corvus

Because delivery differs. Where I've been learning agility, we use food for introducing dogs to new equipment, for targeting, and for flat work. This works well because they are all things where we want to keep reward rates high and delivery clean and fast. There is nothing like rapid-fire for teaching something new or teaching position, and I LOVE it, but you just can't do it with anything but food. I've tried doing flat work with toys and it works after a fashion, but if my food reward delivery were better I'd pick food. It's less disruptive. We use toys where we want a fast drive to somewhere beyond where we are. That way we reward away from us where we want the dog to be and we can deliver it as close to possible to the point where the dog did the right thing. Technically you don't need to do that if you have a bridge, but we use it to keep them from stopping to turn around to see where their reward is coming from. There are some other reasons as well, but that's getting into the affective neuroscience theory stuff and personal preference. Ultimately, why have one reward when you can have two? Why have two when you can have three? It's like having backup. My dog that works mostly for food one time got carsick on the way to the beach and didn't want treats when he got there. He was in the middle of recall training at the time and because we had no other reward that could match treats, our recall training was set back several months. Why put all your eggs in one basket? Who knows when you are going to need flexibility?

I don't! I think it depends on how flexible you want your ability to reward. And how you want to use (or misuse) establishing operations. I can't imagine why anyone would be content to mould their training programs around their dog's inability to switch between rewards. That's got squat to do with my goals and everything to do with the degree of flexibility in rewarding that I like to work with. And the fact that I have a dog that is better at establishing operations than I am.

Yaaay!

Never mind.

Because flexibility in reward selection and placement makes for flexible training and flexible performance. What if you want to switch from a highly aroused behaviour to a calm behaviour in one session, or vice versa? I don't want to be fighting my dog if I decide to do that and he decides he's not done with whatever reward we were using a moment ago. Plus I can reward wherever I want my dog to be, whether I'm right there or not, and I can switch between instant, rapid-fire rewards and bigger, but less frequent pay. Personally, that flexibility is important to me. I don't want to have to shape my training sessions around what mood my dog is in, whether I put him in that mood or not. Especially given my dog gets into routines and is then extremely difficult to shift from them.

:D But it's so interesting! Just kidding. Sorry, I got a bit overexcited and forgot where I was. Honestly, there's a wealth of information out there, but it takes a lot of endurance to wade through it. :D Erik is a bit like this, though. I think for him it's mostly about cues. He is forever anticipating what is going to happen next. If he thinks he's getting a food reward next, he loses all interest in toys and actually finds them a bit annoying. And vice versa if he's expecting a toy reward. It's a major headache and I'm currently trying to scramble his cues so he just doesn't know what he's getting next, but it's delicate because if he doesn't get what he's expecting to get it pretty much ruins the training session. So I'm painstakingly training him bit by bit that the only reliable cue for what he's getting is what is in my hand when I mark him. I've gone to training play as a behaviour with food rewards to help with this. Ken Ramirez talked specifically about this at the APDT conference, showing a video to demonstrate how his dog who normally loves this one toy totally ignores it when she's expecting a food reward. He has a very nice systematic way of introducing different rewards into training that I've decided to try with Erik. The key point in Panksepp's theory for me is that playing and eating/looking for food are two separate modes in the brain, so switching from one to the other isn't necessarily simple and may take practice. Food can lower arousal in some circumstances, whereas play always increases arousal. Active, energetic behaviour requires high arousal, so if I want one of my dogs to do something fast, I would get them super aroused. Play does that, but so can anticipation for food. If they just know they're gonna get some food and it's just SO easy, they get aroused and that makes them more active. Another theory was spoken about by Lindsay at the NDTF conference. He was saying you can't reward a dog with anything but the reward they were looking for. If they want to bite the mailman, you can give them food and won't be reinforcing wanting to bite the mailman. It's the basis of counterconditioning. In Lindsay's book it's called reciprocal inhibition, and is defined as the idea that two hedonically opposing emotional states cannot exist simultaneously and one will always overshadow the other. Maybe it's the same with food and toys in some dogs? There I go, opening my big mouth like I said I wouldn't.

