corvus

I was 13 when I got my first dog. I had a lot of support from my mum, though. She let me get a dog even though she knew I would go off to uni and my life would change dramatically over the course of her life. I had to leave her behind with my mum a few times, but it was only ever temporary, and the aim was always to get back into a situation where I could have her living with me again. I wouldn't have wanted to do it without the support from my family. My mum made it clear from the start that she expected there would be times when I would need to leave the dog behind. I wasn't going to get another dog after her as I wanted to do a lot of travelling and that kind of thing, but then I ended up with a pet hare and a rabbit quite by accident, and with three animals to care for and one of them being quite special needs, my desire to travel was outweighed by my desire to give my animals good care. I got another dog (Finnish Lapphund) as soon as I got my life settled. I do think that having animals prevented me from doing some things I would have done if I didn't have them, but I don't regret it at all. Different priorities. Incidentally, Finnish Lapphunds make a good first dog. Lots of fur, but not incredibly demanding to look after it. Very sweet and cuddly dogs. A bit like a Newf scaled down to a medium-sized dog. Actually, the corgi was a good first dog as well.

I was told by a herpetologist in 1st year zoology that all frogs have toxins in their skin of some sort. What they do to other animals varies drastically. Obviously, most frogs are harmless and are eaten by all manner of creatures. We don't have any species of native frog in Australia that is dangerous, but sometimes their skin makes dogs froth at the mouth a bit. I know of several species of frogs that anecdotally ooze mucous from their skin when stressed that is unpleasant and causes itchyness to human skin. I think it's fair to assume that any frog that is brightly coloured is one that probably has some form of unpleasantness up their sleeve, but AFAIK none of the natives are actually dangerous. They're a bit like hairy caterpillars. My little brother had a violent allergic reaction to hairy caterpillars, so maybe it pays to just stay away! A good place to start with frog ID is their toes. Tree frogs have toe disks at the ends to help them climb, whereas burrowing frogs have no disks. The next place to look is their groin and thighs. Many have diagnostic markings there, and it's often quite bright and there are sometimes black spots. Maybe this is what you saw? The third thing to look for is stripes. Toads are identified most readily by their very upright sitting position and the eyes high on the head. There are lots of small brown burrowing frogs that scramble around like toads.

ChristineX, targeting is teaching a dog to touch a particular body part (usually nose or front paw) to a target, such as a disk or a target stick or the back of your hand on cue. You can also teach them to target multiple body parts. Kivi can target with his nose or front left paw, and I'm in the process of teaching him to target with his hips. Eventually I want to teach him to target with his nose, right paw, left paw, right hip, and left hip and maybe shoulders and/or rear feet. Dunno how far we'll get! Depends how much Kivi likes it and what we can do with nose, front paw, and hip targeting and whether we need more.

I have never seen or heard of Common Mynahs killing native birds or mammals. They are insect eaters, which is why they were introduced. Furthermore, they don't have the physical power to kill anything other than an unprotected nestling, and just about any native bird the same size would do that if it had the opportunity. Just yesterday I saw an Australian Raven killing a Common Mynah that had been injured by a car. What's more, Common Mynahs are much like rats and Pigeons. Ever seen one more than half a kilometre from human habitation? They don't do so well away from humans. If you want to take care of Mynahs (and rats and pigeons), maybe take care of humans. We put them here and they are dependent on us. We are far more invasive and have a much more serious impact on a much wider variety of native species. Watch a group of Mynahs gather around a dead family member and then tell me you want to kill more of them. In the quest to prevent perceived cruelty to native animals, don't be causing even more cruelty yourselves.

I'm target training Kivi at the moment. He is so much happier since I went down this route and abandoned free shaping with him. Erik is great at free shaping, but I'm going to do some targeting with him as well. Yesterday I started teaching him to back in a circle around me and there's no way I could have shaped that, even with Erik. He's pretty good transitioning away from the lure, but I really like the targeting. It's good fun and I like being able to throw a target away from me and tell Kivi to go put his nose on it. It's really opened some doors for us, as Kivi had a problem with too much handler focus. He was very reluctant to take his eyes off me during training and that just compounded his tendency to fail to notice his surroundings and be aware of what his body is doing. He very much likes luring as well, but I find it harder to communicate with him that way and he's more likely to get frustrated and throw the towel in.

I've noticed that a lot of trainers seem quite uneasy about luring, but much more comfortable with targeting. The only difference I see is that a dog is likely to understand a new behaviour faster with targeting because you're telling them exactly where to put their nose/foot/whatever rather than getting them to follow you until they are in the right position (or nearly in the right position). Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit uneasy about luring as well. I guess because I prefer to have them focused on me than the food in my hand, and I think there's nothing like a clicker for getting precision, and nothing like free shaping for exercising a dog's mind and getting them problem solving. But is there a significant difference between luring and targeting? Why is one more readily accepted than the other?

You know what works real quick with barking and food? When they sit and are quiet for a moment, pop them a tiny little bit of food from their bowl. Then when they are sitting quietly, pop them another little bit. You gradually increase the amount of time you expect them to sit quietly without a treat until they are sitting quietly for the full five minutes or whatever it takes to prepare their meals. We did this with Kivi. However, we also did it with Erik and while he picked it up very quickly, it all fell apart a few weeks later when he started getting incredibly over-excited about meals in general. So we started preparing his meal and leaving it on the counter until he was calm and then fed him. That worked brilliantly and he now sits quietly awaiting his meal along with Kivi.

Ever tried it? I have. Didn't make any difference either way. Actually, that's not quite true. It didn't make any difference with Kivi, but it trained Erik to bark when he needed to go to the toilet. It was very useful. I was working from home and he was hanging out inside in a puppy pen. I got to work in the study without worrying about puppy and he learnt to tell me when he needed to wee. He has the run of the house at night, these days, and he still wakes us up with a soft bark if he needs to pee during the night.

