corvus

You just haveta keep in mind that puppies are babies and aren't capable of much self control. We started to enforce our most rigid and inflexible rules right from the start (such as no jumping all over excitedly whenever you want something etc) but we enforced them gently with more rewarding for good behaviour and ignoring bad. I don't think I really started to come down on him until he was about 5 or 6 months old, although we had a moment when he was about 4 months old when he knew a command but was acting stupid. I thought he just didn't know it well enough but it became apparent that he damn well knew exactly what it meant but had discovered a blank look got him out of all sorts of things. I think you balance the importance of house rules and manners against the maturity of the pup. As long as you take into account that pups often forget or get distracted and can't help it, and they sometimes react to punishment more severely than you'd expect.

Penny is a little like this with our young boy, Kivi. It's a delicate situation and I've found that if I come down too hard on her it makes things worse. I've found the best results when I've quietly given Penny a bit more attention and a bit more exclusive time with me. It also helps when I try to equalise things so that Kivi doesn't get to do things that Penny would like to do if she was still physically able. Our situation is a bit different as Penny is 13 and arthritic and doesn't have much patience for pups, and I think it's more about jealousy than redirected frustration. Nonetheless, Penny gets put in isolation for a few minutes if she's snapping at Kivi for no reason. I don't think it makes much difference except that sometimes it makes her even more snappy. What does help is to see it when it starts happening, block her if I'm there, grump at her and/or put her out if I wasn't able to block, and when she's stopped her snarking give her a bit of time with us. Maybe think about what the dominant bitch might be missing out on just in case it's a similar problem to ours? Or what she thinks she's missing out on. I think that it gets hard. Penny will wait 10 minutes for a chance to tell Kivi off, and I know my mother's dog will wait hours if he has to. The tension never goes away until he's had his chance to have his say, so to speak. Perhaps the answer to these problems is to try to avoid needing to tell the dominant dog off in the first place. Or tell them off in a less confrontational way. For example, instead of growling at her or staring at her, try just saying "out of it" or something in a quiet and relatively neutral tone, avoid the stares, and just move into her space and shoo her away from whatever she's doing. If Penny is being a right snot I can often resolve the situation by calling her over and getting her to sit and stay by my feet. It's sort of a win-win situation because she is next to me where she feels more secure and she's also in a position that doesn't allow her to cause trouble and if she thinks she wants to go cause trouble I can stop her without needing to grump or grab or stare at her. My thought is that if she's turning the tension on another dog she's looking for a way to relieve her sense of tension, which means your corrections might be a bit too intense for her. Hard to believe when they are so mild, but the way I see it a dog shouldn't feel it necessary to pass on tension if the punishment is suitably low key. Even just averting the eyes and stepping sideways into her space rather than directly into it from the front can decrease that intensity. Worth a try?

Perhaps this would help you understand why your dog behaves this way: http://www.animalbehavioranswers.com/id167.html I don't think there are any C.A.T trainers in this country, and you need the cooperation of some bomb proof dogs, but I think it helps to understand where it's all coming from and why telling the dog what NOT to do is not usually a big help in treating the underlying problem.

Penny has had a few bowel blockages. I am always aware of her bowel movements. :rolleyes: Alarm bells ring if I see her straining and not producing anything, especially if she whines and stops straining only to go back to it a few minutes later. That will keep happening, and she'll cry or whine as she strains. She will also be tender in the abdomen and around her bottom. I try parafin first and give it a day. After that it's straight to the vet if she's still having trouble. It's not like you can be unaware of it, really. You know they are in distress and why. Let's hope you're lucky. Last time Penny got to some cooked bones she ended up having to be put under for a serious enema. She was not a happy girl. She's prone to it, though.

Or affectionate. Or demanding if it's learnt licking gets it attention. My guess would be affection.

Hmmm.... on the factory estates idea, there's a little industrial estate down in Kirrawee on the Sutherland side of the highway that has massively wide road shoulders and is always very quiet on the weekend. The Shire is pretty relaxed. I've never seen or heard of anyone getting pulled up on any dog-related issue (outside of the National Parks) and I think there are frequently law breakers. Como oval specifically says no dogs and there are nearly always dogs on it whenever we go by. On that note, the roads around Como are narrow so the traffic is usually slow, and there's a bike path that goes across the river. I don't know how far it goes, but seems to extend into Oatley some. When you move to the Shire can you show me some frisbee stuff? I've been DYING to do frisbee, but unfortunately my big hopes for Kivi fell flat when I discovered he couldn't catch a treat if his life depended on it let alone a frisbee, and despite all my efforts to get him excited about frisbees I'm lucky if I can get him to bounce after one twice in a row! My Lappie is not a drivey creature at this point.

