bothered with it. Plus, all the benefits Wendy claims her diet gives my dogs seem to have too - like healthy coats, clean teeth, lack of smell, etc. (Oh, the other thing I noticed was the whole enzyme-thing reared its ugly head again... but I promise I won't go there, Steve ) Hope that helps, although the more people you ask about diet the more different opinions you'll probably get. I try to do what works for me and my dogs and not stress too much about it.

My shy dog had trouble with the food in hand luring, because she can be wary of moving hands in general. So I taught her to touch and follow a target stick first, and then used that to get her to spin - worked really well. I've got one I made from a portable phone antenna which extends - I just shortened it gradually until she would spin with just a little finger twirl as a cue. Turtle, I love that mental image of the two dogs spinning together!