Wobbly

Plenty of anecdotal evidence though, the science will probably catch up in time. Remember also, that all stress is not neccessarily bad. There are good stressors too. I get a sort of yawn as an expression of pure delight - when she's been asleep and i come home the greeting waggles are accompanied by little yawns as she struggles to make the transition from deep sleep to deep delight. I wouldn't worry too much about your own anxiety affecting your dogs, it probably does but you also have to take into account that it's you your dog is bonded too, and your dog would be unhappy anywhere else. Nothing in life is perfect for humans or dogs and so long as you look after your animal to the best of your ability and ensure that all his basic needs - health, food, water, exercise, affection, boundaries etc are in place he's doing well and his life is good. A bit of stress here and there is OK, it's a part of life for any living being. It really is so context specific, so many expressions do double and triple duty. Ultimately the yawning probably stems from homeostatic behaviour of some sort (cooling the brain, extra oxygen intake - noone knows exactly), so I agree it's probably not a premeditated communication, but since it conveys information about the dogs physical and mental state (these being ultimately one and the same - mood is a function of neurobiology) it does communicate useful information. Just as a reflection of the fact it's not neccessarily bad stress, here's a pic of Miss Jarrah yawning. She's yawning here because I am persisting in circling her with the camera, she's not sure what I am doing and she'd probably really rather i ceased this perplexing behaviour, hence the yawning. She's not undergoing any kind of distress here though, just mildly bothered. Stressis not neccessarily distress. Life is full of pressures, you can't shield your animal from everything, they need to have some ability to cope with not having their every whim and preference indulged at every minute of the day. So here's Jarrah letting me know exactly what she thinks of my circling around her with the camera. She's not impressed, but it's not a distressed yawn by any stretch.

It's great to hear you're feeling better BC! I'm looking at a radical nephrectomy (or however you spell it - it's all been happening to fast for me to keep up) on the 15th so totally sympathising with you right now, surgery sucks. I am going to look into a tread mill, thank you so much for the idea, although my husband assures me he will walk Jarrah while I can't. My husband loves Jarrah, but letting her walk him (and she does walk him) is so counterproductive to everything I am working toward. There goes my all my focus work... Anyway, at least he bush walks so he won't set me back on cat reactivity at all, which is a big mercy. Corvus, chicken camp tomorrow, how will I recognise you? I will probably be in jeans and a black hoody, black converse (usual uniform) with lots of long brownishy hair. I am so looking forward to this!

I don't think they failed an intelligence test, so much as haven't been educated. There is a difference - it's not willful ignorance, it's just lack of access to knowledge. They take for granted that consumer law is protecting them when they buy form a shop, when it isn't. These are mums and dads buying from pet shops, they have a lot on their plate already, and they don't have enough education on the issue to realise the origin has such a huge impact on the quality of the dog. It's not that they're stupid, it's that the necessary information doesn't have an opportunity to penetrate their consciousness enough to make them ask the right questions.

That's the thing though - educating the general public that the best way to get a pup whose health, temperament and structure can be predicted with any reliability is to go to a good breeder who understands their dog's genetic inheritance inside out and going far back enough to account for recessive traits that may appear. BYBs don't normally account for the reality of heritability further back than the parents, puppy mills most certainly don't. The public doesn't understand I think that if they aren't going to a responsible breeder, they're at the mercy of pot luck, they might get lucky and get a sound healthy pup, but they might not. It's certainly a big risk to take. And I think this is one big reason we are seeing a lot of bad bites these days. Historically dogs were bred to work, culling was carried out, generally poor specimens didn't get bred, but nowadays, the largest market for dogs is the pet market, no culling occurs, breeding for money or misguided sentimentality (let her have one litter, because she's cute and we love her, and the kids should see the miracle of birth etc) is the order of the day, and it's becoming very problematic in terms of genepools. Education is required. When dogs were working animals, the people breeding most of them had a good clue aboiut what they wanted and what they bred and why. Not so now, and it needs to be addressed pretty urgently IMO.

