corvus

In my view there are politics involved that I don't necessarily want to wade into. I don't want to open myself up to more battering by discussing it publicly, either. Suffice to say for myself, I would feel like being singled out would be a mixed blessing at best. I'm sorry I didn't nominate deerhound owner, though. I think she has done some very valuable work.

I wouldn't even go on word of mouth. I have heard some people cheerily tell me that their behaviourist was wonderful and has really helped when I'm looking at the dog and hearing what the behaviourist recommended and it's plain as day there's no difference in the dog's behaviour. People expect that contacting a professional will work, and so they see improvements where there are none. Sometimes it just feels good to them to do anything at all, and that puts them in a positive frame of mind and the dog's behaviour seems better because they feel better. I would expect a behaviourist to go through a behavioural analysis process and have an objective system whereby behaviour can be monitored during and after treatment so it is certain whether the behaviour is changing.

Yeah, Kivi Tarro has done this from an early age and it's a sure sign he has gone too long between meals/not been fed enough. Erik is less prone to it, but has done it once or twice as well.

Yep, that is correct, scarily. I think in the States you can do an applied animal behaviour degree, which is basically designed to train behaviourists, but over here there is no such thing. There are a few web-based courses that can be done, and NDTF have one as well. Most behaviourists I know have a Bachelor of Science and an animal training qualification of some sort. I think it's a major problem in the industry that pretty much anyone can call themselves a behaviourist. As I understand it, there is a push within the industry for an accreditation system.

I would have pushed the dog off without the growl. It's annoying to have to do it again and again, but if you know a dog is going to give you trouble you can head them off before they get that far with body blocking. If I got shouted at I'd say "He doesn't like it." and leave it at that. People will do what they will do. I will not stand by to watch my dog harrassed when he is trying to enjoy some off leash time, and I will not leave it to him to deal with. I'd rather my dogs found non-aggressive ways to deal with social problems. If it's not working, then I will take it from there before they think of something I don't want them to have success with.

Erik does both paw target and dragging his paw across an object indicated. I trained them separately. If I were trying to train this, I would shape him to push the object forwards with his paw, seeing as that is a different and more unnatural movement. I would use a plush ball or something similar that is easy to roll but won't get away.

Awww, ain't that lovely.

You told me about this several months ago. To be honest, I didn't know what to make of it and still don't. I wasn't really sure what kind of people you were wanting to give recognition to and what it would mean to get it. I guess I'm not convinced it would be a good thing to be singled out in this context.

It's a tedious process, but that's why scientists hold a lot of sway. It is a little bit frustrating because people tend to think that dog researchers must know nothing if they are reporting on things that are obvious, but that's not the case at all. Talk to a few and you generally find they are full of information on all things doggy. They have built their livelihood on it, after all. But everything is little steps because it takes a long time. As frustrating as it can be to watch those baby, baby steps, unfortunately you can't build science on flakey foundations. We tried that and we're still trying to fix it 50 years later. I like to think we learnt our lesson. From a budget perspective, it does depend on what you want to do. Genetic work is expensive, but other things like behaviour can be much cheaper. My project has no running money. I'm on a university scholarship and we designed my project on a shoestring budget because we knew we'd have no running money. I still need funding, mostly for travel costs and ongoing expenses like batteries and printing and rewards, but it's not much in the scheme of things and I can scrape it together from a few sources. We are currently building an automatic dog-training apparatus for under $200. That's the basis of my entire project, really.

He just can't settle. He'll be roaming around alert barking at tiny little noises. I guess it's not even really over-arousal, more like he just isn't very good at calming down again after something excites him momentarily. The more aroused he gets the more he barks, and the more he barks, the more aroused he gets.

Well, no, I wasn't hinting it. Not everything is about you, as it happens. But now that you mention it, you did attempt to sabotage my project before you even knew what I was planning to do. Folks are encouraged to make their own decisions on what looks silly or impartial when it comes to it. Just hope it's an impartial and informed decision. And I think that's the first time you've ever intentionally agreed with me and you still have to be nasty about it.

Is that the rotation honours or the science one that goes for a year? I'm still trying to get my head around how vet science courses work. I am not sure how anyone can do an honours project in 8 weeks. I did mini projects in undergrad that went longer than that. We had an above credit average cut-off, but in reality the supervisors were the limited resource. Most supervisors opted for the distinction average or above students. Some were known for not even considering supervising you unless you were at the top of the cohort.

