corvus

It is a fair bit more complicated than a dog that doesn't respect you, as you can probably guess. PF beat me to the "rubbish" comment. I trust that you are not silly enough to punish a dog that is on the defensive. A habit of deference is always a good thing to instil in a dog, but some dogs just don't generalise this well. For all we know your mum may have been passively handling the dog so that it looked like she was deferring to him when he was on the bed. For example, she comes in to get something, he gives her "the look" and she leaves, having found what she was looking for. She may not have even noticed him, but to him she deferred to his 'ownership' of the bed at that moment. So one day she tries to physically move him and he deeply dislikes it. To him, she has broken a mutual agreement. It DOES NOT have to be dominance. It could be more like the rules of engagement for a harmonious household. Just like he defers to her for many things, he thinks she defers to him on this one thing because that has been the history. That's just one interpretation. Obviously no one can tell exactly what's going on without seeing it. Anyway, it seems like a good idea to just keep him off the bed for now. I think I would teach him to target and use it to teach him to get on and off all sorts of things on cue. If you make it into a targeting exercise that always pays for him, he's likely to get quite cheerful about it. To me, it's when dogs do things like this that it's time to employ your skills of subtlety. You are smarter than him and you can manipulate him into changing his behaviour without him realising you are getting your own way. If you turn whatever you want him to do into something that he thinks he wants to do, then problems may well evaporate. Look at it from a behavioural aspect. Break down what you ultimately want him to do instead of guarding things down into small steps, teach him those steps in a safe environment away from treasured resources, then generalise it gradually into other areas, under distraction, in new places with new objects and basically just slip it quietly into everyday life just like NILIF. We have done this for a few things my little guy felt quite strongly about and he kind of goes "Well, you should have said there would be roast chicken involved." Or "Oh, targeting, I can do that." The more you practice it and reward it (with something decent), the more willing he will be to do it when you really need him to. That's not a solution to your current problem so much as a general approach that might help to avoid similar problems in the future.

I would try some massage and a calming wrap. You can use a stretchy t-shirt or an elastic bandage to make a wrap. Not sure how helpful it would be, but it certainly would not hurt or make it worse. Erik gets a bit on the hyper-alert side sometimes and massage really helps. We just got him a Thundershirt, which is a kind of calming wrap. It seems to help him calm more quickly after getting worked up, and does calm him well if he's only a little bit aroused, but doesn't do much if he's running around barking.

Really? Well, I must know a lot of the "not many". Chase, quite likely, but kill, not so much. My boys haven't grown up with cats. They will chase, but don't even try to grab.

Sometimes people naturally use a clumsy kind of R- to get their dogs to behave. Grump at them until they do the right thing, then ignore them. Of course, do that to a sensitive dog and you systematically shut it down so it's afraid to do anything.

I think corgis make pretty good kids dogs. My first dog was a little Pembroke. She was always up for a 4 hour hike through the bush (until she got too old for it), but didn't chase the roos or the bunnies or foxes. She was scared of horses and snakes, the former because of some overly friendly donkeys when she was a pup and the latter I assume was genetic. She always got on very well with cats and pet rabbits. I was looking for working breeds that wouldn't kill my pet rabbits a few years back and ended up with a Finnish Lapphund. That worked out pretty well. They have a lot of hair, though. Mine is a grub and actively seeks out things that smell bad to eat and roll in. He is also one for getting wet and muddy. Every time he rolls in the grass at the moment I have to spend half an hour getting burrs out of his coat. I don't think I'd fancy trying to keep his coat clean and tidy on a large property.

In my mind, a correction is not due when it's not necessary. You get what you reward. If you reward sloppy sits, then how is it fair that the dog gets punished for doing sloppy sits? It's easy enough to just shape back to what you want by introducing criteria and just not rewarding sits that don't meet that criteria. You just have to be careful about frustration.

Agreed. I judge losing my dogs to be the most likely dangerous thing that could happen to them and so minimising that danger is a priority in my mind.

