corvus

I don't correct my dogs if they don't comply. The consequence if they don't is they don't get the good stuff I have. I don't like to assume they know something, because I don't think that it is a safe assumption. Just because they will do it at home doesn't mean it is a known behaviour when I ask them to do it at the dog park, for example. There are a whole lot of other cues they may be depending on that have changed, leaving them unsure of themselves. They may choose not to act because they are not sure of how they should act. I don't want to punish them for my misjudgements. They have to learn that "sit" at home is the same as "sit" at the park and "sit" at the vets and "sit" at the pet store and so on and so on.

Okay, this is totally weird for me to say because I'm normally obsessive about finding the root of a problem, but in this case if it were me I wouldn't worry about what it was that was setting him off. I would just concentrate on changing the behaviour. Considering we don't know what Byron's aim is when he starts this weird barking, we can't really make sure he is not rewarded for it unless we get him doing something else that can be rewarded instead. I think my aim would be to teach Byron that when he sees a person that upsets him he should sit next to me and play a game such as the "Look, a strange person!" game or the "Let's practise some tricks!" game. Leslie McDevitt does a fun game called the Look At That game. When the dog sees something that triggers them, she clicks with a clicker and then rewards when the dog automatically looks back at her. Then when the dog looks at the trigger she clicks again and rewards when the dog looks at her. So pretty soon you have a dog that is training rather than getting upset about something in the environment, and they are only looking at the trigger because you have told them to look and won't reward them until they do. These games only work if your dog will pay attention when he hears the clicker. If he's not clicker trained, you can use some other sound that might get his attention, but it should be associated with good things. He should hear it and think "Oh boy, I'm gettin' something good!" You want to jolt him off staring at strange people and get him training instead. I think it pays to remember that you are not helpless and only able to react to whatever your dog does. You can be proactive and think "what would I like him to be doing?" and set about getting him to do that so you can throw a party for him and tell him how wonderful and clever he is when he does. If you sit back and let him do whatever he likes and then react to it you end up spending a lot of time trying to stop them from doing things. I find it much easier to decide what I want them to do first and look for it so I can reward it. If I want them to pay attention to me when I say their name, I have to practise that a lot in places that are distracting and reward a lot when they do it. Sometimes I reward them just for randomly attending to me. My older dog goes "I feel like a treat. I'm going to go and heel next to someone and gaze hopefully at them until they give me one." I like it that he wants to do that. It's useful when I need him to do that. So I reward it when he offers it quite often and I ask for it quite often. If I don't really know what I want of my dog then how will he know what he should do? Sometimes all I can think is "I don't want him to do that", so my knee jerk reaction is just to stop him however I can. The thinking reaction should be "What do I want him to do?" and then just ask for it. If he can't do it, I teach him.

To stick up for the small dogs, Erik played some chasey games with two Great Danes and an Akita cross yesterday evening. He is a 10kg dog and quite short. He couldn't even reach the dane bottoms to sniff them. I don't know where he learnt to be so sensible around large dogs, but he's been that way since we got him. If they get too excited he crouches on the ground and creeps away slowly. It dissipates the arousal about 99% of the time and he's usually back playing with them a moment later. One of his best friends is a little mop of a fluffy crossbreed who bounces around like a maniac and gets bowled over and just bounces to his feet and keeps going. Another of his friends is a wee little cross that must have IG or something in it because he is a speedy devil. Lets the boys chase him all over and when he's had enough he just stops and turns around and everyone is cool. Little dogs have a hard time of it and many people that have them don't understand how scary it looks to them when even a dog the size of a Beagle comes racing over to them. They learn to attack first because it makes them feel safer.

How would you define stubbornness in dogs? Do you have a stubborn dog? If so, what makes you think it is stubborn. How do you tell if a dog is being stubborn, or doesn't know how to behave, or doesn't have a strong enough reward history to overcome the pull of other rewards present? Just as an example.