Hi Jigsaw, I just replied to your email. I am really, really hoping that I can have a lesson with Denise on the 15th. I will let you know as soon as the Doctor gets back to me with a date. Thanks again for organising this, I am really, really looking forward to it!

From someone with a dog who is not bred by a responsible dedicated breeder, I support this. I am here to tell you first hand, if you don't have a good pool of breeders, who are dedicated to the improvement of the breed, understand the principles of heredity and have a solid understanding of their own dogs' gene pools over multiple generations, the gene pool ends up in a disastrous state. There is no homogeneity of structure or temperament. People get pups from BYBs and they can't know what to expect, the whole point of selective breeding is to give you a solid idea of what to expect from a pup (ofc genetics is by nature a bit random, so you can never have full control, but good breeding programs are the best way to produce good healthy dogs that display all the correct physical and mental characteristics of their breed). The lack of really good American Pit Bull Terrier breeders in this country has put the breed in a disastrous position, dogs are poorly bred by clueless people who have no concept of hereditary mechanisms or the importance of careful breeding, and temperaments can be very dodgy as a result, it's a terrible situation. The APBT breed club in this country is fantastic, but right now all their time and energy is taken with simply saving family pets from ill conceived legislation. And the legal situtation means it's difficult, if not impossible for them to promote and support responsible breeding practices. It's a dire situation. I'm not a breeder, and never will be so I can't help you with where to start, but good on you. The future of dogs health, temperament and structure relies absolutely on dedicated knowledgeable breeders with sound breeding programs. The general public lacks awareness of this.

If you can't see Chris' pictures, try to actually click on the name at the bottom left side of the pages he has linked to, that brought them up for me.

Yeah Purdie there is different types, the moderate type is preferred. The breed standard stresses that the breed should be moderate, not overdone. Structurally, a breeder should be striving produce the most athletic canine it is possible to produce, the ideal is physical perfection, a structural capacity to achieve feats of strength and agility that other dogs can't. The moderate shape allows for the best balance of optimal agility and optimal strength. Unfortunately there is a tendency in some circles to breed for big bone and stockiness, which detracts from agility and thus from the ideal of overall balanced athleticism. These are the dogs that can withstand any amount of physical pressure without giving up, that's a function of temperament of course, but the structure must be resilient and athletic enough to back up the determination. Different breeds are compelling for different reasons, The Spotted Devil recently wrote of how she feels priviliged to watch her Springer Spaniel working in the searching/hunting capacity for which she was bred. I know exactly what she means, except with Am Staffs and Pit Bulls it's their athleticsim that is the mind blowing aspect. I used to be mesmerised, especially when my dog was younger, watching her climb sheer sandstone walls almost catlike, swim for hours, the untiring the agility, strength and endurance is mindblowing. I really like the Redboys site, I don't think I have ever seen any of their dogs in the flesh, so can't comment on what they are actually producing first hand, but I think the comprehensive information on the site is really great: http://www.redboysamstaffs.com/amstafftype.htm Chris, I would urge you to really research the breed, know the history and understand that as an owner of one the the most powerful, agile and determined breeds ever produced, you have a higher level of responsibility than owners of many other less physically able breeds. It's well worth knowing and understanding the history of the breed, The Redboys Amstaff site is a pretty good start, it has a nice blend of historical information and covers a range of topics owner now need to know. Diane Jessup's UltimatePitBull and Working Pitbull sites are also fantastic and I would urge you to do some research there too. Enjoy your pup, they are a lot of fun to own. Staffyluv has been finding Ziggy is naturally excelling in obedience, for Jarrah I found her supremacy was in pushing herself physically, they are all rounder dogs and have the capacity to excel at whatever you choose, be it mentally or physically demanding. Be careful with the physical exertion while he's a pup though, he might be inclined to push himself beyond the capacities of his physical endurance, they get something stuck in their head (eg must get that frisbee at all costs) and won't give up where a more sensible dog perhaps would, it can lead to sports injuries when the dog over extends himself, which is something you need to keep an eye on especially when he's young.

