corvus

Haha, the irony is, I've said more than once that if I didn't use rewards to teach Erik appropriate default behaviours, I'd spend most of my time UNteaching him things I didn't want him to learn and we wouldn't have time for the fun stuff. Considering neither of us have tried the other way, we are just speculating. Given that a fiesty Vallhund and a working line Malinois are not particularly comparable in the first place, that is. Anyway, sometimes inhibitions are what you want. I know that. I have done it myself. I did actually say "maybe that's what you want, and that's fine". It is fine. Inhibit away. I treat them with extreme caution and that is my personal choice. My personal view is that they should be treated with caution in general and I would encourage others to do so, but that's not to say there's no place for inhibitions in training. I don't know why check chains would be relevant to this discussion. Edited for clarity.

Carolina dogs have three in a year, I think. I don't know of any European breeds that have a single season. I think the oldest breeds in that part of the world apart from Carolina Dogs are the laikas and husky types. AFAIK none have a single annual season. Elkhounds (Swedish and Norwegian) are very old breeds and close to their wolf origins, but I think think they have two.

Dingoes do. They are technically Asian.

I'm not sure if you mean positively or negatively. Whichever you mean, my question would always be "how do you know?". Not as a challenge, but as an examination of the evidence whatever it may be. I'm always wary of confirmation biases.

We were going to have a discussion about e-collars, maybe scheduled for next week, was it, Staranais? There are two sides to every coin. I don't think e-collars need be extreme, but they have the capacity to be extreme. My wariness of them is the same as my wariness for any aversive deliberately applied. Aversive learning is very powerful and suppresses behaviour and creates inhibitions. Maybe that's what you want, and that's fine, but to me it's a tricky thing to get the level just right so that whatever suppression or inhibition I create doesn't bleed into other areas. That's not to say it can't be fixed if I make a mistake, but if I'm not looking for the mistakes, I probably won't notice them. IME even relatively mild aversives tend to have side-effects. Either you are comfortable with that or not. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

There is a DOLer that is an expert in dementia in dogs. They wrote a bit about it in this thread: http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=200259 The vocalising might be due to changed sound perception, but I understand it, along with being wakeful at night, is quite common in dogs with dementia. We were fortunate I guess in that our old girl didn't have those symptoms, but she did stare into space and she would get increasingly anxious as she stood there. Her behaviour became ever more unusual for her until I felt like there wasn't much of my girl left in there. It's a very sad thing to go through. My aunt had a dog that went quite senile and in the end she fell into a small garden pond and drowned. It was a pond she could get out of, so they didn't realise it was dangerous. I found with my girl I was constantly having to reassess risks. She would do inexplicable things like run into the surf at the beach or follow complete strangers. It became necessary to keep her on leash most of the time because we just didn't know what she was going to do.

Woot! Curiosity sated. He may not have a preference. Some dogs apparently don't. Or it may be something that isn't as obvious in training. The literature says that dogs sometimes prefer different paws for different tasks. And there was that really cool paper about dogs tending to turn left when presented with an emotional stimulus on both sides at once, and there was another one about the way tails wag for emotional and non-emotional stimuli. Laterality is super interesting. I think it was me that kind of hijacked the thread. ;) Aidan, I remember seeing Andrew Denton interview a fellow who was born believing his foot was not his foot. He hated it so much he tried to freeze it and cut it off. In the end, they eventually amputated it for him purely because it seemed like he would do himself serious damage if they didn't. The day he woke up without that foot was the happiest day of his life. He said it was a huge relief and he felt whole for the first time in his life. Hard to wrap your mind around, but pretty amazing. And can I just say that I'm wild about Elbie and he looks like a whole world of fun to train. Look at the attentiveness! Why do I like spitz breeds again?

