corvus

Brainwashed?? Ahhh, so that's what happened. I should send my OH over to them. He has SUCH a dirty mind. ETA It was the sad puppy eyes, wasn't it? They learn from the best!

even when the parents are two different breeds. Given there are no tests for the vast majority of deleterious mutations and some may not be seen until later in life, this seems like a moot point. ETA, Incidentally, there's a case study of a species of antelope that became extinct in the wild but had a small captive population. It was decided to undertake an aggressive inbreeding program with the idea that all the nasties in the genetic population would be revealed early in the peace and they could then cull animals carrying it from the breeding program. They would end up with a population with very little genetic diversity, but healthy animals. It's a risky approach, but when you only have a ridiculously small number of animals, anything is risky.

I'm rarely talking to base level staff. I tend to meet these people at seminars and conferences. I was invited to speak to various managers about my research one time. When they speak frankly you start to realise how difficult their job is. When I was invited to speak to them it was partly about improving temperament tests. They are not clueless at all. A lot of the stuff people have been saying about them on this thread indicates poor understanding of the issues.

I must be over-educated or something. I feel terrible for the RSPCA staff I've met. When they speak to me their passion and desire to improve the lot of unwanted animals is pretty naked, and so is their frustration that there are so many problems and so little resources and so much wrong with community attitudes. And they know that there are no easy answers if they've been around for a while. I wouldn't want to walk a mile in their shoes. It looks like a hard job to me, and I'm very sympathetic. The vitriol directed towards them from some on here is a bit offensive to me. If you had met these people, spoken to them, looked at the grimness in their faces, I don't think you would say such callous things about them. I get that some people are very bitter and jaded for wrongs they feel have been done, but really, get a grip. It is ugly out there. There's no way to make it pretty.

You could try counter-conditioning the dog to the cat approaching. Theoretically. Results may vary.

While heterosis isn't well understood, it is assumed that the effects come about through increased genetic diversity resulting in fewer homozygote traits. It's a fair bit more complicated than a single disease-causing gene defect introduced into an already inbred population. That's just pot luck, really. It's not very hard to type "heterosis" into Google Scholar, slap on a publication year filter, and see where the peer-reviewed science is at on this at the moment. It does not at all seem to be limited to crosses between species. Nor is it confined to natural selection. Personally, if people want to justify their positions re: dog breeding with reference to hybrid vigour, that just makes me think they don't know what they are talking about and leave it at that. I'm not about to give them a lesson in inbreeding coefficients or population genetics. It's a waste of time. Smile, nod and walk away is my advice. There is that much misinformation being spread around from all sides it seems like a little more won't make a shred of difference.

It's a hard call without seeing what happened, but I would say a counter-conditioning/desensitisation program towards kids would be a good idea. If you're not confident working on this yourself, you should find someone to help you. Perhaps even more importantly, I think you should also take steps to minimise contact with the new baby and with any kids the dog might encounter while the dog gets used to the whole thing. It sounds like there's potential for pup to come around on his own, but you mustn't push him. You want him to feel like he can control how much kid exposure he gets. He should be the one who decides if he gets petted. I taught my 2 year old niece that when Erik walks towards her she can pat him, but if he walks away she must leave him alone. I wasn't sure she would grasp it, but she seemed to. E is a bit leery about kids, but he is improving all the time with these kinds of measures. He has been great with my niece. He doesn't really like her as such, but he is confident that he won't have to interact with her if he doesn't want to and that's what we are striving to preserve. If he knows he can walk away and she won't hassle him he is more inclined to interact with her period. So I would suggest that now would be a good time to figure out where pup can go where he will be safe from kiddies no matter what and start training him to go there and enjoy it. I'd probably use a crate. It's probably not a bad idea to reward him for choosing to approach kids/babies for a sniff, but keep it very low key. A lick of peanut butter off a spoon sort of thing. This is a moderately cautious approach by my reckoning. I think you should get someone knowledgable to talk to about it who can see your pup. The last thing you want is for things to go south when the baby comes. I'm sure it's not that bad, but I'm uneasy about it without having seen the pup.

