corvus

Oops. SEC= Sudden Environmental Contrast. Refers to the way dogs can tend to over-react to sudden changes in their environment. For example, they are walking along a street with nothing much around and they round a corner and a dog is there too close for comfort. Erik had a brilliant one today. He was clicker training like a crazy thing when a lady wandered by with a small poodle. E had been so absorbed and was quite aroused he just didn't notice them coming and when he did he got a bit of a shock and raced off barking at them. Luckily his recall is very good. Normally he'd just have a look and carry on, but he got surprised and it seemed to him like the dog and lady appeared there all of a sudden. Always celebrate a win. :) I celebrate wins for Kivi, too, and he's like the easiest dog in the world.

That's why you use something like LAT that gives you a consistent rule structure. The dogs generalise on their own and start offering it in response to environmental stimuli that bother them. It took about a month before Erik offered his first uncued LAT, and from then on life got much easier. He has surprised me plenty of times suddenly starting a game of LAT out of the blue. It's like a neon sign saying "I noticed something scary over there." for us humans that notice sameness rather than difference. It's always awesome when he's ranging ahead of me off leash and suddenly races back to me and starts LAT without a word or even eye contact from me. The record used to be him running back from 10m ahead, when he once wandered into the dog park to find half a dozen games of fetch in progress, but one morning he topped that. He was out of sight about 20m ahead of me when I realised someone had arrived on the field with a soccer ball. It was quiet and Erik had been busy exploring, so it was perfect conditions for a SEC reaction. I had only got as far as looking around to locate Erik when he bounded back through some trees and started LAT from my side. Awww, what a superstar. And learn to see the stare that means they are thinking about what they should do about something they've noticed. Leslie McDevitt's advice is to make it the dog's job to notice stuff and tell you with a quiet look at the bothersome thing. It was such a crucial piece of advice for me. Once I started looking for that stare and rewarding it things moved very fast.

Has anyone said "Nekhbet needs to set timelines for Jelly and Roo."? There's a difference between that and "Timelines and objective measures can play an important role in judging progress." Or even "Jelly, I encourage you to adopt a timeline for your own and your dog's continued health and well being." These things are also considered best practice. If you want to fight about that feel free to start a topic on it, but I don't see a need. Either you're guiding Jelly in that or you're not. That part is no one else's business. But on a public forum, I figure it's anyone's business to say relevant things on the topic. There may be others facing similar issues for whom these comments are very useful. If we're suddenly not allowed to say stuff that could possibly (but possibly not, seeing as no one knows) contradict Nekhbet's instructions, then it becomes a highly censored thread and no one actually knows what they are allowed to say and what they are not. If it's that much of a big deal, then there should be a separate "Support Jelly-Roo" thread so everybody can stop getting so needlessly prickly.

Within reason. Some breeds 'whisper' and some breeds 'shout'. The ones that shout are sometimes just not great at recognising whispers. It can lead to problems. I think it's fair to pay some attention to compatibility. Particularly because first impressions can last and if you aren't skilled at reading body language and micro-managing interactions it can sometimes be difficult to overcome those first impressions if they were negative. I would think you'd be okay with a Lab if it is well socialised as they are pretty resilient. What you are seeing at the park isn't necessarily Mimi being dominated as such. She might just like being on the ground. She could be self-handicapping or putting other dogs at ease. We find husky play to be in general very full on. My boys seem to like it, but we see a lot of dogs that don't. I think that means that if you want a social husky at the dog park you need to really work on being able to call him off when he's playing and keep a sharp eye on things to make sure he's not scaring another dog. My Lapphund looks a bit like a husky and we have had that many dogs fire up at him and the owner explain apologetically that their dog doesn't like huskies. Too many to count, so I gather it is not uncommon. Have you thought about a Lappie? They are kind of like a toned down, more biddable version of a husky or elkie. Might make a good compromise. Our Lappie was a compromise because at the time I wanted a large breed but had a small and frail corgi, so we went for a smaller breed for her. Best decision ever. He is a very likable dog. Everybody loves Kivi. He's definitely got a spitzy streak to his temperament, though.

