corvus

Not quite sure what you're asking, but I will say that it's not quite true that you can reward cowering. Well, it's kind of possibly true in some circumstances but not so much in most circumstances. Patricia McConnell explains it better than I can: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/you-c...d-thunderstorms Vickie's point about it possibly upsetting the dynamics is worth noting. I have no idea what it all looks like. I'm yet to meet a dog that treats a casual glance (which is what you would be aiming for, I guess) as a challenge, but IME things can be a fair bit more intense and touchy in a home situation between dogs that live together. It's your call what you rule out and what you don't.

All true. I'm just making suggestions like everyone else is. It's the kind of stuff you can't learn from books, anyway. It's too variable. I'm just taking a stab at it and I thought that was clear. If it wasn't, I hope it is now. Taking a stab at it is all anyone can do over the internet.

Bold vs shy is pretty complex, too. Says the girl turning her brain to mush trying to distil it down to a handful of behavioural indicators the average owner would be aware of. And failing. Hence prowling internet forums getting grumpy about "nerve" being talked about in such a casual, vague manner. My bad moods and academic angst aside, you can't tell over an internet forum whether a dog has good or bad "nerve", and given the tests used to determine that are part and parcel with a host of other tests as well because "nerve" is only one aspect of a dog's personality and it's not as cut and dried as "good" or "bad" anyway, I dunno, I just feel like maybe there's not much call for speculation in a behavioural problem described over the internet, let alone a diagnosis of sorts. Sorry Nina, promise I'm reeling this afternoon's ranting right in. In answer to your other questions, you could try try reframing the situation for Gus by teaching him to look at Riley as a trick. It might make Riley seem less intimidating to Gus if he knows he can look at him on cue and get a reward. Targeting is another activity that can reframe a situation. Confidence comes from being able to predict what will happen next, especially if it is likely to be something good. So training easy behaviours with a high reward rate can, I think, potentially teach a dog to relax a bit and be more confident. It's not going to change who they are, but it may help them be the best they can be. I'm just throwing ideas out there, but it could help to reframe the situation for Riley as well. Perhaps his body language would be less intense (if it is intense at all to begin with) if he sees interacting with Gus as a game. I meant by taking the other dogs out you could identify for sure that the problem was solely between Gus and Riley, for example. The more information you have the better, I figure.

How do you know other dogs deem it unnatural? How do you know that is what's happening in this case? You don't know what subtle signals Riley might be giving, and neither does the OP. Before declaring a dog's behaviour unnatural and therefore the cause of the problem, perhaps we ought to actually view it? Don't get me wrong, there's shy dogs and there's pathologically anxious dogs. The latter is IMO a huge problem that essentially ruins an animal's life. That IS a character flaw and quite a serious one that will most likely shorten the dog's lifespan, either through chronic stress or through just being difficult for humans to manage. But there is no indication to me in what has been said that Gus is pathologically anxious or even approaching it. Just sounds to me like a sensitive dog. Let's not get ahead of ourselves is all I'm saying. Just because the dog is acting unusually submissive doesn't mean he is, or that he's upsetting the social order by being flakey. There could be all manner of subtle interactions going on that we don't know about.

I wish that people would stop pronouncing dogs as having "bad nerve". It's not a character flaw. There are good reasons to be shy or cautious and every wild population has its share of shy individuals. They are needed. They are the ones that don't get bitten by snakes, learn the first time that the black and yellow froggy makes you feel sick, and are first to dive for cover when the cranky bull moose comes tramping through. They are the pups that stay at the back of the den in the smallest, darkest spot they can find when a rival predator comes by. Shy and bold animals do live in groups in perfect harmony, and the bold ones don't even spend lots of their time beating up the shy ones (unless they are baboons). Bold animals take risks, cope badly with chronic stress, and don't make a lot of friends. Just because they happen to make great working dogs doesn't mean any dog that isn't bold has a character flaw, and it certainly doesn't mean that the shy dog must be giving off abnormal signals, thus putting bolder dogs on edge. That's leaping to conclusions. IMO a dog with "good character" ought to be able to handle an unusually submissive dog without excessively intimidating it. And that's assuming Gus is "unusually submissive" in the first place. Harrumph. To the OP, does it happen often enough that you can get someone to take a couple of the other dogs out of the yard for an hour or so and be confident you would see it if the tension was still there? Could you try teaching Gus to associate Riley's proximity with good things from you rather than the secret stink eye from Riley? Perhaps try some confidence-building exercises such as targeting or increased NILIF?