Everyone has a different approach to dogs so feel free to dismiss mine. I just wanted to point out that massage can in some cases treat the problem at its root by changing the way the dog feels. Not every case, but it's helped me out plenty of times. Dogs are emotional beings in the sense that they don't think things through when they are emotionally stimulated. Whether the dog is afraid, stressed, or jealous, it'll just react to that feeling. When you massage a dog the touch is often soothing and relaxing. A relaxed dog is less likely to feel stressed or jealous or whatever in the first place, and by massaging you can reduce those feelings to a manageable level even as they are being manifested in undesirable behaviour, and in turn, the undesirable behaviour fades, giving you an opportunity to get a foot in the door and train something else. As an example, my sister has an undersized greyhound from rescue and she doesn't much like other dogs coming up to her and her people. Walking down the beach with her one day she just seemed to be screaming for reassurance. Next time a dog came bounding up I put my hand lightly on her back and said a few soothing words. It was enough to make her feel secure enough that she didn't need to chase the dog off with a snarl. If a dog came up to her and wanted to get close and stay a few moments, I would give her a little massage and she remained calm enough to keep her teeth hidden. Every time she doesn't use aggression to buy space is a step forwards as she learns aggression is not her only option. Sometimes all a dog needs is to know you're there and taking notice. Then again, sometimes it's completely the wrong approach. You've really gotta know your dog.

sandgrubber, I loathe jargon! When people use it in front of other people that are not in their field it just leads to confusion, excessive questions, and I suspect people only really do it because they think it makes them sound smart. I tend to explain things colloquially using words I expect everyone to understand. I do that to work mates as well. It's just my style of communication and sometimes I get caught out being too colloquial. My bad. I did my honours thesis in a very specialised field and not even other zoologists knew what I was talking about half the time. It was very frustrating that there was no other way to explain it all without using jargon. I learnt to assume no one would know some of the words I had to use and would explain them before I could be asked.

You could try it this way: tie the dog up, sit next to her, but don't pat her. When another dog approaches, ignore her behaviour but put a calming hand on her and give her some gentle massage. When the other dog gets to you, give them both lots of love at the same time. Keep control of her all the time so she doesn't get a chance to go for the other dog. She'll snarl and carry on. When she does, turn your body away from her towards the other dog, but don't take your hand off her. When she quiets, turn your attention back to her and tell her how wonderful she is. I don't know if it would work, but it tends to mollify Penny when she's in a "My human!" state of mind. All she wants is attention, so as long as she's getting attention she'll let you pat the other dog. I can teach her that if she grumps at the other dog I'll get up and walk away. She learnt that pretty fast, but there's a limit to what she can handle and I have to be aware of that. Or you could try giving her things to do when other dogs approach, like sit etc. If you can manage to get her focus off the dog and onto doing something for you, then that's a step in the right direction. She probably wouldn't down, though, as she'll be too agitated. I'd stick to easy things she likes doing. Tricks are great in these situations. OR you could take a look at the book "Click to Calm". I have also heard "Control Unleashed" is very good and gives you ways to calm a very worked up dog.

I know someone in the states that found herself with a large GSD that had never been taught not to pull. She's a small person and has bad shoulders, so she got a prong as a last resort and it probably saved her from a shoulder operation! She says today she would try a no-pull harness or head collar first, but they weren't around when she had this problem.

Uh huh, I have seen this too. Do the dogs start playing again after the licking? I think there are subtleties to submissive and dominant behaviour, but perhaps it is easier to think of them as just that: behaviour. An animal can behave dominantly in one account with another animal and submissively in another account with the same animal. This does not cause hierarchies to collapse (perhaps because they weren't very rigid in the first place, but that's a whole other thing). It just means in this moment the animal feels tension they want to relieve and in the next moment might be feeling the tension as something very small next to their wish to have something, for example. So in your case, Wandy doesn't like Zola's boisterous behaviour and tells her to stop. It makes Wandy feel frightened, or perhaps just nervous. Perhaps she has told her several times before she makes it abundantly clear. I wouldn't even call that dominant behaviour, more like just one dog telling another to ease up. So when Zola heeds her, she comes back and reaffirms their bond with a bit of licking and nuzzling, aka affection. Bond is all renewed again, conflict is over and tension evaporates. To me it seems that Wandy is using this licking as a means to smooth over conflicts and relieve any tension that may occur between the dogs after she asks for her space to be respected. Is it affection or submission? Well, a bit of both, but the submission is just a display of submissive behaviour used to ease tension, perhaps as appeasement in some sense.

