corvus

But is it the flat collar that is ineffective? A flat collar could just as easily be conditioned to have a positive meaning to a dog as a negative or neutral meaning. I clicker train and I'm loving how versatile that little clicky box is. The power it has over my dogs is pretty impressive. They hear a click or a marker word when they are too distracted to notice me calling their name, and they respond by going into training mode and coming over to wait for me to tell them what to do to earn a treat. It's quite expedient IME.

Have you tried fetching his squeaky toy for yourself?

Well, I don't know if it's the neighbour. I can't see them and if they are just banging around on the fence line making the plants on the fence rattle, well, could be anyone. Plus, our yard is adjacent to the lower end of the neighbour's yard. He's in his 90s and rarely goes down there. I don't think my dogs would hear it often enough to figure out who should be there and who shouldn't. I don't know if I did anything to help Erik learn to discriminate better. I tried teaching him to come inside and lie on his bed for a treat after he barks at something. It works pretty well unless it's something he thinks is terribly important that I should be doing something about. I found the more aroused he was the more sensitive he was to sounds and the more he would run around barking at nothing much and the more I needed to call him in because he wasn't coming back on his own. I started giving him a play followed by a ten minute massage before I went to work in the home office for the day, and the effect was incredible. Problem practically solved right there on the spot. Door open all day and he slept through all the things that would normally get him up and barking. When we are up for lunch he might have a little bark here and there. He likes raw vegies, so when I'm cutting up vegies for my lunch I toss him bits when he's quiet. The barking is improving steadily. Maybe he just needed to be a bit more relaxed in general to discriminate? Or maybe it just coincided with him maturing. We have the odd setback. Yesterday he was all upset by some unusual construction noise in the neighbourhood and I had to go back to massages and some treats when he was relaxing on his bed. He was much harder to settle than he has been. Mostly he doesn't need his massages anymore. If he gets worked up about something unusual during the day I give him a quick, 30 second rub and he's usually all good after that. No idea if that would help you. Erik sometimes needs help to relax and a lot of his quirky behaviour irons out when I take the time to help him. I've been teaching him a settle down cue that I use when I'm massaging him so it sets him up for calming down on his own. I haven't been as dedicated to that one as I should, but it's not bad all the same. It's not uncommon for him to relax and put his tail down with that alone if he's also on his bed. I think Karen Overall likes to pair relaxation work with a mat or bed so the dog associates them with each other. That way you can send them to the mat and they chill even if you don't have time to do some relaxation work with them.

Well I haven't tried my dog treats at all!

Once I explained why the information would help, the neighbour who complained about my dogs barking was happy to do it. Yeah, I did explain, and got some vague response about how they would write it down if it got really bad. It's not like they were home all the time themselves. Tried with the more friendly neighbours and they just didn't think it was necessary. Told us they would let us know if they were barking a lot. They seemed to think it was too much trouble for us to go to and were trying to tell us not to worry about it. It's always worth a shot, I just wouldn't expect cooperation. To the OP, can I just suggest that barking at sounds on the territory boundaries is not IMO a sign that you've been too soft or not been strong leaders. A lot of dogs just do it. It's been bred into them. Way back when, everybody wanted a dog that would let them know if someone was approaching home. Or they wanted a dog that barked so they knew where the dog was. Erik is about the same age and has been recently improving his discriminatory abilities when it comes to what needs to be alerted about and what doesn't, but noises on the fenceline are a big deal, and so they should be IMO. He doesn't know if it's just one of the neighbours or some nefarious character trying to climb into our yard.

I've never had any success getting neighbours to keep a bark diary. Even the one that has caused us trouble flatly refused to write down any details when it happens. It's not that they don't want to help, they just don't want to be roped into something that requires any commitment or ongoing dealings with us. They just want the barking to stop. Frankly, my boys just stay inside when we are out. They don't hear all the things that would normally set them off inside, or if they do they are more relaxed in the first place because they spend a lot of time indoors with us and it's their preferred place to be. They are happy and the neighbours are happy. I am quite happy for them to alert bark and didn't want to deter them from barking in general. More exercise and obedience training made no difference at all for us.

What kind of training methods do you want to use? Do you want to do competition obedience or just basic skills?