He's not usually away from the others much, sometimes I'll take just the 2 sheps out and he's just a usual dog. I'm around most of the time (carer for elderly mum) so if I go out shopping etc its no more than a couple of hours so there's always someone around. Even when they're out in the garden I see him hiding under the bushes sometimes to get away from Riley and all Riley does is walking close to him. What happens when he's out with you and Riley? What happens when he's at home without Riley? If it were me, I'd be removing dogs from the equation to try to isolate exactly what mix of dogs is causing the tension. Is it just Riley, or does it happen when Riley isn't there as well? Does it happen when the other shepherd is not there? Does it happen if you're out of the yard with all of them? If you can figure out who it happens around and in what circumstances you might be several steps closer to figuring out what the underlying problem is.

I would love to find a breeder that does this in an organised fashion. I would if I were a breeder.

It's a shame. I've done short little non-serious training sessions at the dog park and find most people are quite conscious of what I'm doing and take measures to keep their dogs away until I'm finished. It's a pretty big park. Having said that, some people can't keep their dog away and some don't try. I'm okay with that as I'm at a dog park. If I want to do something without having another dog stick its head in my treat pouch I go to a playing field as well. Rarely I get a dog come through and the owner has kept the dog well away. I guess I never expect people to understand and respect our space, but they usually do. I'm yet to have someone get cross with me, but I guess some people just don't see your point of view at all.

Ah yes, Erik does that with the spare room. :D It doesn't latch, so he will regularly go and jump on it or shove it with his nose to see if he can make it open. He learnt this when I had baby magpies in there we were raising. I tried putting a folding chair against the door so it would fall down and make a noise if he pushed the door open. It kept him away for a while, but before too long he discovered he could trigger the "booby trap", run away, and then come back and step over the chair and open the door. I had to shut the door and pull a heavy suitcase in behind it. I'm glad he's a small dog! I ended up taking the magpies out of that room because I could see he was going to try to solve this suitcase problem as well and knowing him he would succeed sooner or later. There is nothing in that room anymore and hasn't been for ages. He still gets the door open quite regularly just to have a look. That sounds like a pretty persistent dog, Zug Zug. :D It's interesting, Kivi takes a while to learn things, but when he does he's very reliable as long as you keep rewarding it. If I stop rewarding a behaviour it drops out very quickly. Sometimes it only takes about 3 weeks. Erik does forget things if I don't reward them for ages, but I don't have to take the same care with him to practice something just to maintain it. I haven't had any problems with Erik getting stuck on a behaviour before I'm finished shaping it, but he does learn things I don't want him to if I'm not careful. I learnt to be extremely careful about what I reward and how often. If I didn't want him to get it locked in his head that when I do x he gets y, I had to carefully mix it up so I didn't let that consequence occur a few times in a row. I'm still finding this one sneaks up on me sometimes. I have to be quite aware of what he finds rewarding and what he might associate with that. If I do something the same way a few times in a row he tends to think that's the way it will always go.

I think there can be a sense of achievement. I taught Erik to catch a ball on the full one day and the drive that little guy had to just get it right was something to behold. Once he realised what the aim was, I would toss the ball and if he missed it he would actually make a little cross grunting sound, grab it and spit it out at me. It was for all the world like he was going "Again! I'll get it this time, dammit." When he finally did get it he was so freaking proud of himself he strutted around the place, head and tail high, just parading. For the next few weeks he'd go mental if I picked up a ball and woe betide anyone who got in his way. He still gets pretty excited if I pick up his ball, but he has calmed down a little. He likes to learn new things and tends to be in love with the latest thing he's learnt provided he thinks it's fun. I have rewarded the heck out of sit-stays with heaps of jackpots and do you think he likes them yet? No. He would rather be doing an active behaviour, thank you. Kivi got excited about jumping up for a high hand target when I taught him that. Again, active behaviour. He would jump up and down in front of me as though he were on a trampoline. I didn't reward any jumping without a cue, so he settled down after a bit.

