Wobbly

IDK I hate to belabour a point (OK thats a lie, I belabour points regularly, totally without remorse). It's very possible to cohabit with someone (or some dog) and not develop a relationship. Life goes on, they're just there. But what a difference if you decide to try! Have a look at this clip (just a random one I was watching yesterday). Do you ever do stuff like this with your dogs? You wouldn't expect your dogs to know all the stuff this dog knows, the essence I am trying to convey is how the owner here relates to the dog. Rates of verbal praise, pats, food, her reaction when the dog is not "getting it" ("you're trying so hard!" verbal and petting praise). The owner summary of this session is here. http://denisefenzi.com/2013/04/23/training-criteria-proofing/ OFC the dog brings his own personality to the table when you begin to work. But barring massive temperament defects, you do have the power to light your dogs right up - rapid fire rewards in return for behaviours the dog knows. Easy peasy. What do you think would happen with your relationship with your dogs if you tried this for five minutes once or twice of an evening? Might your kids want to have a try? You have the dogs already so if building a relationship with a dog (any dog) appeals to you, your current dogs would be only too delighted to bear with you learning how, provided your rates of reinforcement are high enough to make him love working with you. Ash1, great question. Sometimes rehoming really is the best solution, especially if a dog is being bullied. Worthy of it's own sticky topic rather than being buried in many threads like this IMO. Lacking a breeder, I would approach an established, reputable rescue organisation, and see if I could liase with them and use their channels of advertising and expertise whilst I acted as "foster carer" for the dog until a good home was found. Probably a donation to the rescue in return for their help and support would be in order too.

Personally I wouldn't rehome an animal for "not fitting in" to be honest. When I get an animal I undertake a commitment to look after that animal for the term of it's natural life. It's only an animal, it's brain is limited and it's personality, while by no means entirely a function of the environment I create for it and the relationship I build with it, is very much influenced and modified by that. I would attempt to structure my relationship with the animal and it's environment till the animal responds in the way I want (or something approaching what I want), I wouldn't give up on that (in fact I am still working hard on it with my dog). Work with the dog in front of you, as they say. If you were to give the rebuilding a relationship a chance, I think a great start would be clicker training. Watch a few youtube videos of it to get the idea (kiko pup, denise fenzi, turid rugaas etc), and perhaps read "Control Unleashed" by Leslie McDevitt, and Patricia McConnell's book "the other end of the leash", there's a whole world of dog trainers out there on the internets that are fantastic, use the ones that appeal to you most. There's also some pretty amazing dog trainers in Australia who could help too. It will take a lot of time and work for you to learn, sessions with the dogs themselves are short, only a few minutes long each, the vast bulk of the hours is in teaching yourself. Not an easy task, but you will emerge from it a far more knowledgeable person, with a much broader depth of understanding of relationships with animals (and relationships with humans too - operant conditioning principles work there too), which is never a bad thing IMO. No negative judgement here though, if you decide it's best to rehome, and you find an awesome home, then - you have fulfilled your commitment to the animal: You promised it a safe, happy, productive home, you found one, it doesn't neccessarily have to be your home. Just saying the "work with the dog in front of you" bit coz no one else has said it really. Rebuilding your relationship with your dogs is a very valid option for you at this point. OFC it takes quite a lot of work, but the best things in life always do.

I have a really awesome one. It's a Denise Fenzi series on shaping a retrieve. 10(ish - end on high note) pieces of food per session, several times a day. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Such a soft, sweet dog, no way could I offer a fuzzy item like that to my rather more forceful dog, it would be in woolly ribbons in zero seconds flat! XD But it's just lovely to watch this series of clips. You can really see the collie getting more and more confident about exactly whats wanted of her here as the days go on. Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but the dog is focusing very hard on working with her owner. Worth watching. What about target (or touch or whatever you want to call it). Dog touches your hand with his nose. Then later you can use that to lure other behaviours instead of using food lures. That last is from McDevitt's "Control Unleashed" Another vote for that book being awesome, and full of tonnes of focus sort of exercises.

She's doing private lessons as well!!! I want 2! :D :D :D :D 52 sleeps to go. XD Haven't logged into DOL for ages, so glad I did today. Thanks for the heads up on this. :D :D

Just some thoughts, maybe useful maybe not. I had a bit of trouble bonding with my dog when I first got her because she was insane (really hyper, adolescent, no impulse control or socialisation). It took me a while to come to terms with her. Now though, 5 years later, I love her beyond imagining and I can I see that all those things that were so difficult to manage for me at first (her massive drive & ridiculous excess energy) are now the things I love and appreciate most of all about her. I am learning how to make that work for me, not against me. Nut case dogs are the most motivated, it can be hard to figure out how to tap that, but when you do it's amazingly awesome, they are the best dogs, but it does takes some education to get the best from them, it's quite counter intuitive at first. I'd say it took me at least a year to really learn to manage my dog, and thus to bond deeply with her. The more difficult dogs can really change your life in great ways... Today I learned one of my favourite dog trainers in the whole world (Denise Fenzi) is doing seminars in Australia in a few months - I am over the moon with excitement (about 52 or so sleeps to go...) If I had an "easy" dog, who just slotted in naturally to my life, with no issues, I would never know who Denise Fenzi was, since wouldn't have needed to find out. Now that I've had to find resources like this, and really value them, her seminars here are about the most exciting news I could possibly imagine. It'll be like Xmas in July. XD It does sometimes really pay to give them a good chance IMO, I'm really, really glad I persevered with my dog. She was horrible, now she's awesome. And I learnt a hell of a lot of really awesome stuff in making that transition for us. I'd be inclined to give Hugo a chance myself. So glad I did for my dog anyhow. Just a different perspective, maybe worth your consideration? I would absolutely expect a guinea pig to be eaten in my home. Dogs never got the memo that they don't have to keep their owners house vermin free anymore. Their just doing what humans bred them to do there, can't blame a dog for being a dog. Isobel - IMO rehome. It's not an emergency, you have the time up your sleeve to interview loads of prospective new owners. If you genuinely don't trust her with your kids, it may even be best to put her down. Tough decision, lots wouldn't agree, but generally I think it's better to euth a dog who you don't trust (especially with kids, they will push a dog's buttons) rather than rehome.