Oh he's really cute. They go through all sorts of awkward looking stages, so long as he seems healthy and happy, he'll grow into different body parts at different rates, expect a leggy stage and judging by his dad there'll probably be some pretty funny ear developments too, AmStaff ears can be a whole other thing. Quite fascinating to watch a dog grow into them. Just enjoy watching him grow up. :D So long as mum and dad were healthy looking, confident friendly dogs, it's pretty likely your pup will grow up to be very like either one or both of them both in structure and temperament. I think your pup's breeders are idiots, breeding dogs is a huge responsibility, red noses can crop up in American Staffords but it is a breed fault and a responsible knowledgeable breeder wouldn't have bred from such a dog. Or worse, the breeder flat out lied to you and are calling a Pit Bull an Am Staff. Mum looks more pitty to me, she's pretty. I personally don't support the breeding of American Pit Bull Terriers in this country right now because I think so often the people breeding them don't have a clue about what a well bred APBT should be like in either temperament or structure. Thus they have insufficient knowledge to maintain or improve the traits of the various lines, the breed in Australia now is scatterbred, unpedigreed and not really true to the ideal anymore. There may be a few breeders of American Pit Bull Terriers in this country that are producing well bred dogs, but very, very few. So I do really think the breeders of your pup are total idiots and should get a big kick up the bum. Barring the more extensive understanding of the pup's genetics that a good pedigree going back many generations would have given you, all you've got to predict how your pup will turn out is the parents. Both mum and dad seem to be good looking dogs, they're the best indicator you can get of how things will turn out for you. Out of that Russian Roulette of irresponsible breeding you can get lucky, your pup is gorgeous. Enjoy him.

No. You are wrong. If your decision is to get a rescue dog, you can make an informed, well considered choice, but you will be unable to identify breed.

I lol'd XD I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to discuss the technicalities either, I'm just hoping constant exposure eventually results in at least some of it sinking in to my poor overloaded brain. I can just see Corvus cringing every time I use a phrase like "reward system". :laugh: I promise I will get better, I might take longer about it than the average though. Raineth, It's great you're seeing improvements. I'm not sure if there is a "correct" way. Every dog is different. We aren't looking for a strictly defined behavioural end point. All we really want is to acheive is to ease any emotional distress for our dogs as much as possible. To improve our dogs, and our own quality of life as much as we can, and results will really vary depending on the dog. I tend to think that so long as you are seeing an improvement, the dog appears more at ease and able to cope with triggers, you feel your dog's stress levels, and your own are reducing, then you're doing it right. It's so individual, I think the only real comparison that's truly valid is comparing your dog's stress levels now, with those in the past.

We need to recognise that all these explanations are only models, a convenient representation of reality, not reality itself. All models are limited, and all come with their own strengths and flaws. Which model is most appropriate depends upon the situation.

I found an interview with Panksepp that is probably worth a read for those with more enquiring minds: http://ec.libsyn.com/p/2/1/c/21c401f2f9b95978/65-brainscience-Panksepp.pdf?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cf8531d9cf5fde03&c_id=1521543 I don't actually see any conflict between Steve's methods, or Garrett's and even Panksepp's research into the neurological underpinnings of motivation and reward. To me they all seem quite complementary, although terminologies do seem to obfuscate that. There was a conversation recently in which reinforcement rate came up - Fenzi and Nekhbet's preference for a reduced reward rate vs McDevitt's preference for rapid fire reinforcement. On the surface these approaches seem to be polar opposites, but to my mind they are complementary, which approach you choose depends on what you are trying to achieve in a given situation. The more angles you approach it from, the greater the likelihood you will develop the more comprehensive understanding you seek.

