poodlefan

Dalmation? ACD Pointer (you can tell everyone its a Standard Beagle )

Be fair. Ms Le Couteur acknowledges that it's an exposure draft and that there are issues that need to be further addressed: "If they’re younger than the legal age, the animals must be sold with a ‘desexing voucher’. Certainly there are some tricky issues with this and we’re looking at how exemptions might work - for example where the dogs/cats are sold to someone outside the ACT, or are for breeding/showing. These are the kinds of things we’re working through, and submissions will be helpful." It's a pity she didn't consult more widely to address some of those issues before publishing it. She might have ended up with an exposure draft that met a better reception from govt. As it stands, its scaring the crap out of quite a few people. I don't know how some of these issues are "being worked through" but its certainly not being done by actively consulting with the organisation that represents quite a few dog breeders.

GWP's are pretty big dogs. How about a Flat Coated Retriever? You could show it too!

I can tell you. None. We're working on that right now though. No point in being able to have a license to keep a dog entire here when the Greens' bill makes it illegal for a breeder to sell ANY pup entire. It would be the death of ACT bred pups in one dog generation. I'm sure that would make some animal rights groups very happy. Dogs ACT is responding to the draft Bill.

Given the lack of accuracy that results have shown, I'd be saving my money.

Maybe so, but a child should NEVER be left unattended with even the best of conditioned dogs. You just DON'T do it. Exactly Liz .......just had a call this morning from someone enquiring about one of our staffyx pups which is up for adoption and what they are like with children .Turns out they just had their 4 year old kelpie x pts for biting their not quite 1 year old baby ...........she was letting the baby pat the dog on the head whilst eating to teach the dog to be good around food All I can hope is that the owner learned from the experience. Pity the poor dog paid with its life for the lesson. And people keep doing this.

Yes, it pays not to confuse lack of interest in jumping through hoops for an owner with lack of intellect.. Deys good problem solvers those skinny dogs. Tick the WIFM box and watch them go at it.

Greyhound?

Perhaps not. I sometimes think its got more to do with the relative size of the hand to the dog than any conditioned hand shyness. Each of my poodles will duck their head to avoid a hand being placed on it - the Whippet doesn't care. None of them have been hit on the head.. unless you count the time I made Ted see stars by clobbering him with a kong on a rope. Putting something the size of a garbage bin lid to a larger dog might produce a similar response in some I reckon.

We do 15 minute training sessions broken up into 3 lots of 3 minutes on and 2 minutes off. Up to 2 sessions a day, an hour apart, and this dog did 4 sessions over 3 days, I think. Impeded learning is a bit different to no learning. She may well have been stressed, but if she's still interested in a bit of puppy milk my guess is she's not so stressed her learning would be so significantly affected as to put her so far behind other dogs. She was a bit nervous about the marker tone to begin with, and she's the only dog we've had that has startled from the tone and then got over it. I wasn't going to say she had a learning disability, I just wondered if it was possible. Possibly I'm making a false distinction between her and some of the other dogs we've had problems with, but there's no way for me to tell, really. She makes me wonder and I wondered out loud in public to see what other folks may have experienced. Your other option Corvus is a dog that's been "disciplined" for nose touching.. food, plates, people.. Some folk aren't above back handing a sniffing dog. That would be those of the "get out of it ya mongrel" school of training. I wonder if foot targetting would produce a different result.

I've only had one sustain damage.... chewed up by the Whippet.

I've been using Ezydog collars for years and never had one break. My dogs don't tend to strain on their collars though. I use the type in the picture.

Corvus: Perhaps if you had offered the purpose of your study, we'd not have gone off track. I assumed your premise had something to do with how dogs learned. I understand that this is a scientific study and not dog training. However I think its a fair enough comment that you can't conclude a dog has a learning disability because a standard method you're applying hasn't worked. You have already modified your standard method for this dog and that didn't work either. I offered some possibilities as to why. So did others. My suggestons were targetted towards helping the dog 'get it', not your study results. Your premise that shelter dogs would be no different to random sample of dogs is potentially flawed IMO. The primary reason dogs are offloaded in pounds is because they have unwanted behaviours.. behaviours usually controlled by socialisaton and training. My guess is that a random sample of dogs would find a higher proportion of dogs trained to offer behaviours with the expectation of reward than your test subjects. That would probably change your findings. Maybe the dog doesn't like bonox.. ?? From a TRAINING perspective, I'd also suggest varying the reward. Different foods could produce a different result. A dog with low food drive might also respond very differently to a non-food reward. Maybe the dog's just plain stressed.