I think that depends on whether the dogs are in a "relationship" in the first place. Two dogs meeting at a park are just interacting temporarily. They may well never have a relationship, assuming that relationships are built on history. IME, interrupting behaviour before it becomes an established routine works. Just before we got Erik Kivi had a staffy puppy as a dog park friend. She would jump all over him and hang tenaciously off his cheek. Being Kivi, he did not "discipline" her. He would shake her off, walk away, shake her off, walk away, shake her off, walk away. If he started to whine, I would go and rescue him. I wondered what would happen if he didn't stand up for himself. I thought I might be prying her off his cheek for many months to come. As it turned out, in a matter of a few weeks she had modified her behaviour on her own so that she was no longer hanging off his cheek. What happened? He never did so much as raise a lip about it. They only interacted for about ten minutes two or three times a week at most. I can only hazard a guess that she liked the fast play better than being constantly shaken off, or perhaps other dogs were doing the teaching behind the scenes and she was generalising to Kivi. Whatever the case, I think that dogs become more sensitive to each other over time. Erik pestered Kivi when he was a puppy as well, and I know for a fact he wasn't being disciplined by other dogs or Kivi, yet he grew out of it on his own. I stepped in to distract him a few times, but mostly he just drifted to a more socially harmonious relationship as he grew.

Considering they didn't even reference the freaking paper correctly, this is not a paper educated person that wrote that article. The Science Daily article they referenced that referenced the original paper did a better job.

You would be stunned and shocked, but any owner should be stopping and thinking about why their dog feels they need to warn that they are uncomfortable with what is happening to them. If one of my dogs curled their lip at me I might be shocked, but I would be shocked at how this could have happened without me seeing the warning signs and doing something about it already. Some dogs are a bit more "outspoken" than others, but that doesn't mean they necessarily need stronger leadership or don't respect their owners. It just means they dare to tell you when you've pissed them off. Personally, I like outspoken dogs. Sometimes I need a neon sign that says "STOP" to realise that my dog is so not comfortable with what I'm doing. It's just not a huge deal to address that one thing the dog is being outspoken about so they come to like it and don't feel a need to tell you to stop anymore. I think it doesn't help them to have people decide ulterior motives for their behaviour. It doesn't have to be a deeper, more complex problem. It may just be the dog REALLY doesn't like that. Don't we owe it to them to respect THEM when they are trying to tell us something?

Look at it from her perspective. What do you think she's trying to tell you? Maybe that she doesn't want to be in the boring pen away from her people? Do you think it's fair to punish her for trying to tell you that? If it were me, I'd be concentrating on making the pen a place where she does want to be rather than her telling you she doesn't want to be there. Have you got any Kongs or dried treats like lamb ears? This is the perfect moment to give her something like that. It will give her something to do that she will enjoy and teach her that being in the pen is quiet, independent time for her.