Aww, that is such an interesting question, and one me and some friends have been discussing for months! If I answer lots of people will tell me scornfully that I don't know anything about drive, so I'm just gonna keep my big mouth shut and suggest some reading. You should absolutely look up Jaak Panksepp, who is an affective neuroscientist. He has some theories about this kind of thing that are pretty widely accepted, and if you can follow his brain modes model, and throw in some basic stuff about what the body does under stress, it all starts to come together. Have you read Karen Pryor's book "Reaching the Animal Mind?" She touches on it as well, in a more easily understood manner. Steven Lindsay also talks about Panksepp, as does Steve White. Peta Clarke was talking about it at the APDT conference, as well. Panksepp is all the rage. :D It's funny, because he's not all together popular with scientists after claiming that rats laugh. He has done some famous work tickling and playing rough and tumble with rats. I also found Robert Sapolsky's book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers to be surprisingly enlightening and a really entertaining read. I think it's gone out of print, though. :D I snapped up the last two copies in Hollywood and I had to go to several stores to find them! Panksepp misses some important things because he's a neuroscientist. It's good to remember that one way to build arousal is with physical activity, and I thought it helped for me to get my head around exactly what characterises play and what it's for. I've probably got papers somewhere if anyone's interested. A lot of Panksepp's work is available online for free. Just not the text book.

Kivi tends to be a calming presence as well, but there's a threshold. If the dog is really going nuts he really doesn't like it. Sometimes the only signal he will give that he's unsettled is drifting in closer to me or tipping his ears out and back slightly. If he actively tries to engage with the dog, then I'd consider him comfortable with the situation. He may be comfortable and not be trying to engage, but I err on the side of caution. I guess that Charlie's default is not to try to engage, but is there something he normally does when he's relaxed with another dog you can use as a rule of thumb?

If you're not sure what the cause is, the best bet IMO is to fall back on monitoring and treating behaviour. You can ignore any emotional cause for the moment and just concentrate on rewarding behaviour that you like. Seeing as the older dog isn't entirely sure of this puppy business, I would for the moment aim to prevent him from doing things you don't want him to keep doing. So if he starts growling at the puppy or chasing him down, put a stop to that and separate for a bit until everyone has calmed. For all you know it could be self-reinforcing, and if that's the case, the more he practices it the harder it will be to change down the track. It's a thin line, but to me the aim is to let the dogs sort themselves out where they are just getting to know each other, but not let one dog harass, pester, or frighten the other. It's not always easy to tell what's a dog learning boundaries with another dog and what's a dog learning to bully another dog. I say err on the side of caution. BTW, I have two boys. :D They are great together, playing rough contact sports, digging holes, chasing ducks in the mud, finding disgusting things to eat/roll in, striking up wrestling games in inappropriate places, generally getting very wet and dirty together... It's great fun. :D My older boy is a social butterfly and was over the moon when we got him a puppy, but he's such a good big brother. The pair are best buddies.

It is sad to me as well, but on the other hand, they rarely have to deal with dogs like mine and as long as they don't they are relatively at ease with the world. Just sad that they are so at a loss when a dog behaving normally comes along. Erik met three different JS last time and they all told him to get lost. That's the magic number! He learnt that JS are meanies and he doesn't like them. I expect he would try again anyway and he defaults to nice, gentle greetings, but every bad experience on top of those first three is just going to remind him that he doesn't like them. We haveta be super careful.