That' great news Corie! Staffyluv, Ziggy's prgress has been amazing. Your descriptions of him remind me so much of Jarrah, except you are a way more experienced trainer than me, so you have got these great results so fast. Congratulations again! I found a really great interview with Panksepp that outlines some of his research into understanding emotional response on the basis of neurological evidence. There is no philosophy here, so it's really much simpler by comparison to some to the other more popular explanations for behaviour. The really interesting stuff for us, pertaining to motivation and reward systems is more toward the end of the interview. http://ec.libsyn.com/p/2/1/c/21c401f2f9b95978/65-brainscience-Panksepp.pdf?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cf8531d9cf5fde03&c_id=1521543

I really like the Skinner Pavlov continuum idea, that's a great way of looking at it, I didn't actually really have a mental schema for relating those, though I tried a few. But they were all unwieldy, and didn't lend themselves to a visual idea, the slider image is a nice clear one to work with.

I'll second this, I got my dog when she was about a year old, and none had taught her not to bite. It can become a very deeply ingrained habit, and it's not an easy one to deal with, since it's highly reinforcing for the dog, biting feels good. They have no way of knowing how much it hurts, all they know is that find it enormously satisfying. Even now that my dog has clearly understood it's unacceptable behaviour for over 5 years now, i would consider it to be what Susan Garrett calls an "Iceberg behaviour" - that is, a potential problem that must forever be navigated around. In practice all that really means for me is that while other people may be able to play with their dogs without intermediataries like toys, and others may be able to use say their shirt sleeve for a tug reward, or overlook a bit of mouthing here and there, I don't have that luxury. Nipping is something that was so heavily reinforced for her, so late in her development that it's an iceberg and I am always aware of the fact I need to navigate around it. Consciously aware of it. The fact that it's only playful nipping doesn't reduce the severity of the potential problem, if she were to resume the behaviour, and nip someone they may not see it as playful, and it could mean a dangerous dog order. It's not something that goes away nayurally in my experience, since dogs intereact with the world using their mouth, so the urge to sink teeth in is very natural. It's something that you need to deal with, don't let it go on too long and let it become so highly reinforced it becomes an iceberg. Even though it's a playful non aggressive behaviour, it still has the scope to be problematic, bitey behaviour is simply not acceptable, and could get your dog into serious trouble regardless of the emotion driving it. I don't for a minute think you'd let it get to the stage it got to with my dog, or MUPs dog, there's just no way any owner who regularly spends time with their dog would permit this kind of thing to continue into adolescence and adulthood, because it really hurts. But just want to point out that it can become a very difficult problem indeed, and the sooner you get onto it, the better really.

