corvus

Yeah, clicker training is great! I just keep finding useful applications of it. The click is always followed by a treat, but you can fade the click/treat out. My other dog, Kivi, likes to offer informal heels. It's been so heavily reinforced that he thinks it's a good place to start if you want a treat. So every few minutes when we're out whether he's off leash or on, he'll sidle over and glue himself to someone's leg and gaze up at them drooling. It's very cute.

That was me. Erik already had a long history with the clicker when I started using it in this fashion, although it didn't take long at all to get him keen on it at the start. This particular use of it came out of the book Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. That is a great book for owners of dogs that easily get aroused or distracted. When I started using it Erik was back when he was in this nutty phase where he would react to lots of things and had a ridiculously short attention span and complete inability to focus. He's also a small dog, only around 10kg, so it's not like he can pull me over or anything. I found that it generally worked quite reliably. It only took about 2 or 3 repetitions to get him looking over for a click in the presence of another dog without any prompting, and once I'd got that far I could start asking for heels and releasing after two steps so he could look at the dog again, then back, click, heel for three steps, click, release and so on. He's a very quick learner, though, and he'd also had a little self-control training that may or may not have helped. The trick is to keep them under threshold, which means they have to be able to notice the clicker and respond to it. Not sure where your boy is on that front. I found that even with Erik at his absolute worst it was rare for him to be so gone that he didn't hear a click. And I use a pretty quiet one. But Erik is a very aware dog and can be surprisingly switched on to his surroundings at very high levels of arousal. My other dog is harder despite being much more laid back. He has his Aidan knows a lot more about using clickers to teach loose leash walking than I do. I've only used it to deal with distractions when the dogs are on leash. Aidan, aren't you based in Hobart yourself? If he already knows heel, though, it sounds like you've got something good to work with. Having foundation behaviours like that made it a lot easier with my dogs. It's much easier to strengthen a known behaviour than teach one from scratch IME. I think my next dog will be taught LLW with a clicker. Aidan teaches the dog that tension on the leash is a cue to return to the handler for a treat. I don't find it hard to handle a dog on leash, treats, and a clicker all at once. The treats live in the treat pouce, the leash is in one hand, and the clicker around my wrist. I have one with a nice raised button, which makes it easy to click it even if I'm holding something else in the same hand as the clicker.

Your wish is my command. The authors say several times that the head collars are designed to put the most pressure on the back of the neck and pull the head up (back) rather than allowing the dog to push forward into a neck collar. They likened the pressure at the back of the neck to a scruffing action and the pressure around the muzzle when it tightens to a muzzle bite and suggests this may be why the dogs behaved more submissively and subdued without any indications of stress.

Going by your posts Corvus, you call Erik your high drive dog, do you do much drive work with his tug toy? Why do you think he won't switch into drive (despite being quite prey driven) when he is distracted by another dog? Just interested cos it sounds like he has a lot of potential. Not much for a while, Huski. His brain broke at around 8 months and he's only just starting to use it again. Semi-truth. It's hard to answer because I'm not approaching it in a systematic way or talking about our current situation. Will he tug around strange dogs now? In some circumstances there's no stopping him and another dog would have to dart through his peripheral vision to distract him from it. In other circumstances, I would keep it short and sweet and dismiss him after 30 seconds of it, or if a dog was heading our way. In yet other circumstances, I wouldn't try. I figure it can only be damaging to use a tug cue to get Erik's attention when he doesn't want to tug. I know he doesn't want to tug if he doesn't notice me ever so discreetly lifting my hand up to my waist bag where his mini sheepy tug on a ribbon lives. Or at least needs more than a quiet "Hey Erik, wanna play?" to get his attention.

