corvus

We still go for an afternoon walk if it's less than about 32 degrees. We just usually go to the river so the dogs can walk on the cool sand and get themselves damp and stinky.

FYI, I run "Volatile Dogs" classes in southern Sydney these days. May be a limited time thing as research plus consulting and classes is killing me, but then again, may even start a second class if the demand is there. Mostly we concentrate on regulating arousal and getting dogs and handlers talking to each other. It often makes a big difference once the dogs realise their handlers are listening to them. I vote for Baskervilles because they are cheaper and easier to get hold of than Jafco.

Dog parks are just another public space. The best way to get along with everyone is to accept that people may not have the same values and expectations as you, but do your best to minimise the impact you and your dogs have on others. If your dog is a mad retriever, you have two choices: train your dog to accept the approach of strange dogs or play fetch elsewhere. If your dog loves to train, it's the same thing. Train your dog to be able to work around dogs approaching or train somewhere else. The other dogs and owners in the park are environmental distractions. I dismiss my dogs from training if they are approached, because one of my dogs gets anxious if another dog might cramp his style while he's training. Dismissing them tells them training is off for the moment and they can deal with the incoming dog. It's important to watch your dog closely and notice signs of conflict. They can be subtle, and if you miss them, you can be teaching your dog that dog parks are not very fun. We don't go to the dog park much anymore because Erik decided he was over the excessively friendly dogs. It is frustrating that we can't take him because we can't make sure he is left alone, but that is the nature of dog parks. You can't change it, so if you can't train for it, you have to just find other options. I find people often don't realise how much they can do in a dog park to influence events. If there's an incoming dog, you CAN intercept it. You can signal your dogs to cluster close if that's where they are safest. One of mine comes to heel and the other pops between my feet. The latter is a good place for a dog that may want to escape at some point to be. He can duck back through my legs and I can close them to block the other dog, or if they come from behind, he can go forward and I can block. You can tell your dogs to hop up on a bench or platform to get them clear. Avoid picking dogs up in the dog park. Some dogs see it and seem to lose their marbles and will come over and try to grab the dog you have lifted. If you must lift a dog, better to crouch and gather them close to your chest and then stand up with them. This does not seem to trigger the grabbiness. A lot of people run into trouble at the dog park because they let the dog off the instant they get in and the dog runs off to do its own thing until it's time to leave. You are there WITH your dog. Make an effort to share in their activities. Avoid creating powerful anticipation by letting the dog off straight away. It gets the arousal through the roof and heightens the possibility of inappropriate play and bullying behaviour. Dogs should be able to show they are still able to respond to you before they get off leash privileges. I expect a sit and the dog to wait for a release before they charge off. If they bolt and won't heed you once they are gone, you need to make the release less predictable and reward the dog for turning back to you when you say their name. You can do a lap of the park leashed if you can confident you won't get mobbed. Responsive dogs are dogs that better stay out of trouble. Keep moving. Dogs that are moving with you don't get such a chance to get up to mischief with other dogs.

What is his running endurance like? I had my eye on these guys as a potential pint-sized running pal. I couldn't find anyone to tell me what kind of distances I could expect from them, though. A JRT can do long distances and would keep up with me, but they are unusual for little dogs. I only run once or twice a week, but I can be out for 90 minutes or more.

If your dog enjoys it and can be safe doing it, yes. If your dog doesn't enjoy it and probably never will, no. It really is that simple. There are two sides to the human-dog relationship. Dogs are not just our little mini-me's to mould after our own image to enjoy only the things we enjoy and hang with only the types we like to hang with. They should be given the opportunity to develop good social skills if they live in suburbia and are going to meet lots of dogs wherever they go, and if you know what you're doing, dog parks are a pretty good place to do that. Also play is important for both brain development and welfare and about the only thing that is reliably associated with positive emotional states. If they like doing it, I would give them every opportunity.

