corvus

Yeah, but you're a dog nerd. ;) Not everyone is that sensitive. ;) I've never had anyone argue with me about my breeds. They might insist Erik looks like a shepherd cross, and I say "Yes, a lot of people say that.", but they don't insist he IS a shepherd cross. :D I have had people say things like "Well, with that breed probably this sized bed would be about right." while I have Kivi with me and I'm thinking "Do you know what breed he is? 'Cause most people don't and you seem to be avoiding actually saying the breed while sounding like you know what he is." I guess maybe some people get offended when people don't know what breed they have, so folks learn to at least sound like they know. ;)

Agreed, but I was referring to a typical human's hangup about it. I think it is rarely dominance and rarely sexual behaviour, but frequently displacement behaviour. We don't think it rude if a dog tongue flicks and looks away from us.

I don't think there's much difference. Kivi is easy to get along with and would be without the training, but there's no way he'd do what he was told if we didn't do lots of training with him. I mean, he IS a male spitz. We just do basic stuff like recall and LLW. We practice a lot, so he's good at doing what he's asked. Erik is a handful. He's well trained BECAUSE he's not naturally well behaved. Without training that dog would be something like a small tornado. He's more biddable than Kivi by far, but he's also in a whole other class when it comes to bratty behaviour. He had tried more bratty things in the first few days we had him than Kivi has tried in his whole life. Neither are especially well trained in that they are perfectly behaved all the time. They are well trained in that they do what we ask of them. There are lots of things we don't expect of them that we maybe should. They are a product of our lifestyle and what's important to us. They are trained to have fun with us.

It really doesn't bother me if people assume my dogs are crossbreeds. If I can't place a breed, it's a fair assumption that it's a cross. I don't expect anyone to be able to place either of my breeds. It's actually kind of embarrassing when we tell them what they are. It's like "The little guy? He's a Swedish Vallhund." "Riiiight, okay. And what's the big one?" "A Finnish Lapphund." "Ahhhhh...." And I know they're thinking "Wait, what was the difference?" I usually comment that we collect hunds. Two isn't really a collection, but I just can't stand that awkward silence as people realise they've already forgotten both breeds and can't figure out why they sounded like the same breed. Sometimes they ask us to repeat them. "VALLhund, LAPPhund. They are Nordic herders."

Erik pokes things. He particularly targets tall, unstable things that nearly fall over when he pokes them. This fascinates me. He pokes, then leaps backwards in case he poked too hard and the thing is about to fall on his head (does happen from time to time). Why does he poke them when he seems to think they might fall on his head? Fascinating. Kivi does the floppy thing as well. Every evening when I say it's bedtime, Kivi loses leg functionality. He flails on the ground and makes like a sack of potatoes until I give him a big cuddle, then he regains the use of his legs and gets up to come to bed. I give him his cuddle, because he's gorgeous. The other funny thing he does is grab Erik's tail when he's chasing Erik. He can be very gentle about it, but every now and then he grabs the tail and then puts the breaks on and pulls Erik over by it. Erik doesn't like it much, but given Erik frequently uses Kivi as his personal punching bag, I think Kivi is entitled to annoy his little brother every now and then. What really annoys Erik, though, is when Kivi grabs his harness instead of his tail. Kivi has just about perfected the harness grab-and-flip. Poor Erik doesn't stand much of a chance.

Thanks guys, sounds like a winner.

Does anybody have one of those Bob-A-Lot toys? I've been thinking about getting one, but we have a treat dispensing pyramid, which Erik LOVES, but somehow he always gets it wedged under cupboards, the couch, or behind the fridge. I'm wondering if the Bob-A-Lot tends to end up in the same ridiculous places or if it's too big to get wedged. Yesterday I found the pyramid under the couch where it had been hiding for months. I do not know how Erik gets it under there because it barely fits. He tends to slam it around with great gusto. I often wonder if he's going to put it through a wall one day. Here's the Bob-A-Lot:

I'd say corgi. My first dog was a corgi. Despite the fact my mum did all the feeding and spent more time with her, she always knew she was my dog. Vallhunds are tough as old boots, play rough, and are very bold and confident, but they aren't exactly gentle as a breed. IME, corgis are not as drivey and are a bit easier to manage. My corgi played well with large dogs, but she was very gentle with kids and adults. There's no way I'd trust Erik's handling to a child. He is hardcore! He will walk all over anyone that doesn't pre-emptively tell him what to do. It's just what he does. He looks for opportunities. If there's a gap, he'll exploit it for all it's worth. It's not a dominance thing, it's just his exploitative nature. It's the same thing that makes him such a dream to train. I think that Erik is a bit extreme, though. There are some much gentler and more mellow Vallhunds around that are easier to manage. I do worry that they are all a bit quirky. You can't push Valls around. If they don't want to do something you just have to find a way to gain their willing cooperation. There's no taking them for granted. "The tone" just makes them run the other way. Super, super cuddly, though. Erik is a cuddle monster. He gives cuddles like a toddler. Can't stay angry with a dog that cuddles with such focus and dedication!

Easy: The power of this is it is a conditioned response. Conditioned responses take a little time to build, but the more you practice it in a variety of situations the more effective it becomes. I tend to use Erik's name, which is very sloppy because I say it without rewarding too often, but even so, it's been quite useful in a lot of situations. It's rare that I can't get his attention if I call his name, and if I can get his attention chances are he'll do what I ask him to do next. I think this kind of thing is as effective as the amount of time you put into it as a general rule.