Damn, just realised handler positions are full. Auditor it will have to be.

OMG! I just emailed to ask for a spot at the Morrisset seminars, hoping for a handler spot with my dog. Only 24 spots though, fingers crossed we get one of them. My dog is so perfect for this kind of training, but I really need a LOT of help. Please pick us, pick us pick us!!!!!!!

I haven't logged in for ages but I wanted to share our success! Jarrah "outs" now! There was so much advice Steve gave us, and it did take me a few days of thinking to get it all straight in my head - it was such a big perceptual change in HOW to think about training this for me. I fear if I tried to explain all the hows and whys in detail I might fall into the Chinese Whispers trap on the finer nuances, and I don't want to be misinforming people on the technique. So I will just outline it very broadly here, and hopefully I explain it right, but remember there's a lot of fine nuances I'm not covering here. The broad overall concept I think is covered really well in one of the analogies Steve gave us - Think of those dogs (often Collies) who are dying for a game of fetch, and their owners aren't really that interested, so the dog will experiment to figure out the best ways to get a game going. Some dogs with really recalcitrant owners will even go so far as to put the ball in that owners hand because in the course of trying different approaches they found that has the best chance of getting the owner to toss that ball. And as Steve said, Jarrah's a smart girl, and I haven't been giving her proper credit for being smart, she can work it out by experimentation too. And sure enough, when I set the scene for her to experiment, just like those those collies do, she did it! So I kept withdrawing my attention from the game to encourage her to experiment with how to get a game going. And experiment she did. It was really Jarrah that got it first, she was trying different stuff, nudging me with the tug and all the things that used to work for her, and then Holy Carp! she dropped it to see what effect that might have! I gave her the best game when she did that! She isn't a collie and I'm not a collie owner, so I didn't make her go as far as putting the toy in my hand - just dropping it was enough for a party. It took us about 3 days (as I said to Huski it would have been a lot faster for her or Steve or an experienced dog trainer, but I had to learn how to do my part too, so I was a bit slow on it). Letting her experiment and figure it out for herself rather than trying to force the issue like I was doing before was a MAJOR perceptual shift for me. Simply amazing. So far we are only doing it in the house and yard. We have it paired with a verbal cue now too. It's early days yet, at this point I'm not using tug as a reward for anything except "out" - I'm still solidifying that "out" = immediate awesome tug reward, making that an automatic cause and effect (in both our minds!). So now I am looking forward and I can see that using tug for a reward for other behaviours (like say heeling when she decides food isn't interesting!!!!) is on the horizon now that she has a functional "out". To me that is just the most awesome thing, it's the main thing I've wanted with her for a long time now, I just needed that help to learn how to go about getting it. I have to say I LOVE this new school approach to dog training where it's about paying the dog to work rather than intimidating the dog to work, when Jarrah "outs" she doesn't show any sign of stress, I've seen some other dogs putting their ears back or lowering their head or showing other stress signals when they "out" and I know there was some conflict for them in the learning process with it. Jarrah doesn't show any stress signs - she might hesitate a few seconds while she makes her decision to let go (it's not automatic yet, but it'll get there), then she looks up at me like "OK, I let go, so pay me with a game!". There's no stress or conflict for her in this because it wasn't forced on her, she does it because she knows it works to get what she wants. I am really, really glad I never took the easy brute force route and instead I went to Steve to learn how to get this without any conflict, it really is amazing how well this has worked out for us. :D :D :D

There's a dog in my street who spends most days sleeping under our truck (in our drive way). I like him, he's a nice dog. He just likes to watch, he's no menace, he likes a pat but he'll only approach people if you bend down and cajole him, he has no interest in approaching other dogs. I know most people on DOL would be up in arms if they saw him: "OMG loose dog, kill it with fire". But he's really no problem, noone on our street has an issue with him, he's no danger or annoyance to anyone, it's a quiet street and he's car savvy so he's no danger to himself either. If you are genuinely worried about that dog being run over, then good on you for doing something. But otherwise I wouldn't, I know I contravene the orthodox DOL view of loose dogs, but I like our resident loose dog. He's pretty old too, and he's been living this lifestyle all his life, it'd upset him to change it, he does no harm and it's nice to come out and see his tail thump in greeting in the morning sun. Obviously he's not the norm, I could never let my dog loose like that, she'd cause havoc, but he's different, I like him there, always makes me smile to see him surveying his domain from the shady spot under my truck. I hope noone ever forces him away from his shady spot with a view of the whole street, he's happy there. No flame suit, I'm sure DOL groupthink will have a field day, and lambast me roundly for that view, but meh. IDC.