I don't mean intimacy in the human sense. I mean intimacy in the purely physical sense. Some dogs don't like other dogs being that physically close to them. Affection is something that all social animals and many non-social animals display. I don't often pull the zoologist card, but I will in this case. I have seen it. Too many times to count. The REASON for the display of affection is the bit that's important in interpreting animal behaviour. A social bird doesn't allow just anyone to preen them, only those in their social group. Displays of affection are a very big part of bonding, and bonding is a very big part of minimising confrontation and therefore stress in a group. In summary, dogs are social animals and often use displays of affection to bond with other dogs (and other animals in some cases) in order to minimise conflict. Licking mouths and faces and ears is one of these displays of affection.

It's not a submission thing, it's just affection, completely unrelated to social rank. It just happens that a lot of submissive-behaving dogs are also quite affectionate. Some dogs don't feel comfortable with that much intimacy. Penny will only let dogs she knows and likes do it to her, and that's pretty much restricted to Jill, who she lived with for a while and is an affectionate dog. Jill certainly is not submissive to Penny in general, but doesn't like to get in arguments. Penny will do it to Jill as well, but only if she hasn't seen Jill for a while or she thinks Jill is hurt or upset. Although it is also an appeasement gesture as puppies do it to remind other dogs that they are small and weak puppies. Kivi will do it to anyone that lets him, including humans! Some dogs are okay with it and some dogs are not, but generally they find it non-threatening and at least let him nuzzle their faces and lick their ears. Well, very small puppies do it to illicit regurgitation of food. Older puppies do it to say they are young and weak like puppies.

I do not know what we would all do without Callie, goldens. And her senior citizens are the luckiest old dogs. ETA Oops, sorry BellasPerson, wasn't too clear on who I was talking about there.

Penny just had Cartrophen shots and it didn't do anything for her. I wasn't especially surprised because she's 13 and arthritis first appeared when she was about 8 or 9. She was on a Metacam for a while, but when I changed her diet from kibble to homecooked her arthritis went away quite miraculously. Soon after, I had her on Sasha's Blend every day. Her arthritis first came back probably when she was about 11. She would get a little Metacam through the winter. When I took her in for the Cartrophen late last year she had become very sore and the warming weather wasn't helping. I honestly think we were on borrowed time since she was 9, so I'm happy we got this far. The Metacam also stopped working, so now she's on Rimadyl, which is working well, although she has to have it pretty much every day. We do 2 days on and one day off, but you can tell the day she doesn't have it. We keep her warm, give her lots of soft, yet supportive things to lie on, and she gets the run of the house during the day. She sleeps a lot. It's really important to keep them moving, though. A gentle walk every day keeps the joints from stiffening up a lot. Just make sure you know about the long-term effects of arthritis medication. The cat I grew up with was on Metacam for ages and ended up with serious kidney troubles. Our vet said as long as Penny is on the Rimadyl they will test her kidneys regularly to make sure they know if we need to stop.

Sorry Cosmolo, I've been trying to keep it on topic. I mentioned before that there's also the matter of retaining what is learnt, and the balance between the length of time it takes and the level of intensity in the dog. As an example, Kivi loves clicker training, but sometimes it all gets a but intense and we have to go back to easy things so he doesn't get too frustrated. When he gets what he's meant to do, if he came up with it entirely on his own it gets stuck in his little brain so that he never forgets it and he loves doing it. If I lure him, he might get it faster, but it takes more practice sessions for him to be reliable. I would think of luring as taking the easy way out as it's very quick, but you don't get the joy of watching the dog figure it out all on their own and the benefit of it getting fixed in their minds. I'm happy to use lures all the same. Sometimes Kivi needs a bit of help to figure it out. I'm conscious of how intense clicker training can be.

I once had a cyclist scream at Penny when we were walking along the Lake Burly Griffin foreshore. If she'd given me a chance I could have called Penny off the road as she knows what that means, but the cyclist started screaming when she was still 50 metres away and the very act of screaming prompted Penny to freeze instead of continuing to cross the bike path and the cyclist nearly hit her. I swear, if she'd done nothing Penny would have been out of her way by the time she got to us. Otherwise, I found swans with cygnets was a good lesson for Penny! She loves chasing coots into the water, but when she tried it on the swans she decided I was right to advise she leave those ones. I do like it when my dog decides I have good advice. Campbell Park in Canberra is a sure bet for kangaroos and usually sheep. There are loads of hares and foxes as well. Around here we like the Pleasure Grounds down at Como. There are often other dogs, lots of playing kids, bbqs and picnics, the river, boats, and the cafe on the waterfront lets you sit outside with the dogs so there are always heaps of pups practising being good. We've had a number of people come up to us down there and ask for their kids to pat our dogs.

