Aidan

That depends. Dogs can harm each other, too. People aren't dogs, nor do they understand dogs particularly well. Punishment doesn't always do the things expressed in the article, although it can. I know the author, I disagree with many things she says (not just in the article). Diane specialises in getting dogs who live in the same home to co-exist, even if they can't be in the same room together at first. She is very good at what she does, and I would say a better dog trainer than writer or theorist.

I laugh at PP trainers, having to 'baby-proof' their homes,because of their inability to train the dog not to steal their valuable resources. Is this only a problem for PP trainers?

Looking good! If you want to run him dragging a long line use a harness, it keeps the line out of their way and less chance of injury. I also recommend a proper tracking line, less chance of injury to both of you. Grabbing anything else can really cause a nasty burn. Don't ask me how I know this.

This is true, but it cannot be tested here. Blood has to go to Hemopet in the USA. true but they are quick in responding and it is not hugely expensive and well worth the little bit of extra effort.. H I agree, just pointing it out because I've not heard of many vets aware of what needs to be done and most will disregard the suggestion completely.

This is true, but it cannot be tested here. Blood has to go to Hemopet in the USA.

Whatever reasonable description someone might care to make; whether it be physical or psychological or emotional or any of the dozens of other terms used to describe different types of dependence. PM me if you wish to discuss further.

It's not my area of expertise but note that I didn't say "physically dependent", and for a reason. Yes, one of the types of alcoholism (described creatively in the literature as "Type I" and "Type II") is more heritable than the other, however both have demonstrated heritability. I don't believe you will ever find a trait that isn't heritable, at some level.

To be honest I didn't even notice it. Does it still say "SCARY"?

There are many alleles involved, and I suppose you could say that any one of them has an influence on the likelihood of addiction (the journalists certainly do!) If you study a population you will usually find that they have common alleles that are not common amongst other populations, but with behavioural genetics you will rarely find one allele that is exclusively found only in that population. Schizophrenia is strongly heritable. Yet, find one identical (monozygotic) twin who suffers schizophrenia and their twin, who has identical genetics, is only about 50% likely to develop schizophrenia. Slightly more if raised in the same environment, slightly less if raised apart. Dogs are usually fraternal (dizygotic) twins, raised in different environments. Find a dog who has what some would term "weak nerve" and you will usually find littermates who have similar temperaments. My GSD is an anxious girl, and while I was always able to train her and manage her well, it wasn't until I started supplementing her diet with very small doses of tryptophan (a naturally occurring amino acid) that I was really able to get anywhere with her or make the training really stick. For that matter, if you feed virtually ANY dog a tryptophan deficient diet (say, one based on corn with not much else) they will become what we might call "weak nerved" soon enough. How much depends on their genetics, and very little on their environment. Lots of factors. One model of gene x environment interactions is known as the "diathesis stress model" (Kendler) and it makes a lot of sense and has a lot of data backing it up. It proposes that individuals have a threshold for developing disease or mental health issues, determined by their genes (diathesis). Once environment provides enough impetus ("stress") to cross this threshold, the problem occurs. So, give someone enough booze for long enough, and they will eventually cross a threshold and become dependent on alcohol. It also makes a lot of sense in dog behaviour, for e.g. my GSD only required a slight deficiency of tryptophan (the "stress") to cross that threshold, whereas my Golden could eat corn exclusively for a month and just end up with a bit of dandruff and maybe an ear infection.

A good way to think, IMHO. The nature-nurture debate is not dead, although I don't believe anyone would seriously pigeon-hole any particular behavioural trait as being either all nature or all nurture. Google will give you quite a lot of information on the heritability of behaviour traits, and if you search using Google Books or Google Scholar you will get some quite good information. Don't search for "weak nerve". Weak nerve (if it means anything) would mean something else entirely in academia. I dare say you won't turn up much specifically related to dogs, but there will be quite a lot of research on other animals - mice, rats, humans; and topics such as aggression, impulse control, anti-social behaviour etc. It might be simpler to begin your research on "heritability of alcoholism" for e.g, which gives a very good overview of the nature vs nurture debate and I think it has many strong parallels worth consideration. This is a good starting point: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh21-3/210.pdf (in case you want to know later, the rate of MZ twins in dogs is very low and finding them is cost-prohibitive, so dogs aren't used in behavioural genetics research very much).