There's really just no accounting for the things they find completely awesome sometimes. :laugh: The fact she's not allowed on that chair is a big part of why it's so awesome. The forbidden is so much sweeter apparently. XD I think I might follow your advice Snook & Corvus and look into a thundershirt for Jarrah too, I am really interested in how it might affect her responses to things that arouse her, both serious distress (cats) and serious "omg, must chase!" excitement (zoomying dogs). I seem to remember that something similar, a pressure jacket of some kind, is supposed to help autistic human kids deal with over stimulation too. Yeah agree with the mental stimulation being more effective for tiring them out, I still do find though that I often need to let Jarrah let off some steam by running around before she's able to concentrate on thinking though. Sort of like we might give ourselves a bit of a shake and stretch before we sit down to think. Haha LBD I don't even think an entire olympic marathon team could manage to tire out some of the kelpies I've met. XD For those of you with shell pools at home, I have a question. I have thought about getting one, Jarrah would love it, but how are you stopping the dogs running around your house wet and wiping their muddy paws on your floors after they've been paddling? I don't think I want to lock her out because she see our yard as a bit of a priviliege to earn, it's where we play and I find letting her out there useful as a bit of a small reward sometimes too, so I don't really want to be locking her out there (it's the way it is in her mind because she's only allowed in the yard when I'm home, I don't trust even a 6 ft fence if she decided she really wanted to get out). Do you towel dry before they come back in, or is your house's floor plan just naturally suitable? Great to hear Jake is doing so well, and Justice too - I love that massive grin they get on their heads when they're really enjoying a good zoomy. XD

Actually, on thinking about it, I do know what enabled her to develop those nice manners, and it's relevant so I will mention it. When we went and saw Steve K9pro (the time we went all those years ago when she was abominable, not this time round) and I told him of her madness around other dogs, he told us to get her to sit or down when around other dogs before she met them, and if she couldn't/wouldn't do that then take her home, same with every time she got really over excited in an inappropriate context, take her home. She learned pretty quickly that displaying inappropriate excitement signalled the end of the walk, and she learned being calm (and initially sitting) around other dogs was the only way she was ever going to get to meet them. This is my speculation on what's going on in her fuzzy dog brain: There's responses she can control and responses she can't seem to help herself with. It's easy for her to control her response to calm dogs and do what she needs to do to get me to let her meet them ie - be calm herself, and from there it was a pretty natural evolution for her to greet calm dogs in a quiet calm mannerly fashion, I didn't teach her the manners, the calm enabled her to get them herself. When another dog is running really fast though, even though she knows she only gets to meet that dog if she's calm, she can't really help herself, it's just a hardwired instinct for some dogs to chase fast moving stuff, an involuntary response (I might be very wrong on that, as I mentioned it's a speculation, but I think it's correct from my observations). So I was successful there with her response to calm dogs, but not with really fast moving ball chasing, frenzied playing dogs, that doggy instinct to chase is a compulsion she finds too hard to ignore. When she has the frisbee in her mouth I think (I might be very wrong, again just a speculation of mine) that in her head she already has the prey object, so the instinct to chase is tempered enough that she doesn't need to act on it. Steve gave much better advice than I am able to convey here, but unfortunately at the time my limited understanding made it difficult for me to fully process all the info he gave us properly, I think I only managed to integrate parts of what he told us into my mind in a very rudimentary fashion. I understood enough that it vastly increased our quality of life though. I got the actions right, but I didn't neccessarily really understand the whys and wherefores, so I really hope I'm not playing Chinese whispers and passing on anything erroneous. Another thing that helped (this one was inadvertent on my part, just a lucky fluke I did it right, I was only trying to manage the behaviour there and then, I didn't understand the concept of operant conditioning then, happy coincidence I hit on a good idea). A friend of ours got a crazy adolescent cattle dog and he used to visit our house with him. We have in our house "The Chair That Jarrah Is Not Allowed On" (that's capitalised on purpose, she adores this chair, I block it with stuff so she can't ever sit on it). To her it's the most amazing chair in the whole wide world, she loves it. So when our friend came round with his adolescent crazy dog, I let Jarrah on The Chair That Jarrah Is Not Allowed On. She was so delighted to be on it that even when the other dog was barking at her to get her attention, she wasn't budging off that chair for anything, not even for a dog who was dying to play with her, and expressing that in a very voluble, impossible to ignore way.... And she ignored it! It worked so nicely that whenever a dog came round I let her on that chair, and gave her loads of treats and she just sat in that chair, so stoked to be in it the other dog may as well have never existed. Remaining on the chair neccessarily meant she had to sit, calm and still (and in the house the other dog couldn't run round, meaning she could control her responses easily enough). So that was another very strong reinforcer for her that all the best things in the world only happen if you can be calm around other dogs, that conditioning carried into the world at large and supplemented and reinforced all the stuff Steve told us very well. More ramblings, sorry I'm excessively verbose at 4 am, hopefully there's helpful info there for you & Zig Staffyluv. It's great you can see Cosmolo, that will give you the tools you need. The real turning point for me, in the midst of adolescence was seeing Steve. There is a vast difference between we pet owners, who interact closely with just a few dogs in our lives, and professional behaviourists who put in a lifetime, countless hours of studying and interacting closely with a huge variety of different dogs.

