corvus

Just watch the spitz people swoon. I believe they are like Lappies. We don't have any here afaik.

I would treat it as budding separation anxiety. Aidan's calming yo-yo exercise might be good: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1556 Barking is a way of communicating. I am always very reluctant to punish it, because there is usually something the dog is trying to say. The barking is a symptom, and if you can treat the cause then the barking goes away.

It's happened twice to Kivi and once to Erik. One a bit of dried pig trotter, once a bit of kangaroo shank, and once a bit of cow hoof. It seems particularly likely when they are chewing on something that is a little softened. It sure made me appreciate all that work I put in to teach Erik to let people look at his mouth! He went still and didn't fight at all while I pulled it out. With Kivi both times we had to pin him down.

I don't with my current dogs. I never had to teach it to Kivi as he lips everything out of your hands very gently. Erik is a quick learner and the food goes away if he tries to snatch. Didn't put it on cue. Every now and then during an intense clicker session if he's really into it he'll start being a bit rough towards the end. He's never left a mark, though. My last dog had a gently command and was actually corrected whenever she snatched. Didn't make any difference at all. She was snatching until the day she died unless you remembered to remind her "gently" first. Gently only came in because the corrections didn't work. I swear she would forget. She never snatched food that wasn't being delivered directly to her mouth, though. Erik tried it once or twice and got told to down if he wanted something. Didn't have to do anything unpleasant to him. He knew downs usually get rewarded so he downed. Didn't get any of the goods, but he has a lot of faith in the down.

Sometimes if you speak more softly than usual to a dog they get excited. My last dog used to practically do backflips in excitement if you whispered to her. Never figured that out, but I think your body language seems more attentive to them than usual as you are leaning forwards and looking at them. If I whisper to Kivi he is typically oblivious as he is to a lot of things (think, "Kivi, sit.... Kivi... Kivi, hello, anyone home..." *tap him on the head, he looks up* "Sit." *He sits*). Erik gets very attentive if I look at him and speak softly. He is just so sure we are about to do something super fun.

Well actually, there may be something in that. Patricia McConnell did a PhD on the kinds of noises people made to their animals. In The Other End of the Leash she says all across the world in different languages people use slow, round sounds to calm an animal and sharp, short noises to get them more excited. If "geeeeentle" is a slow, low-pitched noise it may serve to calm a dog, which reduces the likelihood of the dog getting a bit excited about snatching treats. Not saying that's the case, just offering a potential consideration.

Hoping for some lens help. I have always been a point and shoot girl because until now I've always been on the go. I mostly only took photos of cool stuff I saw in the field and considering I spent a lot of time in the field crashing through the bush, climbing rock faces, sliding down slippery river banks, and tramping through swamps at night, I just couldn't really be taking good cameras with me. So now I've got myself out of all that crazy field work and have become painfully aware of how much I hate my point and shoot. It's terrible in low light, the flash is too bright and positioned too far from the lens, and it just seems incapable of actually taking a photo when I hit the shutter button. Usually takes about an extra second. So I dragged OH's Canon 300D out and have started playing around with that. He has one lens for it, which is a Tamron 28-300mm f3.5-6.3. We are soon going on a trip up through the centre of Australia, so I had decided I was going to buy a 17-50mm f2.8 lens, and I figured a Canon 50mm f1.8 lens because everyone says they are super useful, and then I was thinking maybe a 90mm macro lens, or a nice telephoto. I like taking photos of nature, but I don't have a favourite bit of it, really. I love landscapes, I love little details, and I love critters that won't let me get close to them. I would probably say I love the last one best, and I have a lot of crappy photos of birds in the distance. I keep persisting with it even though I rarely get anywhere with a point and shoot. Today I discovered that the lens I have has a whole lot of fungus in it. Bad enough to show up quite prominently in a lot of shots. Considering I was finding the lens pretty slow and difficult in low light, I am thinking it might be better to just write this lens off and buy a replacement that is better suited to me? Advice would be much appreciated. I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I very much know what I will be taking photos of because it's what I've always been taking photos of: dogs at play, wildlife, pretty plants and fungus and macroinvertebrates, and gorgeous landscapes.