I don't know. It's hard to make an educated guess without knowing the dog. Say I was doing this with a dog I didn't know and a puppy I didn't know, I would be watching for small warning signs from the older dog that might indicate he felt in competition with the puppy. Like if he stares at him, lifts his lip, growls, snaps, or whatever. If I saw that, I would most likely keep going, but I would be very careful that before I popped treats to the older dog he was not looking even the tiniest bit tense. I would be cueing downs and sits and targets or whatever else the older dog knows and rewarding any and all behaviours that AREN'T aggressive towards the puppy. That includes sitting around doing nothing. I think that often resource guarding in these situations is more about guarding you when you're training with him than food in general. It's a tough one, and if it starts happening and doesn't get better quite quickly with rewarding non-aggressive and calm behaviour around the puppy, I'd abandon it and concentrate on one problem at a time. It's up to you, though. You know the dogs and are able to judge the risks. Aww, that's good. Whether you treat the pup or not depends on what you want to do with him. If you don't mind rewarding him away from you (some folks do), you can toss treats to puppy when he's doing things you like, such as anything that is not leaping at the older dog, for example. Otherwise, you can feed the pup treats closer to you if the older dog is nice and comfy with the pup coming that close. If he looks worried, licks his lips, stares or looks out of the corners of his eyes at puppy, gets up and moves or anything like that, just keep the puppy at a distance while you work with the older dog until he's more comfortable. It shouldn't take long. Maybe he's feeling a bit anxious about the puppy being in the house. If he's feeling like he has to pay attention to where the puppy is all the time so he can stop the puppy from jumping on him or doing other worrying things, it makes sense that he would be paying less attention to other things like you. He's got more on his plate than usual.

I would say no, too. Both my dogs are good about this kind of thing when it happens to us when we are out and about, but they still find it unsettling and I wouldn't deliberately expose them to it. Plus, it's not fair on the other dog. My OH's family has dogs that aren't entirely comfortable with our confident boys. They don't know what to do about them and so try to avoid them. The boys generally ignore them, but will sometimes try to interact with them and it is quite stressful for the poor things. They just don't know what to do. So now when we get asked to bring our dogs I say no. My dogs can deal, but it's not fair on their dogs. I would maybe agree if someone who knew what the hell they were doing was going to spend a bit of time with these dogs teaching them how to behave, but no one is, so the poor dogs just have to live in anxiety about it. One time Kivi met an anti-social dog he seemed to know exactly what to do with and had this dog playing with him in a matter of minutes. It was good for him to have success with interacting with weird dogs, and good for the other dog to find that some dogs aren't so bad, but it's a drop in the ocean for a dog that doesn't have social skills. It took Kivi two years of daily mixing with other dogs to learn those skills when he had no former learning to overcome and his brain was primed for it. In my mind, there is nothing to be gained from letting them mix for ten minutes or so except to maybe add another odd experience to Kivi's repertoire, but he doesn't really need it. Erik is like Emmy and I've taken pains with him to make sure he doesn't need to get cranky. I think you did the right thing in keeping Emmy away from this dog. Fiesty little firecrackers don't need sparks in their lives! At least, not until they know quiet ways to deal with them.

What breed is the puppy? Kinda sounds like maybe the older dog is unsure how to behave towards the puppy. If the puppy is jumping at him or on him and he's not entirely comfortable with the puppy in the first place, that might make him feel quite defensive and try to see the puppy off before he can jump on him. I think I would be concentrating on trying to build a positive association with the puppy for your older dog. Assuming his behaviour stems from being uncertain, one would think it might change if he feels more confident about the puppy. I would be popping him treats for looking at the puppy while you keep the puppy behind a baby gate or in a pen or crate. If he gets good things when he's paying attention to the puppy he is likely to view the puppy as a good thing and loosen up around him. But you would have to be careful about the intensity or level of arousal in the older dog. You don't want intense stares or emotionally heightened behaviour like barking and chasing. This works if the dog is relatively calm. Usually you can put distance between dog and puppy until the dog is relaxed and start there, taking a step or two forwards when your older dog is relaxed. For more information, look up counter conditioning. It'll be really useful with the puppy as he grows up, even if you decide it's not right for your current situation with the older dog.