Are you in my house right now?? That is what it's like to live with a vallhund, too. He follows me everywhere, and everything I touch, he pokes a moment later. "What's that for?" *poke* "I'm just gonna fix this..." *poke it over* "Why'd you do that?" *paw poke pawpawpawpaw* "What's in here?" *paws open to look* "What's with this that wasn't here yesterday?" *pushes it around the room, paws it incessantly, will not leave the damn thing alone for just 5 seconds* "It's okay, I'll fix it." *pokes it 2mm and watches it fall over, looks at you like "It fell over."* I don't think he approves of the majority of how I arrange small items in my house. I do not understand that everything should lie on its most stable side. It's okay, he will just follow me around and fix it all. What I most dislike about valls is the alert barking and the occasional cattle driving rush at inappropriate things. The smarts and curiosity and need to be supervising everything you do is not so bad. Lucky he's super cute, though. Lapphunds - the dense and long coat. I do it all because groomers hate it. I guess their sociality can get a bit out of control if you're not careful. And the spitz moments where that recall you have worked on diligently for 7 years results in the "Yeah, nah." look and you get to admire the fluffy butt you haven't brushed nearly enough lately.

A head collar and front attach harness combo keeps most large, strong, and sometimes exuberant dogs under control without the need for anchor points. It helps to have someone teach you a system, though. I keep the head collar leash longer so it's firmly the backup. Helps to practice without the dog first so you know what to grip when. You can transition from the front attach harness to a flat collar or regular harness as training progresses. It's not okay to walk dogs in the street that can pull you unwillingly onto the road or on top of another dog. Safety first. Sometimes socially neglected dogs can get kind of frantic. Lots of structure around social interactions and work on impulse control can help.

So, all opinions are equally valid and worthy of consideration? Regardless of who is expressing them and how they are doing it?

The survey has been closed so the results could be analysed and the report prepared. A review of the major findings and recommendations plus a link to the full report is at the link gapvic posted: http://www.thedogs.com.au/NewsArticle.aspx?NewsId=6716 I suppose I'd be curious to know if it's all as dire as everyone just knew it would be before the results were analysed, but then again, even my curiosity has limits.

I have a PhD in dog behaviour. I'm in southern Sydney, but I'm at the vet faculty in Camperdown some days as well. http://www.creatureteacher.com.au Joanne Righetti services the eastern suburbs and north shore. She is very good. I know a few vet behaviourists around if you think you might need medication. I can let you know who is local to you if you like. Some also do Skype consults.

It's the nature of surveys, Maddy. We develop them knowing full well that interpretation will vary. There are ways to get around it, like asking about the same thing from several different angles, giving people opportunities to list other options or explain themselves - both strategies employed in this survey, but getting a lot of responses is always going to help. In some cases, the questions are deliberately kept broad and somewhat ambiguous because the way they are answered by the sample population will be more informative than if we tried to spoon feed respondents answers that we think they want to give us. There is an informed process going on with survey development, and usually a fair bit of collaboration and checking. A lot of researchers run pilots before their surveys go live to check if any of the questions were too ambiguous. How they respond to comments in a pilot depends on what their aims for each question is. So, while I'm sure it seems to you and others that researchers are pulling questions out of their butts, it is actually not the case. There is method to the madness, and each question is carefully thought out, discussed, and the wording rolled around and polished until the researchers are satisfied it will be interpreted the way they hope - which could very well mean in several different ways. You can actually look at the distribution of answers and how they relate to other answers and develop a good picture of what kinds of people have what kinds of views. Every question needn't be represented as a sample mean and that's that. You can do lots of exciting things with statistics that get to the heart of how questions have been answered better than we can just by looking at the answers and raw numbers. I love how I'm insulting greyhound people for suggesting they fill out the survey if they care, but it's totally fine to give a woefully uninformed critique of someone's professional work in the same thread. We don't go to uni for 7+ years to learn how to do something that somebody in their armchair at home with no training can do better. Do the survey or don't, but I suggest you be careful with your condescending smiley faces and assuming you are speaking from a position of superior knowledge. The more you learn, the more you realise you don't know, and there are certainly things I have said on the internet that are still floating around that make me feel a little bad for my past self. Awww, you had no clue, baby corvus. I'll apologise for apparently being insulting if you do.

