corvus

Haha, maybe they told you the wrong info in the hopes you would not show. Politics really brings out the worst in people sometimes.

I did a zoology degree so I could look at wild animals for a living. I thought at the time that academia wasn't for me and went into the work force as a consultant. I loved it for the first 18 months. It paid well, I got to go out into the field and do lots of trapping, bird watching and frogging, I learnt heaps and got to see some really cool animals, but I soon became horribly disenchanted with the whole industry and the things we were expected to do. Like working from sunrise until 11pm and getting paid for 7.5 hours regardless. They expected us to work for free and when we complained they would tell us it was the industry standard. The problem is, if you have a job that is in high demand you end up getting exploited. If you don't like something they tell you there are plenty of other people who would give their eye teeth for your job and to suck it up. The government is much better, but it's hard to get a permanent position. I decided I wanted to work on dog behaviour, so I found an academic that works on dog behaviour and started a PhD on it. No idea where this is going to get me in the long run, but hopefully an academic position so I can wallow around researching dogs for the rest of my life. Well, no academic wallows. It's very competitive and demanding, but it pays well and nothing beats research. And you get to meet lots of people that know heaps about dogs. People that tell you scientists know nothing about dogs know nothing about dog scientists.

They have member prices and non-member prices, so one would assume you are welcome to attend. I'm not a member and am going. Mind you, I get member prices for being a vet student (kinda).

I don't really think any dogs are in the their element with being left out of family life... but a lot of dogs cope with it well enough. The more time I spend with my dogs the more I wonder how the majority of dogs get by. Kivi coped fine with being on his own in a yard all day and then coming in to spend time with us when we were at home... but when I started working from home he turned into a giant, needy sook and feels it is necessary he always be in the same room as me. He has even reverted to puppyhood days of trying to sneak onto the bed to sleep at night and coming up for cuddles on the lounge. He was fine when he was getting much less people time, but he's much happier with more people time. I wonder if it's the same with all dogs, really. We did kinda breed them to be dependent on us.

You want him to walk on a loose leash beside you, right? Then reward the hell out of him when he's doing that. If he's pulling, put on the brakes and go nowhere until he stops pulling. If you make it a good choice for him to pay attention to the tension on his leash and to your voice, then you're 90% of the way there. If you were him, what would make you pay attention to the human on the other end of your leash? What would make you decide to go back to them when you really want to know what's just ahead of you in the opposite direction to the human?

Spitz breeds don't smell much at all and the ones in the herding group tend to be easy to train and not as active as other herders. The trick is finding one that doesn't have outrageous amounts of hair. ;) Maybe a corgi? Although I have to be honest and I think that corgi hair is worse than my Lapphund's hair for shedding. The Lappie doesn't tend to leave a lot of hair around, as it usually gets caught up in his coat and only comes out when you brush it, but having said that it seems there's always one stray Lappie hair that will be left behind whenever you touch something you are trying to keep clean. Where do they come from?? And there was that time in McDonald's when I was just about to order and I'd just rubbed my face and something was left behind and it was tickling me and I put my hand up and found this massive knot of black and grey Lappie hair stuck to my face. Just what you like to have on your face in public. At least that kind of thing doesn't happen with a corgi.

I should point out that my dogs are not particularly reactive, so I can afford to be a bit gung ho and sloppy. I have only used it to sort out frustration lunging and carry-on when the dogs are on leash and see another dog on leash. They were young dogs and very friendly! It was very quick and easy for my dogs. I still use it for Kivi because he gets tunnel vision at times and it jolts him out of it. Erik I haven't used it with in ages. He is quite responsive to his name these days and he usually knows what I'm going to ask him to do next.

You just have to teach it when the dog is under threshold. I know people that started teaching their dogs to look at boring things to learn the game and then took it on the road when the dog was good at it. McDevitt's application at least does not depend on the dog being able be calm around a trigger, but reframes the trigger so it's like "A dog! You know what that means... the Look At That game! We love this game!" She uses the clicker as an interruptor as well as a marker, so you simultaneously mark the "looking", interrupt it, and then reward the looking at you as the dog inevitably does when they hear the clicker. You have to stay below the point where the dog no longer hears the clicker because they are so aroused. Anyway, it's best if you read the book, but I think there is a Control Unleashed Yahoo group, and I believe there is a reactive dogs Yahoo group as well. My dogs are so conditioned to clickers and marker words that they have to be really extremely ramped up to not hear a click. For Kivi, that means "A swan! Right there in front of me!" (he gets very excited about birds). For Erik... I think there will be a point where nothing will get him so fired up he can't hear a clicker. At the moment, I guess the most challenging situation is when the OH has taken Kivi on ahead and he desperately wants to run after them but can't because he's on leash. He gets so frustrated he loses it. If you get in fast he does all right, but that's a recent achievement. He has a very strongly conditioned down that is his default behaviour. I love default downs because it's easy to get to them and calm them down in that position. Kivi's default behaviour is a sit, and he can bounce out of that in a millisecond. A down is more stable IME.

