corvus

Then go check out Swedish Vallhunds! That's what the photo I posted is, only he's the wrong colour and they are meant to be sable. They are around the same size and are also cattle herders.

Never mind. If people spent as much time dreaming up scenarios in which they would reward dogs rather than scenarios in which they would punish dogs....

One thing I have learnt from trying to teach a hare to do something is that in some ways hares are easier. There's no mistaking getting something wrong with him. He races off, crashing blindly into things. Dogs are not nearly so obvious. I had no idea there was anything lacking in my relationship with Penny until I saw what an animal that hasn't been punished by the humans they live with looks like. I have become very, very cautious about punishments since then. I don't trust that just because it's not obvious there was no lasting damage. I just don't trust it anymore. If I can do without I will. And I find that I can and it's actually a lot easier than I thought it was. Because it's meant to be fun for both of you, maybe? What's the point in "working through" frustration by cutting off completely when with a little bit of subtlety you can adjust your methods to encourage the dog to choose to keep working instead? The more fun they have the better they work. So your solution to them not having fun is to expect them to work regardless until it is fun? less food less often, I wouldnt bother feeding him out of a bowl if this is the method you want to use to train him. He has to appreciate you more not throw a tanty because it doesnt come in the quantities he desires. You'll probably find his enthusiasm for food and training will go up as well, hungry dogs learn a heck of a lot faster. Well, I am afraid you are just plain wrong on that score. Less food less often only made him less inclined to train, and is the reason why I am now such an advocate of high reward rates. He just wasn't that motivated. More food = more motivation for him. It's a bit like a dance. You keep it coming every second or two to begin with, then as his confidence increases you drop the reward rate a little and concentrate on shaping and refining. If his confidence wavers, raise the reward rate again until his movements become sure. He's as enthusiastic for training as I can stand at the moment. Erik is more so and it's a problem when I want to train Kivi alone. And whenever I want to reward a low energy or calm behaviour. KT's pretty lean. Got no issues with his weight at all. I only train for, like, ten minutes a day. Use teensy treats and it doesn't make much impact. Yeah, I've heard that one before. And my answer is you would be surprised. I read an interesting account of an aggressive dolphin being retrained to accept all manner of unpleasant husbandry practices, and another one of a walrus whose impulse to stab people with his tusks when they annoyed him (usually by raising criteria too fast and thus creating frustration, as it happens) was reliably overcome by his rock solid "trance" command that would have him lying on the ground absolutely still where a moment before he was about to pin someone to a wall. Considering accepting and even aiding in unpleasant husbandry practices are one of the most commonly trained behaviours in exotic animals, I would say that argument does not hold water. Try getting an antelope to willingly walk into an enclosed space for a blood sample extraction without first overcoming its natural instincts. "Weak nerve" and a low frustration threshold are not necessarily related. I would not call Kivi a weak nerved dog. He plays as rough as anyone will take it, recalls through any obstacle, including getting hammered by one of his doggy friends on the way, and behaves confidently around strangers, odd noises and sudden movements. He just doesn't handle frustration well, and I see no reason why he should if it's not in his nature.

Of course you can. And I base that on pure fact. Exotic animal trainers do it all the time. "You can't spank a Killer Whale" they say. As Aidan has pointed out, it's not the reward that counts, but the conditioning. Case in point, Mum's Vallhund Pyry, with seven years of ignoring recalls and gleefully killing every Blue Tongue that dares to show its face under his belt, recently DROPPED a live Blue Tongue so he could run to my Mum when she recalled him. Pyry! The dog that ripped the garage wall to pieces to get to a trapped possum! That amazes me. And it was trained purely with treats. Compulsion doesn't work on Pyry. He hides under tables and barks at you. Now if you held out a treat and a live Blue Tongue and let him choose, you'd lose the hand with the Blue Tongue in it. It does not get any more distracting than hunting giant skinks with that dog. Kivi's recall was trained with the same method. Despite starting from when he was a puppy, his is not as reliable as Pyry's, now. That's because Kivi is off in the clouds sometimes and just plumb doesn't hear. However, once you have his attention it's hard to lose it again. For regular training, it's very easy to get his attention. We do a lot of our training at the dog park. Other dogs are about as distracting as it gets for Kivi, but he will happily ignore them whenever you ask for his attention. I have not used any compulsion in his training at all. There are times when punishments of some sort are a sensible course of action, particularly if you have an obsessive behaviour on your hands and no way to physically prevent the dog from practising it. For me, prevention is better than cure. It's not wildly difficult to train pre-emptively. I thought it was before I tried it, but I was wrong.