He really does sound a lot like Erik. Erik is also very quick, very people focused, very motivated and I've had the same stubborness from time to time as well. And making connections he shouldn't be able to make... When he was about 6 months old he apparently figured out that when OH called at around 7pm it was time for Erik to get excited. His excitement would steadily rise until it peaked when OH got home 40 minutes later, then he'd spend the next two hours totally wired and unable to settle. I swear he was using that phone call as a cue for OH coming home, even though it was 40 minutes away. I ended up shaking up the routine so when OH called I'd take Erik outside, play with him for a bit, then bring him in and put him on his mat with a pig's ear and massage him so when OH arrived he was in a much calmer state. We learnt to trace his behaviour back to cues he was using to tell him something good was going to happen and then mess it all up so those cues no longer predicted what he thought they would predict. Even now we are so careful about rewarding him in the same circumstances a few times in a row. It only takes a few times and he makes a rule that in this scenario he gets this reward and he starts getting excited as soon as he recognises the scenario. I have to say he has taught me to be very aware of our surroundings and habits and what he might be taking in. It amazes me how much passive handling we had got away with with our older dog (who is an absolute angel, btw). Some dogs are just a step ahead, and it's a bit of a rude shock when you have to lift your game to keep up with them. There aren't many things that Erik gets for free, mostly because we had to give him lots of structure or he'd just barge right over the top of us. He was so quick and proactive we had to keep asking for sits and downs just to stop him from leaping all over everything and everyone. But the nice thing about having a dog that needs lots of structure so he doesn't turn into a monster is that he's quite well trained and reliable. He can plonk into a down on cue when he's so aroused he can't do much else. It's quite useful. He's taught me heaps and I love working with him. He's crazy smart and I love the energy he puts into everything he does. I call him my point and shoot dog. I point him in the right direction and just let him do his thing. His breeder says he is a bright star, but sometimes he burns a little too bright. I think it's very apt. We love him dearly, but sometimes we just want him to lie down and relax and he seriously needs help to do that. He has improved a lot in the last few months, though. He will be a wonderful dog when he matures. He's still only just over a year and has some growing up to do. At the moment just when you get one thing under control finally another problem pops up, but it is getting better! Fewer problems that are easier to handle. I like that I can't be lazy with him or take things for granted. He teaches me plenty and challenges my ability to understand what drives his behaviour. I like being forced to think outside the square, and he's given me plenty of opportunities for that. I think challenging dogs are the best. But I also think my perfect angel cuddlebear of a Lapphund is pretty freaking amazing as well. I'm glad I don't have two Eriks, but I wouldn't want two perfect angels, either. It's awesome having one of each.

There are no theories that say head collars don't shut down dogs. Only theories that say dogs appear to behave more calmly when wearing a head collar because... The reasons I've seen suggested (and they are suggestions, not claims) is that the pressure is on the bridge of the nose and the back of the neck, which mimics pressure from signals used by dominant dogs. It's also been suggested that just the pressure alone is calming in the way that a crush or wrap is calming. As I said, the data don't support learned helplessness because the stress hormones in dogs with head collars that act calmer have not so far been shown to be elevated. The dog may look stressed, but that doesn't mean it is. We had this discussion not long ago. It was about a study of a small number of dogs, and no one is claiming anything is consistent for all dogs. We just know that a dog that puts its head and ears and tail down and moves with less energy is not necessarily physiologically stressed. I know you said you weren't saying shut down and learned helplessness were the same thing, but I think for the purposes of the discussion they have to be considered the same thing. There is no diagnosis for "shut down" that I know of. Only of behavioural suppression, which in a general sense is learned helplessness. If "shut down" is not learned helplessness or generalised behavioural suppression I don't know what it is.

I wanted to clicker train my Vall puppy. You can clicker train any dog, but some are just more creative and quick than others. Erik is extremely fun to clicker train! :D Haha, that's exactly what Erik is. He is currently sleeping in his favourite spot on my legs on the couch after tearing around playing contact sports with great danes this afternoon. He is unstoppable! Plays with the big boys and pretty bold and fearless. Valls are so spunky. His cuddles are about as extreme as everything he does. Never met a dog that is so cuddly. He doesn't just sit on you or with you. He snuggles into your arms and tucks his head in against your neck and drapes front paws over your shoulders. He does it about once or twice a day, which is just right for me. I'm sure you will be happy with any Vallhund. They are all different, but most I've met have been similar enough in their behaviour to be able to see all the little Vallhund things they all do. They are SO SMART!