I have a book by Roger Abrantes. He is very methodical about communication. It is much appreciated. And he really knows what he is talking about, naturally. I'm looking forward to Ken Ramirez. I think he will be good. At any rate, Patricia McConnell was raving about him on her blog recently and I'm a huge McConnell fan. I love hearing from trainers that train animals other than dogs. They often have some great insights. Steve White also strikes me as someone potentially very helpful. I like conferences for the chance to talk to other conference participants as much as for the speakers themselves. Sometimes you get tougher crowds that are harder to strike up conversations with, though. I used to love bat conferences best. They are the easiest folks to talk with. Texans are a friendly bunch, too. This year's APDT conference has a behind the scenes zoo trip option that sounds fun. I'm going to go and hope that OH forgives me for going without him. This one's not a big deal for me as it's local, but if I go to see Ms McConnell a few weeks later it will be a fair bit more costly. Still have to decide if I can afford that one. Anyone else planning to go?

I meant emotionally reactive in the sense that the dog is quite sensitive and tends to over-react. So low threshold and unusually big reactions. I don't think that any aggressive dog is reactive and any reactive dog is not necessarily aggressive. In the scientific literature it's associated with emotional instability.

Very interesting. Thanks folks.

Those of you with reactive dogs, do you find them to be unpredictable in their behaviour? Will they always react to a trigger in the same way? Assuming that with decreased distance to the trigger you would see an increased intensity in their behaviour rather than a different behaviour?

Photos of our Palisades pack: The harness. It is currently missing its fleece sleeves for the straps, but I believe we have both of them still. We just took them off because they were annoying and Kivi didn't need them with all his hair. I would wash it again! The fur stuck in the velcro. I can get at least some of it out, but not sure how much. The pack. Don't mind Erik's head. He wouldn't get out of the way. Kivi wearing it. Now that I think about it Kivi is a bit smaller than a Golden, I think. Just fluffier. At any rate, it would fit a dog his size and up. A very trim GR might be a bit lighter build and thus smaller around the girth? Kivi doesn't have it tightened to the minimum size, so I guess it should still fit. Maybe check the Ruffwear site if you're not sure?

We hate bags and pack it in large plastic containers that last us a few days. The chicken wings go in bags because we don't have enough containers, and they always leak. We have a very large plastic container that all the dog meat goes in. It's much easier to clean that than the fridge.

Haha, well, the harness at least has seen some hard use. The Ruffwear gear is certainly made well and it'll be good for many years, but it's far from mint condition. The backpack itself has never been used, but it's been stored outside and is a bit on the dusty side. Not too bad, though. Looks new. It does have water bladders, but I have no idea how to fill them. They are the cask style. I got it quite cheap as a closeout. In full disclosure, I do find the straps on the harness tend to slowly slip over time. I never have to touch Erik's harness straps as they hold fine, but Kivi's I tend to have to tighten every couple of weeks. We use it pretty much every day. I wanted to buy him one of the new Web Master harnesses because I was getting tired of checking the straps, but really I just wanted the shiny new style. I think it would fit a GR fine. Kivi is about the same size as a golden, but with more hair. The harness is a bit wet atm as Kivi got hosed off this afternoon after deciding to sneak off to the swamp at the dog park, so I'll take a photo of it tomorrow when it is hopefully dry.

What size is it and how much are you after for it? It's a size large. I'd have to see how clean I can get the harness. I washed it not long ago and it came up very clean, but there's a bit of hair stuck in the velcro. I'd say $25 is probably fair, but if you're still interested I'll take some photos and you can decide.

I have one of the old Palisade packs that I don't use if anyone would like a cheap second hand one. It's never been used, but I use the harness on Kivi all the time, so that bit has seen a bit of wear. Kivi hates wearing the pack and I decided it wasn't worth counter conditioning him to it because we never go on long enough outings to really use it anyway.

I'm a bottom-up leader. I lead because they follow.

Yes. Finally. I think that's a fair call. I have to do some more thinking on this. Traditionally speaking social contact isn't a PR because a dog can live without it. But I've started to think in terms of whether a dog has an appetite for something rather than whether something is a primary or secondary reinforcer. I don't know if that's particularly accurate, but it makes more sense to me. Under that way of thinking, I end up with appetites that are large and appetites that a small and things dogs just like but don't have an appetite for. There are several appetites that can be easily satisfied just by the things we do with our dogs, and I think social comes under that one. The fact of the matter is I'm always going to giving out the love for free. I might ask for a behaviour sometimes, but the majority of the time I'm like "My dog wants a cuddle! Come on up!" OH is about ten times worse. But, there are other things to consider as well. Example, opponent process theory, which if I understand it correctly may mean that some appetites are developed. I think social interaction may be one of those. A pariah dog or stray may have no appetite at all for social interaction with anyone except when it comes to sex, but where dogs are raised in an environment where they do get a lot of that, they may develop a need for it? At least, I notice with both exercise and social interactions that the more you give them the more they tend to want. Although maybe that not an OPT thing as it seems more like a habituation thing. I dunno. Sorry to the OP for taking it so far off topic! Some dogs may show very little interest in social interaction unless it is paired with a primary reinforcer, but IMO this is simply because they are constantly given attention for free. A dog free fed kibble all day is unlikely to work very hard for kibble, either. Doesn't mean that food isn't a primary reinforcer. I used to know a small herd of sheep that would literally gallop to wherever the farm hand was whistling from. He started out whistling whenever he put food out for them and ended up using it to move them around between paddocks. He was a good intuitive trainer, though. He nearly always gave them some food when they got there. ;)