It usually happens sooner or later. Having a plan for what to do when it does is very important IMO. Helps you avoid panicking! Grisha encourages hiding behind bushes and cars as well. If there's no way to get distance and no obstacles I either wait it out on the spot or I shovel food into the mouth of whoever is having a meltdown. If they don't settle down enough to offer a default behaviour within half a minute, or won't take the food, I abandon it as any kind of training opportunity and concentrate on getting the distance we need. I can tell you from experience that if you can bring them back to you fast with some kind of structured behaviour after the meltdown, this will pay off eventually. If you are consistent enough the dog will work backwards and start anticipating the structured behaviour as soon as they see the upsetting stimulus. It's not the best way to get results, but it should help. If you have to pass them regularly I would honestly drive the dogs past them. At least to begin with. If you can get the distance to approach them from one side or the other from far enough away that Luka isn't reacting it's a great candidate for BAT, but only if you can avoid having to go right past them before Luka is ready. If you have to walk past scary dogs, don't try to use BAT on them. The whole point of BAT is to teach with many tedious and boring repetitions that the dog can control how much exposure they get. I use LAT in these situations instead, because one of the rules of LAT is that we don't engage, so it's a way to reassure the dogs that we aren't going to engage with the scary dogs. But it's a huge ask and I really think the dog has to be very good at LAT to bother trying. Barking, fence-running dogs are intensely confrontational, especially for dogs that are a bit motion reactive. I remember someone dealing with it using the Relaxation Protocol, though. Very time consuming, but this person had dogs running their backyard fence, so they were living with it constantly. They successfully desensitised their dogs to the fence runners next door and everyone lived happily ever after. BAT is actually really easy when you get down to it. You just have to follow the basic rules and look for disengagement and reward it. I have the BAT seminar dvd if you're interested. I found it very clear and easy to follow. It has lots of BAT setups on it so you can see what you should be looking for, and some good basic tips for body language you should be paying attention to. IME if you get enough distance the animal settles down and everything happens more slowly so it is much easier to see what the animal is doing and what they intend to do. You should find a distance where your dog is not trying to go in any direction particularly, but is aware of the stimulus that triggers them. If you walk them towards it a few metres, then stop, you can watch them and see whether they are worried or interested. I try walking back a step or two and see if my dog eagerly turns away to come with me or stays to keep looking. Same if you go a step or two forwards and wait to see whether your dog follows readily or hangs back. If they are hanging back or turning away, they are probably worried and want the distance. If they are just watching or happy to go forward a few paces, then probably they are information seeking at least. Grisha says you can usually tell if the functional reward is to approach or retreat pretty quickly because if you use the wrong one they get worse or resist you. If they are getting what they want they should stay calm and pliable as long as you are moving nice and slow. Does that make sense? I just play around a bit and figure out how close E can go without getting anxious or aroused, then fiddle around with distances around there and see if he wants to go closer or stay where he is. The main thing is to keep things very slow and gentle. I find with Erik at least that sometimes if he gets over-aroused his interactions with other dogs go a bit haywire. In these cases he genuinely doesn't seem to want to engage with them if I give him enough distance to think about it properly. He's usually pretty good with other dogs and eager to meet and greet, so it's quite revealing that at these times when he can't act appropriately he actually doesn't want to meet and greet.