This kind of thing has been floating around in the States for years. Most people seem more concerned about the chip migrating, which seems to be not uncommon. There are a few papers around about it. http://vet.sagepub.com/content/43/4/545.full http://jacques.prestreau.pagesperso-orange...-synopsis-1.pdf http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1638/1042...amp;cookieSet=1 http://www.digitalangel.com/documents/arti...0Wustenberg.pdf That's a fairly random selection. There are others.

No chicken meat available anywhere in Australia has been grown with the help of growth hormones. It is against the law to feed chickens artificial hormones here and in most of the rest of the world afaik. Companies that claim their chicken is hormone free are just stating an industry standard. See here

Interesting. I'm sure I heard a vet on the radio last tick season saying DON'T use tweezers whatever you do because it squeezes the tick resulting in a flood of poison. He was talking about dogs that suddenly drop dead when the tick is squeezed. Maybe I remember that incorrectly. I haven't had to get any off my current dogs, but for myself and previous dogs I've always used a fingernail to scrape it off. One time I had to get a cattle tick off a cow. It was a little big for scraping off with a fingernail, being the size of a finger joint! Went for the large forceps option on that one. ;)

That is the idea in Sweden with the Swedish Working Dogs dog mentality test. Well, that's what some people seem to think the idea is. I can't work out if it really is or not. I'm interested in puppies because I'm interested in how stable these things are and when they become stable if they do. That's mostly just to help everyone better understand what is going on and how easily traits can be influenced by environment. Personally, the hope is that breeding animals would be tested if there were a simple enough way to do it, which there already is, really. It's just not very accessible unless you're picking puppies to train for police dog work. And not very systematic, because at the end of the day no one has all the answers and there is still a fair bit of guesswork. I don't think anyone will ever have all the answers, but the more pieces of the puzzle we have, the more informed our decisions are. Anyway, I think it would be fantastic if breeders tested the temperaments of their breeding animals. I know one or two who try to select for temperament but sometimes find it difficult. I guess because temperament is so much more than what a puppy is born with.

Little Austi is one of our favourites as well. We come from southern Sydney, so usually go for the northern beaches. We like Little Austi because it's got some quiet bits our water-wuss dogs can paddle in without getting scared. It is a little close to a major road, though. It makes me a tad nervous despite having good recalls on both dogs. Bellambi beach is much easier to relax on.

"So I says to him, I says..." "Not the face!" One of Erik's impossibly bright looks with one of Kivi's impossibly dull looks.

It's possible to shape for less intense reactions. I suspect it takes a fair bit of skill and a very structured approach with a clear idea of criteria at all times.

I think it comes down to what you want. If I had the opportunity to choose for myself and was after something in particular, I would be looking at a few things. Personality in puppies is notoriously unstable, but some things tend to be more stable than others. For example, shyness and boldness exist on a continuum. There is some evidence that bold dogs are more trainable than shy dogs and tend to excel at sports. Traits that are related to a high level of boldness include interest in playing with people and what's termed "non-social fear", which basically means wariness towards novel objects but not so much towards novel dogs or people. There is some talk of a natural retrieve and desire to tug being good indicators of boldness. Also possibly curiosity. A shy dog is not necessarily a dog to avoid as long as you have some idea how to manage it. A very bold dog could be a right handful. Proactiveness versus reactiveness is another personality element that is thought to be at least partially genetic. We know that we can breed proactivity and reactivity into lines in rats, but it's never been tried in dogs. IMO, reactive dogs make easier pets, although maybe proactive dogs are good for sports. In this sense, reactive just means they respond to the environment. You can tell a proactive animal by what they do if they are faced with a novel object or situation. They tend to quickly do something, usually attacking (or approaching) or running away. A reactive animal is more likely to freeze until they feel they have to move. Some puppies could be totally traumatised by any test of proactivity/reactivity. Lastly, stress reactivity, which refers to how quickly an animal recovers after being stressed. I don't know that it's ethical to test this on puppies, but it would be so good if there were a low-stress way to do it because I think it's really important. Possibly there's a behavioural indicator that doesn't depend on upsetting puppies to see it. Get back to me in about a year and I might have one. :D Anyway, this is all about an animal's ability to get riled about something and then get over it when that something is no longer there. My little guy has terrible recovery and often stays wired basically until someone does something to help him calm down. In contrast, my other dog has excellent recovery and is back to normal within moments of the upsetting situation going away. Drivey dogs tend to be a bit on the high stress reactivity side, anecdotally. If you combine proactivity with high stress reactivity in dogs you could be in for a wild ride. I knew an extreme example of this kind of dog and he was a whole world of trouble. My little guy is a less extreme version and he certainly has his challenges.