My guess is she bit harder because she REALLY didn't like it. If you press harder, either she'll bite harder again, and then you'll have to press even harder until she gives up, or you can try something that she doesn't hate so much. A punishment that is too strong sometimes does more harm than good. It's possible and not especially hard to teach them to be calm while being held with treats or even just with massage. I once saw a puppy that was so relaxed in its owners arms that it was practically limp. I asked them about it and they said when the puppy was 10 weeks old he was biting and kicking and carrying on every time they picked him up. They were taught to massage him a lot. Picking him up, massage him until he was calm, then put him down. They had to sit through the crazy struggles at first, but it only took them 10 days to go from a kicking, biting puppy to a limp and relaxed puppy. The trainer that taught them the technique said it would take longer for an older puppy.

Well, I think personality has a lot to do with it. Erik is massively easier to teach things than Kivi, but Erik has a whole different outlook on life to Kivi. Erik is an extreme opportunist. He is always looking for ways to turn things to his advantage. He doesn't accept anything. He always has to work out what it's for and if there's a way to get something good out of it. If he doesn't like it, he looks for a way to change or stop it. If he does like it, he looks for ways to exploit it mercilessly. So he looks very smart because he's so motivated to learn. Kivi is much more laid back and is content to let life happen to him. If he doesn't like it, he avoids it. If he does like it, he happily accepts it. He will try to make it happen more often, but he's nowhere near as dedicated to it as Erik is. Kivi does not excel at training the way that Erik does. Kivi tries, but he becomes anxious if he doesn't know what to do. He is not as alert as Erik, so it's not as obvious to him what he's doing right. But when it comes to social things, Kivi is a freaking genius. He is creative, persistent, and motivated. One is more trainable than the other, but I would hesitate to say one is smarter than the other. We joke that Kivi is a bit special. Erik runs rings around him in life in general, but Kivi is not dumb. He just has different priorities and motivation to Erik.

Goddamn, who are these PP people?? I am on a bunch of clicker training lists and positive dog training lists and I still haven't met one! I even went looking for one locally. Twice. Both ended up being not particularly positive. The thing is, if it's operant conditioning, it doesn't just "not work", regardless of which quadrant of OC we're talking about. If I can't get it to work, there are other things happening that I either haven't identified or am not controlling. Maybe I haven't selected the right reward, the right method of reward delivery, or my timing is off, for example. If I were using P+, I would face similar hiccups. If I get all the little components and interactions right, it will work. Some methods might be faster than others or "stick" better depending on the arousal of the dog and the history of reinforcement and the resources at hand to treat it. If I can distract my dog I'm 80% of the way there. I think you do what you have to in order to distract them and then pick a method that suits the priorities, expertise and commitment of the trainer. ETA, I warped the truth slightly. That was a very Behaviorist view and doesn't take into account motivation or the emotional state that might be driving a behaviour. But I figured I'd stick to OC seeing as that was the topic.

That is all very interesting. I remember way back when my hare was about 18 months old he lived for a few months in my parents' hallway. I watched in fascination as he learnt to override his instinctive "flee blindly" response to being frightened because he was in a tight space not suited to fleeing blindly. Instead of fleeing blindly he learnt to dash just a few steps, then stop to get his bearings. From there, he learnt to dash back to his cage, and soon cut out the middle step. I couldn't believe an animal hard-wired to run blindly very fast whenever frightened could learn in just a week or so to override that instinct. Although maybe I'm giving him a little more credit than he deserves. Hares don't always run blindly. They have great camouflage and do a lot of freezing as well. I guess for them the trick is deciding when to run and when to freeze. On top of that, Kit had been raised indoors and already had a bit of experience with tight spaces. Maybe it's not a huge leap to decide where to run when freezing isn't a sensible strategy. I guess with a dog that's more prone to anxiety or aggression I'd make more mistakes and wouldn't have the leeway I do with my dogs when I do make mistakes. I reckon it's worth a shot, though.

Thanks Aidan. Incidentally, I've been thinking about this kind of thing as an approach to raising dogs lately. Why should I sit by and let my dogs learn ways of coping that I don't want them to learn? The environments we spend lots of time in are dynamic and hard to control, but the more time I spend there the more opportunities I see for allowing my dogs to have success with coping strategies I like, and the more that happens, the more persistent they become in those coping strategies, so I have time to manage the environment before they try a different coping strategy if the ones I like aren't working for them. But my dogs are pretty social and naturally into non-aggressive coping strategies anyway. What if they weren't? Is there a way to raise dogs with lower aggression thresholds than mine so that they get lots of success with non-aggressive coping strategies?