I'm very interested in Elbie. He sounds a lot like Erik. Erik was one to throw out half a dozen obnoxious behaviours in the space it took me to say "Erik, down." He's got a lot of "juice". :D He does everything at maximum effort. Great when he's doing what you want him to do, but terrible when he's not! I really urge you to stick with treats and tug games as rewards and redirecting. Erik is quite malleable when you ask him with chicken in your hands. :p The beauty of him is he learns so fast you can take the chicken away after a few reps and he will often continue to get better without it. Some things he hates, though, and if he hates it I spend lots of time feeding him while he does it and eventually he starts to come around. He hates being restrained and hates getting his harness put on as well, so he gets lots of treats every single time, and he will until he stops considering running away when he sees the harness. It is how we taught him to allow people to look at his teeth, and he will do that now without food. It took a while, but it was worth it. My advice is don't be shy or stingy about rewards. If he doesn't like something, associate it with more rewards. I don't know where we'd be if we hadn't done plenty of that with Erik. That and massage. He still needs help calming down sometimes.

Not every dog that is calmer is shut down. If the dog is still responsive to their environment they are not shut down. There are a few theories floating around why head collars appear to make dogs behave more calmly, but none involve learned helplessness because the data don't support it. The calmer dogs wearing head collars do not have elevated levels of stress hormones, which would indicate that they feel helpless to control their situation. As long as we're talking about things that decrease arousal, head collars ought to be mentioned. I understand some behaviourists are using them specifically to lower arousal in the home environment, but that may be me over-extrapolating. Personally, I love TTouch and that would be my first port of call, but it's only fair to mention the claimed calming (not shutting down) effects of head collars.

At the risk of getting flamed to hell, head collars are believed to decrease arousal. I know a few people that have noticed their dogs are much calmer when walked on one.

For me at least, whether dogs do it to each other or not is irrelevant. Ever looked at the way dogs treat each other day-to-day when there's a history of "corrections" between them? There are boundaries and invisible lines. Often it's like there is a force field between them and play that occurs can be strained. I look at the way my two dogs interact and I think it's gorgeous. My older boy is very mild-mannered and has never really "corrected" the younger boy. They are best pals. There are no barriers between them. They climb all over each other, knock each other around, crash tackles, sleeping resting on each other... They are quite considerate of each other most of the time. It is beautiful social harmony. I have never seen it between dogs where one or both are often "correcting" the other. That de-barking example was totally loopy. The original study was actually referenced incorrectly. Bleh. I so hate that. It was published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science. "Aggressive response" was considered growling, snapping, lunging, showing teeth, or biting. A range of aversives were considered, including leash corrections and spraying with a water bottle. NOT de-barking! Sheesh. Just about all the aversive methods resulted in the occasional aggressive response, and some more than occasional. The study only draws from people with dogs scheduled for an appointment with a behaviourist, so it's a bit of a problem wrt the question asked, in particular, the effect of training methods on stopping the problem behaviour. You end up with a sample of people whose dogs probably did not respond to the listed training methods very well for whatever reason. Who knows what that reason was, but we also don't know how many people used those training methods and had success so that they didn't need to see a behaviourist in the end. Anyway, what it does show at least to me is the importance of getting a behavioural assessment from a professional before trying to fix a problem involving aggression.

It would usually happen as we turned the corner into our street, but still a good 200m from home, but Erik would start up again about 20m from home. Having treats really helped with Erik, as we could give him some focus for all that sudden energy. Kivi just liked to chew on a toy. Honestly, they both grew out of it. We could have done nothing but just put up with it and they would have grown out of it on their own. We just gave them something to do with the energy because I think it's a good idea to be proactive and get them into the habit of paying attention to you eve when they are excited.

Ah, the dreaded puppy crazies. I remember this with both my current boys. Happened around the same time every walk. For Kivi we solved it by carrying a tug toy. When he got the puppy crazies we'd get him to chew on the toy. He grew out of it in time. Erik is a bit trickier because he likes tug a lot more. Didn't want to teach him that as soon as we got around the corner we would play tug. So some days we played tug and some days we did some obedience. He would always try to attack Kivi, so we'd take him away from Kivi and reward him for responding to his name. Then worked up to rewarding him for heeling. Worked in tug games, trick practise, and heeling at a run. He grew out of it as well.