In all honesty, I've said things like "you are just so ridiculous" to puppies that are all wrinkly and adorable that I am currently smooching to oblivion. It never occurred to me that anyone would find it insulting! Puppies in general are ridiculous. They bounce and wriggle and fall on their sides and flail on the ground and crawl in your lap and then lick your face. The behaviour is ridiculous, but it's why I love puppies so much. They are just so silly! And when they have skin wrinkles and just sit there looking so freaking adorable and saggy, I would say they are ridiculously cute. I also very much like rats and would not at all find it insulting to have a small dog of mine likened to a rat. It's just a size comparison. Rats are cute. I call OH's parents' Min Pin a little mouse deer. I think people should not be so sensitive. Terms of endearment sometimes sound insulting, but they aren't. If people are saying it to your face chances are they aren't trying to be mean. I get "He looks so HOT, poor thing!" about Kivi all the time. It doesn't bother me. Why should it? People will think what they will think. I daresay some of them think I'm cruel for keeping a full-coated breed in Australia and are just too polite to say it. Big deal.

Can you think of a simpler, more plausible explanation? If so, then that is probably the best explanation. I think they do. There have been more than a few occasions where i have gone to a client's house to do a consult and the dogs stay right away from me for the entire consult. On each occasion, the owners state that their dogs have never done that before with any of their visitors.....and I have not done anything, other than enter the house. Could the dogs possibly be feeling my 'no nonsense' approach.... my stance, the way I hold myself and portray my energy?? Not to mention sheep herding too......sheep will usually let you know if your dog has any presence/energy or not? I think it's all in the body language. We do a lot of things that we're not aware of, but animals are very good at noticing tiny differences. It is my belief that muscle tension and the balance of bodyweight is of universal significance to animals. I also think confidence is profoundly important and is displayed in body language and the way one moves.

I've had surprising success with a ten minute massage at the start of the day. One of my dogs reacts to less things if he's relaxed. Might be worth looking at a Thundershirt. We have been trying one out. Not sure if it really works, but it seems to calm him when he's a little wired and help him relax more quickly after getting worked up.

Howard has pretty much zero interest in the obstacles. I'm training him to see most as big toy ejectors. Haha, that's about where I decided it would be best if we pulled out until our reward system was back on track again. Erik decided agility was all about food and when I tried to bring toys back in for jumps he told me he gets food at agility, thanks, and could I put that stupid thing away and bring out the treats already. This quickly attacked the rest of my training like a cancer and suddenly training full-stop is all about food. I totally moved too slowly on it because I saw it happening several weeks before I tried to do much about it. Another lesson for Corvus! We are back to the flirt pole and shaping fetch of tug toys because somehow my tug monster is now a clicker addict and I never introduced much toy work into my clicker training. Fascinating how easy it can be to botch the whole thing! :D Never mind. All the pieces are there, just gotta rebuild it.

If you were planning on agility trialling you would need to rethink that. However, the obstacles tend to be rewards in themselves and you can always praise. I don't always reward with treats. I was lumping secondary and primary reinforcers. At the moment with Erik I'm working on switching from games to food and back again precisely so we can get back to agility. We're on a hiatus due to over-dependence on treats in early training sessions. E is a routine-driven creature and it basically unravelled everything I'd built in him. Lesson for Corvus: don't build on shaky foundations! Ramirez had an awesome talk for introducing different rewards and teaching an animal to accept their varied sprinkling through a training session. He says he tries to have at least 6 secondary reinforcers and he treats them like training a behaviour until they are extremely rewarding in themselves. Grey Stafford says a secondary reinforcer or a bridge are only as good as the last time you paired them with a primary reinforcer.