Ah, I see. You mean intensity rather than whether or not it's a punishment. Sorry, I misunderstood. Dogs learn whether we want them to or not. It's precisely why I'm always telling Erik what to do; otherwise he comes up with his own things, and I rarely like them! But I get the feeling that is kind of what you're trying to say. We give them structure and help them learn the things we want them to learn. Ziggy sounds a lot like Kivi. He has trouble working through frustration, so we just make sure we don't frustrate him much. It makes it harder to teach him new things compared to Erik, but it's not impossible to do it without frustrating him. I've found that he tends to need a higher reward rate and he needs it for longer than Erik does. There's a point where he suddenly gains heaps of confidence all at once and he starts looking really happy. I've learnt to keep stuffing treats in his mouth every couple of seconds until he gets to that point. Then I'm safe to start working on duration or shaping it some more. As long as I take baby steps. Kivi's rewards need to be pretty decent, but Erik is much more motivated and sometimes they need to be lower key like a scratch. Erik's problem is that as soon as he figures out he's being consistently rewarded for something he gets super excited no matter what reward I'm using. I don't use NRMs. For Kivi it's too much information and he needs me to shut up and concentrate on my timing and helping him work out what to do. Erik doesn't need them. He just keeps trying things until he gets marked for a reward.

Frisbee!

Looks a lot like this:

Gah! No, people don't define the punishment; the dog does. Does he avoid doing things that get punished? Then it's a punishment no matter how you want to dress it. It's the very first rule in the list that is being discussed. And the second. Dogs ain't kids to be patiently told why one behaviour is preferable over another. They can only learn through trial and error. Frustration in itself is not necessarily a punishment to a dog. Okay. Have you tried? No. It is a delayed reward. The reward comes 3-5 seconds after the behaviour instead of instantly. Grey Stafford explains it in great detail in his book Zoomility. I have recently been watching Ted Turner (another exotic animal trainer), and he made the point that the longer the period between the behaviour and the reinforcement, the weaker the connection. The way I see it, the implication is a 3-5 second pause before reinforcing is a way to still reinforce the animal for participating, but weakens the link between the problem behaviour and reinforcement. Which sets you up for an extinction procedure without ever needing P+ or P-. Oh yes, EVEN when the animal gets it wrong. The LRS has multiple purposes, but even more important than offering minimal reinforcement, it prevents the accidental reinforcement of the wrong behaviour. Sometimes all you have to do is make eye contact or say something and you've reinforced it. The LRS is a neutral pause with no interaction with the animal. I use this method with my hare, as I've already mentioned. To not reward the hare is a wasted opportunity, whether he's doing what you want him to or not. I also use it with my dogs to a lesser degree, but I confess I do it wrong with them and sometimes add a meaningful look. OH adds "That was pathetic. You're only getting a little treat for that one." I don't use that for everything with the dogs, because they are such opportunistic animals that sometimes a pause and a treat is still a bit hot for them and a better LRS would be pause and another opportunity to earn a reward (i.e. another command). Ah ha, that is a leap I did not make . It isn't necessarily lacking in cleverness to choose not to do something. Everyone has their reasons. I merely said I wasn't clever enough. If you are, but choose not to, that's your prerogative. I'm not, but choose to try. That's my prerogative.

Sorry Cosmolo, but I find that comment to be a little on the bizarre side. Who associates the word "punishment" with good things? Why would you? It's like saying "It's sad that violence is a dirty word these days". Of course it is, because it describes something that is universally unpleasant. You can't escape that. No one likes to be punished, so why would they ever view just the word punishment without that dislike colouring their view of it? In addition to what Zug Zug said, I think that many people simply don't have the adequate skills at interpreting dog body language to be confident they have all the rules covered. I mentioned in another thread a dog that is afraid to do a lot of things because of the way its owners behave, but the owners themselves adore this dog and have no idea of what they are doing to him. I think that they represent the majority of the dog owning public. I can't say how many times I've told someone specifically how not to behave around my hare and they do exactly what I told them not to without even realising it anyway. People just aren't aware of these things a lot of the time. You can't blame them, and they aren't stupid or heartless, they are just oblivious. I could not count the number of times someone has been surprised when their dog has snapped, even though the poor dog has kept up a running commentary of their increasing feelings of upset for the last 30 seconds.