It's not really dog related. I have been working on re-taming my hare since he got into this habit of hiding whenever I came by. I've got the safety signal, which has helped hugely in getting him to where he's at now. He will come out of hiding when I come into the cage, and he's not in a panic, and he will stay out of hiding sometimes, but he still won't approach me. I feel like I'm so close! He is watching me and he seems really interested and he's listening for my "coming in" and "leaving" signals and I think if I could just have some kind of structured way to approach and retreat based on his behaviour I would get through this last barrier. I'm just kind of doing it by guesswork when the opportunity presents itself. Like last night as I was coming in he jumped into the centre of his cage and stopped, so I stopped, and leaned back a bit, but I didn't know where to go from there. He turned away from me and retreated and I went in. I was just thinking, I could probably have managed that better. He is doing a lot of pausing in the open, which is about as ripe for operant conditioning as he ever gets. I feel like I'm blowing a lot of my opportunities because I don't have a structured approach.

Does anyone know someone in Australia that has experience in Constructional Aggression Treatment or Behavior Adjustment Training? Or maybe just a book would do seeing as I don't want it for aggressive dog behaviour.

They weigh about 13kg and are generally a bit taller than a corgi. Every now and then big dogs get a bit excitable about my Vall. He handles it really well and is very good at stopping games with big dogs that start getting too rough. Maybe not a good choice if you have a bigger dog that chases small dogs, though. They start out pretty small!

You pretty much described a Swedish Vallhund in your earlier post about what you're looking for. They are short, which I guess might be a turn off, but tough little buggers. Mine crash tackles his 26kg Lapphund brother at high speed. It's pretty spectacular. When the dust settles it takes a few moments to work out where each dog ended up. He is pretty unstoppable. He is also about the smartest dog I've ever met. He picks up new things in two repetitions and will work for just about anything. He's an excellent watchdog and has a short, double coat. He would get by on a 30 minute walk a day plus training without any trouble, although he needs to stretch his legs and run every couple of days. They are a cattle herding breed, so smart, game and easy to train, but also a spitz breed, so a wee bit independent. Nordic herders are the best! Just a nice balance between the trainability of a traditional working breed, but lower exercise requirements and a bit more independent.

I don't think just anyone should be allowed to own a Fila or Tosa Inu, but it's hard to draw a line.

My last dog used to do things like that to me. She'd secrete herself away somewhere and because she was almost deaf I would come home and be calling her for ten minutes, heart pounding, before she'd finally appear behind me. A few weeks ago Kivi disappeared. I came out of the shower and thought I heard a dog cry out, and then I couldn't find Kivi. I was in a frenzy! It turned out the gate hadn't closed properly and he'd taken himself for a walk. Fortunately, we live in a cul de sac and he hadn't gone far. He came wandering back in the gate when I emergency recalled him.

I'm not convinced that being in an adrenalised state is inherently rewarding. Considering an adrenalised state is associated with a stress response, and that usually entails flight or fight (in a simplistic categorisation of possible behaviours when in that state), it doesn't make sense to me that it would be rewarding. Same goes for arousal. There is obviously good arousal and bad arousal. IMO we ought to be more interested when training in what makes arousal good or bad and how to manipulate the "goodness" in whatever activity we are doing. Dopamine is associated with sympathetic nervous system activation (which is the domain of adrenaline), but is also associated with the crazy, energetic, exciting pleasure from things like anticipation, reward-seeking, social activities and addictions. To me, that is the system where it's all at for training, and drive is just the innate level of (or capacity for?) motivation and arousal a dog has (which, incidentally, is also theorised to be largely controlled by the number of a particular dopamine receptor an individual has). But, what do I know? I like Jaak Panksepp's drive theory. He's a theorist in the field of affective neuroscience, which for those that are unfamiliar with psychology terms (i.e. nearly everyone that isn't a psychologist) means he looks to understand emotions at a neural level. He groups all behaviours in mammals into emotional systems: panic, rage, fear, seek, play, care and lust. The groupings are based on different neural pathways. I guess some think he's a crackpot, but probably because he picked up where Freud left off, and a lot of people aren't very comfortable with Freud or emotions. Steven Lindsay certainly takes him very seriously. If that means anything to anyone.

The beauty of an animal that doesn't generalise very well is that they can have specific rules for every unique situation.