EXACTLY! That is exactly what I'm saying! My point is we are SO MUCH MORE to them than a treat dispenser, even if we take treats everywhere and use them a lot. I'm trying to say that ALL the good things we do with our dogs are cumulative, not just treats, but treats and all the other fun and enjoyable stuff we do with them.

I DO carry food with me everywhere and I do reward just about everything with it quite frequently. What I don't do is reward exclusively with food. My dogs don't always want food and I think it's important to diversify rewards as much as possible. There is an interesting blog article by Patricia McConnell talking about primary and secondary reinforcers as spoken about by Ken Ramirez, who has been training exotic animals for 30 years. It is here: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/using...z#comment-17683 She reports that Ken classifies praise and social interactions as a secondary reinforcer and that he encourages everyone to use their SRs sparingly and follow them up with PRs as often as possible to strengthen them. That includes things like rubbing a dog's belly. He makes those comments based on a requirement for very reliable behaviour (it's not cool when an Orca doesn't do what it's told). I won't agree with it or disagree with it except to say that I treat praise as a secondary reinforcer whether it is for my dogs or not. For those interested, Ken Ramirez is speaking at the APDT conference here at the end of October.

What he said. I reward with what the dog wants. If Erik wants to jump all over me in greeting, he needs to sit or down first. He uses it to "ask" for me to invite him to jump all over me. He has a very cute "I'm downing, could I please jump on you for a cuddle and a tickle?" look. I'm a bit slack about doors and only enforce it when I first come home. Erik downs and Kivi sits or the door doesn't get opened. It stays open a lot when I'm home. Almost nothing is rewarded exclusively with food, but almost everything is rewarded with food much of the time.

I don't want to go on and on about this, but I really feel like we're not understanding each other and I'd like us to understand each other. A while ago my OH asked me what I thought would happen if we stopped rewarding our dogs with food all the time. Would they cease to care about us all together? I said I thought they wouldn't because we are so much more to them than a source of treats, which they don't actually need. We feed them meals, give them water, take them fun places, snuggle with them on the couch, let them sneak up onto the bed for cuddles, play with them, run with them, sleep in the same room as them and just be with them so often. Our relationship with them is built on rewards. Not just food rewards, but a whole plethora of things they want and like. Everything they like to do they do with us or we give them directly. We are constantly talking to them, interacting with them, playing with them, training with them, making them a part of our lives. When we are with them, we always know where they are and they always know where we are. We keep tabs on each other. We bond. They are hardwired to form social bonds. I know what they look like when they have momentarily lost us. It's panic. So if we were to see our dogs cease caring about us all together, we would have to uncouple ourselves from every rewarding stimuli they experience. This is because we have spent the last couple of years deliberately associating ourselves with every rewarding stimuli they experience. So I'm hearing from you, the dog should value you socially rather than value the rewards you dispense. I'm saying how could the dog NOT value us socially if we are associated with every rewarding stimuli they experience? Every time we reward them it's money in the bank and we are building on that relationship. We are increasing our social value at the same time. They want to hang with us because good stuff happens to them when they do. The food rewards are a drop in the ocean. If we ONLY ever used food rewards, then I can see how we would mean nothing but food to our dogs, but we don't. We couldn't if we tried. Then my dogs work for praise. Oh, I see. I agree in principle, with the caveat that by "praise" we mean any sort of social reward. However I do think that you could have plenty of value there but have a dog that won't work for a social reward purely because they have never been asked to before. So what? Just teach 'em if you want them to work for a social reward. Doesn't necessarily mean they don't care about you. Incidentally, my dogs have very good recalls as well. A recall is one of the few things that gets Kivi running. I reward every time with high value food treats (and sometimes play for Erik). They come and come fast because I have effectively just called out "Who wants a piece of steak!" Sometimes I only have crappy dog food or bread or something really lame, but it doesn't seem to bother them. The variable reward schedule does work and it works well as far as science knows. I just think it's easier to reward every time.

It's probably worth having a read of Control Unleashed as a supplement to anything else you do. It is full of useful tips for helping reactive dogs. I know someone on another forum with a dog that is just borderline suitable for CU classes (they are in the States) and they have been making steady progress since starting. It is extremely popular and seems to work very well for even some really intensely reactive dogs.

Ruff Wear harnesses. I feel strongly about this for some reason. Probably because I've had a few scary experiences with dogs and collars. Anyway, I prefer not to have the neck as my only point of contact with my dogs. The harnesses are great. They are almost impossible to get out of and they are balanced with a handle on the top so you can grab your dog easily. Once I started using one I couldn't understand how I'd ever got by without that handle.