Read Control Unleashed. This book is designed for helping with this exact problem and is full of techniques. I use most of them on a daily basis with Erik, who winds up at the drop of a hat but has always had trouble winding down again. He is SO much better now than he was as a youngster. Now it takes a minute or two for him to wind down after something very exciting, but a couple of years ago it would take him hours. And now he will often stay under threshold in situations where before he would have lost it. It's just a matter of practicing a lot. Practicing calming down, practicing staying calm, practicing responding to you when there are competing stimuli, and practicing things that help your dog keep their head on. If you have a reactive dog, even only a little bit reactive, the foundation skills in CU will be tools in your belt when you least expect you will need them. It feels pretty awesome when you have your reactive dog under such solid verbal control that you can let them off leash in stimulating environments and be confident that no matter what happens you will be able to get their attention if you need it. Erik is at the point now where he will literally come and find me if he sees something that unsettles him while he's off leash. It's so strong it's like a lifeline for him. Even if he's having a look and my partner calls him, he will seek to touch base with me. I've had him turn and run 20m back to me because he unexpectedly found himself too close to something that bothered him. Considering his natural response is to bark and rush at it, this is a pretty big achievement. The bottomline to CU is to turn environmental stimuli into cues to orient to you. Erik is proof that it certainly works, even over decent distances. The best thing about it is it doesn't depend on you always noticing trouble before they do. I've been surprised before having Erik come and touch base and start LAT over something I didn't even realise he was bothered about. It's a big help with these dogs that can be a bit unpredictable. They'll tell you if today is the day they are bothered by something they have in the past been fine with.

No one is making demands. Some are strongly encouraging the adoption of timeframes and objective records by which to measure progress. I explained why a few pages back. If you don't understand, feel free to PM me and I'll try to explain it in terms that make more sense to you. The best trainers and behaviourists in the world do this kind of thing for a reason. It can be a huge help to both dog and human and I have no doubt those suggesting it have Jelly and Roo's best interests at heart.

I have the rapid rewards pouch and I don't really like it. Before that I had a chalk pouch for rock climbing, and before that I had a small roundish one, and before that a Black Dog one. When the RR pouch dies, I'll be getting another chalk pouch. They are easier to get your hands in and don't have corners where things seem to hide. They also have a drawstring closure on the outside, which is good when I get visitors at the dog park. A curious dog can open my RR and shove their face in if given the chance. Rarely use my pockets because I wear girl clothes with stupid, tight, tiny girl pockets. Can't get my hands in fast enough.

Kivi was fine being left alone all day every day of the working week until one day when he was about 10 months old he suddenly started barking and barked all day. I left him in the yard the next day as well and I believe he barked all that day as well. Panicky, distressed barking. After that he went inside during the days and the problem was solved. 4 years down the track he is still fine indoors while we are not home and he still panics if I ever shut him in the backyard where he used to spend most of his time. Fine if I'm there with him, but even with Erik for company he freaks out. No idea what happened to him, but when he stays with friends and family he's quite happy spending his days outdoors, so I guess something probably happened. Robert Holmes gave an interesting talk about this kind of thing at the recent RSPCA scientific seminar. The take-home message was dogs don't want to be left in backyards on their own. They want to be with their owner, and if they can't, the next best thing is being somewhere that smells strongly of their owner. He said he has many cases of separation distress that are solved by letting the dog stay indoors while the people are out. He also said in an ideal world they would have free access to the yard and the house including the owner's bedroom. I work from home and know of several dogs that distress bark during the day. Poor things.

By definition you CAN'T punish fear. Punishment is an operant conditioning thing and from a strictly theoretical perspective it acts on behaviour. Fear is an emotion. It is far more likely to be influenced by classical conditioning. As a general rule of thumb, the more emotionally-driven the behaviour, the less effective operant conditioning is likely to be in changing it and the more effective classical conditioning will be. Bob Bailey has a great analogy. Pavlov represents classical conditioning and Skinner operant conditioning. One sits on one of your shoulders and the other sits on the other. When one grows, the other shrinks in proportion. If a dog is in a highly emotional state, Pavlov is big and Skinner is small. Your job as a trainer is to make Pavlov smaller and Skinner bigger, because while Pavlov is big operant conditioning isn't much use and it's hard to train a dog with classical conditioning alone. When Skinner is big, you have a lot more options, but he reminds people regularly that Pavlov is always on your shoulder. The implications of this reminder is that even when you have a nice, operant dog and are using operant conditioning, the dog is still making basic, emotional associations. For example, if the overall training experience is pleasant for the dog, they have a positive emotional response to the trainer and perhaps the training grounds, maybe the shoes the trainer wears, or a special bag the trainer will bring with them full of goodies... That kind of thing. So if you have a dog that has a negative emotional response to the trainer, we can assume some kind of negative association has been made. It may be the trainer themselves or it may be something indirectly associated with the trainer. Either way, if it were me I would probably pull out. Negative emotional responses are resistant to change because they help keep an animal safe. So whenever I'm not sure what the behaviour was triggered by I back right off to avoid making it worse before I can figure out what's going on. Incidentally, what the trainer was doing sounds like flooding, which is something a lot of positive trainers have massive issues with because they think it is inhumane. Make no mistake, it certainly can be by my reckoning, but not always. The problem is the point is to deliberately put the dog over threshold, as in expose them to something they are uncomfortable with at an intensity that they really can't handle. Then you wait until they realise there is nothing they can do to make the scary thing go away, and hopefully they then realise that they are actually not dead and maybe the scary thing is not a threat after all. It works like that sometimes, but other times the dog just learns that they can't control scary stuff happening to them in certain circumstances. There's some evidence to suggest flooding can be surprisingly effective and humane if coupled with other things, but not very practical things.