At the risk of bringing half the forum down on my head, may I suggest a vague possibility to the OP? Let's consider what he wants and what you are giving him. Let's say he wants nothing tangible, just to explore, see what's coming up ahead. Let's say he is inherently excited by this activity, so he gets aroused and his physical activity increases as a result. He's on a leash, so there's nothing he can do with all that arousal but head down and plow ahead on his quest for exploration, information gathering, whatever you want to call it. What's the effect of putting a halti or something similar on him? Maybe all it does is frustrate his need to expend some energy moving forwards? And say you call him into a heel and he gets a food reward. What's that to him? It's not relevant to what all his focus is on: moving forwards in exploration. Maybe it'd work if he was in another mode of activity, like training, though. In a scenario where he is interested in a food reward. Let's pretend I was right about why he's pulling and why previous approaches haven't worked (which may be a huge stretch 'cause I'm just taking stabs in the dark). If I were in your shoes, this is what I would consider my options. Either I find a way to jolt him out of the pulling, information-seeking track and try to get him onto a different track, most likely a training sort of mode, or I find a way to reward him with the kind of thing he's focused on. The first thing I'd try is the clicker, the reason why being it might be able to do the whole lot for me. If he's conditioned to perceive the clicker as not just a bridge, but a source of information, maybe the noise can act as a distraction, and then the click as both an information reward and a way to lever him into training mode, and then you've got his attention away from what he wants to do and all you have to do is keep his attention. Which is probably the hardest bit. My little Erik is a bit of a nut about taking in everything around him and gets obsessive and over-aroused by it all sometimes. If I can get him to me with a clicker, though, I have a pretty good hold of his attention as long as he thinks we're clicker training and I keep it fast to match his arousal. He has to get a high rate of clicks and treats. If I try to get his attention with a tug toy instead, it only works if he's been triggered by a chase scenario. He sees a cat running, he's ready and raring to go with a tug game. But if he's watching a dog on the other side of the road, he doesn't want food or tug games, but he could maybe go for some clicker training. As a disclaimer, that's all pure speculation except the bit about Erik. Erik only gets that way when he's really aroused, and that's generally in response to a particular trigger, so maybe this isn't relevant to your problem at all. Maybe I'm also wildly wrong about Erik's motivations and why I'm finding that reward selection seems important for him. It's just something to think about.

Dogs tend to have cast iron stomaches. Kivi only likes possums that have been festering in the swamp until nice and tender. Never has made him sick. IME if it doesn't agree with them it comes right back up then and there. I remember saying to my last dog on her third try at eating some truly revolting roo offal "If it's making you sick then stop eating it!" She thought I maybe had a point and gave up after bringing it up yet again.

Just be careful with free shaping. Some dogs find it stressful. Erik LOVES it, but he's persistent and outgoing and drivey. Kivi is not persistent or drivey and he much prefers targeting. He gets very excited about targeting. Free shaping will see him lying on the ground whining and refusing to engage at all.

I'm with TerraNik all the way. I was surprised, Erik's downs are quite good and he does them reliably in a whole lot of situations, but the other day I asked for one before letting him out the door to lick Kivi's bowl when Kivi had finished his dinner. He just looked at me like I was mad. Are you serious? I don't have to down to go out the door unless you're on the other side of it. That's the rule. I basically had to use the old signal from puppy days with my hand right on the floor. He's okay with it now, though. Sometimes dogs are pretty discriminating. More so than we are. I find that it's very rare for Erik to blow off a cue he knows. If I've done my job right he has such a good reward history for it that something would have to be wrong for him to not do it when asked. In this case, it was sheer confusion, I think. I'd changed a long-standing rule on him all of a sudden. Kivi is a more independent dog, but he's even more reliable as a general rule.

Kivi has a very thick and full coat and given Erik is regularly mouthing him his coat gets matted pretty easily. He really needs a full brush all over once a week, but I have to admit he doesn't get it. Mostly because he's sensitive about his back end and sooks and whines and cries about it, so I only do it in short sessions. Bad Lappie mum, here.

The first Corgi I ever met went out on the yacht with her folks all the time. She was only a wee puppy at the time. It cracked me up that she would fall asleep on the deck and roll backwards and forwards with the waves. Gotta love rolly polly corgis.

I have an event fabric rain jacket from Macpac. Given I was generally wearing my wet weather gear when I was tramping around in swamps at night, falling all over the place and working up a sweat, I went for this new fabric that is way more breathable than even the best Gore Tex. Love it. I also had a pair of wet weather chaps rather than pants. They were easier to put on, cheaper for what I got, breathed better, and were impenetrable by the evil Hakea thickets. I don't actually know where they are right now, which is very distressing. With a long jacket they are fine and nothing gets wet. The only downside was that they made a lot of noise somehow. If you ever do anything more strenuous than an easy stroll in the rain, get breathable rain gear. Nothing worse than taking it all off and discovering you're so wet you may as well have gone without. And if you use breathable rain gear don't wear cotton or wool underneath! It soaks up the sweat and you negate much of the breathability you paid big bucks for.