You bothered because you care, one assumes. This is the greyhound industry asking people what they think. Don't waste the opportunity to respond by convincing yourself there is no point because somehow it's guaranteed that you won't be heard or somehow the people involved in conducting the research will have some sway over the results and how they are interpreted. Everyone has one voice, here, no more. The results will reflect the voices of everyone who bothered to fill it out. If you care, then put your money where your mouth is and make your voice one of them. It really is just as simple as that. And accept that maybe your voice is in the minority, but that doesn't mean it won't be heard.

This is an opportunity for anyone who wants to share their opinion (anonymously) on how racing greyhounds should be managed. http://latrobepsy.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7VucTyWqoUdQAaF

It's a low level form of resource guarding, because little escalation is required. Resource guarding often stems to some degree from anxiety (he's going to get my stuff!). I'd counter-condition. You get MORE stuff when the other dog is nearby. Be careful not to rob the guarding dog of her sense of control of the situation before she is ready to relinquish it. As it stands, she has control of the situation because the other dog defers to her. It no doubt eases her anxiety about having another dog near her things. If you ease it by building a positive association with the dog being near her things and her getting more things, then her tolerance will increase and control will hopefully seem less critical to her.

^^ That is exactly why I called that one dog I knew stubborn. Sometimes I would watch him dive into attaining some goal and I couldn't believe he thought this was a good idea. It seemed reckless to me, or a lot of fuss over a trivial gain. Sometimes I was suspicious he was making a point. He was a very smart dog, and I don't think anyone else was playing the same game as him. I guess he maybe knew something I didn't, though, because he never did bite off more than he could chew. He was just prepared to chew all day if he had to. You have to condition dogs to respond to you in exciting environments. They literally can't do it at first. There are lots of important and exciting things to check out, but you're always there waiting for them when they get bored. They attend to the more pressing things first just like we do. So, the trick is to condition them to want to keep track of you because it's rewarding. If you are a bundle of unpredictable reinforcement possibilities, it is suddenly a good idea for them to keep an ear out for you and keep an eye on where you are. At any moment, you could give them an opportunity to earn reinforcement. You have to start within their capabilities, though. I will pay for just the tinniest glance in my direction at first, then work up to check-ins, hand targets, sits, then start asking for several behaviours, or a sit-stay, and just keep adding. You're conditioning them to keep tabs on you. Just make sure you release the dog before they take off on their own.

I call my vallhund the hobbyist's working dog. ;) He is the best of both worlds. Outrageously smart and trainable, but he's small and portable. He's not very fast and can't run for a long time because he has short legs, although he likes to sprint, but he doesn't need a lot of exercise. He can only jump about 1m high, so being part cat is more useful than troublesome. He's about a third of a working dog. He sure gives a lot when he's on, but he's about a third as fast, needs about a third of the exercise, and is about a third as intense. It's nice to be able to be able to have crazy fun with him, but when you're done, you can pop him in the car and take him home for a snuggle on the couch. He gives good cuddles. A couple of years ago, his breeder (Ausled) had a dog returned because he was a bit too clever for his own good. Great fun, but better for an experienced home that could stay ahead of his evil genius ways. I'm not sure if he ever did find a home. Adult dogs do become available, but don't always get advertised. Breeders often know someone who is looking.

I used to know a dog I called stubborn because if he wanted something, he didn't seem to care what the cost was or how long it would take him, he would have it. Some of it was that he could be extremely persistent, but there was a bullheadedness to how he went about pursuing some of his goals with reckless determination. There's a theory of personality in animals that it is emergent and first begins with somewhat chance strategies. An animal has success with particular strategies, so uses them more, and has still more success with them, so over time their typical strategies become stronger, more pronounced, and less variant, i.e. personality emerges. I think in this dog's case, he started out a little bullheaded and it worked for him and he adopted it more and more. I love my spitz breeds for many of their typical traits, but their behaviour is governed by the same rules as every other breed. It took my vallhund about 6 months before he stopped giving me the "why?" look every time I suggested he do something, but he did because he learnt I have good ideas and following them brings him things he desires. He is basically a BC in a little dwarf wolf coat these days. The lapphund is not far behind him, but although I could teach him to be more persistent and therefore slower to give up on things, I can't teach him to be as persistent as the vallhund, because they started with different baselines. One is persistent by nature and one has been taught it. I expect there is more individual genetics and experience behind their personalities than breed-specific behaviour.