How can anyone question Nekhbet? We don't really know what she's doing. If anyone feels like some 'light' reading, there's a really well written and referenced paper on separation anxiety that's available here: http://www.behav.org/00library/articles/dog/dog_behav_separation_anx.pdf It may help to explain things like why a dog can be fine with separation in one context but not in others, and why some conflicting advice has been given about leaving signals and the likes. It's one of my favourite papers on SA. There's also a great article on it by Robert Holmes here: http://adoreanimals.com/articles/lonely-dogs/, which touches on some of the psychological theories behind SA, like opponent-process theory, which sounds like it might be applicable to Roo. Robert Holmes gave a talk on emotional neural substrates and separation distress at a seminar I was at recently. I was pretty impressed with what he had to say. He was particularly concerned for dogs that may experience separation distress but not show it overtly. I am so happy this kind of thing is being talked about. I have met some dogs in the course of my research that have left me feeling uneasy about common living arrangements and lifestyles of dogs, not to mention how they are being trained and what they are being trained to do. Lastly, for some heavy reading that is kind of indirectly related to SA, there is an excellent paper about pathological anxiety in animals here: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/vet/2009-0128-200403/sdarticle.pdf It explains why fearful and anxious animals behave the way they do and gives a good rundown on signs to look for and what they indicate.

Sorry, I was only trying to say you don't really need to know much. Basic principles can be applied to all sorts of problems. Having said that, Erik has certainly had me twisting my brain into pretzel shapes trying to think my way out of whatever problem he is presenting now. But that's because Erik is smarter than me. :D And better at training me than I am at training him. I think you can do a lot with just a few tools. If you know how to counter-condition, and you can teach a positive interruptor that's strong enough to cut through most distractions, you are well on your way. You just have to remember to err on the side of caution and if in doubt, slow down and wait to see what your dog would do if they had the space and time to think it through. If it's any consolation, I think even trainers handle some dogs better than others. One of my study dogs was bred to be a service dog, and has been in training for the last 6 months or so. I was talking to one of his trainers on the weekend and said I found him an inconsistent dog. The trainer said almost everyone finds him an inconsistent dog. But one of the trainers seems to speak his language and they get on very well and for that trainer he is consistent.

There's nothing inhumane about acknowledging human nature and finding ways to assess the welfare of a being in your care objectively. The whole point is to be as humane as possible. I think we owe it to our animals to have something more substantial than "I think it's working" when their welfare is potentially compromised, whether their life is in the balance or not. This is a general comment for everyone out there who is or will in the future be facing difficult decisions about an animal in their care. I've always felt that if you loved your animal you would do the right thing by them whatever that may be. I still believe that, but to me "doing the right thing by them" means being as sure as I can be of my assessments. I'm about 6 months off a PhD in cognitive biases. Guess why I like numbers. I think it's fair to say Jellyblush understands that the ultimate decision lies soley with her and she will be supported and not judged regardless of what she chooses to do. This is a different issue to how she makes her decisions, and encouraging her to approach assessment and decision making with the tools to be rational when the situation is so emotional is not the same as urging her to put her dog to sleep or something. It's hard to keep your head above the water. Being able to make assessments you believe in helps a lot IME. By all means, try all the things you want to try, just make sure you can't pull the wool over your own eyes about their effectiveness. Because people do, particularly when we care so much. It's how we work and that's fine as long as we are aware of it.