I used to have days like that.... :hugs: Every so often I still say to my husband "Remember what she was like when we first got her?" and we both kind of cringe and shudder at the memory. Dear lord the bad old days. Funny thing was, like Zig she was great at home (once we rid her of the notion that nipping and jumping for attention was good), but a nightmare in public when she got over excited (which was pretty much her permanent state of mind when she was outside the house). I couldn't take Jarrah to group obedience, I did once, but it was such a disaster I didn't go again for years, we do go now that she's over that adolescent madness though. FWIW, just based on my own experience I think you've got yourself a high drive dog, and you're suffering the combined effects of that and adolescence. Not that I'm an expert or anything, I'm completely not, so I may be way off base with that, but your experience does sound so familiar to me. I wish I could offer some really useful suggestions that'd fix it, but I'm no expert dog trainer, I just muddled through as best as I could, and it wasn't easy. I will tell you what I did, it may not be the best way, and for sure other people more knowledgeable than me could probably give you better ideas, but here's how I kept my sanity intact(ish). I got onto google maps and found a place nearby me, remote enough that I wouldn't run into other dogs or people. I checked via the map version of google first, then further with the satellite images before I went out there myself. I had a couple of false starts here, tried a few State Forests (dogs allowed in NSW) which all ended being unsuitable for one reason or another, but finally found a good spot at an old disused quarry which is crown land. I'm assuming Quangers is Queanbeyan? Kowen Pine forest looks like it might be worth a visit to see? it even has a few dams and a river from a quick look? So then I had a place to let her burn off energy, off leash so she could really RUN without stressing myself too much about her abominably over friendly, over excited, hyper manic, nuttiness around dogs or people. Because our spot has dams we played swim fetch, and the swimming really tired her out and made her much more tractable. One of the things Steve K9pro said when we were there the other day, was that perhaps her aggression to dogs (it was never bad, and only occurred 15 or so minutes into a play session with the other dog when she got REALLY excited, no growl, no hackles, just standing a little taller and tail up a litle higher a few seconds before she pinned the other dog) was perhaps frustrated prey drive. He didn't say that with certainty, because he never saw her aggression so he couldn't say for sure, but I guess it was a speculation he felt worth mentioning. I agree completely, 100%, in hindsight, I do think frustrated prey drive was behind a lot of her grievous behaviours. Not that learning tug and fetch or getting her running for 2 hours a day was quick fix, it wasn't. I've learned that, the more a dog does something fun, the more their enjoyment of that behaviour reinforces it, so they want to do that even more, a feedback loop. The high value she had for other dogs and hence her over excitement at seeing them was incredibly reinforced by the time I got her. But when we started avoiding other dogs completely, it stopped reinforcing how great they were, and she enjoyed the fetch so much, that became reinforced, the more we played fetch and tug, the more she loved it, which at least gave me something to get her focus, to get an emergency recall. The frisbee became as fun as other dogs, she became as fixated on the firsbee and playing with me as she was with playing with other dogs. So when her excitement was unmanageable, at least I could redirect it very easily into something I controlled. I did a pretty poor job of it really (no "out") but even the bad job I did helped me in managing her enormously. I remember at the time being told that the excessively high value she had for playing with other dogs could only be stopped with strong corrections. I'm not sure if that's true now, but I believed it at the time. I don't have the stomach for strong corrections, so the only other alternative I knew of at the time was to avoid other dogs altogether, which I did, for years. So every day I would take this crazy dog for a 2 hour run at the quarry and she swam her little heart out (whilst I buried my head in hands and wondered what am I going to do with this nut case of an animal). The net result being that at least I stopped allowing her to get even more reinforced on the idea that other dogs were THE best, most exciting thing in the whole wide world, and started really reinforcing the idea that the frisbee was THE best, most exciting thing in the entire world. I also had to play fetch every evening for a half hour, when she got her second wind. I used balls for that, because the house is less exciting and I didn't want to dilute the power of the frisbee by using it in a boring context like home. Remember the more you allow him to play with other dogs, the more reinforced he'll get abut that, and the more he'll want to. He doesn't sound fear reactive to me, he sounds like he reacts to other dogs the way he does because he thinks it's the best fun in the whole world to play with them, the best outlet he knows of to satisfy all his adolescent excess energy expenditure needs. We humans just can't compete with another dog for chasies and wrestling and speed and excitement. It's a different thing to the nervous and fear reactive dogs, and for our dogs, with their huge value for other dogs, allowing them to play with other dogs is counter productive, it just makes them even more excited about other dogs, not at all what we want. So, 5 years later, Jarrah still has an excessively high value for other dogs, and I do still run the risk of having my arm torn off when she sees another dog running, chasing a ball, playing or doing anything fast moving and exciting looking - she's never forgotten how much fun she had playing with other dogs and how exciting that was. But if I stick a frisbee in her mouth, that is more fun than other dogs, so then those running dogs cease to exist to her anymore, and she acts like a normal dog, trotting along happily on a loose leash with a frisbee in her gob, ignoring the other dogs whizzing past us. It's not perfect, but a huge win given where we started. When she meets other dogs in calm contexts, (when they aren't running), she has actually developed some really nice greeting manners (no idea how that happened tbh, but I'm relieved it did), but only in a calm context. I spent about 4 years only exercising her at the quarry, I probably could have started going down to the dog beach (on leash ofc around other dogs, always and forever now) a lot earlier than 4 years, but well, we got into a routine. We do go to the dog beach now (yay). The other thing I should have done that I think would have helped a lot is tons of training, learning new tricks etc - brain work tires her out more than anything, I did do some, but it probably would have made it a lot easier for me if I did more, I just didn't know that at the time. In the end, we got through it, she's 6ish now, and I am happy to say she actually makes me proud in public a lot these days (and sometimes she still makes me cringe too - when there's other dogs chasing stuff and she completely forgets I'm there on the end of leash because she wants to play with them so much XD But a frisbee in her mouth makes her forget the other dogs and gets her trotting happily alongside me on a loose leash again). None of this is any expert testimony, I am the furthest thing from a dog expert you could ever find, but it really helped me get through Jarrah's adolescence. So they're just ideas for you to consider and maybe try if you think they might have some promise. The only thing I really regret now (apart from the fact she still has a massive value for other dogs, but she had that before I got her, so it's not something I had any say over the development of) is that I never taught her an "out", and that cat thing I've mentioned (that I have been so completely in denial of because, out of sight out of mind is a talent of mine). And on that cat thing, Snook, my ideal would be to have access to a cat that is completely unperturbed by noisy dogs, who I could have in a cage to put at threshold distance, and gradually move closer, lots of treats for Jarrah for calm behaviour. To teach her that a cats presence means good things (and ofc something for the cat in the cage to make it happy and calm too). I've a notion that it would work, if I could do it for a half hour or so every day for however long it took, but ofc I don't have access to a cat like that, so I am going to go to a good trainer to see what alternatives he can come up with. I don't want her to be buddy-buddy with cats, that's unrealistic, but I want to dispell her belief that they are evil incarnate so she isn't so reactive to them. I think inadvertantly that's what Ive been doing anyway with the frisbee, because she has improved enormously over the years with her reactions to cats and all I've really been doing about it apart from avoiding feline haunts is diverting her attention to the frisbee when we do see cats. The problem with using the frisbee is that it's an excitable good thing, I'd rather use food as it's a calm good thing, and calm is what I want. But where we stand now, she's too over stimulated to take food in the presence of cat, I'd need to be able to control threshhold distances for her to be able to take food. Staffyluv, I so feel for you, (and hope your arm gets better ASAP) but I've a notion that if Zig is like Jarrah was - very high drive and going through adolescence is exarcerbating the issue, then things will end up good so long as you just do the very best you can to manage him now, so you get him through the adolescent madness safely, provide him with the best training background you can (and keep as much of your sanity intact as you can), and he'll be good when adolescence wears off. OFC I might be completely wrong about Zig being like Jarrah, so if Cosmolo, or someone else who is really good at dog psychology says I'm way wrong, ignore my bleatings. XD