Mysterious. Is there any chance he's being picked on when you're not around? How confident is he away from the other dogs?

I have found that to be so true with Erik, Raineth. I can't take shortcuts, and if I'm going to change something I have to be committed enough to hold out longer than he can! I am very realistic about my commitment to changing his behaviour. Before I try I ask myself "Now, how long am I really going to keep at this? How consistent can I be?" If I start without the commitment I will likely turn what is a minor preoccupation for him into an obsession. He loves a challenge. So I set myself up so that it will be easy to act even when I'm in the middle of something. I also found that I had to give him lots of directions. He's very good at doing what he's asked, but if I don't ask him to do anything he's very good at inventing things to do that I will not like. And I don't take chances with him. If I think he might possibly get into something I move it so he can't. The last thing I need is for him to discover a new activity that I badly don't want him to do. He one day discovered that he can open one of the kitchen cupboards. It only has plastic containers in it, but now we have to keep a chair against it all the time or he may at any moment open the cupboard, drag out a plastic container and chew it into little pieces. I've heard him. He rummages looking for the most expensive one! I can be much lazier with my other dog. He won't do anything unless there's a reason. Erik does things to see what will happen. What I find interesting is that nothing happening is not enough for him to put that behaviour in the "don't bother" basket. He will try it again and again. It will take several quite punishing consequences in a short space of time to convince him to stop, and even then, it will come back again if he hasn't tried it for a while.

It depends on the potential owner, doesn't it? Maybe there are some folks who should never have a powerful, serious dog, but others might be born for it and revel in it. I would add the primitive breeds such as Akita, Chow Chow, possibly Shiba Inu and Finnish Spitz, most likely Basenji. All those breeds might suit the right type of first time dog owner, but maybe there aren't many of those. Maybe there aren't many experienced owners, even, that would get along well with such breeds. And there are always individuals of any breed that are particularly easy going.

Even that's open to interpretation. I'm going to put my flame suit on. My last dog as she grew older and her eyesight deteriorated was liable to snap at children that put their fingers near her eyes. I never considered muzzling her. I was caught by surprise a couple of times when it first started happening, but after that I watched her like a hawk. Most kids in my area are brilliant and always ask before patting my dogs. This dog loved kids in general and kids loved her, so I'd say "Yes you can pat her, but don't put your hands near her face. She can't see very well anymore and she might snap at you." Parents and children were very accepting of this and always behaved as directed. Once I knew she could be a little unpredictable about her eyes I didn't let her get far enough away from me that I couldn't intervene physically if I had to, but I still let her off leash. I don't think I was being wildly irresponsible or exposing children to unnecessary danger. Yes, I think she may have bitten in retaliation if scared or startled. No, I don't think she would have broken the skin or left a bruise, even being old and grumpy. And no, I didn't think that it was necessary to keep her on leash for everyone's safety and her piece of mind. She was fine the vast majority of the time and I found it very easy to manage. We never had any problems. I was always upfront about it with kids and their parents and they seemed perfectly happy with that. The dog was perfectly happy. Potential aggression managed. If I thought she would bite harder I'd have assessed the situation completely differently.

There is someone around here with two Tibbies and some sort of big goofy oodle. She didn't seem wildly surprised when I asked her if they were Tibetan Spaniels, but then, I guess sometimes I don't seem wildly surprised when someone asks me if that's a Swedish Vallhund. I'm usually SO surprised I'm in shock and just casually answer "Yes, that's right." as I try to gather my wits. Actually, someone at the dog park recently said to me "What's the little Vallhund's name?" She didn't even have to check she was that confident! I just kind of gaped a bit like a fish and said "Erik." She totally saw the appropriateness of the name and had a good laugh. It's weird the dog nerds you come across when you have an unusual breed. She's another UK ex-pat, though. I'm sure that's the only way you can possibly be familiar with Vallhunds without being a total diehard dog geek.