You expect me to see that the studies are flawed, as you do? When you are obviously biased as well? As it happens, most studies are flawed. What is annoying is that they don't acknowledge it, which leads me to agree with you that they are trying to prove a point, which is what all studies are trying to do, but if a researcher wants credibility and not to be picked apart by their colleagues then they admit the flaws. I don't know who would fund a study about the good side of e-collars. Presumably the people that cared? The companies that make them? The latter would create a stir, but if the science is solid then they have nothing to fear. It's not that hard to get funding. I bet the companies that make the bloody things would fund a study if approached and asked. BHP is funding us to write a paper on the threatened frogs their activities are threatening further. I know unproven scientists who were able to cobble together $20 000 in funding from small grants. At this point I'm assuming there aren't many veterinary behaviourists interested in using electric collars and those that are can't be bothered doing a quick study to refute the claims of these flawed studies. Why do you suppose that is? The random shock was to simulate poor timing. I think you're missing the most important point out of these studies, and that is if the e-collar is used incorrectly it can cause pain, anxiety and lasting stress. The question that is often asked is whether pet owners can be trusted to know when they are using such a tool correctly or not. It is suggested they should have professional help if they are going to use them. You say that your e-collar as 128 settings so you get the right setting for each dog, but conversely, it also means there are a whole bunch of settings available to you that are the wrong setting for your dog to varying degrees. I'm not suggesting that you would pick the wrong setting, but I would venture to say it's not especially hard to pick the wrong one if you haven't been trained. Anyway, this side discussion is off topic and I think we should leave it. The fact of the matter is that there are costs to using aversives and therefore you have to weigh up quickness of training against possible stress and you may not always end up with the fastest method. I could teach my hare to stay away from something in 2 seconds without touching him and without hurting him, but it would use fear and there's a good chance some of that fear would become attached to me and I'd be lucky to get near him until I'd won him over again. And he'd retain that lesson so well that if I ever decided I needed him to go near that something again I'd have a hard time convincing him to. So, quick and effective and easy, but probably not the best way if I like my hare to be comfortable and relaxed.

Haha, I'm not that crazy. I've got my eye on a Basenji. A cat in a dog's body. A SMALL dog's body.

This wasn't Callie from i-dog was it, the one with an Australian husband?? She is a freaking wealth of knowledge on natural remedies. Penny was on Sasha's Blend for ages and I think it really helped. What helped even more was taking her off kibble and putting her on homecooked, later raw. Her arthritis went into remission and disappeared for about 3 years! I think swimming helps, as it's a low impact exercise. Taking slow walks as it's important to keep everything moving. Keep him warm and make sure he has something very soft to lie on that's easy to get on and off. Penny likes a bit of massage on her tired old joints and sore muscles, but do it wrong and it makes her cranky. Callie also suggests giving a relaxant such as Valerian Root at night. I tried that a bit, but then my kitchen floor ate my Valerian Root capsules.

Just as a general heads up, watch your dogs with human medication! Kivi Tarro got sick last week while I was away from home and OH thought he was vomiting blood. Took him to the vets and left him there overnight, but he seemed okay and they started dosing him with a variety of things that should help what we thought was gastro. I came home last night and found a chewed up packet of Neurofen minus the pills. I called the vet this morning and although he was perky and his tummy had settled and he was acting normal, they wanted him in for a kidney test. The kidney test showed an elevated level of kidney enzyme, so they hospitalised Kivi and have him on a high fluid drip where he will stay until his blood test comes back totally normal. We were very, very lucky that he didn't eat more than he did (and goodness knows how much that was). We were slow to realise what was happening, so for anyone else who ever sees grainy, very dark vomit/diarrhea and/or excessive drinking, be suspicious! And even if they look like they are getting better, take them in anyway. The vet said she thinks Kivi's kidney damage is reversible with treatment now, but if it got any worse it could result in permanent reduced kidney function.