Haha Staffyluv, I keep reading your posts and it sends my mind back to Jarrah's adolescence. A few differences, but so many similarities. I think you're doing a better job of managing than I did. XD Did you ever try using food a bit like a toy? Like running around with it, throwing it and generally making a food reward associated with really exciting? Just a thought, perhaps worth a try. I've been thinking that you're following the exact same course I was, which worked out well for us - I tried everything that was suggested that sounded remotely hopeful, and kept persisting (even though I despaired at times). In the end I think the main factors that finally made a civilised dog out of Jarrah were the combination of my continued persistence in working with her, combined with the natural calming effect of leaving adolescence behind and becoming an adult dog. I think the turning point for us was when Jarrah hit about three years old, and I found myself noticing more and more often that she was becoming a "good" dog. I think for some of the amstaffs, adolescence is really difficult, the arousal threshold is so incredibly low, and they get so excited that it seems like they've literally lost their mind sometimes (like 50 times a day). If you didn't get the dog as a pup and missed that window of opportunity to introduce them to potentially exciting stimuli in a controlled, calm, unexciting way, it's an uphill battle for sure. I agree with Hankdog, just hang in there and keep persisting with anything that seems to be working. In a years time, when his adolescence wears off and the ADD subsides you'll see the pay-off, he'll settle and become the dog you want him to be. In Jarrah world, I do have a serious reactivity problem that I need to broach. Cats. I have ignored it because we so rarely come across them, but I need to deal with it. I know how it happened and it's something I regret bitterly. When Jarrah was younger I left her at a particular kennel (you can PM me for the name if you like) when I went to India for a friend's wedding. They asked if there was any training I'd like, I couldn't really think of anything - it's always seemed to me that dog training is more about owner education than anything else and so educating the dog in the absence of the owner is a bit pointless. But I wanted her to get the extra human contact and stimulation of training so I said can you make her OK with cats. At this point she wasn't bad with cats, she just wanted to chase them like any normal dog would. In my mind, making her OK with cats would be exposing her to really boring non moving cats, until cats (well maybe only still ones) become a normal part of the landscape, boring. So thats what I thought they would do, since they had a nice cat who completely ignored the dogs and would have been perfect for the job. I imagined they'd pop the cat in a crate and gradually move her closer to Jarrah's run, lots of treats for ignoring the cat etc. That's evidently not what they did. I don't know exactly what they did do, but they turned her into a slavering, raging, red zone maniac whenever she sees a cat (and initially when she thought she saw something that maybe might have been a phantom cat. She's not seeing phantom cats anymore, so she has improved a lot in the intervening years since this happened at least). In the ordinary course of things, were her response to cats only prey driven, the advice we got from Steve K9pro the other day would have quite naturally made cats not an issue. But this isn't the ordinary course of things and there's a lot more to her reaction to cats than prey drive. I'm lucky that I can deflect her interest from cats with a frisbee, which is really my only saving grace with this issue right now. I manage the issue well enough that provided I'm on my guard I don't have any problems, but seeing the progress in this thread is inspiring (especially Justice's progress) and I'm wondering if perhaps rehabilitation is possible. There's only really a problem perhaps once or twice a year when a cat will streak out into view when I'm not ready for it, but it's a BIG issue when that happens, if I'm not fast about transfering her arousal into a positive frisbee/tug very quickly, she'll get worked up into a fear/rage/fight frenzy in a matter of seconds. Poor girl I think my plan of action for this is to first get an "out" (we're making good progress here as a result of an appointment with Steve K9pro). Once I have that, it'll be a really good tool to use to help her I think. From there I will see a trainer called Glenn Cook, who I think is very good (I want to see different trainers to understand different training methodolgies and philosophies - many ways to skin a cat). I am not sure what he'll say about the prognosis, but for the moment I am hopeful we might be able to get a good outcome on this. It's a tough decision to press the "post" button here. I don't like to talk about this issue because of my guilt - I caused it - I actually paid someone to completely trash my dog's naturally good temperament (mercifully only in regards to cats). They obviously scared her and maybe they hurt her. I don't think my ignorance of their methods is any excuse, I should have done more research on them before I left her there. Unforgivable. But done is done, I made a gigantic error in judgenent and it's had awful consequences. Now all I can do is look forward, and do what I can to help her out of this mess I put her in.