I have, but have mostly used it opportunistically with things that Erik wanted more information on but was too aroused to get it sensibly. It is awesome for figuring out whether your dog is a frustrated greeter or wants other dogs to move away from them. It can be kind of hard to tell just by looking at their behaviour when they flip out. I was also using Grisha Stewart's organic socialisation principles with Erik when he was an adolescent, which is based on using functional rewards of distance to reinforce desired behaviour. Same principles as BAT. Grisha is awesome and I totally stalked her at the APDT conference last year. She has a gift for imparting knowledge. When I used it in socialisation I did not use setups. I used it when Erik met dogs he wasn't comfortable with. Rather than just hustling him away I waited until he offered a nice, non-aggressive social behaviour and then moved him away. I would say it's doable without setups, but I wouldn't say it's easy. I was depending on being able to read E and the other dog involved correctly, and I was aggressively criticised for it by some on here because they felt I was taking outrageous risks. If I had my time again I'd not change a thing. I was very happy with what it did for Erik. It turned him from a nervous one-trick pony into a confident, socially flexible dog. The principles are also broadly applicable in other areas. E.g. Erik has also learnt to enjoy going into the water using functional rewards. So glad things are going so well with you and Ziggy, Staffyluv. You have obviously come forward in leaps and bounds.

Don't try to second-guess yourself. And don't go trying to fix problems you don't have. Erik's frustration levels used to go through the roof if I only trained for 5 minutes. He has been known to chomp me for attempting to leave him 'wanting more'. It took quite a bit of fiddling around to find a training session structure that worked for him. I can train him for a few minutes now, but I'd want to be careful about the context. If I only plan to give him 5 minutes of training I owe it to him to help him wind down from that afterwards. Leaving him hanging is stretching the friendship. And that is after stacks of relaxation protocol and Give Me A Break/ off switch training CU style. I train him now to try to take the edge off his desperate need to learn stuff and engage his SEEKING system, not to leave him wanting more, for heavens sake. I can't keep up with him as it is! Decide what your aim is and tailor your training to achieve those aims. Hope the assessment went well. :)

Here's Patricia McConnell's interpretation of the training frequency study: https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/whats-a-better-learning-performance I am yet to manage to train Erik in sufficient quantities to have him decide he's had enough. If he's in 100%, he's in until I insist that's really it and I'm not doing any more with him. He has been driving me mad these last few days because he got very little training this week. As a result, he's been expressing his intense boredom with all sorts of obnoxious and annoying behaviour. He is a disaster when he hasn't had enough training. He generally gets at least 20 minutes a day in one block, then smaller sessions of a few minutes here and there. He never seems to get tired of it and I have no concern at all that I could overdo it. Kivi has much less endurance for such activities, but I don't really worry about 'over training' him, either. He'll do it as long as it is reinforcing. He is nowhere near as clever as Erik, but neither dog really gets bored of doing anything. They are doing it for the reinforcement, not because they like the behaviour, particularly. I expect they do like the behaviours, but only because they have strong histories with reinforcement, if that makes sense. Bob Bailey says dogs do not get bored with training. He says dolphins, yes, dogs, no. ETA They do get physically tired, though. It takes a while for Erik, and lots of jumping, but Kivi gets physically tired pretty easily. It's not reinforcing to keep getting up and doing something for a piece of kibble if you're tired.