How does the Kong Wobbler compare to a dog pyramid toy in size? We have a pyramid, which is totally awesome, but it constantly gets wedged under things. I was going to get a Bob-A-Lot because I think it's big and round enough that it won't get caught under or behind things so often.

Search for kikopup on YouTube. She has tons of great clicker videos, both for tricks and general skills. It's not hard to get a typical dog excited by clicker training if you keep the reward rate high (like, one click and treat every few seconds) and the steps easy. Don't fall into the trap of waiting around for her to do something. If she's not doing anything, find something tiny to click, like a shift of weight, even. Once they are excited by clicker training IME it is not difficult to get them to do what they are told. You cue it and if they know the cue, they do it. You just have to keep practicing a lot and make sure you take what you do at home on the road as well. I would say start with targeting nose and paws. It's easy and builds confidence and you can build just about any behaviour imaginable with targets. The more precise you are in your criteria the more precise she will be. One of my frequent early mistakes was to not have a clear idea of the behaviour I wanted. A sit is not just a sit. You should have some idea exactly where she should sit when cued, which direction she should be facing, and what variations you will accept. I have taught a lot of sloppy behaviours with broad criteria and I always regret it. I'm trying to get into the habit of knowing exactly what I want down to very small details.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Possibly, or it could be a more general thing. Like the dog wants to leap all over you but knows he only gets greeted if he sits. Or it could be he's so excited he has to find something to do and is trying to pick something appropriate, like when I'm so excited I want to jump and squeal, but I'm with complete strangers who might find that a bit disturbing and so I find something more appropriate because I just can't hold it in completely. I'm just throwing ideas out there. I think it's calming for my boy just going on the fact that he behaves more calmly during greetings when he has something in his mouth than when he doesn't. But why it's calming is anyone's guess. Maybe it's because he felt conflicted and engaging in a displacement behaviour makes him feel less conflicted which in turn makes him feel calmer. It's hard to unravel behaviour! It's why I love it so much. If the dog is not sure how to behave they may start doing displacement behaviours. Not knowing what to do can be anxiety-inducing. Or perhaps they are feeling intimidated but don't want to engage, so they'll sniff the ground or something, kind of like averting the gaze or perhaps communication to tell the other dog/person that they are not paying attention to them and therefore are no threat. My dogs have clearer ways of saying that they are no threat, but I sometimes see dogs that aren't entirely comfortable with other dogs tongue flick or sniff the ground. To me, it's like a combined message. "Let's everyone relax" and "I don't know what to do; this is uncomfortable for me". Here's one of Erik that's a bit like that: I'm not sure what his deal was, but he was giving very exaggerated "I'm no threat" signals for this wee puppy that included some tongue flicks. I think that he was a bit taken aback because he was with a lot of doggy friends and it was the first time he'd met this squirt. He was tearing around like a loon with his mates one moment and the next he was like "Argh, I don't know her. Who's she?? She's small and smells funny!" I think the tongue flicking in this context means he's not sure how to behave and I do think it's an indicator of anxiety, although it was over very quickly once Erik realised it was just another dog. Normally he is way more confident in greeting a strange dog. I'd be looking for sniffing the ground or tongue flicks, primarily. Also, looking away from me or seeming distracted, or circling with head down as if the dog was following a smell in a circle. If I got a yawn or a sneeze in training I'd be more inclined to think it was a self-calming thing, but that's just from my experiences. For Erik, I look for nose-poking. He is a serial poker. Often he does it if he's trying to get a click, but sometimes it takes on a compulsive flavour and he'll just lean over and touch something next to him with his nose in between other behaviours. If I see a nose poke in that context I assume he's a bit stressed for whatever reason. It might be because what I'm asking is too hard for him, or he's not sure what to do, or he's feeling frustrated or maybe he's not focussed for some other reason. Generally going back to easier things and/or increasing the reward rate makes the nose poking stop. For things like circling, sniffing, and tongue flicks, it might be happening because the dog is feeling too much pressure from the trainer. They might be anxious about doing the wrong thing or may actually not be enjoying the training. Could also be that they don't know what to do and are finding it frustrating, like Erik. Most of this is just guesses on my part, but I think if you look at the accompanying body behaviour it becomes a pretty educated guess. Sorry, long post! Hope that wasn't boring and off topic.