Hi Bec, Today was great, I was sorry I didn't get a chance to have a chat with you, but it was great to put a face to the name anyhow! It was odd Jarrah decided today that she didn't want chicken, I've never seen her turn her nose up at chicken when there's no tug toys around before, normally she's a complete pig. That was a bit of a shame because I wanted to show you guys how well she could heel now, but if she doesn't want the treats, I get no heeling because we're still pretty n00b at it. Having a proper game of tug I can actually use as a consistent reward will be great for any other days she decides she couldn't care less about food. We will get there. :) Steve's advice was amazing. The last time I saw him was many years ago and my lack of knowledge and experience with dogs then prevented me from really appreciating his remarkable depth of understanding about dog psychology. But now, I have a bit more experience and a bit more knowledge I know enough to really appreciate that I can have access to an expert of that calibre. We're very lucky, those of us who live within striking distance of the Blue Mountains and have an interest in learning how to make our communication with our dogs better. I understand now where I was going wrong, although it will take me some days to really collate all the new info (so much new info) into my world view. It took Steve about, oh maybe half a minute to get a good start on an "out" with her, it will of course take me a lot longer because I do need to change my way of playing. Through all my changing techniques in trying to get an "out" - dead tug, food swap, 2 toy swap, trying to wait her out - whatever techniques I found that sounded like they had promise, I've never stepped outside of playing that same old game of "Dog has frisbee, human wants frisbee". No wonder I never got anywhere with an "out". It's funny how simple a lot of my mistakes are, my husband and I have been wondering how the hell we never realised this stuff, it seems so obvious now it's been explained to us, but by ourselves we never would have figured any of it out in a million years. Anyway we have a whole new game to play now, which will be really fun, and Jarrah and me are all about fun so that's good. "D The cat issue is a serious one, I have been guilty of putting it on the back burner because I'm so good at spotting cats before Jarrah does and thus avoiding her noticing them, or getting a frisbee in her gob quick smart if she does see one. But it's a serious issue, a management fail on my part could result in an attack on a cat, and while I've managed it well to date, I most certainly need more tools in my box than I have. I will see Glenn for that one, because I want to get a broad spectrum of advice from different methodologies, I'm not sure if rehabilitation is possible in respect to the cat issue, he will have to assess her, whatever the case may be there, I have to seek help, it's well beyond my skill set to help her with this one. I will get the "out" sorted first though, the better our game of tug is, the more helpful it may prove to be on the cat issue. A quick update I think I said to myself when I fired up DOL... XD

We see K9 Force tomorrow, very exciting, a much shorter wait than I had anticipated too, which is great. I have a notion that it's highly likely that the program we get from Steve will work well. I'm really keen on seeing different methodologies and philosophies in action though, so I would still like to see Glenn. I think I will go to him for the cat issue, still working in prey on that, which is what I'm most interested in learning with Jarrah. Cats, I think is the one remaining behavioural issue Jarrah has that I could truly call a problem behaviour. I'd like to fix it but I'm really not sure how to go about it. Right now I redirect to the frisbee (or favourite tug toy), frisbees being much more desireable than cats, it works, but keeps her viewing cats as prey items, which I really don't love. I'm thinking there's got to be a better way than redirect to another prey item, but I've failed to figure it out. What happens if I don't have a prey item on me one day? I need more options. It was easy to convince Jarrah horses and cows are boring because they stand still, but cats run away, so enticingly fast, like they're just begging to be chased. Tough for a terrier to live in a world where cat chasing is not acceptable, but it is what it is, and so I need more options than I have currently to make it easier for her to not be dying to chase them. XD

Poor Jarrah has to get a tooth removed tommorrow. It's the big one in the back and it's cracked right down the middle and the pulp is exposed. Poor girl, we played a lot of fetch yesterday it probably hurt her, but it wasn't swollen and she gave no indication of discomfort so I had no idea. It's really swollen now, I am just back from the vets with pain killers and antibiotics, it's been a rough trot for her with various health problems the last few months, I am hoping this spells the end of our run of bad luck, and she has a trouble free 2013. Anyway, once this tooth is out and all healed up she'll be well again, I will have to find out from the vet her full recovery time, in the interim I've hidden all her chewy/bitey/tuggy toys. We can get back to practicing when she's fully recovered. We had been making progress with fetch "out", but no progress with tug "out" as yet - I am still needing a LOT of education and help on the tug "out" front. Losing the tooth will obviously affect her grip, but I assume won't affect her love for playing tug & fetch.

haha another one! I was in the same boat as you - a dog whose motivation to play used to drive me nuts, but I have come to realise it's actually a really great quality for a dog to have. The motivation to play fetch and tug is highly valued by anyone training working dogs - if you control his most valued activity, the dog is putty in your hands - he'll do anything you ask of him to get you to play. Trainers of customs dogs, police dogs, guide dogs (no surprise a lab has this drive) and all manner of other working/competition dogs are all looking for dogs with a high drive for playing with toys, because these dogs are so motivated by the promise of a game as a reward for performing their work, that they will work as hard as they can, for as long as they can. I'd recommend having a look at some of Michael Ellis' youtube videos, he may give you some ideas on how to utilise your dog's drive to work for you rather than just annoy you. The level of drive your dog has can be a wonderful thing. Here's one of his longer lectures that covers his entire philosophy of dog training, it's 70 minutes long, so it's pretty comprehensive, there are also numerous shorter clips, all well worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe0-oqqoXvw

He is absolutely brilliant hey megan. A really amazing guy, and such a great communicator. If I ever get to California again (who knows what the future holds), I am absolutley going to one of his workshops. I ordered his food and tug dvds already, I will definitely be getting the heeling one too, once I have had a chance to absorb the first 2. I can't wait for them to arrive, the Leerburg violin on the youtube vids is driving me nuts.

