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Everything posted by corvus
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Or, an alternative interpretation is that your cue is whether you have food or not. I tend to use a fixed reward schedule and reward every time a behaviour is performed on cue. But I mix up where I ask for it and what I reward with. That way the cue means "if you do this you will get a reward" rather than "if you do this you will get food". Could be the dog has just realised that getting a food reward is dependent on there being treats in sight, so the cue doesn't even mean "if you do this you will get food" anymore, but more like "check for treat availability". This can happen all too easily if someone attempts to introduce a variable reward schedule but skips steps or hurries it. It's very tempting to do! I do it all the time, but currently have a dog that won't let me get away with it. It's baby steps or I won't get the behaviour I want. It will break down sooner or later. So I've learnt the hard way to be patient. I also learnt the hard way to be very conscious of how consistent my cues were compared to environmental cues that were going on around us. I want my cue to be that I just gave the cue, not whether we are at home or at the dog park, for example. It takes a bit of mixing things up. One of my dogs is insanely good at coming up with his own cues. He's always anticipating. The only thing for it is to mix up training sessions so much that the only thing he can rely on as a constant is my cue. He can't be allowed to rely on the location, the time of day, the sequence of events, the reward, his appetite, what I have in my hand, the direction he's facing... it all has to be unpredictable so that the cue is his only reliable reference for what will happen next.
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I have tried it for fleas and it didn't work. May have had a slight, very temporary depressive effect on numbers, but not much. Possibly it's worth a go if your flea population is very small. I used it out of desperation because all other treatments had stopped working (including flea-bombing house!). In the end I was flea-bathing once a week and had my dogs wearing a lemon-scented tee-tree oil rag on their collars in the meantime. It didn't get rid of them by any means, but kept them at just barely manageable levels. Comfortis rescued us when it came out.
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My mother's dog had chronic ear problems for years until she finally changed vets and the new vet diagnosed a yeast infection. Until then she'd been cleaning his ears with ear cleaner, which he hated. To treat the yeast she was instructed to clean his ears with a Malaseb shampoo solution. Just like that, problem managed. He still gets yeasty ears, but the Malased actually treats it and he no longer hates having his ears cleaned. Not saying this is your problem, just that it's important to know what's causing the trouble in order to fix it.
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I think Sam&Saki taught her Akita to show her teeth on cue. I don't know how she did it, but it's pretty cool. Kivi almost never shows his teeth. And he's not very good at micro-shaping. It's not easy for a dog with his head in the clouds. Maybe I should try to teach him just to give myself a challenge.
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Thanks MalteseLuna. I would like to think my project could be judged on its own merits, but if that doesn't work for some people, then that's a shame but it's their choice. Steve, I would come to you. I'm training dogs in a discrimination task to test their cognitive bias, which is like optimism. I'm not sure yet how long it will take to train, but it would be spaced over several days. We would work out a timeline that would fit around the owner's daily commitments. I would come back to refresh the training and test cognitive bias every 6 months over 2 years. There will also be a survey asking about the dog's behaviour to fill out each time. I'm trying to make it as short and sweet as possible. As for numbers, it depends on distance, really. I might think twice about travelling for half an hour for one puppy, but I'd consider it for a few, especially from the same property. I don't currently have much running money, so it comes down to how far I can afford to travel and sensible allocation of time. Hope that helps. There would be more details and an information sheet. I'm just guaging interest for now.
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Haha, Kivi Tarro looks a lot like your BC house guest at the moment. This morning he ran around in the wet grass in the park, then rolled around in the dirty sand of the horse arenas, complete with rubbing his face in it so it all got plastered to his fur by Erik's slobber, and then he ran down into the drain beside the park and got mud and debris to his tummy. He thinks he made himself bewdiful. The dirtiest dog I've ever seen was when my corgi went for a swim in the lake and then rolled in a fire pit afterwards. She was quite literally black all over. First and last time I've ever seen a black Pembroke Corgi! I sent her back in the lake.
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Micro-shaping? I saw a video at the APDT conference of micro-shaping dolphins to blow bubble rings. They do it naturally on occassion and someone snapped a bunch of photos of them and then everyone wanted to see bubble rings and the trainers were told to deliver or else. So they first captured the dolphins spitting water above the surface, which they do naturally, then they started cueing spitting underwater. To get the bubble, they had to get the right shape of the mouth. They shaped the dolphins to squeeze the edges of their mouths by marking any little muscle twitch in the right direction. Then voila, bubble rings. Insanely complicated training, but at least the crowd was happy, even if they didn't appreciate how hard it had been to bring them bubbles. It'd be way easier to capture, though. Erik does something a little like that when he gets super into a tug game or clicker session, but with mouth open.