Okay, good, so now what? How does that affect how you handle a dog? Well, I have personally seen that happen with my own eyes. You can believe it is a myth all you like, but I hope other people reading this will take note that I believe I saw it happen. More than once. Yes, thank you once again for repeating what has already been said. As I said before, obviously it is more rewarding than aversive. But the point I wanted to discuss was that some dogs seem to need little reward to persist in risky activities compared to other dogs. You still haven't answered the question of how this affects the way you might handle such a dog.

*puts it in the diary* I realise I asked Erny to leave off the e-collar debate and then continued to discuss it with you for another page or so. Thanks to Erny for following my request and to everyone else for not getting too carried away. It would be nice to have a sensible, open discussion about it and how it is treated in science. Watch this space.

Barking is communication. If you can find out what the dog is communicating then you can perhaps address the underlying problem rather than the barking, which is a symptom. If the dog is barking out of fear or anxiety, punishment may potentially make it worse. Sounds likely to be anxiety to me. Or, because the dog has spent a lot of time inside, a lot of outside stimuli are different and worth barking at. Is it a monotonous bark, or does it change in pitch or frequency? There are a bunch of behaviours used to diagnose separation anxiety versus nuisance or boredom barking, or overstimulation. The treatment for each is generally different, so if you don't know why the dog is barking all you can do is treat the barking and hope the dog doesn't get habituated to whatever you decide to use to control the barking. I vote get the dog assessed by a good behaviourist for an accurate diagnosis. I'd be going with a vet behaviourist.

But they are intertwined. The presence of an aversive doesn't mean the behaviour will stop. It just means the behaviour should decrease. But obviously that doesn't exist in a vacuum, either. If a reward that is bigger than the aversive is also present, the dog has a choice whether to pick the gaining of a reward or the avoiding of a punishment. They'll pick whichever one is more important to them. But we know all that. What interests me is how that balance plays out in different dogs. Yes, obviously Erik is getting some sort of reward out of his behaviour. My suspicion is he has a drive to gather information. Curiosity, as Raineth said. Much the same as my drive to research stuff. But I think it's undeniable that something you avoid is aversive. He is good at avoiding having things fall on him and clearly associates this possibility with his behaviour. What's interesting is why he would persist with the behaviour when the rewards are minimal and not conventional and the risk of something scary happening is quite high. Yes, obviously he persists because it pushes his buttons, but what does it mean that it pushes his buttons? Do I change the way I handle him given I know something of the risks he will take for quite intangible rewards? Those are rhetorical questions, BTW. I know what I do with my dog, but I'm interested to know what other people do with theirs. So is a "hard" dog a dog that is resistent or insensitive to punishments? Incidentally, I disagree that the behaviour comes back because the punishment wasn't strong enough. Aidan said earlier that punishments just suppress behaviour. Without motivation to do something else instead, (or maintenance punishment) the behaviour is likely to come back. I agree with that. Yes, so the question was, how would you handle a dog like this? Are there things you would do differently knowing it's a dog that is bold and highly motivated etc?

Nono, that's exactly what I'm getting at! I should have thought this out better before I posted. There's no particular answer to one thing I'm looking for here, but for people to comment on the idea of a persistent dog. What I have read lately says that curiosity is highly likely to be a stable aspect of the personality trait I'm talking about. Persistence is a word that might resonate with some who have seen these dogs, but it was just one I picked because I thought it was most likely to resonate. Curiosity and exploratory behaviour is probably more accurate, though. They use those novel situation and startle response tests in everything from kids to fish. It seems broadly applicable to most species, but how the animal reacts varies in stability. Some animals will change how they behave depending on their environment and some are born bold or shy and stay that way their whole life regardless of environment. It seems with dogs they mostly stay that way. The Swedish Working Dog test has several setups using novel situations and objects or noises expected to startle. The aim is to see how quickly the dog reacts, what they do, and how quickly they recover.