I think it depends on the age of the dog, their temperament, their experiences with dogs to date and the experiences they have from this point on. To me, the most important thing is that if my dogs attempt to control the situation in a non-aggressive manner they should be successful. This is because my dogs are very well socialised and quite confident. If they become extremely submissive if confronted with an aggressive dog it is because that is the best way they know to avoid trouble in this particular situation. The trouble seems to be coming at them full ball, so they ramp up the submissive signals to match the intensity of the situation. My chief concern would be to make sure this does what they want it to do, which is to protect them. 99% of the time it naturally does just that. That's why it's their first reaction when they are afraid they will get attacked, and for younger dogs (under 2 years) it tends to be exaggerated. If one of my dogs behaved the way Poppy did, I would take them away from the other dogs and then just let them be wherever they wanted to be. They will learn that there's no need to be worried about the dogs in the laundry if nothing bad happens to them. I think it would be unusual for something like this to affect my dogs long term. Like wuffles' Ava, they get snapped at and just shrug it off. They shrug it off because they need only retreat and they have successfully controlled the situation in that the dog is no longer coming after them.

I was agreeing that it should be looked at. Whether it's ever about leadership per se depends on what you mean by leadership, I think. But that is beside the point. The dog needn't be distressed as there are things that can be done to help them cope better, regardless of who or what their attachment figure is. And regardless of whether it's actually SA or some form of it in the first place, given I guess it hasn't been diagnosed.

As a raging conservationist, I went and worked as an environmental consultant for a while. That basically meant I was assessing the impact developments would have on the environment and ultimately signing off on it. Sometimes I would decide that something was going to have a significant impact and all that would happen was the developers would change their design slightly, or bargain for compensatory habitat, or the government would decide to let them do it anyway. I am not and never will be comfortable with some of the developments I assessed. But if we didn't assess them, some dodgy company only interested in profits would and who knows what would be allowed to happen to the environment's detriment. Eventually, I got disillusioned with the whole industry and how flawed the process is and decided to get out of it all, but I don't regret my years there at all. I learnt a huge amount, gained useful experience in things like budgeting, animal ethics applications and talking to clients and I even made a difference every now and then. So, finally relating my experience to your current predicament, I would say don't be blinded to opportunities to learn, gain experience, and make a difference on the front line, so to speak by your moral standards. You don't have to encourage every impulse buyer to hand over the cash for a puppy. You don't have to be complicit in mistreatment of animals. If there is something you can do to right a wrong, who is stopping you? If you are in the store, you can instigate change from within. And besides all that, I do know someone who started out working in a pet store and is now a full-time vet nurse, so it certainly can be a stepping stone.

Did you know you can get no-pull harnesses? They attach at the front.

Separation anxiety doesn't have to be strictly related to a human. It is sometimes (not necessarily always) a case of hyperattachment, and this can be displayed towards one or more members of the dogs' social group, be they human, dog, or whatever else may live with the dog. My little guy gets upset if I leave without him if I take the other dog as well. He likes to be with as many of the group as he can. I find that he's not nearly as worried if I leave him with something really good to do, like chew on a bone. And Karen Overall's sit-stay protocol is pretty useful, I think. As for the original question, if it was me I'd drive them to an off leash area or use no-pull harnesses as others have suggested.

I love Dr Patricia McConnell's blog. www.theotherendoftheleash.com Dogstar Daily has some good things sometimes. Karen Pryor's website is worth signing up to as well.

I'll have to talk to my fellow postgrad student who has been studying laterality in dogs for the last 3 years. My feeling is both dogs default to their preferred side and to override that preference they have to actually stop and think about it. The exercise I was teaching them had no input from me beyond telling them when they could approach the setup. I tried a few things, like placing the choices farther apart and starting my dog from farther away from them and double-checking that he was aligned right in the middle so one choice wasn't closer than the other. Nothing seemed to make much difference. Because the task I had them learning had minimal input from me and all the consequences came from the choice they made, it might be that I was seeing a preference for one side over another where in a training exercise where I would be aiming to cue my dogs directly and interacting with them more I wouldn't see that preference. So basically ktb has to sate my curiosity by telling me if Elbie shows a preference. :) It won't mean much, just interests me. :D

Well, it's interesting, because that's what I thought. And so I didn't pay much attention to which side I put the "correct" choice on when I started with Kivi, instead alternating them. But a few trials into the session noticed that he was going left every time and I put the correct choice on the right several times in a row and he still tended to go left. When he went right he would tend to go back to left the next one, like a rubber band. So when I taught Erik I knew he was right-pawed so I deliberately put the correct choice on his left several times in a row. He still went right, and as the session progressed he continued to go right probably about 80% of the time. When he went left it was only after he'd stopped to think about it.