I think that is what rule 3 is all about. At least, that's how I interpreted it. And rule 1. And rule 2, for that matter. And the same goes for rewards, obviously. Hardly a thread goes by without someone noting that what works for one dog doesn't work for every dog. Yet that's the very basis of Operant Conditioning. It's just what the dog finds rewarding and punishing that changes from dog to dog. And from moment to moment, IME. I don't think that is the point. The point is if we do choose to use punishments in training, ideally we follow each of those eight rules. No one is perfect and even those of us who try very hard never to punish our dogs invariably do one way or another. Although mucking up once and punishing a dog does not necessarily lead to that dog learning that lesson forever. Unintentional use of punishment is not, one would hope, a part of anyone's training regime. I would also like to point out that I believe the eight rules relate to P+ specifically, not witholding rewards. I am honestly a little bit dubious that witholding a reward is P-. We had this discussion a little while ago about P- versus extinction, and I think it is a fine line between the two sometimes. Erik is a very persistent little dog and comes back harder and more determined if he is presented with a little frustration. Kivi, we just don't frustrate him much. Baby steps with lots of rewards so he knows he's on the right track. Either way, I don't think it is the kind of thing those rules are aimed at. Having said that, I think it is entirely possible to train a dog using only positive reinforcement if you're clever enough. They do it with exotic animals all the time. They don't withold rewards from them, but pause for a few seconds before delivering if the behaviour is not up to scratch. They call it a Least Rewarding Scenario. They do a lot of baby steps so their animals don't often make mistakes in the learning phase. I reward my hare every single time he chooses to interact with me, whether he does what I want him to do or not, and he still manages to progress. It's slow, but more because the opportunities to deliver rewards are fewer as you can't rapid-fire rewards to a hare who is afraid of quick movements! And because I don't have a lot of time to spare him, poor boy. Personally, I'm not clever or forsightful enough to do it without the odd P-, but maybe one day. Hares don't bite your ankles if they get over-excited. Also, that was a great post by Pax.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to criticise. I was trying to make the point that if you're going to look at a personality trait like amicability, you inevitably have to either create categories or scores of amicability, and you may choose to gloss over some of the details because they aren't important. For example, like you say, maybe tail carriage is important but maybe pace is not (just as an example), so you decide to ignore pace even though different dogs will approach at different paces. Someone made the point that lots of different people see amicability as different things, and I was trying to say that I think it's the opposite. I think it only need be a very broad definition to suit what the average dog owner seeks. Makes perfect sense to me. I have an undeniably amicable dog and complete strangers fall for him all the time. I love watching how easy it is. He need only sidle up to someone and look into their face with his ears pinned back and they start talking to him and telling him what a lovely dog he is. I think there's a little more to it than just his willingness to engage with strangers, as he does so in a very calm and gentle manner without jumping up or slobbering and I think that's more universally appealing, but not many people ignore him or brush him off when he appears at their side and keeps pace with them as though he is their dog not mine. I would say that's where the complications of nature versus nurture come in? You have to either deal with that or dodge it. I think focusing on adult dogs is a perfectly legitimate way to dodge it. Especially considering dealing with it adds unnecessary complexity to the whole thing. Sorry, my bad. I was referring to the difficulties of dealing with nature versus nurture. I can't remember who, but some people seemed to be making the point that by looking at adult dogs Tammie was ignoring the fact that how a dog is raised has even more impact on their temperament than their genetics (arguably). But isolating nature from nurture is notoriously difficult, and would require raising a dog in isolation (which I believe has been done, and they proved that dogs find humans terrifying if they never saw one as a youngster), and even then that doesn't really prove anything. I think to really make that distinction between nature and nurture without genetics you would need to test the puppy at 6 weeks, and probably then again at 8 weeks, and then again at several times until maturity. It would never be clearcut, because behaviour isn't and that's what's so interesting about it, but it might give you a good indication of to what extent the behaviour changes from puppyhood to adulthood. Sorry, I think I'm rambling a bit. Anyway, my point was it doesn't matter whether the dog is amicable because of genetics or because it has learnt to be because there are no situations in real life where the dog is behaving entirely as a result of genetics, except for perhaps puppy mill dogs. I think I'm not communicating this point very well. What I'm trying to say is it's a moot point and Tammie is therefore right to not attempt to address it. You can only work with what you've got. I think in many cases where this hypothetical protocol would be applied the history of the adult dog would be unknown, so all you can do is assess what's in front of you at the time.

What about tug? Will he play tug with you? You could try with something soft and wriggly, like just a rag. Wiggle it on the ground and jerk it away from him in little enticing movements. My Lappie is a couch potato, but he'll still go for movement. Have you tried a plastic bottle? Both my dogs love plastic bottles. They skid around on the floor unpredictably and make a fun noise when you finally catch them and crunch them. This afternoon Erik found an old milk bottle in the recycling box and spent the next 30 minutes chasing it all over the house. Mine also like cardboard. They rip it up into little pieces. Toilet rolls and egg cartons are favourites.