Oh boy, you're getting a Vall puppy! I got a Vall puppy from Ausled just over a year ago. I did not think we were going to get a choice as there were only three puppies and we were last on the list, but then we ended up getting a choice between the two boys after all. The breeder described their temperaments and sent us photos. I was choosing between a little fiesty pup with the devil in him and a bigger, more pliable pup. I went with the tiger, because I'm a sucker for fiesty animals and the breeder thought he would make an exceptional clicker dog. She was right! He is an exceptional clicker dog. I don't ever even wonder if we got the right boy for us. He can be a handful, and there are times when I'm fed up with him, but we love him anyway and he has taught us a lot. I think that you pick a breed with the best case and worst case scenario in mind. You may decide you want a more mellow pup or a more fiesty pup, but you should be prepared if you end up with the opposite of what you were hoping for. So I wouldn't pick a breed if there was a large portion of individuals in that breed that I didn't think I could cope with. I pick a breed that I think will suit me even if I get an extreme example of the breed. Does that make sense? When we were getting Erik we were considering getting a Shiba Inu instead, but decided we weren't sure if we could handle how busy they can be. We knew that Valls can also be busy, but expected them to settle when we were settled. As it turns out, I think that Erik is a particularly busy Vallhund. You know, we learnt to cope. I think we would have been fine with a Shiba, though. ;) But my point is, even if you don't get exactly what you were hoping for, you love them anyway and sometimes find out that what you thought you wanted isn't that important after all. Erik is an absolute snuggle fiend. We never thought we were signing up for a snuggle bum, but we are pretty happy to get one anyway. I've met Ausvarg and her dogs and she's totally fabulous. I'd get a puppy off her in a second. Very happy with Ausled as well, and are finally getting to visit them soon. Be sure to drop over to the Spitz breeds thread. Ausvarg and Ausled both post there, and I'm always talking about Erik.

I don't buy this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it doesn't make evolutionary sense because a sick or injured animal will die without the help of their social group. The group will travel and the sick or injured animal will be left behind. Without the support of its group it is very vulnerable. If there is limited food supply the sick/injured individual will be competetively excluded by its social group, which will further weaken it and it will not last long. The only reason a group has to turn on a sick/injured member is if it is a threat, such as if it attracts predators or behaves in a strange way that frightens the others. In the former situation, I don't see that attacking the individual is any better than simply driving it off and/or leaving it behind. It's a less energetically demanding choice and less dangerous. Even a sick animal can injure others when fighting for its life. The latter is a direct threat and may be the answer IMO. Secondly, there is no edvidence that I know of that canine groups in the wild kill their own members. Most of the time they are related. I remember on Big Cat Diary there was a lioness with a wasted leg who was paired up with a sister. Despite the fact the sister was perfectly healthy and would probably do better without her crippled sidekick, she stayed with her and they adapted a hunting method that accounted for the bung leg. I think that the notion that group members will kill each other for the good of the group is dubious.

Clean Run or Dogwise. I can't remember which, now. It was cheaper to buy it from the US and get it shipped than buy it here! Does she get excited by going to bed?? That is the exact situation I would use TTouch massage in. Get a TTouch dvd while you're getting CU. It does help, I promise. But I had trouble with it until I watched the dvd. I hadn't been doing it right and had limited success, but once I knew what I was doing I find it to be very useful. Haha, she's one of those keen beans that find the weakness because they keep trying stuff until they stumble across it, is she? Erik is like that. I thought I would never be able to get him calm enough to control himself when I was opening doors. I did a bit of self control exercises from CU with him, and got a good solid default down, and then just worked up from a momentary down. I always used a release word, which makes it easier, I think.