Exactly. Predatory aggression is not really aggression at all. It's kind of a misnomer and many researchers acknowledge that. If anyone is interested in this kind of thing, I suggest they look at Jaak Panksepp's work. He works in affective neuroscience. The relevant section of his text book suggests that there is a fair bit of evidence that predatory behaviour is completely different to other forms of aggression at a neural level. The most fundamental difference is predatory behaviour appears to be fun and any other form does not. With the possible exception of inter-male aggression, which is slightly more complicated. But still not especially fun. Yes, it is believed socialisation plays a large role. Dogs learn what are social objects by what they are exposed to and how as youngsters, but there is drift to varying degrees. For example, my dogs grew up with a pet rabbit, whom they largely ignored, but the other day they saw a wild rabbit and it sure was on for young and old. It's sometimes hard to figure out what's predatory behaviour and what is play behaviour in dogs. I expect there is overlap. Usually play can be identified by context and body language, but chasing things can occur in a variety of contexts and maybe sometimes it's play and sometimes it's predatory behaviour. Some trainers may claim they know the answers, but I'm telling you they don't. No one does because the work simply hasn't been done and drives are barely recognised in scientific research because they are difficult to define objectively. I agree. From a purely scientific standpoint, predatory behaviour tends to be like a switch that comes on when the right stimuli are there. For cats, it almost is literally a switch in their brain you can press and make them go catch a mouse. Although they might not eat it. There's a study I really like that suggests that Elkhounds are 'switched on' more readily by large prey animals than small. It seems likely there is some kind of inherent template that tells a dog what is prey and what is not that they are born with and this is built on with experience. And like you said before, socialisation plays a significant role. It would be extremely simplistic to suggest that predatory behaviour towards non-social objects was indicative of higher potential for predatory behaviour towards social objects, and we don't need to call one aggression and one not to indicate that. Most inter-dog aggression is based on fear and distance-increasing behaviour, but if it looked like a dog was displaying predatory behaviour directed at other dogs, I would be worried about where that might drift. Although it's probably a moot point because dogs that want to kill other dogs because it's fun probably have no place in most environments.

I think this is probably a false distinction. Predatory behaviour is predatory behaviour. A real predator does not need to make a clean kill. It just needs to kill. If the prey gets mauled so be it. Predatory behaviour in dogs has surely been terribly messed with so that in some cases it is barely recognisable or highly stylised, but let's not lose sight of its original purpose, which is obviously to kill things so they can be eaten. I think that you are conflating artificial selection with natural selection. We can talk all we like about what kind of predatory behaviour a dog ideally displays, but it doesn't mean those behaviours are the only ones that can be called predatory.

It sounds pretty normal for a dog with separation anxiety, to be honest. The distress is usually most acute in the first 30 minutes. It's one of the diagnostic features, as it happens. Everything I've read in the literature suggests it is not uncommon for dogs to calm down after the first 30 minutes. Although they might periodically cycle through again.

I believe there is actually research that suggests a dog that is likely to be aggressive towards a child is also likely to be aggressive towards the doll. It's the same with the dog dolls used to test what a potentially dog-aggressive dog would do if it was allowed to have its way with another dog. Grisha Stewart has some great videos of dogs meeting life sized dog dolls. She showed one at the APDT conference last year of a dog that saw the dog doll from 10m away, then ran straight up to it, shoved it over, and started ripping into its belly. It DID NOT bother checking if it was a real dog. There is an easy explanation for this. If a dog has a negative association with a particular thing, they don't need all the related stimuli to decide how to treat it. The more they dislike it the fewer stimuli they will use to identify it. This is completely adaptive. It's a high road vs low road of the brain thing. If you recognise something that could potentially be dangerous you react first and gather more information on what it is later. As such, if a dog goes for the doll, that may indicate a pretty strong negative association with kids. If the dog doesn't go for the doll, that doesn't really mean it wouldn't go for a kid. Ideally there would be other exposures to novelty in a behavioural assessment to compare the reaction to the doll, but I don't think it would be hard to distinguish between a reaction to a novel item and aggression towards something that looked like a kid. If the dog is reacting to the doll because it looks like a kid, the reaction is fast because there is limited processing of the stimulus. Reactions to novelty are usually more hesitant. Usually. Or at least a pause while the dog is going "Do I know what that is?" I didn't see the show in question, but there are potentially confounding effects in how the doll is presented.

One of my dogs seems to think most staffords (and mixes thereof) are rude dogs. He tells them very politely to please not chew on his face or shoulder him around and they hardly ever notice, so he escalates and tells them more forcefully. As far as they are concerned, the first they knew about it was this dog they were having a good time with suddenly exploded in their face. So both dogs were 'rude' if you ask the other dog.