Oh I haven't looked at Susan Garrett's stuff, I will have to have a look see. "D Haha the Kelpies can be so very independent minded can't they. That toughness & independence is such a Kelpie hallmark, I guess they're vital qualities for a succesful outback stock work dog. I love the energy and flair of Kelpies, they're amazing dogs to watch in action. I always admire people who create well-balanced, well behaved kelpies in the city or suburbia, I know that's not an easy task given the breed's energy levels & mindset. You'd think Jarrah being a Pit-Bully type sort of dog would be a bit of a tough nut, but she's not at all. While she does have some drive, she's a total wussy softie. I remember one time when I was first introducing her to horses (last thing I want is dog who wants to chase stock) and we stopped the car in the paddock and opened the doors and one of the horses stuck his head in the car to see if we had food for him, Jarrah leapt out and hid under the car, she looks so tough with her big, broad Bully head, but really she's a such big girls blouse. XD

Wow that's awesome Kavik! Really inspiring, hopefully we will get there too! I seem to remember you were using Steve's TID distance learning package, is that right? Awesome that it's working so well for you. I think I need in person guidance though, Jarrah is my only dog in adulthood so my experience & practical skills are REALLY lacking, I do need expert guidance to identify and correct me where I'm going wrong. I wish I could say what it was that got me good engagement from Jarrah, but honestly I don't know, I think it might just be how she's wired naturally? If I did anything to facilitate it, it was inadvertent. It might have helped that often when she's bumping a toy against me to get my attention when I'm busy with other stuff I ignore her, so when I do give her my attention she takes full advantage of it? I had wondered if it's overkill to see both Steve and Glenn, but it seems to me the best way of getting a really comprehensive understanding of anything is to learn from multiple sources. It's too hard to choose between them - I've seen them both in action now and they both have earned my utmost respect as the top trainers in their field. I'm lucky enough to live within reasonable driving distance of both of them, so I'm going to take the opportunity to see them both. If only I could drive to California & get help from Mike Ellis as well! I am trying to teach Jarrah to do heeling similar to how he does it, I love how when he sidesteps the dog sidesteps in perfect unison with him, and does it with the biggest, happiest grin, I do actually get a good amount of enthusiasm from Jarrah with food rewards, so we are just using food to learn that atm, we are progressing slowly due to my inexperience, but we are definitely making good progress. "D

Yeah, I agree, those points are all so inter-related. Sounds like you are way ahead of me Kavik!!! Awesome job, it's great to hear you have been successful in working to undo these kind of training mistakes, maybe there's hope for me yet. I'd just be happy with a retrieve, never mind a good fast one. XD We had it for a bit there I was swapping a fetch for food, and she would bring it right back to me and drop it to gobble the food, it was all going really nicely a few weeks ago. But then I made the mistake of playing tug with the fetch toy.... with the result (that I really should have predicted) that food doesn't really work as an exchange for that toy anymore, it's a tug toy to her mind now. :laugh: Back to square 1 there.... In terms of her engagement though, I guess she's pretty good in that aspect - when she has a toy in her mouth, she is always looking at me, you know that really cheeky looks dogs get when you see a little bit of the whites of their eye? I think of it as the "mischief mode" look, for all the world it's like she's telling me "Chase me! chase me, C'mon PLEASE chase me!". And she stays a step out my reach, she's totally expert at staying just out of reach. She's a very good trainer of humans, she knows my toy drive is high enough that if she stays just out of my reach eventually I will probably move towards her to close the gap. If I don't take the bait & move towards her, then she ups the ante a bit and actually drops the toy knowing I probably won't be able to help myself so it's very likely to get me to go over to her, but ofc as soon as I've made my move she picks the toy right back up again so I can't get it! It seems to me that between me & my dog, Jarrah is by far the more successful trainer! I guess she can be proud of what a well trained human she has. I am like putty in her paws. XD O dear lord, I really do need some help here don't I. :laugh: I'm sure Glenn and Steve will have a great laugh at how well trained she has me!

Haha Kavik, I'm glad I'm not alone in this one! It does give us the opportunity to learn a lot though when we try to rectify our mistakes! Have you managed to rehabilitate this at all? I'd love to hear the progress you've made.