Erik seems to confound and fascinate people. I am yet to understand why, but they often ask if he's a shepherd cross. Or a shepherd cross corgi, or a husky cross. We've had "He looks like a sawn off shepherd!" I don't mind, because Swedish Vallhunds aren't exactly common anywhere. And they do look unusual with the wolf grey coat and the short legs. Most people usually follow it up with compliments on how beautiful/handsome/awesome/fun he is. I only get bummed that he's taken all the attention away from Kivi. I'm like "Have you noticed my other dog, who has gorgeous, striking facial markings and glorious flowing fur that I spend hours brushing??" Occasionally someone asks if Erik's a Swedish Vallhund. It's always very cool. They usually end up being from the UK.

Coming into this a bit late, but I couldn't recommend TTouch and massage enough. I swear it saved our lives when Erik was a puppy. He gets worked up very easily, but has trouble calming down again afterwards. He seems to run at a naturally high level of arousal and it is just so easy for him to go up a notch and so hard for him to come back down a notch again. We did lots of practice of going up and down as suggested in Control Unleashed, and the massage has been hugely helpful and has brought the problem mostly under control. I recently bought a Thundershirt, which appears to help, although it's too early to really say. I just yesterday made a video of massaging Erik for someone else to look at. In this video he's not really in the mood for settling down, so it shows how quickly he does anyway. Tongue flicking abounds. I use quite firm pressure on Erik's back and haunches because he seems to like it firm, and I use firm pressure on Kivi because his coat is so thick he barely feels it otherwise. My previous dog I was way too hard on, though. She was arthritic and I do think I was hurting her. After I watched the TTouch dvd I realised what I'd been doing wrong. I really like the dvd. It helps to see it done.

Thanks M-J, that makes sense. I'm working on duration for his paw targets, so perhaps that will help. I was doing some more targeting with him this afternoon and I think you're right. He's not sure exactly where to touch so he bops my hand and bops it again. I realised I'm kinda shaping multiple touches rather than duration of a single touch. It looked and felt like a messy single touch, but when I looked at it more critically I think it's multiple touches. I believe some people shape duration from that, but I don't know how! Erik does it better and he learnt to touch mostly with a perspex target, so I'm thinking maybe that difference in texture and hardness will help us both figure out exactly what a nose target is. Thanks guys.

Well, it doesn't result in anything that needs to be cleaned, or any disagreeable odours. It's not especially annoying unless you can't walk around the room because you have a dog attached to your leg. It often doesn't directly impact humans at all. It comes down to whether you're embarrassed by a non-human animal engaging in sexual behaviour right in front of you and the welfare of those that might get humped. Fact is a lot of dogs and humans don't like being humped, so I would stop it. That's the only reason why, though. Sexual behaviour is not IMO inherently rude. I certainly never bothered trying to stop my hare from masturbating. He's a boy. He has urges I have no control over.

I like this one of Erik: I like this one because Kivi's all like "I'm gonna get your toy, rarrrr." and Erik's like, "As if." They are so obnoxious to each other, but they can be because they know each other so well. This one of Kivi 'cause he's just so pretty. And this postcard Kivi sent us from the beach. :D

Thanks guys, that gives me a pretty good spread.

Thanks Jigsaw. I want him to hold the first touch rather than smearing his nose all over my hand. I don't mind terribly where he touches, so I guess I should shape a steady touch.

A natural position.

So, when I started teaching Kivi to target, I was pretty blase about it and didn't pay very much attention to how precise he was. I have since learnt that regardless of my intentions, lack of precision is just sloppy and I should just put the effort in to begin with to get precision. But in the meantime, I've been finding teaching him duration on his nose targets is a bit slow and I think part of the problem is he's not very consistent about where he puts his nose on my hand and he often moves it around slightly while he's targeting. I give him two fingers as the signal and expect him to target my palm just below them, but I started off letting him target anywhere on my palm. I'm wondering if I need to tidy up his (my) sloppy targeting before I work on duration, or if I just need to persist and shape stillness into the duration targeting? Or both, maybe?

I'm designing a nose-poking apparatus with the expectation that it will be used on dogs of all sizes. The idea is to design it so the bit the dogs poke with their nose can be moved up and down so it's always at nose level regardless of the height of the dog. However, I'm not entirely sure how high (or low) it should go. Can you tell me roughly how high your dog's nose is from the ground when they are standing in a neutral position with head up?

Finnish Lapphund if they don't mind the grooming. They are a bit smaller than Collies.

I think there comes a point where it doesn't matter what is causing it, the animal just needs counter-conditioning. It's always nice to know what you're counter-conditioning, but the reality is sometimes a guess is as good as you'll get. You know she doesn't like the grass in your yard, so just counter-condition her to like it again.

Sometimes humping is displacement behaviour. For example, if I had one of my dogs hump me right after a training session when I'd started training the other dog, I would assume that was displacement behaviour. I would tackle it by training an "end of session" cue and physically separating the dog from me and the other dog. For other times I would concentrate on training a well conditioned interruptor. It shouldn't matter whether the dog likes humping better than food. If the dog is conditioned to respond to an interruptor (for example, a kissy sound) by running over to you for their treat, it won't occur to them to weigh up the enjoyment of humping against the food. Interruptors come in handy in all sorts of scenarios.

We like cow hooves, here. They last a long time. My boys are only moderate chewers, but a cow hoof will last them at least a week. We recently tried buffalo tail and that seems to keep them going for about a full day.

I would try microshaping it, if you marker train. I'd be looking for weight centred and marking before he flops over and then tossing the treat away from him so he has to get back up to get it before he can flip over on his hip. I would think you'd be able to shape a tidy drop inch by inch that way, but it might be hard to work the speed back into it. You might be able to mark the right position without microshaping.

The breed has serious health problems. Lundehunds have a syndrome that screws up their digestion. Every Lundehund has it because the gene pool is SO small, but some are more severely affected than others. It is not very nice and most dogs don't live as long as they should because of the effects of this syndrome. If they don't outcross this breed to try to correct the problem, I expect the breed will die out.