It often is where I go. It's not that they are aggressive, it's how they react to other dogs objecting to their behaviour. They don't read the more subtle signals from other breeds well and as a result get 'shouted' at. Nine times out of ten, if a staffy gets shouted at at the dog park it will spin around and have a go at the dog that shouted at them. I frankly think they make awful dog park dogs. I'm not the only one that has to manage interactions with this breed carefully to avoid trouble.

The way purebred dogs are spoken about amongst registered breeders you would think they have the power to produce perfect dogs at will. I think it maybe leaves people with unrealistic expectations. A dog park regular who is a beautifully responsible and super attentive dog owner has a dog with some kind of hip problem that developed when she was about a year old. I have never asked details, but the owner harbours bubbling resentment towards the registered breeder they bought the dog from. They did heaps of research and thought they were doing the right thing by buying from a registered breeder. I presume they were under the impression that this should guarantee a healthy dog. It's easy to end up jaded and bitter if the product doesn't live up to the hype.

Might be his age. Territorial tendencies tend to kick in later. Although my territorial fellow started at about 12 weeks. If they get very aroused they can redirect their aggression on other dogs or people, which is also what my territorial fellow was doing. I would say while you are waiting for professional help, keep him well away from the door when people come. A general rule for any unpleasant or worrying behaviour is first find ways to manage it so it can't happen or so the triggers for it are less intense. The more they practice it the harder it is to change, so priority one is to stop 'feeding' it by letting him do it. I suggest he should not even see the people at the door for a little while. Get him as far away from them as you can, isolate him so he can't bite his sister, and if you can, don't bring him out again until the person is gone or until he has stopped being feral. I belatedly did this with my boy for a few months and it made a huge difference, even though I totally left it later than I should have. He still goes outside if someone comes to the door and he doesn't come in again until he can lie down for me at the door. And if it's someone he doesn't know, he comes in on leash only if they say they are comfortable with it. He's never bitten anyone, but I'm not planning on finding out if he will.

It seems to be more popular lately, but it doesn't do the same thing as Clomicalm only better. They do different things. If I remember correctly, Roo has already been on Prozac and it wasn't effective. Karen Overall suggests one or the other depending on the specific symptoms, which means both how the dog reacts to separation and whether they have any other anxiety issues. She has a pretty good dvd out about behavioural medicine. You can get it from Tawzer.

New book out some thread participants may be interested in:Fired up, Frantic and Freaked Out Kudos to all who have been having successes recently.

They are poorly understood by most, I think. It's a breed that generally won't take crap from anyone, which comes with its own special responsibilities, and can take people used to more pliable dogs by surprise. Puppyhood is a delicate time with a dog like this because you don't have a strong relationship with her yet. Later down the track when she has that deep trust in you that only comes from a long, positive history with you she will probably be easier to handle, more accepting, and you can relax and enjoy the benefits of all your hard work. If you're not doing NILIF, start now! I'm guessing your breeder probably told you not to give her an inch. I prefer to think of this protocol as conditioning your dog to defer to you. Whenever she wants something, she knows a polite way to ask you for it is the best bet for getting it. And in turn, when you ask her to do something, which may occur any time, she will come to assume she probably wants to do what you ask her because it's usually rewarding. This is so valuable with a dog that has a strong will and isn't afraid to push back. It gives you the chance to install some really good foundations for a well behaved dog for life without provoking her and getting yourself into trouble. It gives you leverage when your interests and hers clash so that she will default to letting you have your way rather than fighting for what she wants. And you get better reliability because whenever your dog thinks "Hold on, is that something I want to do?" (which spitz breeds inevitably do), you will have a big fat, varied reinforcement history and a history of her doing what you suggest behind you tipping the scales in your favour.