And lastly, but I think really importantly, Jarrah is an incredibly FUN dog to play with, the energy and focus she puts into tug is infectious - and when you play with her you end up geting as rapt in the game as she is, so I'm certain that both Steve and Glenn will both enjoy playing with her enormously (if they do that) when they assess us. "D

Yeah Huski, it's true it definitely doesn't address the conflict, but I had a notion that once the out was achieved on command, then we could work on getting her to understand that giving the toy back is a GREAT thing because it starts a whole new game. Now I've been listening to Michael Ellis' lectures I realise there are so many things I have done wrong on this issue, I am such a dufus.... Just off the top of my head - - I taught her the fun thing is the toy itself, rather than playing with me with the toy just happening to be the thing we were using to play. - I allowed massive reinforcement and conditioning of the above point by letting her self satisfy by chewing the toy. - I allowed possessiveness - she thinks the object of the game is possession of the toy, so her idea of playing is either shes trying to get the toy off me or vice versa (she'd almost explode with happiness if I chased her when she has the tug I reckon XD) I am not quite sure how to recondition her on these points - she's had years of conditioning at massive levels of drive to be like she is now. Alas all entirely due to my own lack of knowledge about dog psychology, I do need professional help to rid me of that incumbent ignorance in order to rehab my dog's attitude to tug. Another thing I learnt that's salient I think is there is what Ellis calls an "active response" and a "reactive response" to a reward - the active response is when the dog offers behaviours in hopes of a reward, the reactive response is when the dog only offers behaviours when it knows there's a reward available (saw it, smells it, or past experience of consistent rewarding in a given context). It seems like a subtle difference in words, and it doesn't look too different either but psychologically in the dog's head, it's a huge difference. Jarrah is a bit of a mix of the two, ideally she would be purely active with no reactiveness though. This is one that's easy to work on at least, I just have to make sure she never knows a reward is available until she gets it. On the really positive side, I do think she can be reconditioned and rehabilitated and I am going to learn A LOT in attempting it. If I hadn't made these mistakes and she was perfect at tug I wouldn't have the need or opportunity to learn this process and psychology in the depth that I am attempting to now, and I am really enjoying the learning, so it's not a bad situation to be in. This is really all about educating me rather than educating my dog. I am really interested to learn Steve's approach, as well as interested in how Glenn's method works out. As you say there are many methods that can work, so I would like to explore as much as I can and learn from both Glenn and Steve since they are the 2 best behaviourists I know of, I am sure I will learn tonnes from both of them, so I'm booking appointments with both of them! I am really looking forward to both appointments to see both approaches and hopefully between the 2 of them they can manage to pound a little knowledge into my brain!

Hey Mel, yeah I asked him about it at the end. He didn't even need to ask about food, he knew that wasn't going to work :laugh: he also knew making the tug "dead" wasn't going to work for me - Jarrah is much stronger than me, I couldn't stop her shaking a tug if my life depended on it. I was pretty impressed with his approach - he had her dropping the frisbee a few times, I'm really looking forward to working with him. He also said I'd done a really great job with her, which was particularly great to hear, because I have many & varied self recriminations about the things I've done wrong (chiefly with the out). It's awesome to hear praise from an experienced, knowledgeable trainer - at least I've done some stuff well. I also just found out about a trainer in the US called Michael Ellis, he's amazing, I spent the last week watching all his ewechewb videos. I will probably watch them all again a few times until the dvds I ordered from him arrive. Here's my favourite clip (the first one I saw that made me go look for all the rest of his stuff), I'm not sure if it's possible to get Jarrah to this stage, but I'd love to have a go at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpjCAJ7wghY Ellis has hours worth of youtube lectures up about training your dog to get it like this, I wish I'd found him years ago. There's a lot of stuff he says that rings true for me that I have never heard from any other source too eg - "bite drive", that's not an accepted behavioural term, just something Ellis finds notable enough about his malinois to give it a name, and I see it with Jarrah too. She's happy just to bite the tug, she doesn't need to be chewing it, or chasing it, or tugging with it, as long as I'm holding it she's happy to just hold fast to it. It's really satisfying to her to just clamp down on it - which is partly why the dead tug approach has failed for me (also the fact she can "force" me to play when I'm trying to make the tug "dead" if she wants, because I'm not strong enough to hold it still against her). He says the best dogs have bite drive, unfortunately he didn't explain why in the clip, so while I know I have the best kind of dog, I'm not exactly sure why or how to use it. Poor Jarrah, that's the story of her life with me really. Such a good dog is a bit wasted on me since my aspirations don't really go beyond a good game of tug, a long bush walk and general housepet stuff, and my training knowledge is about on par with my aspirations. XD I think what I love about Ellis so much is that his advice is really spot on for the type of dog Jarrah is - he talks about the best dogs being like "crackheads" in their raw form, and Jarrah was a bit like this (not now that she's older, but when she was younger, crackhead would have been a perfect description). When you have a dog with this kind of energy level and ease of arousal to massively high levels of excitement, it can be tough to find the right management methods. I muddled along with it by myself, I think I did an OK job, but if I found Ellis' clips earlier I would have done a better job. Mercifully as Jarrah's got older her on & off switches became appropriate and she only gets into her mental hyper state when I ask for it, so it's no problem now. But still, it's really lovely to find modern training methods are perfect for the type of dog Jarrah is. It's also really great reinforcement for me too - to know I really do have a truly amazing dog here - people breed for years trying to produce dogs with this level of drive & I just waltzed into the pound and got one, not really knowing what I was looking for, just pure, jammy good luck. I've only come to realise it's good luck now, back when she was totally unmanageable I would have done anything for a bit of calm from her. Anyway I have never really used her drive for more than fun, and emergency recalls when needed - my husband took her for a walk today and there were 2 wild pigs at our walk spot! Wild pigs in Kariong?? I have no idea what that's about, never seen them before - emergency frisbee recall in operation at it's very best today though apparently. I'm really looking forward to working with Glenn to get a good out so I can use the tug as a reward instead of food, she works really well for food anyway, so no biggy if it happens slowly. I've a notion it will work out for us pretty fast though - when I asked Glenn, he said absolutely we can do this, I got the impression that from his perspective this isn't going to be a problem to fix. So all in all, I'm pretty delighted. "D "D "D