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Oo, it would be interesting to look at greyhounds, thanks. Raineth, if you're in Sydney there's always the pilot study. I have an honours student that will hopefully be starting a pilot study on shelter dogs in December, but I was intending to bolster the numbers with adult pet dogs. Thanks for the suggestions, folks.
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How Do You Get Past The Heartache Of Not Having A Dog?
corvus replied to Bluefairy's topic in General Dog Discussion
I had a rabbit to get me through. Before that, I had some herb plants. I lavished so much attention on those plants. It wasn't the same, but it got me through. -
I haven't asked Dr Wade, yet, although I think I met her when I started and she was quite interested. I will be actively hunting for people with puppies to participate next year when my pilot study is done. I won't be terribly fussy. Mixed breeds will also be welcome, I expect. For now I'm just feeling out. I'm not sure what I can expect from people and what the interest level might be. Woofen, I won't be looking at lines except that there's a good chance I will be looking at dogs from particular lines by virtue of the fact that many of them will come from similar sources. If that made sense. By that I mean if I started looking at different breeds my sampling would probably be biased by the fact that some lines might be more common geographically close to me. Everything has to be interpreted in light of the sources of the dogs in the study. Some folks appear to have selective memory about what Paul has said. I have actually spoken to the guy. At length. What some seem to think his agenda is is not what I think his agenda is, and I certainly formed that opinion objectively before I sought him as my supervisor. So either you believe the hearsay of someone who doesn't know him or the hearsay of someone who does. :p I'm not very interested in discussing supposed data massage, but I suggest those who are bring some proof to the table and take it up with the author in question. Maybe they can publish a response to it or replicate the work.
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If anyone has any idea how this could be skewed against them they are welcome to bring it up with me, although I'd hope they would wait until they knew more about the project. Being Paul McGreevy's student doesn't mean I have no say in how the data I collect is analysed and published. It is an ethical requirement that I be transparent about the aims of the project and satisfactorily answer any queries potential participants have. If they can't bring themselves to trust me because of my supervisor, then that is a shame, but their choice. RJ, you are a scientist, so you know that accusing someone of skewing data is fighting words. If I were you, I'd want to have some pretty solid proof of that before bandying it about on a public forum.
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This is just a "feeling-out", semi-hypothetical sort of question for breeders. I'm almost a year into my PhD and early next year if all goes well will be starting the main data collection process. I'm looking at the stability of temperament traits and whether they are related to behavioural tendencies. It is a tricky thing to tease out because as we all know learning plays a big part in the way dogs behave, so I'm starting with puppies and doing repeat measures over a couple of years to see what changes and what becomes stable and when. One of the biggest problems will be getting people to commit to a 2 year project with their dogs. The police dog unit have agreed tentatively to allow me access to their dogs, but they only really have two breeds. Anything I find will be essentially only applicable to GSDs and Labs. I would love to include other breeds in the study, but I am not sure what my chances would be of getting access to dogs over a 2 year period. My question is whether there are breeders that would be interested in participating. The idea of the project is to improve understanding of what kind of behaviour to expect from different dogs in the future. The police dog unit is reasonably keen because they are always interested in work that might be able to help them decide which dogs to train or breed from at an early agae. The shelters are also keen because they are interested in the smart allocation or resources as well. However, I understand a 2 year commitment is a big ask for pet owners and I now the purebreed community is sensitive about examining the differences in breeds. So this is just to explore whether it's something I should continue considering or forget about.
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Good luck!
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If I spot clean my Lappie he's wet for hours. If he runs around and rolls in the wet grass he can end up being damp for hours. He likes being damp, so we have to be cool with a dog that regularly leaves damp patches inside. I can give my Vallhund a full bath, though, and he's dry in half an hour. There's a Large Munsterlander litter advertised on the puppies page of Dogz Online.
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I spend closer to an hour a week on mine and I definitely do not find them wash and wear if they happen to like jumping in the swamp, rolling in the burrs and pine needles and annointing themselves with dead rat! Let's not mention what happens when he gets the runs. The dirt does tend to fall off when it dries, but then you get a dirt pile in the house. I love him like life itself, but they are not a breed for someone looking for easy coat care IMO. I'm never having more than one long-coated dog.
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If you don't want her barking at other dogs on the street, why don't you think of what you WOULD like her to do and reward that instead. For all you know, she is barking at the other dogs to make them go away and when they inevitably do, the barking is reinforced. Or she's barking out of frustration and the dogs going away heighten her frustration. My little guy went through a phase like this at around the same age. We practised the Look At That Game and started reinforcing him heavily when he responded to his name by coming over to us when there were no dogs around to distract him. He picked it up really fast and started seeing other dogs as a cue to heel for treats.