You guys have bandicoots in the rail corridors in there. :p That's some pretty awesome wildlife for the inner suburbs. You will also have Brushtail and Ringtail possums, and plenty of Flying-foxes at night. During the day you have small honeyeaters like Eastern Spinebills and New Holland Honeyeaters and there are lots of Bulbuls, which are introduced. It's not as cool as the southern end of the city where we live, but it's not too shabby.

Frustration and arousal may both lead to aggression. Doesn't make the dog aggressive, it just means they may behave aggressively. Any dog can behave aggressively in the right circumstances. It's just a matter of how frequent "the right circumstances" are for your dog. A good place to start with the over-excitement while you're deciding who to see about it is Karen Overall's Protocol for Relaxation: http://dogscouts.org/Protocol_for_relaxation.html Also, make sure she is getting plenty of exercise. Also, self control games may help like this "Chill Out" game: http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/LoweringArousal.pdf Leslie McDevitt likes to do the protocol for relaxation on a particular mat and pair it with a cue, like "settle". That way you give yourself a couple of helping hands if you need them in the form of cues the dog associates with a calm state.

I was having trouble getting Erik to tug when he thought he might be getting food at some point. I talked to my agility instructors about it and was introduced to a variation on the dog's choice game we've been playing to get good solid sits. I was instructed to keep food in my pocket, then get Erik tugging and then produce a piece of food. If he let go of the tug, the food goes back in the pocket. If he keeps holding it while looking at the food I ask for the toy and give him the food. We tried this game for the first time this morning and Erik picked it up straight away. The trickiest bit was getting him to notice the food in the first place. :p I really like it and it looks like it's going to be very useful for helping Erik learn to switch between food and tug.

Agreed. That's why they use food as a reward in behaviour and cognition studies on animals. It's about the only thing they know is universally rewarding, with the possible exception of play in social animals, but play is a bit more tricksy to control. It is hard with some animals. I know a dog that will work for food as long as nothing else is going on.

I've found that kids are pretty much wherever we take our dogs anyway. They often want to pat the dogs and are great about asking first and following instructions.

We live in the southern suburbs of Sydney and saw a fox across the road one day. It was big. I chased it with Kivi in the hopes of scaring it off. Don't want a fox nosing around my yard, particularly as I have a caged hare in it. I was surprised to see it right in the 'burbs. Wouldn't be surprised to see them on the ouskirts of the Shire where there's more bushland, though.

Even other animals carry the bacteria, or other bacteria that can cause problems. I had to get antibiotics after being bitten by a centipede, once. The nasty one that is associated with White-tails is rare.

I wasn't saying that should be done. I certainly never used the word "force" and that was very deliberate. I used the word "try" because I accept that some dogs aren't into food. I think that the point I am trying to make here is missing the mark. One can develop reinforcers that aren't especially strong in a dog, and it's a worthwhile exercise if it works because different reinforcers are suited to different situations. For example, why have I spent months getting Kivi to tug when he works so beautifully for food? Because food doesn't get him running and play does. Play swings open doors that were stiff and hard to budge with food. Play increases arousal and therefore increases the behavioural possibilities. The reason why I love rapid fire so much is because it's a very clear message to the dog and it really gets their attention. Sometimes if the dog is very distracted (like, too distracted to play for example), it's the one thing you might have to avoid the need to correct your dog. Grace, what you do with your dog is up to you. Sounds like it is a good decision for you. I am not arguing that you shouldn't go that route. You can certainly train a dog without food, just thought folks should be aware that there are times when it's very useful to have a dog that works for food, so it's probably worth trying to get them doing it before that day. If they don't ever work for food then they don't. What have you lost? It's not like you have to pick a single reward and stick with it. The more rewards the easier it is to get your dog generalising a behaviour.