Yeah, it can get aroused dogs more aroused. Fun and games! This is called a behaviour chain. Nine times out of ten it is easily remedied by being more proactive and cuing the 'leave it' BEFORE the dog has managed to bite you. What you're looking for is when she looks at you with that bright gleam in her eye and if she turns that bright look onto body parts, THAT'S when you say 'leave it'. This probably fixes the problem more than 9 times out of 10, actually. One of my dogs is a behaviour chaining machine and has done this kind of thing several times. It tells me I'm being reactive instead of proactive. I'm reacting to his behaviour rather than proactively cueing the behaviour I want when I want it. As long as I'm reacting to him he has the upper hand (paw) because he's one step ahead of me. Incidentally, the same little grey monster that is so good at getting ahead of me in training was also a landshark as a puppy. He was pretty relentless. It helped to figure out why he was enjoying biting us so much. He is a herding breed and he was reacting to our movements and trying to control them. Biting us made us stop, and that made him happy. So we started using the rock solid sit we'd already taught him to interrupt the biting before it happened and get his attention on our faces rather than our moving body parts. Then practiced a slow motion heel to the nearest toy. The best (and sometimes worst) thing about puppies is they are very distractible. If you got good behaviour from them for a few moments and reward by throwing a toy for them to chase, by the time they've chased the toy and grabbed it they have forgotten about your limbs and are absorbed in biting the toy, which is why we give them toys. :) Well done on realising that she needs to be calmer. It's not that obvious to many people. I highly recommend massage. Long, slow strokes or small, slow circles with your fingers. She probably won't want any bar of it at first, but I would say persist. With my boy I would hold him still for a few moments of massage, then let him go, and the next time hold him for a tiny bit longer. Pretty soon he realised he quite liked massage. Giving her something to chew on like a pig's ear or a stuffed Kong is also likely to help. Pop her in her pen with something to occupy that busy mouth when you want to send her the message that it's down time, now.

Then it's a good thing that's not what I asserted at all. What makes you think a planned, safe approach to exposing dogs to novelty can't involve strange dogs? I can read a dog. Can't you? I pick my environments, carry treats for counter-conditioning, and have escape routes and contingencies planned. I just remain mystified that everybody seems to have such problems with loose dogs and I do not. I've had my dogs off leash in more parks and on more beaches than I can keep track of and they have never been injured and they both still quite like other dogs. And it's not like they are both magical dogs with phenomenal temperaments. Kivi is, but Erik? E is not a disaster by any means, but he is pretty highly strung and for the first 6 months of his life Kivi was the only dog he'd get close enough to for a social exchange. I think that poor socialisation (both over and under) are serious problems and there is a push from a lot of world class trainers to calm down about socialisation and do it on the dog's terms. We did that, and did it a lot, and we have two vastly different dogs that are both remarkably unphased by most socially inappropriate behaviour from other dogs. I'm sure genes helped us, but so did not being scared to let them learn the ropes from other dogs. Well-meaning people seem to find this very confronting. I'm sorry, all I can do is relate our experiences. I'm just glad I don't have to worry much about loose dogs. I take my dogs out twice a day. Life would suck if I couldn't relax and enjoy that time with them. I don't know what I would do. I need our afternoon outings especially to unwind.

I usually take my dogs off the path and have them sit on the grassy verge if there is one. We do this for other dogs, people with prams or small children, elderly people, people walking in a group, and people in work clothes if they give us the chance. If there's a low wall or brick/stone fence, I get the dogs to sit up there where they are well out of the way. If we can't get off the footpath it can be very difficult. My dogs are friendly and very extensively socialised, and they do not seem to think it's polite to ignore a dog right in front of their face spewing signals at them. Seems understandable to me. I socialised them extensively so they would know what to do about signals being spewed in their face and they are trying to respond appropriately. The world is full of dogs that are uneasy about their own kind. My two dogs were deliberately exposed to all manner of 'randoms' with varying degrees of social skills. We live in suburbia. Like it or not, they will encounter such dogs, often off leash, on a daily basis. It was really not that hard to keep them safe. We even go to the fenced dog park these days. It's far from an ideal place for dogs to socialise and we avoided it for ages, but the boys are GOOD. It's very hard to rattle them.