That is, IMO, an overly bold assertion. For starters, who knows if a dog sees someone as a "leader" in the first place? Secondly, who knows what is actually at the root of the problem? Thirdly, I've seen dogs that defer to their owners on all things, but still resource guard them. We don't know if this behaviour is driven by a general sense of insecurity, a specific insecurity, or not an insecurity at all. Leadership may improve a general sense of security, but if one thing is causing an aggressive response, there's every chance that general leadership will do squat. The simuli that cause the response are still there, and the emotional state driving the response hasn't been addressed directly. That's not to say general leadership doesn't have its benefits. It does plenty... in general.

I reward every time, usually with a primary reinforcer, but not always. Ken Ramirez had a lot to say about variable reward schedules. He told a horrifying story about an inexperienced trainer that used secondary reinforcers with an orca during a show for about ten minutes straight. An experienced trainer had done the exact same thing earlier that day, and the inexperienced trainer was so inspired he decided to give it a go. At the end of the sequence, he reached in to scratch the orca's tongue, which is a good secondary reinforcer, and the orca bit both his hands off. The chief thing that went wrong in Ramirez's view was that the orca didn't trust that the inexperienced trainer would deliver the primary reinforcer, and after ten minutes of being asked to work without one, it was getting pretty peeved. Obviously this isn't going to happen with a pet dog (I hope!), but Ramirez has a systematic method of introducing a variable reward schedule, which is much the same system as introducing a secondary reinforcer, and he uses that with any animal, including his own pet dog. I don't have my notes from the conference with me right now, but I can post an outline of the method later if anyone is interested. Personally, I don't bother. I always have treats with me, so I always reward. For sloppy responses I usually use an LRS - pause for a couple of seconds, then cue something easy, reward, try again with the sloppy behaviour. I don't often do that, though. My partner is determined to corrupt all his cues and rewards sloppyness hither and thither. He accuses me of being a training nazi and insists he wants his cues to mean multiple things. Given I worked so hard to get him rewarding in the first place, I live with it. For the moment. There are some cues I just don't tell him about.

Yes, I think it is normal for most dogs. I have a very social dog that will still play with any dog he meets at 2 1/2, but it doesn't have the same excitement in it as when he was a year old. Mostly he is about the greetings more than the play these days. My other dog is nearly 18 months old and so still fascinated with other dogs. I expect that in the next 6 months this will fade. ETA I think if they have a playmate they live with it's fair to assume they will play with each other for the rest of their lives. Not all dogs will, but many will. My two prefer playing with each other. They know each other so well there are never any misunderstandings or tense moments. I would prefer a playmate like that over one that has mannerisms I don't quite understand.

I reckon corgis and shelties are great little family dogs. But I think it pays with shelties to really research your lines. They can be quite highly strung. My mum has one that used to redirect to the nearest leg when she was frightened. This same sheltie is very confident around strangers, though, and the local vet often comments that she is one of the nicest shelties he knows. He says most he sees are overly shy. Corgis are very easy to train, but can be a bit cheeky. My old girl had this way of breaking the rules with lots of playful body language. It was thoroughly charming and she usually fell in line when I asked the second time, but she'd test everyone this way and if they didn't insist she'd cheerfully ignore them from then on.

I have tried it and it doesn't work. However, lemon-scented tea-tree oil did kind of slightly work. If I had the room, I'd plant one in our yard. Apparenly Pennyroyal and Fleabane are also strong repellants, but they are also not all that safe around dogs. Lemon-scented tea-trea is safe around dogs as far as I was able to figure out, although my girl hated the smell of it. Our infestation was not under control until Comfortis came out. We are now flea free and have been for about 9 months just with Comfortis alone.