Maybe for another thread, Staranais. I think it's good to discuss these things. I just recently had Overall's text book on clinical behavioral medicine out from the library. She has kind of grown on me. SharpShep, I don't think anyone who has such little regard for their dog that they would outright, deliberately abuse it would fork out for an e-collar to do it with. My point was, those activities are already illegal. I don't think the legislation where it exists is aimed at such people. I think it is aimed at the average dog owner who is caught up in what they don't want their dog to do and can't be trusted to read the instructions let alone take the time and trouble to understand how best to use this tool. Pressing a button is so very different to booting an animal. And no one is trying to sell you a boot specifically for training your dog.

In Australia? I didn't think there were any here.

That is quite interesting. I have this theory that Erik has an over-sensitive reward system in his brain meats. Well, it's not my theory, as it has been suggested kind of tentatively in a few papers I've read. In humans, they reckon one of the ways you can get a manic personality is if the person is particularly sensitive to rewards, so they tend to put in a disproportionate amount of effort for a small reward, and they get very agitated when they encounter an obstacle to gaining a reward. I read a paper recently in which the author suggested animals with proactive coping styles may have a more sensitive dopaminergic system, which I guess means they may respond strongly to a bit of sympathetic nervous system activation. Perhaps they feel more keenly the dopamine kick when they escape or avoid something scary, and also when they figure out how to obtain a reward. I certainly find that Erik is particularly excitable about rewards. And I agree, rewarding alternate behaviours makes so much more sense than simply trying to suppress. I've noticed that anything that has been accidentally punished with Erik pops back up in a matter of weeks at the most. I've never tried deliberately suppressing something without giving him directions for what he should do instead.

I'm not talking about the value of a reward or strength of a punishment so much as the internal motivation of a dog. Say I had two dogs with the same reward history and comparable value for that reward and then I put a barrier in front of it. If it were Kivi and Erik, Kivi would give up then and there and go find something else to do, but Erik would try to get through the barrier. He would do that because it's worked in the past, but my point is not the history of the behaviour, but why one dog would try it and one wouldn't in the first place. What difference does that make to how you treat a dog? It's easy to handle Kivi's self-rewarding behaviours because he's easily dissuaded. You just have to make a piss poor attempt at physically stopping him and he's done. But if I'm going to try to stop Erik from doing something I would want to put a lot more effort into it straight up or he's just going to blitz whatever obstacle I use and come back at it with a vengeance. The nose poking doesn't pay off in a traditional sense. He has never poked over the kitchen tidy and got a bonanza, for example. If he has learnt to avoid something than it has to be a punisher. For a while there it happened so often he was poking and leaping backwards without waiting to see if it looked like it was going to fall, so he must have associated things falling on his head with him poking them with his nose. He eventually refined his technique so he only jumps back now if whatever he has poked looks like it's going to fall. There are no primary rewards associated with the behaviour that I have ever seen, and he's been doing it for months and months. Kivi would have stopped the first time something fell on him, but Erik keeps doing it, even though he had some serious scares at times and continues to scare himself by almost knocking things down on top of him. Considering it must be a punisher or he wouldn't be trying to avoid having it fall on his head, then why does he keep doing it? What drives him to risk having something large fall on him for nothing I can see but the satisfaction of making something happen? Well, there are several possible answers to that question, but I don't have one within the Behaviorism framework. So are people saying you don't get dogs that are more persistent than other dogs?

Personally, I think the link between social dominance and humping is tenuous at best. IMO, humping is often a displacement behaviour. I regularly see it from dogs that are uncertain how to behave in a social situation. Erik used to cop it heaps when he was an adolescent. I've noticed adolescents tend to get humped a lot. Otherwise, consider this. If it's a displacement behaviour, makes sense to do it someone who's not going to bite your head off. I would guess that your girl can see it coming and shoots them the look that says "Don't." whereas the male is not sending any such signals. Or, the male shows more anxiety than the female and it causes social tension in the other dogs, which is alleviated by humping the source of all the tension. Or, the other dogs are all pushy dogs that do things like that because they can and so they pick the dog that will let them (or at least looks like he will) - see first point.