Right no, i totally read drive as meaning DOL drive. I was confused and thought you had capitulated. Pleased to hear you haven't. I love the fact we are unravelling the physiological and chemical basis for emotional response. It's not essential knowledge by any means for the average person, but I do think it helps clarify ambiguities for myself. I had a bit of a fascination for the human neurobiological basis for emotion some years ago. At the time (1997ish) only Le Doux's work on fear with rats was widely known enough to be translated into popular science for the layman (which tends to be my preferred reading material, working with limited cognition capacity as I am). I am delighted to find that this has been so massively extended upon, I have a lot of reading to do. The labelling of drives gets kind of ridiculous, how many drives can there be? But I think has merit in that it describes the expected reward. If a dog thinks he's going to get food, then only gets a pat, he's going to be disappointed. I don't find the whole prey drive/food drive/social drive compartmentalisation as upsetting as you do, probably because I just accepted it as gospel for so long, I'm desensitised. Don't take misinformation personally. Take a breath, and try to inform. Throw enough information out and eventually some, inevitably ends up getting caught up in people's hippocampal regions, and hopefully at some point it starts to coalesce into some semblence of awareness. Information does filter through. I remember not so long ago (2008) that any and all behavioural problems in this forum were pretty much attributed to dominance theory. Dog weeing in the house? Must be dominance. Dog leaning on your leg? Dominance. Dog sniffing the ground rather than complying with a command? he doesn't respect your leadership, and if you let him get away with it pretty soon he's going to launch a hostile takeover of your entire house. Pity the poor displacement sniffer in 2008. There has been a 180 degree change on that at least, dominance theory has been put in it's place - relevant, since social species sort themselves into hierarchies, but fluid and the conception now has very different behavioural implications than it did when it was the accepted explanation for every unwanted behaviour a dog might conceivably display. You can't keep repeating yourself though, you will go crazy, just have a few good links that explain the basics, and chuck them out whenever appropriate, so you don't burn out on educating the masses too fast. The information will filter through, and you'd probably be surprised at how keen people are to do their own follow up research once they understand it's good information. And LBD I agree, training is big business, and neat buzzwords are good marketing. But here again, giant strides have been made in the past few years, people within the industry are always keen to get an edge, which makes many financially motivated trainers pretty open to learning, and the really good ones are keen to keep learning for their dogs, and their clients dogs sake, but may just be lacking enough information to put them on track. Who ever used clickers in 2008? I'd vaguely heard of them, I think. Now basic local obedience outfits are using them as a matter of course. Dogs in the wild? The primeval sabretooth poodle? BSL is the scab i keep picking at, can't help it, I do take the issue personally. Information does get through, and you can assist in disseminating it. Don't argue on the internet though, I have learnt that with the BSL forum, it does nothing except get you bogged down in irrelevancies. Just present the neccessary information, preferably in quotes and links from authoritative but easily comprehensible sources, if you can (just to save your sanity from endlessly repeating yourself). Always in small digestible bites. It gets through, to some at least. And once a critical mass is attained it'll gain it's own momentum as others start to cite it. Hankdog, don't confuse me with someone who has a clue, I know some big words so on the surface it can sometimes appear that way, but it's misleading. I know as much as you do - slightly different stuff, because our dogs have different needs, but probably about the same total volume, we are both going on a case study of exactly 1 dog, and both only recently discovered that there is an enormous amount of information out that can help us understand. And now we're bothe desparately trying to cram it into our heads Don't let the polysyllables fool you, i am quite clueless. In respect to Jake, his prey response and self preservation instincts aren't correlated emotionally I think. They only look the same because dogs have a very limited range of expression available to them so there's a lot of overlap - eg panting - Hot? Tired? Stressed? It can mean all manner of things depending on the context and the individual. But for people who look in askance when you're giving him treats when he's freaking, maybe try saying something like "i am trying to get him to associate other dogs with good things he loves, like food, it's helping him". Maybe they'll even think about it and consider the validity of the idea (don't hold your breath). Don't get hung up on drives because everyone has different views - there's no real consensus in meaning or usage, and what applies for some dogs doesn't apply for others. Its a common language, and it can be helpful, but often i think it's just as confusing as it is edifying. Just be aware that corrections will destroy motivation for some dogs, as with your corrections with the chooks damping his motivation to chase them. I am not sure if it does destroy motivation or just supresses it, probably varies on an individual basis, for Jarrah I think it would just supress motivation, but she'd get over it, corrections would have to escalate in order to have the same suppressing effect over a period of time, for Jake I can't say. IMO getting to know your dog on that gut level is the most important bit, if the words help, use them (they help me, we all have different preferences for coming to grips with new information, I need to be able to categorise, even if those categories may later become redundant), but your gut can be just as good, better, since the dog is going on gut feeling too.