That's displacement or arousal reduction behaviour. Basically Joey has found an outlet for his excitement. This is the same sort of thing Erik does. He does it exclusively to Kivi because Kivi doesn't care. They are best pals and are very close. Usually when other dogs don't like to be humped it's because they are uncomfortable with how close the other dog is or because they feel they have lost control of the situation, or because it hurts. The humping itself is not necessarily the problem. It's the added baggage. ;)

As horribly cold and calculated as it sounds, setting time frames and expectations for improvement is about stonewalling human nature so you can make rational, compassionate decisions. There's a little thing called the sunk-cost effect that means we don't want to pull out of something we have invested a lot into even if it means we will lose out even more in the end. It makes compassionate and rational decisions about welfare very difficult. While it's laudable to be so devoted to another living being, there is suffering occurring on both sides and if can be ended. It's not a failing or something to be ashamed about to find the kindest thing is to set what you love free. It takes great strength of character and love to be able to make that decision for a friend. And it's true, you can't assess the effectiveness of a method without a measure of improvement.

I don't know why people think that behaviour towards a non-social object is going to spread to behaviour towards social objects. Or even that behaviour towards one social object will necessarily spread to another social object. Behaviour is very flexible, people, for good reasons. A dog that doesn't know the difference between a toy and a dog has got some fairly big problems. What's more, if a dog is properly socialised they can generally figure out for themselves who the 'wrong dog' might be. My Erik humps Kivi on a daily basis, but does not generally hump other dogs. This is not to say he didn't try. He did when he still had a puppy licence, and was told to get lost a few times and decided it wasn't a good idea to hump strangers. Kivi humps strange dogs once in a blue moon, but doesn't hump Erik or people. He has one doggy friend he humps and no others so far. This should give you some idea how complex and flexible dog behaviour is, including humping. I would treat it on a case by case basis.

Some dogs with SA truly and honestly can't be helped. The literature on it is kinda sad. Lots of things can help lots of dogs, but some dogs with extreme cases seem to be beyond help. Hopefully Roo is not one of them, but I second Greytmate's suggestion to set a timeframe and quantify Roo's progress so you know if she's improving or not. It's not going to do you or Roo any good to believe that there is an answer if you just try hard enough. You're already doing everything you can and you should know that there is a possibility that there is no answer no matter how hard you try. If what you're doing now doesn't turn out to be the answer, you could always talk to your vet behaviourist about a phone consult with Karen Overall. She's pretty much the world expert on treating separation anxiety in dogs. Or failing that, Kersti Seksal has received a lot of training from Karen.

I use Scottys as well, although only for training treats. They hold together well when cut into little pieces, frozen and thawed, and the dogs seem to like it. It seems pretty benign to me for a dog food roll.

Good luck Panzer! As evidence for the power of consistency, today Kivi got barked at aggressively by a dog behind a fence, which is one of two things in the entire world that pushes him over threshold. He was off leash, but barked twice, looked around, found me, and ran joyously 30m to me so he could park himself in heel position. I didn't even say anything! This came entirely from cueing heels after a dog had got him all worked up, so it wasn't even particularly good training. He's certainly not cured, as if he's on leash and we are on the footpath and have to go past the dog hurling verbal abuse at him, he will struggle, but it is a nice improvement on running up to the fence and barking back, which is what he used to do when he was off leash. And Erik walked past softball training today without a second glance, which is pretty damn close to cured! He needed a bit of support on the other side where we were very close to the batter, but remained super responsive and easily manageable. Considering not too long ago he was madly offering LAT if we were an entire field away from softball practice, I could not be happier. So hang in their, guys. Break your problems down into bite-sized chunks and just patiently and consistently chip away at it, keeping your dog under threshold. I am so proud of how E is coming along lately. He has matured a lot in the last 12 months, but that's not to say maturation alone is responsible for our diminished list of triggers or Erik's phenomenal responsiveness when he is unsettled. I could not even count how many things I have frantically nipped in the bud and I still ended up with half a dozen or so triggers that provoked some quite inappropriate behaviour, but we are now down to the most long-standing ones and Erik's foundation and coping skills are fantastic. Even if I do miss something he is easy to call in and will go into his LAT etc routines. It's been a long 3 1/2 years, but Erik is SO MUCH BETTER. It's hard to believe he's the same dog.

You don't have to be a professional. You just have to teach yourself an eye for detail. ;) Having said that, LAT helps a lot because it gives your dog an opportunity to tell you clearly when they are having difficulties. It's much easier to see them initiating LAT than seeing them approaching threshold without it. You only have to look for one thing. A quiet, alert look. Just keep marking it and rewarding it before it turns into something you don't want. If you're consistent it will stick and make life much easier for you both.