Hmmm. I think it will pay to be very careful. What would suck is if you forked out for a research project, but the findings weren't widely accepted because the author obviously had an agenda to push. I think it would be wise to get some advice from academics outside the field. They could maybe give you some hints for spotting someone with biases. Everyone has biases, but some people know it and can rise above it and others don't seem to care if the world knows they are biased, or maybe they don't know themselves. I think biased writing is very damaging to the acceptance of scientific studies and is rife in studies on contentious issues, where it is obviously going to be the MOST damaging. I really do wonder sometimes if people realise that what they are saying sounds anything but impartial. It casts doubt on the findings and doubt on the authors. If you have any contentious findings you will want a spotless reputation and utterly defensible methodology and impartiality to a fault, but you'll be in the shit anyway. You just won't drown in it. Probably. Anyway, good research is usually cited a lot. Where I came from, anyway, the scientific community recognises researchers that are thorough, impartial, and identify the shortcomings of their own work. I had help from some amazing researchers when I was in undergrad, and it wasn't until I travelled overseas that I realised how widely they were respected for their good work and dependable contributions. Even in my relatively short experiences with the dog behaviour literature, I find there are names I trust and names I don't trust. Yet. Incidentally, it might be worth looking into folks that have just finished their PhDs. I bet most of them would be up for a research job and just don't know you're looking.

Yeah, we are trying a Thundershirt out with Erik. He doesn't get anxious so much as over-aroused. He tends to need a bit of help to calm himself down again. I would say that when he is just a little aroused it does wonders and settles him right back down again just about instantly, but when he is very aroused it is of limited use. It does seem to help him come down quicker once the arousing stimuli have gone away. I would tentatively say it's no better than a good massage, which brings me to comment that Erik is conditioned to calm with rubs and massages, so it's possible the Thundershirt works well with him because of prior conditioning. Anyway, we are still testing it and forming an opinion. I think they are worth a go. I haven't tried a wrap, but I do know that giving Erik's hindquarters a very firm massage when he's aroused is a little like magic. It tends to have a fairly immediate and profound calming effect. His knees turn to jelly.

I look for attempts by one dog to get away. If Kivi or Erik aren't enjoying a game, the ears go down but only slightly back, the tail goes down, and they will turn away from the other dog. If they keep turning away or trying to walk away from the other dog, I would body block the other dog to give my guys a break. Between them, they get quite noisy and boisterous in play. They roll each other a lot and neither minds, so I let them do it. I intervene if my older dog starts crying. He is a total crybaby and he does it when my younger dog is barely touching him, so usually I ignore it unless he yelps several times in quick succession. I've seen him yelp and then take advantage of the lull from my other dog to pin the little guy, so a bit of discrimination seems sensible with him, but if any other dog yelped in play just once I'd be over there in a shot to break it up. I wouldn't allow the humping, either. It can get to be a habit.

Bizarrely and somewhat embarrassingly, I'm looking at this from the perspective of crate training my hare. It's not gonna be anywhere near the same, but I guess the same question arises. He's 6 years old and has learnt to be very wary of crates because inevitably whenever I get one out I've traumatised him by spending hours trying to catch him and put him in it. Anyway, the way I see it, it's not that big a deal to change an association if you are systematic about it. The question is does it mean enough to you that you will put in the work to change the association? For me, I will, because I think it will benefit the safety and the quality of life for my animal quite significantly in the long-run. But I may change my mind about that if we get to a point where the amount of work it takes to get him to accept, say, his crate being moved while he's in it, is disproportionate and likely to be undone in a single poorly planned moment anyway. For the dogs, I wouldn't bother with Kivi. If I ever need to crate him I'd just do it and he would lie down and go to sleep or something. Drive games are fun, but he's not wildly into lots of running around. But Erik would have fun with it and I think it would be good for him. I watched the video and was going to do it with him with his mat instead of a crate. I liked Leslie McDevitt's idea of having a really solid send to crate trained for emergencies at training and trials if a dog is loose and heading your way, but I also think it may turn out to be disastrous if the loose dog followed your dog to their open crate!

Stop feeding the troll(s), folks. If they wanna start something they can start their own thread (which history dictates they won't) where I'm sure we will all fiercely ridicule them again, after which they will crash a few more threads, provide a few more days of entertainment, then slink off again. Then we wait 30 days for the cycle to repeat. Maybe it's a 28 day cycle. What moon phase are we in? I was enjoying reading about Crate Games. Maybe we can get back to it.

What's the problem with Boa? Here in Darwin anyone can buy one of the few species of Python in a pet shop. What's the difference? Boas can grow large enough to eat small children.

I have seen my boys kamikaze each other before. I heard the clunk as they made impact and it looked like it hurt both of them. I worry that one or both are going to get seriously hurt one day, but they are dogs and they love it so I let them love it and hope they have a better sense of what their bodies can withstand than I do. At least it keeps them fit! I was concerned my older and bigger dog would be too rough with my puppy when I got him. I was assured if anything I would have to tell the little Vallhund to take it easy and that has been the case. He plays like he's the size of a GSD and is known to fling himself bodily at the other dog and drag him to the ground in the middle of a gallop. They are both very nice with smaller dogs, although little dogs tend to find them too intimidating to play with. They have a couple of small friends that are up for it. They are most rough with dogs they know very well. It's not polite as far as they are concerned to get physical with dogs they don't know. The most obnoxious things they do to each other.