O wow Zig congratulations! What a good boy. :D :D And a very handsome boy too! It sounds like Jake has come a long long way since you first started posting hankdog. I remember you seemed about at the end of your tether back when you first started posting, as though there was no solution. Now it seems like you're really make huge progress. I'd just say to other people "He got attacked, and lashes out in self defense now, he's getting better.". So long as they can understand his reaction is fear based, and you're having some success in helping him, people are more likely to be sympathetic to both of you about it I think. I'm lucky it's cats, it's relatively acceptable for dogs to look like they want to eat cats, and the general populace don't realise Jarrah's OTT reaction is at root, dysfunctional. I'm pretty grateful for their ignorance. Dog-dog aggression is much harder to deal with, being subjected to other people's disapproval and usually unfair judgements on top of trying to help a scared dog cope just adds to the whole stress. If you can manage to get it across that Jake is scared, hopefully that may evoke sympathy rather than dissapproval and make it easier on you, so you can stop worrying about them and their reaction and just concentrate on Jake? BC Crazy - I hope you're feeling OK now and Stella is still loving her treadmill. It's so awesome that you have that. It's really tricky, and the urge to anthropomorphise to try to understand is overwhelming. I think of it as a massive grudge, but Jarrah is probably pretty much in the same mindset as Erik on this one. I'm not really making much distinction between drive and arousal these days - and I gather you're pretty much of the same mind. I do tend to use drive to describe more useful and controlled behaviours that are perhaps conditioned, and arousal as the undirected version that can tend toward to being counterproductive and out of control. Still the same thing though. I guess a human analogy would be say - anger - controlled and directed it can be a useful motivator for example self assertion. But equally it can be uncontrolled and result in people saying things they regret in the heat of the moment. Same root emotion, at the same level of intensity, but different outcomes depending on self control, confidence and focus. If that makes any sense? It's semantics though, and it's a shame these words have come to mean such different things to different people, because so much time and energy is wasted on debating semantics rather than causes and effects. But yeah, for DOL, the word is drive. Would you pretty much concur with that? In other news, I finally managed to convince my friend who has a big Bulldog type dog and a small Pug to see Steve Courtney. The Bulldog was given to her as a rescue, and my friend is a big softy so she kept him when she probably shouldn't have. He's ostensibly an Australian Bulldog, but who knows what that is exactly, it's about as exact description as Pit Bull, no pedigrees, mostly BYB efforts, so no homogeneity in type or temperament. She's been describing the Bulldog and the Pug having scraps for a while now, and I have been trying to get her to see a proper behaviourist about it for months. She has some young trainer who has styled himself a behaviourist, but it doesn't sound like he's helping much, in fact he sounds moronic. At this point there has been a fair few rehearsals of the behaviour, and this idiot "behaviourist" has had the dogs face off on leash after a scrap, which it sounds like it ended with the Bulldog getting even more worked up - great behavioural advice - allow the behaviour to happen in the first place then restrain the Bulldog in the face of his trigger to build some frustration over it - IDK WTF is that, who is that daft? Not good by the sound of it. Seriously, this term "behaviourist" needs to be more delineated. I've never seen the dogs scrap, and wouldn't presume to give her behavioural advice on it anyway, so I've just spent all my time trying to explain that all "behaviourists" are not equal. It sounds a bit like the Bulldog is predatory (so the restraint face off is really dumb IMO) and is triggered mainly in playing, and I know Steve is really good at teaching people to manage predatory behaviours, (the only reason Jarrah has never hurt another dog in a play gone to predatory state is conditioning in a calm default response to leashed dogs and common sense management in respect off leash dogs program I got from him) so hopefully she follows through and actually sees him before the Pug ends up getting hurt. She emailed him while I was on the phone to her, so it's gone that far at least. She is concerned enough that she will follow through now I think, fingers crossed.

Ahh I have a hardcore ripper and a shredder here. Definitely Yarnell's articles aren't scientific, he is applying years and years of on the ground experience, I found for myself I got a lot out of reading it, especially in respect to the question of shaping instinct vs pattern training. I appreciate the heads up, I can find it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, especially where explanations are experience based rather than based on repeatable empirical evidence. There is a lot value in exploring both avenues I feel, but the experience based writings are unfortunately not peer reviewed so it's more difficult to establish how authoritative a source is. There's a few things there that I don't agree with - silence during tug, and the food sharing particularly.