So much for the concept of shared risk. I'm glad human health insurance companies don't share this philolosophy.

I love the Ezydog collars.. the poodles got new ones for Christmas!

Fair enough but you'd have to watch your conclusions.. Most trainers would probably say the training methodology is flawed before concluding that there's something wrong with the dog. "one size fits all" style trainers don't tend to be very effective. Haven't you already tinkered with the methodology by rewarding in front of the target?

My initial reaction is to remove the reward tray and only offer a reward when she touches the target. No visible reward/tray might be less distracting. Sounds to me like she's confoozled. I don't have visible rewards when I target train. I don't even like bum bags where the dog can see where the rewards come from. Get her to touch the target, click and reward.. even if you have to make the target touch her nose. My guess is there's a lightbulb moment waiting to happen in there somewhere. If she's getting the treat when she's touching the target, she won't associate the touch with a subsequent reward. Try this.. touch the target to her nose. Click and reward. Do that about 10 times and then stick the target millimetres in front of her nose. No visible rewards and no reward tray. Reward by hand. Jackpot like hell for the first unsolicited nose touch. Some dogs need baby steps and have to be helped to make the connection.

I honestly believe that some dogs (and probably more handlers) are not well suited to free shaping. It's too stressful for them. For some dogs showing them what you want gets better results. I find dogs frantically offering behaviours or tuning out can be consequences of free shaping gone wrong. I figure they're not dangerous animals where free shaping is the only option and most of us don't have endless time to wait for behaviours. Show the dog what you want and reward it - works for most handlers and its certainly how I teach. A stand can be taught very quickly with luring and a hand on the stifle if necessary to prevent a sit. Horses for courses... a good handler will try a range of methods to get a result. A good instructor can teach a range of potential paths to the end result.

It would be interesting to know if she's slow learning other things. I've always thought it doesn't get much easier than touch, but maybe it does for her. I expect she at least knows sit on cue. How has she been trained in the past? If she's been trained by "guide and place" methods or trained NOT to do things without a handler cue, the idea of offering behaviour for reward might be totally alien to her. Are their consequences for this dog if she does the 'wrong' thing. I've seen dogs trained aversively that would rather offer nothing before getting it wrong. Have you had the target touching the dog's nose and then rewarding her.. sometimes its technique??? Maybe the target needs to start millimetres off her muzzle?? Has the dog been placed in a sit or formally placed at the beginning of the exercise.. is she holding a position??

Boredom is another reason dogs fail to respond. Try 20 reps on a lot of sighthounds they'll have mentally left the building. I've actually watched Howard run the "this isn't fun anymore flag" up in agility training. He'll just tune out. Dogs that won't be drilled aren't dumb - quite the contrary in some ways!! I can see it now. At no. 20 you go "sit Howard" and he'll go "I"ve already done it five times" .. you want "sit", YOU do it!!" Then of course you can see "learned helplessness". The dog doesn't know what you want and is too stressed to try so they just quit.

It's like those ridiculous "what breed is smartest lists". "Smart" to a lot of folk means "biddable" or "trainable". The fact that a dog isn't turning itself inside out to follow hander instruction or to try and give desireable behaviour might not mean its 'stubborn' or 'dumb'. Dogs have to learn to learn. Some dogs don't give a toss about pleasing you unless there's something in it for them. I have no doubt that there are dogs with brain damage and learning disabilities but it sure pays to look to the other end of the lead before applying those labels to a dog. A dog that's easily distracted, not used to working for reward or that has learned to tune the handler out could fail to offer a behaviour after 20 reps. Or as someone else says, maybe it doesn't give a toss.

Sure can - generally they're called handlers

Go the Triple Threats :D ;) ;) Should that be treats or threats?? sometimes both are applicable.

You really do want to shoot some people don't you :

So another sad set of statistics to prove the warnings ;) Child under 4 - tick Dog with underlying health issue - tick Child unsupervised - tick Child with food - tick I hope the poor little girl is OK. I doubt the dog will get a second chance. All the more tragic because its so easily prevented. How on earth does anyone leave a dog outside in 40 degree heat???