We have a $40 back seat hammock and it copes fine with a 23kg Lapphund and a 10kg Vallhund. Well, Erik isn't 10kg yet, but Penny was. Hell, we got a $10 one from the local bargain shop and it lasted about 6 months before claws finally put holes in it. Both of them fit OH's Polo fine, and the more expensive one is now in the new Forrester. The only problem we've had is that we buy ones with holes for the seatbelt buckles so the pups can be plugged in, but that means sand and dirt still gets onto the seat. Having a couple of beds in there for them helps a lot.

How variable is 'amicability', really? There's no point in going into so much detail that you can only categorise one or two dogs under the heading "amicable". As far as I'm concerned, if the dog sees a complete stranger and pins his ears back, wags his tail low and approaches the stranger, he's amicable. How much detail you go into will depend on how many categories under the heading "amicable" you want, and that is dependent on how many would be most useful to the average dog owner. If my dog-loving partner is anything to go by, when they say they want a friendly dog, they mean they just want a dog that will do the above. You wouldn't categorise a dog entirely on that one characteristic, but you could put a tick in the box that says " very amicable" or "moderately amicable" and go from there. With a set of scientifically produced protocols on different traits, you could go a long way to matching an adult dog to the right family. I don't see that it matters whether the dog is amicable inherently or by the way it was raised. It seems to be beside the point to me. It's a hard thing to separate, so why bother trying unless it's one of the aims of your project? Isn't the whole point of looking at adult dogs to dodge that difficult issue? Besides which, a protocol that is dependent on a condition that doesn't really exist (a dog in isolation) is useless. The protocol should apply regardless of the origins of the behaviour to be useful.

Hehe, glad you found it on your own. I love her videos as well, and Splash doing freestyle in the park with her is out of this world!

I just came back from a holiday with my partner's parents, and their little Min Pin, Alex, won't work for anything, really. After watching him for a week I came to suspect that his problem was not a lack of motivation, but downright fear of putting a foot wrong. He is interested in a lot of things, but most of the time he gets shouted at for showing interest in things. His owners are not thugs. They love him and try very hard to get him engaged in activities they approve of, but they just don't understand that with some dogs you can't shout at them for looking sideways at the people food one moment and then expect them to work enthusiastically for the people food the next moment. He's got a sense of when people food is not off limits, and that is when no one is looking at him, mostly. They have had Boxers most of their lives and are not used to highly strung, delicate little lap dogs. Alex also likes squeaky toys, but is too anxious to play with anyone. I think he would come 'round if his people stopped accidentally frightening him, quit the shouting, and spent some time just rewarding him for doing pretty much anything they were okay with him doing. ETA I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with fasting a dog, but I'd rather make sure there were no other underlying reasons for the lack in motivation first. I think it would be a bit mean to fast Alex, for example. It might result in him overcoming his fear of putting a foot wrong, but why push a scared dog so far? I'd rather baby them along and build up their confidence rather than push them into doing something they don't want to do. Besides which, Alex routinely goes two days without eating. It doesn't seem to increase his motivation for food, but he gets pancreatitis, so maybe his disinterest in food is related to how gurgly is digestive track is.

Maybe you don't think of it as a punishment, but does your dog? If your actions result in a decrease in the behaviour following them over time, then it is a punishment whether you call it one or not. If your dog works to avoid these "enforcing actions", then they are punishments. If not, then they are not punishments. You can reason with a kid and explain to them why they mustn't do something, but you can't reason with a dog. For the record, I agree with the rules as well. Rule 3 is basically the reason why I have moved away from using punishments in training.

Steve White lists 8 rules for using punishment in dog training: http://rewardingbehaviors.com/forum/viewto...+8+rules#p14815 This has stimulated an interesting but at times annoyingly childish discussion on another forum. Thought it would be interesting to see which rules DOLers agreed with and why, but hopefully we can skip the childish mud-slinging. Here are the 8 rules:

Here's a video that talks about calming signals:

No one ever shares their good park stories! We have a dog park like this that is local as well. One of the regulars recently had to put her old Collie down. :'( We don't even know her name, but there were lots of hugs and everyone understood how hard it is. They were all there for us when we had Penny PTS last winter as well. They have watched our two boys grow up and all the dogs get on famously. Rarely so much as a growl. Everyone pays attention to their dogs and has pretty good verbal control of them, and they are very speedy when it comes to defusing any potential grumpyness. We sometimes meet some people with dogs we don't trust, but on a weekend afternoon we can often go down there and have a dozen dogs sharing the park without any problems. Except when Kivi tries to play tug with the BCs and is reminded that they don't play with overly friendly Lapphunds. :D

Kivi wears a Preventic collar over the summer months. I'm totally paranoid with his coat, and we have possums in the yard and so on. Before tick collars and spot ons I used to brush Penny after every hike in the bush. I got several ticks off her that way. They would be on her coat crawling around but not yet attached. Have fun! :D Holidaying with dogs is the best. Now that we have a big car, we're planning some camping trips with the doggies.