Ugh, I feel your pain. Sometimes Erik just wants what Kivi's got. No, he doesn't want a different toy, and he doesn't want his cow hoof that is lying on the floor being ignored, or his bone that is lying on the floor being ignored. He will stand there and bark at Kivi incessantly. Kivi isn't bothered; he just ignores him, but it drives us insane. Sometimes I take Kivi's and give them both something fresh that is exactly the same. That way there's nothing to argue about and the novelty is enough to keep Erik engaged rather than just harassing Kivi because he's bored or something. And Kivi doesn't have to go without because Erik is a pest. Other times I might just give Erik some attention, because that's what he's trying to get from Kivi anyway. I'm like "Hey, Erik, leave Kivi and come over here and do some tricks for me. Then you can lie down and I'll even brush you." Kivi has no interest in it, but Erik thinks is pretty neat and it won't get him all excitable. He is usually satisfied with that kind of thing. It can be a fine line between filling a void and creating an association, though. I don't want a dog that barks at the other dog for attention. Erik is very quick and clever about associations. Sometimes I just take whatever it is off Kivi and put it away. It's rough and unfair, but that's life. Lately Erik is improving. Today he tried pestering Kivi for his cow hoof and I couldn't find Erik's anywhere. I said, "Sorry, can't find yours. You'll just have to go without." And that was that. He gave up. It is not unlike what happened last year when Erik was first learning to get along with Kivi. He used to try to mug him for whatever he wanted, but over time modified his behaviour to be somewhat more considerate and polite. Just barking instead of mugging. The longer they live together the more harmonious their relationship becomes. Maybe it's a similar phase that will get ironed out the longer they are together?

Treating separation-related distress can be a bit on the hit and miss side, because there can be different causes. I think there are some things you can try on your own, but there's a good argument for getting a professional assessment by a vet behaviourist early as well, which might see it being less of a hit and miss affair. Does she only get distressed if you feed her right before you leave? If that's the only time she is triggered, it would seem like it might just be that she is using that sequence of events as a cue that something bad is going to happen and it might be an easy fix to just scramble that cue like you are already doing. If you have a leaving routine she is already comfortable with, that can be really useful IME. I have read some books and papers where moderate success has been described by having a special toy or treat the dog only gets when you are leaving them. Years ago there was a fellow whose name has escaped me that had a high success rate with treating SA by setting up a tape player to play a bridging sound to signal the owner's imminent return. Karen Overall's sit-stay protocol and relaxation protocol also seem to be quite helpful, but maybe you wouldn't even need to go that far. My mum had a similar problem to what yours sounds like with her 8 year old dog when she started full-time work a while back. All she did was instigate a leaving routine that involved giving him a pig's ear or something similar to chew on as she left. It seemed to do the trick in distracting him from the act of her leaving so that he didn't get as upset in the first place.

Have you had a good chat to your vet about it? There is some medication available that helps them with their incontinence. We used it with my old girl. Or you could consider panties, like the ones bitches in heat wear? How is she with regulating her temperature? Towards the end, my girl got cold very, very easily. I had her tucked into blankets with a hot wheat pack all the time or she'd be shivering. I'd be a bit worried about the laundry being too cold? I understand it's very difficult and emotionally and physically exhausting. Would she be able to cope being crated overnight?

I like and quite strictly follow Steve White's "Eight Rules for Using Punishment". Following those criteria for using punishment, e-collars can enable one to fulfil most if not all of them depending on the situation. But then, like everything (check chains and so on), only with careful use. As far as the original topic goes, I'd draw the OP's attention to rule number 5, which IMO is hard to meet if the behaviour that is to be suppressed directly relates to the trainer. I know a few people who have deliberately ignored number 5 for similar behaviours and not found it to be a huge problem. I guess I would sum up by saying that Steve White's rules are a very good guide and deciding to break any of them should be a very carefully planned and rationalised decision. Edited 'cause I accidentally hit post when I wasn't done.

I buy soft toys from the bargain bins in pet stores. The dogs don't care what they look like and I don't care if they get nailed after a few hours because they only cost me a few dollars. Occasionally OH wants to buy them a toy and inevitably gets them a huge soft toy that makes weird noises that they will thoroughly adore. Tug toys I buy online from agility sites, though. Any normal toy I buy from a pet store won't last a single tug game with Erik. He just pulls very hard. :D Tightly braided fleece works well. My dogs didn't get beds until they were over a year old. Before that they got old doonas or blankets. Ruff Wear harnesses are awesome. I have CC brushes for Kivi and think they are worth it, but I wouldn't bother paying that much for them for Erik. Anything goes through Erik's coat just fine, really. The short pin brush is pretty good for him. Think about how you're going to secure Hugo in the car.