Calici and Myxo are diseases that shouldn't affect dogs anyway. I mean heavens, my HARE can't get sick from it. I had a rabbit that died of myxo in the cage right next to him and he never got sick. He didn't eat her, but all the same. I'm sure foxes eat diseased rabbits all the time. And eagles, for that matter. Calici is a very fast-killing disease. I know the disease is rampant in the Lake Macquarie area with many strains around, but I've never seen a rabbit sick with it. They die fast. I know someone who lost a pet rabbit to it who was vaccinated, but vaccinated to the wrong strain. I believe it died before they could get it to the vet. They go downhill so fast. Myxo, on the other hand, is slow and painful. The early symptoms are like a cold. Puffed up face, runny eyes and nose. They often get cloudy eyes and can't see very well. I saw one once that looked fine except that its eyes were just beginning to cloud over. Incidentally, Calici has been VERY effective, especially in arid regions. It tends to only take off when there is a high population density, though, so is a bit self-regulating in that way. It will die out in a population once it has brought it down to a lower density. Myxo is similar. I have entertained the notion of getting ferrets and going rabbiting myself, but have been firmly told that I'm mad. I love my pet bunnies and secretly want a 10kg Flemish Giant, but the ecologist in me can't abide by feral rabbits. I love my country more than I love bunnies. Much more. Also, I used to be in the cattle club at school and we would get a steer each year to raise and train for the ring. We would spend hours with him every week, give him a name, bathe him, feed him, teach him not to fear humans, and then he'd trundle off to the abattior and we would wave goodbye, have a little sniffle, and console ourselves that we'd given him a good life and he wouldn't be afraid. There's a lot to be said for being so close to the process. You really appreciate your meals and the sacrifice that went into it. I would be more worried about internal parasites in rabbits than disease, though.

I think you did the right thing in returning Rusty when you could see it was not right for you guys. There's no law that says you have to stick with a dog when you take them on, and there's a lot to be said for being sensible about what will make your family run like clockwork. I'm very glad to hear that Rusty so quickly found a family that might be better suited to him.

There are lots and lots of people who have plenty of good things to say about e-collars. Or are you talking scientifically based reports? If the latter, the bigger problem is the expense and lack of budgets. You'd think if the collars really did cause so much of an issue to animal welfare that they'd prioritise the conduct of scientific studies. I was talking scientifically based reports. It doesn't really add up, considering they are a product and people who make them make money off them.... Again, perhaps this is just my field, but usually if there is contention about an idea funding is relatively easy to come by, seeing as the whole point of scientific research is to answer questions. Anyway, this is off topic, I think, so perhaps we should start a new thread if we want to talk about it, although I don't know why we would seeing as it would just be the same arguments all over again. What I'm getting at is the idea that shorter is always better. I don't believe it is always better, because a) I haven't decided if training must be stressful in all cases - I think I've mentioned passive classical conditioning for example and b) I think it's possible there are subtle detrimental effects of some methods that may be fast. I think this goes for both positive and negative reinforcement. If you use a reward that is too hot for a dog, it makes it hard for the dog to learn. I have heard of people going off clickers because they didn't like the way it turned their dogs into training machines and felt that although they were learning very fast, the more they trained the more intense they would get about it, which in turn can lead to elevated stress as well. Stress isn't the be all and end all when we talk about what makes a good training method, and nor is the effectiveness in the context of time. A dog might learn something very fast, but learn something that is not quite what you wanted them to learn, or a dog might learn something fast but not retain it very well. And we must always balance the stress of teaching something against the potential danger of not teaching it and so on.

Hold on, you just said you use it as negative reinforcement and now you're saying you use it at low intensity and therefore findings related to medium and high intensity aren't applicable? If you use it as an aversive isn't it applicacable regardless of the level of stimulation? Don't we agree that something that is mildly aversive to one animal can be strongly aversive to another? I was just reading a review of literature on electronic training devices here: http://www.iaabc.org/Journal/JSamples/Spring_2007_IAABC.pdf. I agree that they generally use high levels or don't disclose the level of stimulation they used, but there are also some studies that cover aversives in general (yelling, leash corrections, hitting). In my experience, you can nearly always find a paper that will support something you want to say, but that doesn't mean that what you want to say is biased, it's just that chances are someone else has had the same thought as you. It bothers me that there are no papers that support the use of e-collars, especially considering their wide use. In hunting circles in the US at least they are used very heavily. It seems there are plenty of people ready to attack a paper that concludes that e-collars are too punishing, but no papers to back up their side of the argument. Why not? In my field, if there is contention then there are papers or at least short communications that can provide support for the other side of the argument. It will go on for months and there are a wealth of letters from people who can either back up what they are saying with literature or will do their own short studies to lend them support, which inevitably leads to someone attacking the problem with a bigger budget. Why hasn't this occurred considering there are companies out there that make these things and so have a vested interest in having them seen in a good light? It's fishy to me, but then I only have experience with my field. Although I was the first one to publish the possibility of cryptic gentes in generalist cuckoos. Boo-yah! But hell, that is a very specialised area. You'd think someone would have something good to say about e-collars.