You're serious, aren't you? That story proves nothing. For all we know the prong collar caused/perpetuated the aggression. For all we know this "Susan Garrett" trainer was a shite trainer. What would that prove? Nothing about the methods at all. Staff'n'Toller has your number all right. Honestly, these characters pop up and disappear after making a royal fool of themselves in such a cyclical manner I'm beginning to think every one of them is the same person.

Good point. I don't use a clicker for calm behaviours period, because it gets my dog excited, so it's kind of like shooting myself in the foot. I tried using a slow, drawn-out marker instead "good", but ultimately dropped that one as well. Erik knows a marker when he hears one, apparently. Convenient when I accidentally give him the wrong one, but not so good when we want calm. I reward calm behaviour pretty much silently, now. Often not even with eye contact. Erik is a training nut and seems to often be looking for some clue that we are training so he can get excited about it. I swear sometimes he gets excited about just looking for a clue that we might be training! Kivi I could mark calm behaviours with, though. Different dog.

Sorry, I didn't explain that very well.... or at all. Lindsay was talking about a "surprise" in a prediction error context, which refers to when the dog predicts one thing will happen and what does happen is better than expected, hence a positive prediction error - surprise. If I understood him correctly, the sound of the clicker is sharp enough that it causes a tiny little jolt in the dog, and because they are conditioned to know this means food, they get jolt plus "oh boy, food", which equals a surprise. I am possibly off base on this, but my interpretation is that if a dog comes to expect a click, the very nature of the sound still serves to give them a little jolt, so the prediction error is always positive. Lindsay doesn't talk about this in his books, though. There is more than that going on as far as I'm concerned, seeing as according to Jaak Panksepp we are also engaging the SEEK system when we marker train. That comes with the potential for a lot of anticipation and dopamine, but if Lindsay's idea that the clicker is a tiny little bit startling because of the sharp sound is correct, then we're potentially looking at a double spike of dopamine, one before and one after. One would guess a bigger startle may well overcome or dampen some of the positive reinforcement. Then again, I don't know very much about neurochemistry. It's a whole lot of speculation, but speculation worth considering IMO. I'm not quite ready to say that clickers are categorically more effective than verbal markers. It has been my experience, but my use of clickers and verbal markers has not been anything like the same. My older dog still perks up noticeably if I click in his vicinity even though he never gets rewards after a click anymore and hasn't for over a year. He is beautifully animated for a sharp verbal marker and I don't think in the scheme of things it makes a great deal of difference, but I still wonder if a click is just a marker. Incidentally, I take my clicker and treats everywhere, but that doesn't mean I always have the clicker around my wrist or the treats handy. Thank goodness for verbal markers and secondary reinforcers! I agree that in the scheme of things a marker word is extremely valuable and for many is going to be much more readily and reliably available than a clicker. I think everyone needs a marker word, but not everyone needs a clicker.

My loo actually does have a secret door. My dogs have happily learnt to let me toilet and shower and even feed the hare in peace, though. We're still working on checking the mail and getting things out of the car. I like it when my dogs don't get up and follow me around the house waiting for me to appear from behind closed doors. It took a long time to get my younger dog comfortable enough with separation to stop doing that. Frankly, I had a dog that would pine when I wasn't around and I'd rather not have another. I was delighted when the dog I got after her showed me he would go home with anyone that fed him and gave him cuddles. I never have to worry about him when I go on holidays. I can leave him with anyone and he will get by, even though he's now a bit of a mama's boy. When I come home he is glad to see me and gives me kisses, but then he gets over it. With my last dog she would be very needy for at least 24 hours after I got back, wanting to lie on my feet and getting growly with any other animal in the house that wanted some of my attention. I had 13 1/2 years of that and tried everything to get her to be less possessive and nothing worked very well. I found it to be a lot of pressure. I would say be happy you don't have a one person dog. I've been there and it wasn't all that fun. It didn't make me feel special. It made me feel frustrated and anxious.

Those sorts of things stay with you. I'm still horrified from discovering anyone can walk into a pet shop in California and buy a baby Boa Constrictor 5 years on. I'm still appalled at the way pigs and chickens are kept here, but because no one sees it it is mostly accepted. Animal welfare has come a long way, but still has a long way to go, here as anywhere.

I wonder if the clicker is "just a marker". At the NDTF conference earlier in the year, Steven Lindsay spoke very briefly at the very end about clicker training. He suggested clicker training is not just operant conditioning because it has an element of prediction error to it. Because the sound is quick and sharp, it is a bit of a surprise every time. The surprise increases excitement and serves as a more potent reward than just the following food treat alone. I use verbal markers and have chosen sharp, quick sounds ("ping" and "tick") because I started using "yes" and found it slowed me down and dampened the message. I get a lot more excitement when I use a sharp sound. My younger dog is the only one I use the clicker with because someone once suggested to me that it might be confusing for both dogs to be trained with the same sound. That made sense to me, so "ping" came into use.