Displacement behaviour is a bit confusing IMO because we're told that it's an indicator of anxiety, but I think it's more context-dependent than that. Sometimes it's an indicator of anxiety, but I think sometimes it's just a dog regulating their own arousal level, which is perfectly appropriate. I see my dogs do displacement behaviours all the time when they have been playing rough and one or both have decided it's all getting a bit too intense. One will shake and inevitably the other will do it within a few seconds. It's not unusual for them to do it together. My last dog used to sneeze when a wresting game was wrapping up. Erik is really heavy on the displacement behaviours. I used to worry about it, but eventually decided he was just trying to chill most of the time. It's not always easy for him to go from active to non-active in one big step. Lots of displacement behaviour while he's adjusting, but then it goes away. Or, another possibility is that displacement behaviour is sometimes an indicator of a dog recovering or attempting to recover their equilibrium after a disturbance. Like if your dog was napping and then you come home and that excites them, perhaps displacement behaviours help them bring themselves back to a new equilibrium that includes you. I dunno, but I think displacement behaviours are intensely interesting. I don't want to see them in my training sessions or when I'm playing with my dog or giving my dog a cue, though.

I think you are mistaken. While it is true that meeting aggression with aggression does not always result in the dog's aggression quickly escalating, the fact that it occurs sometimes should be enough to give anyone pause. Political correctness is not the primary reason these warnings are made. Safety is. And as it happens, the theory is not nonsense. A few months ago I was reading a paper in which they looked at aggressive behaviour in *gasp* working line GSDs in response to punishment. I don't remember the exact figures, but there were dogs growling and mouthing the handlers even in response to a leash pop or harsh tone. It doesn't pay to take the risk IMO.

Kivi is well known for doing this, and I agree with Jigsaw. It's a displacement thing. Kivi seems to use it to keep himself calm. The way I see it, dogs have a level of arousal they are comfortable with and if they get above that level in some contexts they start doing things to calm themselves down again. Kivi's threshold is quite low. As soon as he gets a little bit excited he grabs a toy and stands there wagging his tail with his ears pinned back looking adorable. He often comes and pushes the toy against peoples' legs. He then walks around and around with the toy in his mouth until he feels calmer again. If he doesn't have a toy his arousal goes up higher and we see different behaviours, like barking and dancing in greeting instead of standing there wagging his tail. My other dog doesn't do it, but tongue flicks a lot. Like I said, though, it's context-dependent. Kivi will cheerfully run around the park without something in his mouth (except perhaps Erik's tail) and not feel particularly compelled to calm himself down. In that context it's appropriate and safe to be more aroused. But when the game is over we'll see displacement behaviour again, usually a body shake. ETA Wuffles, is Ava a bit on the naturally mouthy side? Kivi isn't much of a retriever either, but is quite mouthy. He is extremely gentle with his mouth, but never quite grew out of mouthing completely. These days it is restricted usually to quiet play and displays of affection.

Well, you can punish the aggressive behaviour if you want, but you'd better know how far you can push the dog and have a good idea when he'll fold. Otherwise you could find yourself in a whole world of trouble very easily. What happens if the dog escalates from snapping to biting? What happens if the dog actually tries to hurt you? If you get yourself into that situation, you had better have balls of steel and be able to MAKE SURE that escalation does not result in giving an inch to the dog. If he gets you and it hurts and scares you and you back off as a result, he's just learnt that a more aggressive behaviour worked. Not only do you now have a dog that knows hurting you gets him what he wants, but he will may well escalate further quite readily if you push him again. I saw this with a wild duck recently, actually. I was running past and it looked like it might come after me (had ducklings). I backed off, not wanting to provoke it, and it just flew straight at me and battered its wings around my head. I'm guessing people have systematically taught this duck to not bother with the threats and go straight for the attack. I've heard that argument plenty of times. Maybe with some dogs it's true. IME, it is generally not true. If you set the dog up so that they don't feel the need to be aggressive, you never have to face the problem of what to do when they are. I have found myself with a dog by the scruff of the neck that has decided to hurt me because I didn't pay attention to the "I don't like" language and I would rather just avoid a repeat of that if at all possible. All right, you clearly know best.