Forgot to add that pig's ears and Kongs stuffed with peanut butter are other excellent ways to engender calm in excited puppies. You can be a bit sneaky and pair it up with a time of the day and a crate/pen/blanket you want them to associate with quiet times.

That's wonderful! I must try and teach Loeka that. What kind of cue do you give him? For example, while you're massaging him, do you say something like 'relax' until he gets to the final reward point? I'm new at this so I'm super curious as to how anything is done : ) We tried tiring him out but he has little patience for toys and has a very short attention span. He prefers chewing on rocks and grass :/ We are using "Shh", which started out to mean "quiet" but by the time we started using it to mean relax in general, he was already taking it to mean lie down and be quiet, so it's been a pretty easy transition. Plus he's a smart cookie and likes to take short cuts. When he figured out that we would ask for "shh" and then ask for "down" he started offering them together on "shh". I'm still kind of finding my way with Erik as he's the first dog I've had that's been so busy and easily aroused. To begin with we didn't reward relaxing with food at all because it would just get him excited again, so we were stroking and massaging and saying "shh" and when he had relaxed we'd say "good boy" and give him attention. The food came in a little later when he was starting to show more self control and was able to hold a down until released (we use "okay" as a release word) in the presence of food. Once he was able to display that much self control, then we could use a bit of bio feedback to encourage relaxation. I learnt this from Leslie McDevitt's book Control Unleashed. You can encourage a calm state of mind by blinking a lot, relaxing your body, looking through half-lidded eyes, taking deep, slow breaths. Dogs tend to mirror you. This is where it helped to already have that lie down and shut up cue as well. It helped him relax. Then he gets a good boy and reward with whatever he wants. He's at the point now where he can give me a down with limp tail and sleepy eyes for his dinner, which seems like a miracle to me because a month ago he would get so worked up over his meals that he couldn't shut up even if he wanted to. We started on Karen Overall's relaxation protocol (you can find it through a Google search), but faltered a little as I was trying to get my head around the point of it all. I'm going to have another go at this one. It's a protocol designed to teach a dog to relax. If you decide to give it a go, it's not a stay exercise. It doesn't matter if the dog gets up or moves around as long as they are still relaxed. It was REALLY hard for Erik to begin with. Me just standing there with food was enough to get him excited. I don't think I'd try with a puppy. Erik was about 5 months when I first gave it a go and it was frustrating. He's six months old now, and I think he will be better at it now. Hope that made a bit of sense.

Welcome to our world. ;) Our pup Erik is very vocal and feels that we should be paying attention to him most of the time and if we are not, he barks at us to remind us to. It is REALLY hard not to reward it. All you need to do is make eye contact and that's a big tick in his box. Speak to him and it's an even bigger tick. Shout at him and it's an even bigger tick. Ask him to do something else and it's a tick. The only thing for it is to smack myself whenever I do anything other than ignore him thoroughly. If he's determined turning away from him usually helps. What we have also found to be helpful with Erik is a cue to relax. We've been teaching him this with self-control training and massage and putting him in a down until his tail goes limp and he starts blinking and looks more relaxed and then rewarding that. A lot of his attention-seeking behaviour is "I'm bored; entertain me!" behaviour. If we pre-empt it and give him lots of play before we settle for the evening, we are already well ahead and our "relax" cue has a higher chance of being effective. We also taught Erik a "Shh" cue that means quiet. It certainly works, but only for a few seconds. He can't help himself if the thing he was barking about hasn't changed.

I have one that can't comfortably greet without something in his mouth. He doesn't wiggle, but he does pin his ears flat and walk around and around me in circles, stopping on each pass for a cuddle. You can tell how excited he is by how long he does laps with the toy in his mouth. Very excited Kivi looks much the same as moderately excited Kivi, just needs more cuddles if he's very excited. ;) Erik bounces all over the place, so he doesn't get his greetings until he downs for me. Then I pick him up and he gives me an Erik cuddle. Erik cuddles involve crawling as high up my chest as he can so he can put his paws on either side of my neck and lick my face. I never liked this kind of thing until he came along!