A snap that makes no contact is like you yelling at someone. Can it escalate? Yes. If you are so peeved you yell at someone, and then they continue to annoy you, you can only take so much. Sooner or later you will yell louder, or you'll swear at them, or grab them and hold them while you tell them off. That doesn't necessarily mean you're the one in the wrong because you were provoked, but it's not the only way to deal with someone who is annoying you, and it's stressful to be that p***ed off with someone. I try to manage my dogs' interactions with other dogs so that they don't feel they need to escalate. It is a balance for me. On the one hand I want them to be able to look after themselves and be confident with other dogs, but on the other hand, I don't want them to use aggressive methods to look after themselves. So I monitor interactions and if non-aggressive means are not working for my dogs and they are becoming annoyed or distressed I would remove them from the situation before they try something more aggressive. I would rather they have success with non-aggressive behaviour than aggressive behaviour. So what I'm trying to say is that it is normal, but not necessarily desirable. I don't think we should feel that because it's normal we should stand back and let it happen.

Conditioning. If they have been rewarded often enough (with a variety of things in a variety of situations) it doesn't occur to them that they may not be rewarded. You just have to make sure the presence of food doesn't predict whether they will be rewarded or not. I carry treats with me all the time, but that doesn't mean they stop performing if I leave them at home. They are so used to being rewarded that the presence of treats doesn't factor in at all.

The self-control games in Control Unleashed are also excellent and help teach a dog to get excited and then calm down again in a matter of seconds. I think that helps when you are trying to change behaviour that occurs when the dog is very aroused.

Sounds to me like this is what she does when she's aroused and it would probably be hard to change the behaviour without lowering her arousal first. IME once you lower arousal it's easier to teach a new habit that holds when arousal heightens again. There are a few ways I know of to lower arousal. Punishment is one of them, but I think it has to used carefully so your dog doesn't come to associate the punishment with the wrong thing (like you, for example). My dog Erik gets quite worked up pretty easily, and with him I've had the most success with massage. It's incredible what a good massage can do. If I sit down with him for ten minutes at the time of day when he's most aroused and give him a massage, he is more relaxed for the rest of the day. It is unlikely to solve any problems on its own, but I think it does calm a dog down and gives you a chance to teach them a new, more acceptable habit. You can also use food sometimes to lower arousal if the dog is really crazy wired. It can refocus them so they are in learning/thinking mode instead of reacting mode. I think that really only works if you have establishing operations for a training session. Often there are a bunch of cues a dog uses to tell them when you are training, and if they love training they will go into training mode if you use those cues outside of a normal training scenario. That IME tends to lower arousal because the dog forgets about what was so exciting and concentrates on earning a treat. They orient to you automatically and settle down to think. Another thing that might help is addressing the anticipation rather than the arousal. You can scramble the cues the dog uses to tell them what is going to happen next so that it no longer predicts what they get so excited about. As an example, we did this with Erik's meal times because he would sit there barking hysterically the whole time his food was getting prepared and could barely manage a sit before he got his meal. So we started preparing his meal and leaving it on the kitchen bench until he was calm. It took an hour the first few times for him to calm down and stop barking at his meal on the bench, but then he seemed to realise he couldn't depend on the cues he had been depending on anymore and he stopped getting excited about his meals being prepared. Then we taught him to sit quietly while we were preparing it. We can now deliberately get him revved up by asking him if he wants his dinner and the new habit of sitting quietly to wait for it to be prepared still holds.

Joel, I have a collection of papers on anxiety and personality traits that are often correlated with a tendency towards anxiety in dogs in particular, and some other animals. Too many to list here and mostly focused on personality. There are some interesting things coming out with the DRD4 complex, with is a dopamine receptor gene, and some enthralling (to me, anyway) discussions on coping styles and whether different individuals are born displaying a proactive or reactive coping style and how stable that is over time in different environments. PM me if you want more info. I'm not sure exactly where your interest lies. There's a couple of good papers I have about separation anxiety and how it may come about with reference to both inherited tendencies and environmental influences. Hard going, but gets you thinking.