You have no idea how long I hunted for a tug like that! I found some eventually, but the braids are too loose. The doggies can get their teeth caught in them. Put a bungee handle on it! It makes them, like, ten times more fun.

Because it's not just weighing up whether a dog could be run over or not. It's the probability of the dog blowing off a recall weighed against the benefits of letting the dog exercise off leash. I do not know where we would be if we had to rely on exercise on leash only. Our yard is quite small, and our dogs are young and active. I don't believe in 100% reliable recalls and I'm vigilant as hell when my dogs are off leash despite the fact that they are quite reliable about recalls, but the joy they get from running around off leash and really letting rip is intrinsically tied to my enjoyment of having dogs. What can I say? I love watching them have fun. They can't do that in my yard, so we take them to the safest places we know of for them to do it and accept the risks. It's not true that a dog won't hear you if you call them when they are chasing something. Some won't hear you. Kivi often does. Erik is even more likely to, and he is much more drivey than Kivi. It improves with practice IME. Pain thesholds also don't increase when a dog is chasing something. Rather, the feeling of pain is blunted. It sounds like the same thing, but it's not!

Logically, snakes can bite without envenomating, so it would follow that it's highly unlikely accidental envenomation could occur with a dead snake. BUT, I wouldn't bet on it. A cranky snake may well have venom on its fangs when it died. A shallow scratch with a venom-containing fang is probably not gonna do much, though. Again, animals eat snakes all the time. That's why they have all those warning signs they use before they bite, like flattened neck and hissing and rearing up.

AFAIK venom does nothing in the digestive track. It moves around in the lymphatic system. Usually stomach acid messes things like venom up pretty good. ETA Otherwise Kookaburras and Jabirus would be dying of envenomation all the time. Lots of animals eat snakes, and all of them can still die of snake bite as far as I'm aware.

:D It's okay. He's fine. You've learnt a valuable lesson. He's safe.

If he's not actually scared, ignore him. Dogs can't fake being anxious. Consider that if he acts up more (as in, noisier, more panting etc.) when you're around, it's because it actually did get him inside last time, but you don't have to not let him in to lower the intensity of his reactions. You just need to pre-empt him and let him in before he starts making a lot of noise. If you miss it, you miss it. Not the end of the world. Go into damage control and let him in before he upsets the neighbours/himself/learns to use more intense signals again. View it as a shaping exercise, but as one where you have a small window of opportunity to shape and if you miss it it's no longer a training opportunity. What I would do (and have done) is go outside and calm him down out there before you let him in. Then at least you disrupt the link a bit. Even if you don't break it completely, you can muddy it and start forming a new link between entering the house and being in a calmer state of mind. I'm very much an advocate of doing whatever I can to calm an anxious dog. Nuts to reinforcing fearful behaviour. It's never been a problem to me, and I've reassured all three of my dogs with attention when they were anxious. At least you're addressing the cause of the behaviour rather than the behaviour itself.

T Touch. Actually, Erik is going through a "Is that bad??" stage and is a bit stressed about thunderstorms at the moment. At least, he was until I played a wild game of tug with him and did some training during a storm one day. That sure helped a lot. Otherwise, I sit with him and massage. If nothing else, it interrupts the cycle so he's not getting up to bark every time he hears the thunder. I do believe that massage is inherently calming as well.

Arrgh! Some people...

Bugger it.

I hardly ever get to train with anyone talented. Woe.

Poor Charlie. OH asked me last week if he was coming to the beach this weekend. He's been very sad to hear of all poor Charlie's troubles. Me too.

This is more or less how I was taught to teach heel to my corgi ten years ago. Not quite that severe. The only thing it succeeded in doing was teaching her to walk as far away from me as possible. Random punishments an animal has no control over are absolutely the best way to cause long term stress to an animal short of depriving them of their mother when they're babies. There have been studies on it.

Aww, he just wants to be with you. Why you would throw a jug of water in a dog's face for expressing himself is beyond me. My dogs freak out when they get put in another room as well. Who would blame them? We are the world to them and while we taught them to accept it as puppies we got slack and didn't maintain it. That's our fault, not theirs. Why punish them for our mistakes? The way to do this without punishing is small steps. From scratch. Go through a door and close it between you and him for a few seconds, then open it again. Work up to 5 seconds, then 10 seconds, then 20 seconds, then 30 seconds, then toss a bunch of kibble on the floor and leave him for 60 seconds.... That kinda thing. The fact that he won't eat a pig's ear or Kong without you is quite touching when you think about it. Not good for him because it means he's stressed out, but there's no point making him more stressed by punishing him.

I second potato flour. I think it was Rysup with the fluffy Keesies that told me about that. We used it for our Lapphund when he was going through that stupid adolescent coat stage that seemed to matt up overnight.

For all that it's great to let big, boisterous dogs play with other boisterous dogs, it's important they learn to be gentle with smaller dogs as well. My Lapphund seems to think little dogs are great because he can make them play with him. Getting Erik has helped change his mind about that, and we keep his recall really well maintained so we can call him away the instant a smaller dog becomes uncomfortable with him. We also give him a massage to help him calm down if he gets too rough around small dogs. He has some bigger dogs he can play rough with. Look up Dee Ganley's Chill Out game for teaching dogs to chill out on cue during a rough game.

What can you do? Get well off the path, put Daisy in a sit and make sure you're between her and the woman. The rest is up to her. Maybe if you do it often enough she'll start to see that at least your dog isn't cause for panic.

I've seen something that sounds like that in a few dogs. Vet said it was common and harmless.