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Look up counter conditioning. If you could reward them for being scared, it wouldn't work. It works. But the key is to keep the dog under threshold. They likely won't even take food if they are over threshold.
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Yes, I was kidding, or at least shamelessly anthropomorphising to the nth degree. I was also kidding when I said I think my dog thought I was dead and was happy to be proven wrong. In reality, I know what excitement looks like in a dog, but it's a bit harder to pick in a hare. Hares don't get excited so much as nervous. He has intensely communicative ears, though, and that's the giveaway in the end. That and where he looks. If he's scared he goes still, flattens his body and ears, and stares out of the corners of his eyes. If he's excited, the ears go straight up and face forward and he stands on his hind legs a lot. He looks right at you instead of out of the corner of his eyes. He looks similar when he's curious, but is more animated when excited, more stopping and checking. I could probably write an essay on hare body language I have got to know it so well. I can only imagine what goes on in his head, but given when I do seem to hit on something I'm usually thoroughly amazed and suddenly feel like I live with an alien, my imaginings are often a stab in the dark. The facts are in the behavioural changes (or lack thereof) when I try applying my imaginings.
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Where To Draw The Line With Vet Bills?
corvus replied to ~Myschafis~'s topic in General Dog Discussion
To me, the quality of life my animal can expect after treatment is what dictates how much I would spend on them. -
I love my dog, but... Kivi, can you go out and not find a carcass to eat and roll in or a swamp of stinky mud to get plastered all over your belly and legs? Came home to a small dirt pile on the floor where he'd been lying after this morning's muddy shenanigans. I love my dog, but... Erik, seriously, I heard you the first time.
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So true. I find we all tend to get along quite well if we are tolerant and polite. I expect dogs to come running up to us wherever we go, so I made sure my dogs were socialised to it from an early age. I expect to be mobbed every now and then and so I made sure my dogs were socialised to it. I expect to meet rude dogs and begging dogs and dogs that don't know whether they want to bite or play and I expect spats to break out over resources, so I keep on my toes and watch every dog that comes in and adapt to the situation. And my dogs do, too, because they have been doing it all their lives. Training for us never stops. Animals are always doing something. You can either take charge of their reinforcement or leave it to chance. I can't control other people or their dogs, so I treat them as environmental variables and training opportunities for my guys. We have never been shouted at or got dirty looks or had rude comments and have never done it to other people. There are always some idiots out there making doggy outings less fun than they could be, but that's the world we live in. We handle it as best we can and move on.
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I know of someone with a Chow that is like this with all strange people. Her owner eventually opted to lock her away in a back room when guests came because she felt it was best for the dog. The dog was able to be much calmer when she wasn't directly confronted by strange people in her house. I don't think there is anything wrong with choosing management. If you use the two degrees of separation rule (e.g. crate in a room with closed door), the risk IMO is lower than continually exposing the dog to her trigger while you retrain. If she's more reactive on leash and you live in a small house, it might be difficult to adequately control the environment so that she is not monumentally stressed in the early stages of rehabilitation (and possibly beyond). But I don't know her or what she can handle or how she might respond to training. You would know what is right for her.
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I left my corgi for 2 months 4 times a year when I was at uni. She was always over the moon to see me. I then went away for 6 months and she was desperately glad to see me again when I got home. I'm sure she thought I was dead, but she was very pleased to be proven wrong. Believe it or not, even the hare got excited. He kept watching me, quivering, trying to figure out if a person that looks and sounds and smells like someone he remembered was actually the same someone. Took him several days to convince himself enough to come and talk to me, but it was several days of an excited hare. The only time I've ever seen him like that since was recently when I got back from a 3 week holiday.
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How long have you had him? I got lukewarm greetings from my Lappie for most of his first year. It took a while for him to really bond with us. Some fires burn slow.
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I always have treats with me because I'm always training. My dogs do heaps of things at the park that I want them to do more often, so yeah, we keep treats handy to reward them. We do get dogs that come and beg sometimes. Usually the ones whose owners DON'T bring treats to the park. When someone is rewarding their dog for something, we often see a little line of dogs sitting and waiting politely and hopefully for their turn. It's the ones that don't know this basic rule that end up trying to climb into the treat pouch. I don't mind. I dismiss my dogs to go and play for a bit and ignore the interloper until they give up. My dogs will often happily keep training around a dog trying to stick its head in my treat pouch if we get ambushed. I've never had someone yell at me for bringing treats to the park. Sometimes they pretend they haven't noticed their dog being a pest, but usually they apologise and take the dog away. My dogs "beg" by sitting down in front of someone, or Kivi sometimes tries glueing himself to someone's thigh to show them what good heeling he's doing. I call them away and they always come. I'm a surer bet.