He may be a buffer between Joe and Riley.?? I dont know. Joe does tell the others off when he wants to. That's the sort of thing I'm referring to. I can only speculate, but it sounds like if Joe and Riley wanted to have it out they would probably end up in an untenable position. I wouldn't suggest taking him out of the picture to test this theory, but I would put together some sort of plan to reward deferential behaviour (from Joe and Riley) and make sure that Joe and Riley are both under good control.

I'm not sure how this would help get around DD laws? The title still exists, the dog was still trained in bitework, it just isn't shown on ANKC pedigrees. If anything it might potentially expose the ANKC to greater liability for failing to disclose known information about the dog's training, should a titled dog change hands and the new owner was unaware of previous training. Although this is probably not likely either. I'm guessing there are other motivations far less pragmatic than has been suggested.

And I dont believe that punushment simply suppresses behaviour. In some cases with ill timed or weak punishments yes, all they do is temporarily suppress. But the right punishment can extinguish the behaviour. The dog still needs to be shown an alternative if you want to do behaviour modification properly, but that it simply suppresses is a fallacy I didn't say that punishment was ineffective. I said that you can't "unlearn" something, which has been well established. So if something isn't "unlearned", it is still there. If the reinforcers (whether they be the aversive used in the punishment procedure, or some other reinforcer) stop maintaining an alternative response, the punished response returns.

Neither punishment or extinction lead to "unlearning", only suppression. Even quite a strong punishment might fail in longer-term suppression of a self-reinforcing behaviour so most dogs will appear to be fairly persistent over a period of time, unless they are born or made into blobs of fur that don't do much of anything. This is why I usually seek to reinforce an alternative response, or more broadly, give the dog a really good repertoire of useful, polite behaviours with a strong history of reinforcement.

I've never met a dog who likes worming tablets :-)

I have noticed since having a hooman baby that I've stopped spoon-feeding the dogs and pushing them in the stroller.

I haven't seen any data on this sort of dosing. It does seem to be a cumulative effect, or at least, deficiency certainly has a cumulative effect. Sabella gets noticeably worse after 2-3 days of not having her supplement, and improves in about the same time once supplementation resumes. But it does take 2-3 days to notice this, so presumably the first and maybe second day her serotonin levels are OK (but perhaps not optimal)? If you can find some way of objectively measuring results over time you'll have a better idea. Obviously for you to notice that it's time for another dose she must be doing something observable, but whether or not you can get an objective, reliable measurement from that might be a different matter. What I suspect you will find is that you get better results by supplementing for a few days when you notice that she needs it, but I can really only guess. Serotonin is made as part of a cycle involving daylight and sleep.

For those with dogs with sensitive tummies, the oats are probably at fault (unlikely the tryptophan has anything to do with it, although it is possible because most tryptophan supplements are derived from milk). I've briefly covered why they are in there, and also why they are not necessary. Don't be afraid to experiment with leaving them out. The reason they are in there is because some dogs may need their insulin raised a little, but not all. Charli73, if the oats were causing a tummy upset then this could be the reason for whining. It could be that the tryptophan is still effective and I think it's worth trying on it's own.

Indeed it does, I was taking a branched-chain amino acid supplement while trying to preserve muscle and lose fat for a powerlifting competition (I compete in a weight class). It had the effect of lowering the effective % of tryptophan in my diet (amongst other important aminos) and had a rather devastating effect on me. That was actually the reason I did so much research and I'm glad I did, but it was a fairly awful way to find motivation! We're really just a big bunch of neurons, working in much the same way as a computer. Not giving those neurons what they need affects our whole consciousness. It's a good reason to make sure we get mostly the natural foods which we have evolved to eat, IMHO, but that's a topic for a different conversation.

That's OK, the only problem seems to be that you think I have a problem with prongs or that I think these problems are unique to prongs - absolutely not! I was not making a case against prongs, I was responding to unsubstantiated misconceptions made about them. If someone had said "head collars are always benign" or "you can't hurt a dog on a flat collar" I would have responded in the same way.