As much as I love and am comfortable with dogs, a dog on the attack is a different creature all together to me. Talk about heart in your mouth! I think the worst is seeing one attack someone else. Suddenly there is no murkiness or uncertainty to hide behind. You know for a fact the dog attacks people and there you are, no idea what to do or how to get home without going past the crazy dog that will most likely try to do you some harm. And if you happen to have a small corgi with you who depends on you, you get the sinking feeling that this dog is going to try to kill her. Then again, last time I thought me and my dog were about to get taken apart by another dog charging down on us at a gallop, hackles up, teeth bared and roaring (not barking or growling, but roaring), he turned out to be friendly. I was convinced we were in a lot of trouble. Still have no idea where that came from or what his intention was. We have since seen the same dog and he didn't greet us in the same manner, thank goodness. Don't think my heart could take it. Go have a hot bubblebath, read a good book, and try to relax.

That's awesome! The fellow who came to look after our school farm part-time once the first guy was getting too old for full-time work trained the sheep to come when called. He'd whistle and they would all gallop down from wherever they had been and he'd feed them. Who needs a sheepdog? He quickly became the go-to person when you had a cow that was scaring the bejesus out of you or wouldn't get up off the ground purely because at least you knew he wouldn't belt the living daylights out of it. But he seemed more comfortable with the smaller animals. As if a sheep couldn't send you flying if it wanted to.

Scary! I certainly wouldn't be doing anything that could be interpreted as remotely threatening. He's a guardian breed, after all. He's meant to take threats very seriously and meet them courageously. A cattle prod could just drive him into a frenzy and put you at the top of his "threats to take care of" list from now on. I know someone that was having such problems with local dogs that she bought herself a cattle prod, and tried it on herself first so she knew what it would do. She said it hurt A LOT. I can only think that if you can get the owner to visit with you as suggested that would be the best outcome. But sounds like it's a long shot. It's scary. There was this dog that used to live down the road from me that would launch an attack EVERY time someone walked past his house. He was a Boxer, and he would come at you and jump up and bite and go again and again. Scared the crap out of me. The only way to avoid him attacking was to make sure you were on the other side of the road well before you got to his house and studiously look away as you passed. I was so scared of that dog, and a Maremma is bigger! Someone I know had neighbours with a pair of Maremmas. They would spend most of their time at her house on her porch, but the moment someone came around they would scoot back to their property and guard it. Funny, they never seemed to consider her house as part of their territory despite spending so much time there. I guess their chicken flock never went there, but it offered a good vantage point.

The gene pool is already questionable if you listen to some folks. I would guess that people would go back to doing what they did before breeds. "I want a medium-sized dog that can do x y and z... I shall breed one." Dogs were purpose-bred long before there were breeds. Both my breeds are quite old in type, but the Vallhund standard has only just been accepted in the US, and the Lapphund standard is only some 40 years old if I remember correctly. Vallhunds were around in the time of the vikings by all accounts. At that, I have a cuddly, "broken" Lapphund that I question would even pass his herding instinct test, but certain Lapphund lines produce pups like him, so are they even the same breed? Considering there's so much variation in temperament and look among lines within purebreeds, the process of breeding for purpose is still alive. It is very distressing when you have a healthy breed with a small gene pool and you know for a fact that someone is merrily breeding a small population with, say, 3 foundation dogs among themselves and producing puppies that can barely be called that breed and are troubled with health and temperament problems. Not only is it cruel to the products of that inbreeding program (if you can call it a program), but it's basically poisoning the small gene pool and seriously undermining all the good work people who have been carefully breeding to preserve health and type have been doing.

In the past, it has. That's how purebreeds came about. The problem is it was a dedicated activity and took many generations. Cross-breeding DD is more haphazard in general. It concerns me that apparently dogs are so riddled with genetic health problems that you can't cross a healthy dog with a healthy dog and expect healthy puppies. What does that bode for domestic dogs as a species?

Well... breeds didn't come out of nowhere. They were all crossbred.

IME, no two people signal in the same way, even if you've talked about the signal and everyone uses the same one. Essentially, the dog has to learn a new signal for every person. Erik is even more discriminating, which is why I now don't put anything on signal until he's offering it confidently in different situations. Otherwise he gets confused and so do I. Once he's started to generalise the behaviour, he usually generalises the signal much more readily. So I agree that it's probably easier to have one person teaching all the new things and then having other people in the house practising known things. Having said that, my dogs just learnt two signals. No biggie. It took them a little bit longer is all.