This is the problem - unless you see food being shoved into a dogs mouth you think its not 'good enough'. I'm sorry that you seem to think that's what I meant. Far from. It's not a matter of one approach to all training. I tried to make that very clear. People on this forum are always saying how important it is to have as many tools in the toolbox as possible. Rapid fire clicker training is one tool that I think is highly valuable and I would go out of my way to get it in my toolbox if it wasn't there automatically. Same goes for play rewards. I've personally spent months building my low drive dog's desire to play tug. Why? Because I think tug is a valuable activity to have established with my dogs. So it's far from me somehow thinking that a dog must have food shoved in its mouth for every form of training. That is so ridiculous I couldn't quite ignore it. I'm not even saying the OP needs to be doing it. I was just trying to point out that a toolbox with no food in it is missing at least one awesome training tool.

I like that philosophy, Lo Pan. I like pushy, demanding dogs that ooze confidence and purpose. If someone thinks that's a dominant dog then fine, I like dominant dogs and dominant behaviour. So I pretty much ignore the talk about dominance. If I like a behaviour it'll stay and if I don't like it I'll train it out. Social hierarchy doesn't come into it at all. I was glad that when Erik scared our vet she kind of tip-toed around the dominance issue and was very nice about not blaming us, which she probably should have because we hadn't done the preventative work with him that we should have done. Having been through that with Erik, now, I'm teaching all my future dogs to stand still and allow someone to look at their teeth on command. It's been very useful.

prey and pack rewards can be just as good if not better. A dog in prey drive will naturally refuse food, what, would you starve it so it moulds into your ideals? There is more to dog training then food rewards, frankly I barely use them with my clients and have a really positive outcome AND quickly as well. I teach people skills to train, not become food dispensers. Really? You can distribute prey and pack rewards at a rate of about 1 every 2 seconds? I can get it faster than that if I have treats in my hand. Click treat click treat click treat. The whole reason why I don't use "yes" as a marker word is because it's too slow to say. It's a limiting factor. I would love to hear if someone has found a faster way to reward than a click and treat. Trying to reward a dog in prey drive with rapid fire treats is kinda stupid, no? I said rapid fire treats are very USEFUL. I didn't say they were all you needed to train a dog. A dog has to eat eventually. No reason why they can't work for their food even if they are a prey driven dog. I'd give it a go purely to have that that rapid fire option in the tool box. If you haven't tried it you should. You can get a really positive outcome REALLY quickly. Being a smart and fast food dispenser is an extremely useful skill for a trainer to have. Doesn't mean you have to ditch the pack and prey rewards or some such.

Well, scientists are people as well, and if they were anywhere near as pissed about it as I was when I heard, it was probably very difficult to keep a level head about it. I know some frog scientists that get very fired up about things as well. It's hard not to go off on an explosive tirade about folks you know are doing nothing but ill for what you care about deeply enough to dedicate your life to, and it's hard when you care that much to see people who are just neutral bystanders as just neutral when they aren't doing anything to help. It's a "you're with me or against me" sort of knee jerk reaction. In theory scientists are impartial all the time, but in reality they are far from it. It's a good lesson for those of us that are or are studying to be scientists to remember that it's reasonable for people to expect you to be impartial all the time and just be careful who you say what to. I'm glad I can't remember who told us this story back in second year, now! I took pretty much everything I was taught in uni as law, but the vast majority of it was referenced and what wasn't was usually prefixed with "We think". I normally remember to report that bit as well, but this time I didn't and it was a bad one to get sloppy on. Apologies, everyone. :D

I'm yet to find a reward that you can deliver as fast and frequently as food. If I had a dog that didn't want to work for food I would try to find a way to get them working for food because it's just so freaking useful. Even if you almost exclusively train with something else. There's nothing like rapid fire treats when you're trying to teach your dog something.

There's no way in hell I'd ever alpha roll any dog. It's a rubbish move that means nothing, anyway. As Karen Overall points out, social hierarchies in dogs are based on deference, not submission, so it doesn't even do what it's meant to do. I do routinely pick Erik up and put him down on his back, though. He loves it. Means I'm going to tickle his belly and blow raspberries on it.