Hi nyssel, If you are in Sydney, I know most of the people that are running reactive dog classes. I am running them in the Sutherland Shire. Some are maybe better than others, but not everyone will let other trainers come and see what they are doing, so I can't comment on all of them. My classes are very gentle and low key. PM for more details.

Hmm... Pretty much every VB, behaviourist and trainer in Sydney knows about that one. Bring on industry regulation.

I grew up with a labrador/gordon setter mix. She was probably the best dog ever.

Building up is always the problem I had. I don't mind a quick breather on a long run, but I hate disrupting my rhythm, so I was always egging my vallhund on, just a little farther, you can do it, bud. Alas, you can only do so much egging before your running pal gets dirty on you for pressuring him all the time and declares he's not running with you anymore. He likes sprints, but I don't. My sprint workouts frequently turn into basic jogs. My next dog might be one that can run out of the box. ;)

I do 10-12km runs at the moment, and have done up to about 17km. Neither of my dogs are runners, so they get left at home, but I run with a running group that does those distances on bush trails. Some of them run with dogs. Mostly working breed mixes, but one member runs with whippets. The older girl only does short runs these days, but the younger dog I have seen do 12km and never slow. I was dog-sitting a kelpie mix once, and with no training at all, he went for an hour and looked like he could easily do another hour. I used to take my mum's kelpie/boxer mix for runs when I visited home. She could go for 6km and then she would start to slow up, but she was 8 years old and that was with no training or conditioning. I would not choose a purebred boxer because of the heat here, but most gundogs and herding breeds do fine. And dalmatians. And JRT. If you have your heart set on a boxer and don't mind dropping it back home mid-run, I would do it, and just be super careful and conservative in the heat.

I have had clients come to me with dogs that should have been referred to a VB two trainers ago. Sometimes it obviously is the first option, or at least, it should be. Some problems are not training problems, and trainers that try to treat them as such do no one any favours. The dog continues to suffer, the owner gets discouraged about seeking help, and it hurts the credibility of all dog trainers and behaviourists because there's no way for people to tell which ones can actually see the difference between a dog that can learn and a dog that can't learn. It boggles my mind, because really, it's not that hard. A quick mental tally of how much time the dog spends being anxious, whether it's stable or spreading to more stimuli, and if it is affecting the dog's quality of life and how much will do it. You can figure that out over the phone. Behavioural medication is not this scary woo woo thing that we must be super cautious about and exhaust all other avenues first any more than punishment is. You advise for the intervention that is most appropriate. Sometimes, that is medication, and we don't need to fiddle around trying other things while the dog is suffering and their problem behaviours are becoming habit or getting worse to figure that out.

If you're on Facebook, there is a group called Anxious Dogs of Australia. A lot of people there have had experience with medication, veterinary behaviourists, and other tools and supplements. There are a couple of veterinary behaviourists that comment. I don't think of behavioural medication as something to be embarked upon lightly. We had months of side effects with Prozac before our dog settled into it. The worst was he was lethargic for a while, and for quite some time after that settled, he still wasn't really interested in any of the things he used to love doing. I almost took him off it. But, it was worth it in the end. The side effects dissipated and he is back to his old self, just without the vigilance and lack of sleep and alert barking all day and so on. I feel kind of bad I left it so long before trying it. The only side effects we notice now is that he gets a bit nauseous occasionally. We get our prescription filled by a pharmacist, which costs about $20 for 6 weeks. It is nearly 4 times that buying it through the vet, though. It's probably worth mentioning that the effect on our other dog was even more profound. Having a nutty, anxious dog in the house is a fairly big deal for the dog that has to live with him 24/7. For months after Prozac started, he just exploded out of his shell and became more and more enthusiastic and joyous. I wondered where it would end. I had no clue the anxious dog was having such an effect on him.

If your dog is vocalising a lot, they are probably beyond what a TS or Adaptil can do. Either or both might help a little, but I refer cases like that to a veterinary behaviourist. Medication may be your best bet. They do often work well in conjunction with behaviour modification training and medication if necessary, though.