Luke W

Barkly has been on it for a few months. Seems to work as advertised. Stopped marking, increased appetite, shrunk testicles.

Fascinating post Vickie! Thanks.

I guess there's a risk involved with everything you do with your dogs and it's a matter of trying to weigh up the cost-benefit and mitigate risks as much as possible.

I suppose it would depend on where you are? Doesn't change the definition, but it does change whether I'd use it or not. In a small country town of 3000 people, we have so many places to run dogs off-lead that often you have them to yourself, and might come across one other dog and owner even at peak time. Many are regulars, and you get to know who's dog is good and who's are badly trained/badly mannered etc. Have no issue at all with using such an area, but I wouldn't call them a dog park either. On the other hand, a really busy off-lead area with dozens of dogs - no way! And that's what I would call a dog park. I guess I won't see you at Brighton Beach on a warm Saturday afternoon then The joys of city living

Ignore this if you like: When you buy a dSLR, you are buying into a system. It's not just about the body. Consider the availablility of lenses and accessories. Bear in mind that Sony owners (or Pentax for that matter) are a bit like Mac owners. I wouldn't consider anything but Nikon or Canon.

What a great site! Not. I notice they offer to deliver RAW food to your door. Nice ethical business that one. And they say vets push the food they make money on. Just one comment: From the site: "Though dogs are omnivores, they are hunters and scavengers, requiring a diet heavily based on meat and bone. Notice how happy your dogs gets when you give him a bone? Your dogs are simply reacting according to their instincts and genetic programming. This is the basic philosophy behind feeding your dogs a raw dog food diet. " By that logic, I should feed my dog cat shit and 3 week old pizza.

Interesting results and responses. It should be noted that the poll results and responses will reflect the particular DOL demographic. PS - I assume 'dog park' simply means a park where dogs are allowed off lead.

I voted every day. I know the local dog park pretty well and I'm wary about dogs I don't know. I don't compete yet but I definitely will. I'm probably doing the wrong thing. Barkly likes to play with other dogs, mostly the ones around his size. If the other dog doesn't want to play, Barkly tends to go about his own thing. I try to use the premack principle sometimes and get him to work around other dogs and release him to play as a reward. He's pretty good at dog school when he's off lead, he seems to know he's in work mode and he stays away from the other dogs. I'm trying to be more exciting to him but I need to drop some weight so I can run faster! ETA: Barkly is a pretty confident but in no way an aggressive dog. He's happy and comfortable around other dogs.

hmm...font size is getting too small.... I need to think of a logo or two How about "I'm training...*iss off"

Something like this? You could have the writing on the front and the back.

You know those T-Shirts.. "I'm with Stupid" and an arrow? Maybe a T-Shirt (black with big white letters) that says... "Aggressive Dog - Stay away" and an arrow pointing down to the left ?

I would have thought that was a joke too!! "I bite other dogs" - I would have thought you were saying you bit other dogs.

I'm pretty shite at shaping but I'm getting better. The theory is you reward the 'better ones'. So in your case, it'd be rewarding 8 out of 10 and withholding the reward on the highest lifts and gradually shaping it down. Not sure how useful that's going to be. Actually, teaching the concept of more of less movement is going to be quite a feat!

Your welcome - it is very good isn't it... I like how not only does it change the birghtness of the image, it also adds noise and changes DOF!

ISO is the third factor in controlling exposure. On a digital camera, increasing ISO amplifies the light hitting the sensor. Think of ISO as a sensivity control for the sensor. A higher ISO allows you to use a faster shutter speed or a smaller aperture for a given scene brightness level. For example... If it's twilight and perfect exposure is 1/60, F/4 at ISO 100, if you were to increase ISO to 200, the correct shutter speed would be 1/125 (keeping f/4) . Correct exposure would also be 1/60, f/5..6 and ISO 200. Note: As you increase ISO, you increase noise. Here's a great little demo thingy: http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

I find it doesn 't really matter, even though I shoot in aperture priority 90% of the time. As long as I keep an eye on the exposure, I can use aperture and ISO to control the shutter speed when in aperture priority anyway. The only time I really use shutter priority is when I need to set a maximum shutter speed - ie. when I want to introduce motion blur. So if I'm panning, I'll set the shutter speed to 1/60 say, and let the aperture increase to whatever's needed to maintain that shutter speed.

ahhh

Why the focus on 40kb ?

Yep, Photoshop CS4. The editing is done mostly in the Adobe Camera RAW processor which comes with Photoshop. Thanks!

WooHoo!!!!! Congrats on your new toys. Good choices I think.

What do you mean by "processing"...printing? JPG is the most common format sent to external labs/printers.

I do but not enough concentrate on rates of reinforcement but not enough and I don't put into practice the theory as much as I should. I think my training results would be better if I kept a training diary which included exercise success rates and rates of reinforcement. But that requires a lot of effort. I think some owners to reward too often/too little. I have so many DVDs that I really should force myself to watch (Ted Trurner and Bob Bailey spring to mind).

I don't think that the dog having no choice is necessarily synonymous with the handler 'forcing' the dog. It's really going to come down to your definition of 'force'. Even if we decide it doesn't meet the definitions of "force", it doesn't make it morally acceptable. Language is so inadequate. Philosophy is so fascinating

This could get into some very deep philosophical territory. My gut reaction is, "No dogs don't have a choice". Dogs never have a 'choice'. It should be noted though that I lean very heavily toward the 'no such thing as free will' camp anyway. If people don't have choice, then dogs don't either.

I just found this thread. It's great to see the series from tiny little baby to great big man!