I have an unrelated question, ktb. When he gets them mixed up, does he always go to the same side? I've been teaching my boys a similar discrimination task where position is not supposed to be a cue. Both dogs prefer one side over the other. Kivi is left-pawed and tends to pick the object on the left and Erik is right-pawed and tends to gravitate to the object on the right.

What would you like him to do instead of biting? Teach him to do it and reward like crazy when he does! I found slow-motion walking while asking pup to heel worked well. I'd walk to the nearest toy, then ask for a sit and throw the toy. At that age the moment you tell them to chase the toy they tend to forget about everything else. And you get to practise basic skills when the puppy is excited.

Sounds like fun. Incidentally, my old girl had severely compromised hearing and eyesight. They went at about the same time, although her eyesight started deteriorating much earlier. Sometimes there's not much you can do, sadly. I decided to teach my older dog to respond to touches. I think this will prove to be more handy in his old age, but I guess we'll see. One of the things I regretted with my old girl was that she had not been taught to respond to touch. Often it was the only way to get her attention and she would startle and cower and when she recovered had no idea what I wanted her to do. Then again, she was quite sore as well, so maybe she would have been like that anyway.

Funny you should say that, as the study was conducted because the authors thought there must be some sort of subtle but complex exchange going on between guide dogs and their seeing impaired human for the parntership to be as successful as it typically is. It is in my understanding exactly what you described. Incidentally, I had that with my hare until recently. It took about 18 months of living in the same room together, but eventually we finally kind of aligned and started to understand one another. We had some pretty magical moments. I wasn't going to have another dog until that happened. Weird to think!

Seriously, it must be the most complicated applied animal behaviour paper I have ever read. My understanding of it is tenuous and I think you have to be a professional mathematician to really grasp what it's all about. But, super interesting if there's anyone out there in dog forum land that can vaguely understand it. ;)

Sorry, correct use of the D word is a bugbear of mine. That is not to say that you were using it incorrectly, though. I don't think it's always easy to tell. "Resources" and "competition" can be quite specific to an individual, for example. Anyway, for anyone who might be able to understand it: Essentially, cooperative behaviour between two individuals towards a common goal takes on an organised and rhythmic structure. The assumption is when this occurs the cooperative behaviour is more successful, but it wasn't measured in this study. They were just looking for evidence of the temporal patterns in cooperating dog and human pairs.

Well, it's only passive dominance if non-confrontational ways of getting what you want when there is competition is passive dominance. I know some that view that strictly within the confines of learning theory, and I think it works for the most part. But then, nothing in behaviour really exists in isolation, so there are always going to be exceptions. When an animal has "rules" that dictate what is acceptable behaviour that gets them things they want and what is not acceptable behaviour that will get them nothing that they want, they do tend to be confident animals. They know how the game works. They don't have to worry about where their resources will come from and if they will have enough. They have simple ways to get what they want by deferring to you. If you establish a routine of deference (e.g. NILIF), it doesn't bother them at all to defer to you by rote and they will often use whatever methods of deference they have been taught as a default behaviour. The more it works the less they have to worry about. Naturally, there are bound to be exceptions! ;) On the original topic, someone sent me a very interesting paper recently that essentially quantifies what I've always called the little moments of magic in a relationship between a human and a dog. When you are both working together towards a common goal rather than pulling your own separate ways. The concept originally came from studying team work in team sports and how it affects how well the team is perceived to play. Anyway, what it comes down to is repeated patterns of behaviour that crop up time and time again when a dog is working together with a human on a specific task. It is all a bit mathematical and abstract, but interesting because those moments of magic aren't just in your head or emotional. They are in behaviour as well, but hard to detect. On a very basic level, it means that dogs respond to things that a human does in a predictable way. I feel like that didn't tell anyone very much at all. It's a hard concept to describe! Basically, no, I don't think dogs know when they are especially loved, but I do think something special happens when both dog and human are working together towards a common goal.