Whoa! Slow down. Affective neuroscience is still pretty new. Panksepp has the neural side of things reasonably solid after basically his entire life working on it, but how it translates to behaviour is trickier. The brain is so beautifully complex and flexible that we can't make things that do what it does naturally. I figure it's fair to say SEEKING is where it's all at for most training, but I wouldn't go so far as to say all drives fit neatly into it. There's some crossover and plenty of opportunity to be surprised yet. I wouldn't say they were well researched, either. You are finding some great resources. I'm gonna have to start sending you papers at this rate. Drive theory was mostly dumped because it failed to explain learning as well as operant conditioning does, basically. So in that sense I guess because of reliability issues, but only in that it wasn't The Answer. Obviously OC isn't, either, it just explains more than drive theory did. I'm not really sure why it fell so deeply out of favour, but Panksepp might provide the bridge to get these ideas back into the spotlight. I know a few academics in my field that are turning over ideas how to incorporate Panksepp's seven emotional systems into some kind of behavioural model. Then there will be a whole lot of testing to do. Ahh thanks Corvus! "D I am still very shaky on this, and appreciate all corrections :D I have had contact with some of Le Doux's research, (pursuant to reading Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence" many years ago) and found Le Doux's research into the neurobiology of fear fascinating, although I never got to read any of it firsthand since it was hard to track down at the time, the information superhighway then is not what it is now. Panskepp is very new to me, so my comprehension is still very limited. I'd love research papers though. "D

Staffyluv a belated congrats on Ziggy's obedience wins. What a good boy. :D :D Corie I have spoken to my vet about this, as Jarrah's teeth were awful when i got her too, and we have had a few extractions over the years. The vet said yes there is a risk, but you need to balance that with the benefits of tooth and gum cleaning bones provide. IMO you're doing it right, I give marrow bones, but same as you, let her chew the all the cartilage off, and take it away when it gets down to bone so she doesn't chew that. Hank, Jarrah is the same, there's no "right" or "wrong" just reward opportunities or lack of them. XD If you find yourself feeling happy with an outcome, that is probably a good sign, gut level feeling, i find, often turns out to be insightful in my experience. Rational explanation is always better if you can find it, but it is often very elusive. Raineth, the pretend cat freakouts were right after the cat trauma (occurred in kennels while I was away, steer clear of "Sydney Dog Training Centre", Jarrah actually came out of the ordeal a lot better than other people's dogs. It might sort of sound funny, but it really wasn't, it was heart breaking to see the result of what they'd done to my dog. It appears I got off lightly compared to others though: I too got my dog back with an untreated injury, an open wound to her leg, and she was a very different dog coming out than she was going in. Although cowering is not in her nature, she seemed - the best way I can put this is to say she seemed completely detached from humans, and it was some time (days) before she resumed her previous friendly outgoing attitude toward people. I didn't get a greeting from her when i picked her up - in stark contrast to the greetings I get when i pick her up from the (wonderful) kennels I use now. Fortunately I didn't get any obedience "training" done. I had only asked for her to be desensitised to cats, since they had a nice cat (in retrospect it may have been so chilled because it was drugged, or perhaps it was just a really chilled cat). Mainly I wanted her to have a bit of extra human contact and rewarding while I was away, so just picked cats as something I couldn't desensitise her to myself, for lack of a cat. Given the advertising is "non-harsh, reward based" I had expected proper desensitisation, as in dog moved gradually closer (under threshold) and heavily rewarded. That's the obvious assumption, you would think. Incredibly bad assumption on my part, my single most regrettable mistake ever in regards to my ownership of Jarrah. I failed her very, very badly in assuming the training was as advertised. It's difficult to forgive myself despite the fact that I realise self recrimination is not at all helpful. I'm just really lucky that Jarrah's innate temperament has allowed her to return to a balanced psychological state and the long term effects (3 years or so later I think) are only still evident in regard to her response to cats. Dogs don't dwell on the past, fortunately and luckily I don't come across too many cats, so we're OK really. I get the sense that although Jarrah's issues with cats do stem from that horrific trauma (table training?, whats with the leg injuries?) over the years cat confrontation seems to have developed into something of a rewarding activity for her (although it is a neurotic, compulsive sort of pleasure, like an unhealthy addiction, if that makes sense). She will seek cats out, there is definitely reward in there as well as great anxiety and stress. Jarrah is by nature confident, and so it's not unexpected to me that the fear has evaporated to a large degree, leaving this aftermath behind, especially given that cats are small, and she is smart enough to be fully cognizant of her size advantage. I don't understand it to be honest, I am just observing that her fear response (we still have hackles, this is not the pure cat-dog predatory response it should be for her) is all mixed up with a definite dose of pleasure in cat confrontation. Bear in mind when I write the above, I don't understand what's going on for Jarrah emotionally, and so what I have written here is pure speculation, there may or may not be elements of actual truth to my speculations. I am struggling for comprehension still. Despite my lack of understanding, I am very certain that my best possible outcomes do lie within McDevitt & Grisha's methodologies, these are both sensible methods that are helpful for a huge range of issues.