I made one out of a thin plastic stake from Bunnings and some rope and a toy. Cost me about $5. We just have fun with ours, and practice self-control. Erik lies down and I try to tease him into breaking the down. He gets to chase it for showing self-control and holding the down.

Oh, come on, you are not that stupid. It's a wee bit more complicated than good leadership=calm and relaxed dog at all times. Erik is not what I would ever call a nervous wreck and never has been. He gets easily aroused and does not easily recover back to baseline is all. He's not even 18 months old, though. He's still a baby. He has come a long way and I'm pretty happy with his progress. He just keeps getting better. I talk about the problems I've had because I think it might help other people to share the things that have helped Erik. Day to day, though, Erik is pretty good these days. That's why I share what we've done. I assume it's helped.

It is to me. I don't know about anyone else. ETA Sorry, that probably didn't help. It's not at all the same thing to me for a whole bunch of reasons I can't be bothered trying to explain, but essentially I don't think respect even means much to dogs unless through threat and intimidation.

I do not demand my dogs respect me, but I don't need to. If they want something they have been taught the best bet to get it is sit or down and be quiet. That sees us through the majority of life's conflicts. My younger dog is a thorough obnoxious brat by nature and will pretty much try anything. No doubt he's the kind of dog many people would consider very dominant. It's not simple the way I manage him, but in its simplest form, I don't care if he doesn't respect me as long as he does what he's told. He does what he's told because it is typically rewarding for him to do so. That has nothing to do with respect. It's just learning and habit. Living with a dog that is in the habit of doing what he's told is not especially hard.

We are not necessarily dealing with just behaviour. IME, it pays to identify whether the main motivator is something tangible or something that then leads to a sought after change in emotional state. It is not nice to feel afraid and an animal will try to find ways to behave that will alleviate that feeling of fear or anxiety or even just high arousal. For example, say you're worried about getting a nasty surprise. One possible strategy is to just be more alert. But when you're more alert, you hear more things and see more things and smell more things and if you are more alert because you are afraid of something bad happening, you will tend to expect all these things you sense are probably going to turn out to be bad. So you react to them as if they are bad, which gets you more upset because you are in a constant state of preparing for something bad to happen, so even when it doesn't happen, you can't relax much before something else gets you worried. Or alternatively, you react to the worrying stimuli, nothing bad happens to you, and so you feel like you've averted the bad thing and continue to repeat that behaviour because it makes you feel like you're averting disaster. I think I'm not communicating this very well. I really just want to say that it's likely to be complicated and I think that treating the behaviour without considering the emotional state that might be driving the behaviour is a mistake. It may well work, but at what cost to the dog? You won't ever know. But to me, this is the exact situation where I would want to be there for my dog. If I can do something to make him feel more relaxed, I've not only treated the problem behaviour quickly, effectively, and possibly permanently, but given the dog more confidence in himself that he can manage upsetting things happening to him, and more trust in me that I can help him when he needs it. Emotional stability is something I want my dogs to think they can get from me. It took me a long time to learn that this is leadership. Not ignoring a frightened dog, or demanding a dog respect me. Just being the one that can always make them feel safe, confident and relaxed. The one that can right a world gone wrong and give them something they can do with impunity when they are at a loss. I want dogs that hardly ever need my input to feel emotionally stable, but part of achieving that is being able to help them find it when they are having trouble finding it on their own.