My hope is that if I let them learn with a wide range of stable dogs, then when they meet the unstable ones they recognise the signs of a dog that they should avoid and do so without needing me to tell them. That is more or less where Kivi is at now. There are as many styles of communication as there are dogs, and there are degrees of stability. We see dogs that have figured out their own unique way of interacting that makes them feel most comfortable. Some of those dogs were not well socialised as youngsters and include a lot of bluster, or strangely pushy behaviour, or ambivalence so that a dog trying to understand them can be easily confused about whether they want to play or be left alone. I figure as long as we live in the suburbs, these dogs are going to be commonly encountered, so may as well be considered normal. My boys seem to accept that some dogs are quite odd and if they just keep their heads down and be slow and gentle they will keep out of trouble. They definitely prefer to mix with dogs that behave more predictably, though. Incidentally, when Kivi was still a pup it was not uncommon for him to react to being snapped at or threatened by tossing his head and maybe play-bowing. It's like saying "Hey, I'm just playing, you know?" He used to whip that one out for my grumpy old girl if he accidentally trod on her or ran into her. It did usually work. Erik does it a little bit as well. It looks like they are just diving right back in after being told off, but they stay out of range and use these exaggerated play signals. I sometimes think it's a way for them to release social tension after they make a blunder, but then, sometimes it looks like a preventative as well, or a way to put the other dog at ease so they may be allowed to approach. There are so many contexts and variations.

Better to avoid it in the first place. If you know a fight may break out in a certain situation I think it's a good idea to keep them split up in that situation so they can't argue. Would one be comfortable in another room while meals are being prepared? Crates are a good, safe way of keeping everyone out of each other's faces. Possibly, but that's not to say that is why the fight broke out. Might just have been the smell of the raw because it smells good, or it could have been something unrelated, even. Who knows? Presumably other people might know the answer to that. I've seen it happen once after 2 years of social harmony. Don't rush to put your feelings onto her, I think. Wait for her to tell you if she needs her confidence restored. If you think she does, it would depend on how she was behaving as to what you might do. Probably a professional would be able to give the best advice on that.

That is the way as I understand it, yes. I am quite careful about it. Generally speaking, the only time I would ever let a puppy or young, inexperienced dog make a mistake that is going to earn them something more than a growl or snap is if I have seen the dog in question escalate before and know they will be thoroughly appropriate. And there are no random dogs around that I don't know very well, because funny things can happen. I like them to mix with dogs that escalate slowly and steadily so that I have ample time to act if I need to and my dog gets a chance or two to modify their behaviour. I don't let them pester dogs I don't know well. My dogs get snapped at and whatever they end up doing, whether it's appease or move away, or whatever else, they are back to normal behaviour a moment later and that's how it should be in my mind. They should care if they get the canine equivalent of being shouted at, but they shouldn't completely shut down and be thoroughly traumatised by it. They should be able to learn from it and then move on. Every interaction is different, and what I let Kivi do when he was a puppy is different to what I let Erik do. I just err on the side of caution a lot. I find if I do that I am rarely surprised in a bad way. I see lots of people just kinda toss their dogs in and let them work it out for themselves. Most of them seem to come through it having learnt how to talk dog very well, but I guess some end up being overly protective of their personal space. It interests me that they often seem to learn who to avoid and what to do to stay out of trouble in a tense situation without getting nailed. Sometimes I wonder just where Kivi learnt what he appears to have learnt. How does he know to avoid a dog that ends up picking fights when he's never actually been in a real fight? My last dog was still acting in novel ways towards strange dogs when she was 12 years old. I guess it's not just learning what to do, but learning patterns, context, and variations. It is beautiful to watch a native at it. I am not sure if Erik will ever be as flexible as Kivi is, but if he isn't I guess that just means I have to be more vigilant and step in more often.