Hi Steve, K9: well that would be the attaching a fool part, I dont think I would run that test on a flat collar. I wouldn't do it to a dog on a flat collar either, but I wouldn't pretend (as some others have) that I know what the dog is experiencing because I've put a prong around my thigh and given it a quick pop either! K9: Imagine if your dog runs in front of your bike causing a fall, and you or your dog are injured? Regardless of the collar used, there is always risk. The prong collar wasnt designed to be attached to a leash and that leash attached to a bike, or a 6 foot leash and send the dog running. This is simply missuse of the tool? It wasn't purely hypothetical, on p2 of this thread someone shared their opinion that prong collars do not cause pain and that they use one when riding with their dog. K9: I am sure you have seen / heard a dog that has been startled vocalise Aidan? I am sure that I have heard a dog make noise without pain. I've seen dog vocalise in their sleep. The condition was, taken in context, a strong correction on a prong collar. If it's pain, surprise, fear, or whatever - you put the collar on the dog you have to take responsibility for any distress you cause through misuse. If you are conditioned to believe that this distress is "just submission" or that it doesn't really exist then you make the sort of decisions that leads to abuse and causes people to want to ban prong collars. That's not good for anyone. The actual effects of over-correction are not entirely predictable as you would know. Very mild corrections can cause anxiety if the dog does not feel that he can avoid the consequences. Nevertheless, over-correction has some unique problems that are difficult to return from and are hard to predict so we should avoid it where possible.

Not necessarily. I was pretty much told to put my dog (4 month old puppy at the time) in a head collar by an instructor during our first class. I do think a lot of clubs (particularly the "purely positive" types one) do advocate the use of head collars. The RSPCA also sells them.. I don't think we have any purely positive clubs, unless things have changed very recently. I'm pretty sure most obedience clubs discourage equipment which cannot be worn in a trial also. And it's exactly that sort of informed use that I would encourage, and that tends to avoid blanket bans.

I'm not sure if you're addressing me here or not, but I have worked with a number of dogs, mostly aggressive dogs but all of them different. I am not purely positive, and in fact I would say I never have been. This is not a discussion about methods (or even about the validity of prong collars), it is a thread about clearing up an unsubstantiated misconception. I don't believe that adding to these unsubstantiated misconceptions is in the best interests of dogs, nor is the irony good for the value of this forum I don't use a prong collar but I'm not arguing that anyone else shouldn't. Nor am I arguing that head halters are somehow better. OK. The dog yelps, whether it's pain or whether it's fear it's better not to pretend that it's just a mild discomfort if you're correcting to that level, intentionally or accidentally. It's still not good news for the dog running alongside your bicycle if something makes you stop in a hurry, and if you're training then he probably isn't learning what you would like him to learn. Again, not an argument against prong collars. It's an argument addressing misconceptions.

Yes, there are a number of factors. Habituation being a big one. Perception isn't black and white, and we learn from each experience. Put up a new sign on the road in your street and you'll notice it for a few days, then after a few years of driving past it someone will ask you what it says and you'll struggle to remember. But have you seen anything other than pain (or perhaps more correctly, "distress") cause a dog to yelp in the same way? ETA: for the record, I didn't say that only pain causes yelping therefore yelping must indicate pain, which seems to be how Stormie read it so maybe others did too?

Aidan, no offence but a client using a head halter fitted and used under the guidance of an experienced trainer (you) is worlds away from those with no idea who buy theirs down at the local supermarket, put it on their dog and proceed to jerk them around. Exactly, which is why I mentioned the Million Paws Walk. Obviously a group of people interested in animal welfare, but none of them were clients of mine. As far as I know the obedience clubs only teach people how to use flat collars or check chains, so where are these people using head collars getting their education from? And why were those dogs the ones more likely to be walking nicely than the check chain group? Particularly when you consider that people would only buy a head halter if their dog was already a puller (which makes them more likely to be seen pulling and looking uncomfortable than dogs in check chains who may not have ever been pullers). OK, it's a long way off being an actual study but the actual studies do support my observations. I believe myself to be objective, I have no agenda for head collars and in fact I have a few hundred dollars worth in stock that I haven't tried to sell since discovering how effective front-attaching harnesses are. No disagreement from me.