If it's just raining one morning we skip it, but if we get up to the third day and it's still raining, we put on the raincoats and go anyway. Erik hates the rain, but his love of the dog park is so great that he can stand to get wet for the fun. The worst is Kivi's coat. He is not much aware of rain, but his coat holds the water and then our house gets wet and muddy afterwards. It was torrential this morning, so now the boys are having rough wrestling games inside. I love that they amuse each other, but we'll probably try to take them tomorrow morning even if it's wet.

Oh, I agree Jess. I was referring to all the sneaky nose-swipes down the school uniform, walking you into fences and squashing you there, and I swear some of them deliberately stepped on your feet. But those cows lived at a school farm. They saw all sorts and had learnt a few tricks. It took a while to gain their trust if they'd been introduced to people by basically having a halter put on them one day and being towed around by a bunch of kids. Even if someone with a bit of sense got to them first and trained them well, you never knew when someone would do something mean to them out of ignorance or just because. Their patience and tolerance was amazing, and I agree, they generally are quite happy to take the path of least resistance. I still have a lot of affection for cows from my school days. I had my first shot at counter-conditioning with cows. It was a pretty dismal failure, but I was 16 and I was up against some intense aversion. Poor treatment of cows leaves lifelong scars. No one much tries to overcome them.

I've never tried tame animals at wildlife parks. Normally I'm too busy asking the ubiquitous ratbag children whose parents are nowhere in sight if they think they would like it if someone chased them and threw things at them. There's always one smart alek who says "Yes" and then I get to test it. I think my wildlife park visits would be much happier if I was watching someone teach their kids the basics of animal training instead. When I was a kid I used to halter train cows for the school farm so they could take them to shows. I still can't believe they had, like, 14 year old children whacking halters and nose clips on 300kg steers that had only just been snatched from their mother's side and had never been handled in their lives. Every year someone would get knocked over, dragged down the laneway, kicked, or stepped on. Usually everyone would get stepped on and jostled. The guy that ran the farm seemed to think if you had a cow that wouldn't walk you should just tie it to a tractor and force it to. And one steer discovered that all he had to do to avoid the halter training was throw a tantrum. Same fellow "fixed" him by belting the living daylights out of him with a cane. Meanwhile, me and my friends "gentled" our steer so he never got that scared of halter training in the first place. I like cows. They are surprisingly smart and you could always tell how they'd been treated by how they treated you. They could be quite discerning. There's something pretty special about being singled out from a crowd of 25 kids by a cow that recognises you and has come to feel that maybe you're okay after all and are worthy of a greeting. Especially when the same cow pushed you into a fence and stepped on your foot a month ago. They are sneaky creatures, and while most of them are not openly aggressive they find ways to let you know they aren't happy. I was watching How to Train Your Dragon a few months ago and it was oddly reminiscent of me as a teenager teaching myself how to train a cow. I had no clue.

That is hilarious! Reminds me of the time my mum's dog Jill found a frog. The other dog, Pyry, is a keen hunter and boy did he want this frog. Jill just wanted to play, so she runs around the yard at high speed with this frog in her mouth, the legs dangling out of each side looking like a moist, fleshy moustache. She would run, then come to a screeching halt, frog legs flapping and swinging around her muzzle, waiting for Pyry to catch up and try to rush her. He wanted that frog SO bad, but Jill just kept teasing him with it and had him after her for what must have been the better part of an hour. When Kivi get excited he has this burning need to have something in his mouth that he can walk (not run) around with. It's a crack up that even when he's extremely excited he still only walks. He will pick up the smallest, most ridiculous scrap of paper to hold if he can't find anything better.

Haha, Kivi's a bit like that. You get nudge.... nudge... paw on leg *thwack* and then you get this heavy paw on the highest bit of you he can reach and it sliiiiides all the way to the ground, raking your skin all the way down. You look at him and he's like "Scratch Kivi's chest please." We joke that one day one of us will come home to find the other one raked to death in one fell swoop by Kivi trying to get them to scratch his chest. Kivi does that exaggerated pounce, too.

Yay, spitz meet (plus extras)! I think exercise depends on the dog. My Lappie is a couch potato. He gets about 30 minutes of running at the park or walking around the block a day and often plays with Erik for a further 30 minutes a day. When he was an adolescent he needed a bit more. These days he just lies around a lot. He can go about 2 days without exercise before he starts getting antsy, but it's Erik that is the problem in that regard. Kivi is pretty laid back. On the other hand, some Lappies are a lot more active. TerraNik's Ahsoka is a machine!