I think of dominant behaviour as controlling behaviour... with a few caveats. For example, before my current dogs I had a corgi who was a control freak. I did not consider her dominant because her obsession to control other dogs was clearly born out of fear. It really took off around the time the dog she was living with started trying to kill her. Then the next dog we got was very aggressive and the poor girl just came to feel like for her own safety she needed to control other dogs. Inevitably the constant haranguing would blow up in her face when a dog got fed up with her and she would become submissive in every situation. One of my current dogs, Erik, has tried or still does pretty much everything on that list you bolded. To me, none of that is really what makes him a dog that I just keep an eye on. When he had been with us for just 3 days, he saw my older, much bigger dog coming towards me and the little mite struck a tall, stiff stance, stared him down and growled at him from deep in his chest. "Whoa" I thought, "He's only just 10 weeks old! Here's some fun and games." At 16 weeks the vet tried to look at his teeth and he growled at her. He was saying "no, I won't have a strange person looking at my teeth." She actually got a little bit worried. He was won over soon enough with some chicken, but she said it was the first time she'd ever felt like a puppy might seriously bite her. I didn't think he would, but we'll never know. He now lets complete strangers look at his teeth and last trip to the vet the "teeth" command held fine. When he was 6 months old he stayed with my parents over Christmas. When he figured out my mother was the one that did all the feeding and letting dogs out and so forth, he tried to threaten her when she got up to leave the room he was in. It was not so serious that she was worried, but I believe he was trying to control ALL the resources by controlling the one that he had identified as the one that controls all the resources. To me, that is some pretty serious dominant behaviour and I'm glad he wasn't serious about following through on it. He was just testing the waters and was easily convinced that it wasn't going to work. ETA Erik's "dominance" doesn't bother me in the slightest. He is who he is and I love him for it. All he needs to do for us to all live in harmony is stick to the rules. If he wants something, he works for it. If he doesn't want to work I assume he doesn't want any of the neat things I've got to give him. Turns out he pretty much always wants to work. I don't need him to constantly show me that he respects me or some such. He can act like an obnoxious twat if that's what floats his boat, but if he wants anything he will have to get over it and do what he's told. He is remarkably easy to get along with. He is pushy because he wants a lot of stuff, so I just harness that want. No big deal. He's beautiful to work with and training him is a real joy.

Patricia McConnell is the one that wrote some great blog posts about dominance in dogs. She has a PhD in dog behaviour and years of consulting behind her. The first one is here: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/the-c...ed-as-dominance. Second: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/the-d...onships-in-dogs Third: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/dogs-...-a-person-to-do And last: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/dog-t...-and-the-d-word

It occurred to me that I have Karen Overall's "Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Small Animals" text book sitting here on my desk, so I looked up submissive and excitement urination. She says the difference is in the body language and suggests for submissive urination to treat it by ignoring it and rewarding deferential behaviour that does not involve urinating, like sitting. She makes some comments about how dogs can end up being submissive urinators and suggests it may often (although not always) be because people have forced them into submissive positions or excessively dominated them in other ways. Excitement urination she said most dogs grow out of, but if they don't she suggests doing her protocol for relaxation to address the excitement itself and teach them to do something incompatible, like lying down.

Just a quick update on Erik's tugging... I tried what Agility Dogs suggested (even though I totally didn't like it! ) and just basically pestered Erik into playing tug at the agility grounds last night. He did, although I only got one good tug out of him. He did plenty of chasing of the sheepy tug on a ribbon, though. I emailed my instructors about it and they gave me some great tips for getting him tugging around food. He is now expected to tug for his dinner. That started all of last night and this morning the little devil tried to short-circuit me by running outside with me, diving at the toy, barely touching it, then whirling and racing back into the kitchen where his meal was waiting on the bench. The dog is clever, I'll give him that. He picks things up very quickly. Anyway, I thought it would take ages to get to that stage, so I guess he'll come good on the tugging pretty fast. In the meantime, he's a targeting king and he's doing a low jump for a tug toy, and we're getting some nice sit-stays from him, and he's great getting on the board and standing there. I do have trouble with circle work, though. I'm 170cm tall, and he's about 30cm tall, so I'm finding it hard to get treats down to him without stopping. Any suggestions?