Everything we call "drive" is reasonably well researched and technically speaking falls within the category of dopamine driven "Seeking" behaviours. "Drive" is an easier term to use though, since it's common parlance now, so everyone more or less has a similar understanding. Worth reading about the neurological basis if you find the relationships between hard evidence based science and psychology interesting. A fair layman's treatment here: http://www.emotions-r-us.com/ More technical and complete treatments of the topic can be found by googling "Jaan Panskepp", one of the foremost researchers in the field as it relates to both humans and animals.

Shaping the dogs natural instincts (eg hunting) vs pattern training behaviours that aren't instinctive (eg heeling). Some good insights here, the link won't take you directly to the info, click the "civilian" button at the top. About 50 pages of reading for civilians, definitely worth the time. The shaping of natural instincts is nicely covered IMO. http://www.k9copsonly.com/

Oh she's beautiful. :love: Glad everything's going well for you!

O yay Jigsaw! I am really looking forward to it, and Denise's seminar too! Haha Corvus, yeah, I find know alls very suspect, there's an awful lot of Dunning Kruger effect about I feel, especially in a field like animal behaviour science, where new evidence based understandings are accruing so quickly. I read the article and would love to learn more! I am hoping to bring my friend who is a horse trainer, so all of this is of great interest to her as well. The staffy types are really easy to train within a reward based methodology - they can be motivated by just about everything - very easily amused creatures. For interactive rewards, pretty much anything goes if I can keep it moving, make some noise and it'll fit in her mouth, we play with bits of fluff and stray cotton strands even. But of course for every silver lining there is a cloud - anything moving super fast and looking like it might fit in her mouth is potentially at risk. I think this issue is perhaps 2 sides of the same coin, the very traits that make a bully dog so fun, so easy to train, are indivisibly entwined with the traits that can make some a real problem in the community. I don't want to propound too much on my half baked ideas here, because I am going on a case study of only one dog, who may or may not be representative, depending on the time of day you ask her and what other potentially interesting things might be going on around her. There's also a political side to the issue which makes me even more hesitant to air my thoughts, half formed as they are right now. I will say though that I find predatory based behaviours simple to manage (even I can do it) some common sense does wonders. I needed a behavioural program to follow, but I think that was more about Jarrah as an individual (pound sourced as an adolescent with a very low arousal threshold) and me as an individual (no dog training experience, so a definite commonsense deficit in regards to dog management) than directly attributable to specific breed. And Muhaha Mrs Rusty Bucket - in the first few days I got Jarrah, I had a random Malamute owner on the street I was talking to say much the same thing to me: "She's calmed down, give her a treat!", which I wouldn't have known to do at the time without that prompt. I'm really grateful to that lady, after that I started to apply the "She's chill, reward now!" concept pretty liberally and it was really helpful for me at that point. Sometimes, just sometimes if you can channel that rant exactly where and when it's needed, people may benefit.