Interesting to hear about the road work. Six months ago I was doing a 12-15km run on pavement and a 11-14km run on trails each week myself (my dogs are useless running companions) plus weights and cycle class and the odd sprint session when I could convince myself to do it. I then tore a ligament in my foot, which I take it was a stress injury. There is no question in my mind that running on pavement for people at least is brutal. The trails are hard work and take concentration, but you develop amazing stability and become very light on your feet and the constant changes in terrain mean you seem to use more of your muscles. The pavement is like being beaten up. Different kind of pain. Seems my feet cop it much more intensely, and calves only stopped giving me trouble when I started trail running. I will be stepping up my run distances on the pavement very slowly this time. If I could run exclusively on trails I probably would. Way gentler on the body. Except that sooner or later you'll stack it. Dogs don't seem to stack it, though! Anyway, Kivi is not fast, but he's lean and toned under his big coat. In spring after a winter of hiking he is rock hard muscle, especially along his back. This time of year he is a bit softer. Our hikes are physically demanding. There are lots of steep, rocky trails and boulders around here. It's exciting enough of an environment that the dogs are in a hurry and tackle obstacles they normally couldn't be bothered with. Sometimes they shoot up the side of a boulder and I'm frantically trying to get to them before they fall down to haul them up the last little bit, but they don't usually need me. As long as Erik doesn't get it into his head to push Kivi off... Out of interest, one of the people I trail run with (when I'm not recovering from injury) runs with whippets. He takes one on trail runs when he can and the dog easily does 10km+ When he does road runs he takes his older whippet as well. She's 10, I believe.

At least you know where it is likely to be. I came home a couple of weeks ago to find a snake on my front doorstep. It made off before I could ID it, sadly. I went looking but they can vanish in the tinniest amount of cover. I assumed it was something highly venomous and nervy and took appropriate precautions. Haven't seen it since. I've always said I imagined they were around, but it's taken 4 years of being here before I actually saw one. My dogs are extremely curious about snakes, especially the little guy. Gives me heart palpitations. Incidentally, one time in Los Angeles I ran into a very warm, very large rattlesnake. The noise that thing could make scared the bejesus out of me. I suddenly understood why they are considered a scary snake despite them not being technically all that deadly in the scheme of things. Nice of them to warn you they are around, but the very loud rattle sound made my legs a bit wobbly! Amusing that I'd just spent 2 months in remote northern Mexico and didn't see a rattlesnake until I came back to LA.

I leave them with my dogs unsupervised pretty regularly. They both have their methods with them. Erik bites the outside to break up the frozen mince and veggie mix inside and then tips it over and bangs it on the ground to shake the loose bits out. It's quite cool watching him. He's got it down to an art. We have also stuffed them with cream cheese and dry treats, squeezed giblets or chicken necks in and packed them with mince and frozen, and even when Erik has had an upset tummy he gets frozen chicken and rice in his. They get them most days and E gets nearly all his mince intake through frozen Kongs. They are tough, but the rubber perishes over time, especially if it has been outside. We have had one or two break down and the biggest end come off. You can still use the bottom part of the Kong if you're keen, but we throw them out and replace them. Our dogs don't chew them once they are empty, though. They carry them around sometimes, but don't seem interested in destroying them.

It certainly sounded to me like it would be too much for him! And I stand by that. Hopefully it was more than luck that got you both through. Because if it had proved too much for him I believe it could have made it worse, and some of us said as much. I for one was worried for you both when you went through with it anyway. I'm very glad that my worries were unfounded and it's turned out to be such a good thing for him. But I still hope it was more than luck! I take chances sometimes with my animals and it rarely turns out well. All that aside, I doubt it has much to do with dominance and submission. Erik is very needy about structure and direction. He looks to me and he finds ways to get me to offer him rules and guidance. At the same time, he is a little turd, very opportunistic and exploitative, and prone to controlling behaviour that has got out of hand on occasion when he was a youngster. I expect most people would consider him a dominant dog in that he is pushy, controlling and if you give an inch he will take a mile. He was on very strict NILIF as a pup, because without it he would come up with bucket loads of behaviours I didn't like while trying to get what he wanted. It was take control of all his reinforcers or get trampled by him, basically. Nonetheless, I have generally been pretty relaxed with him. If he acts up I rarely act until I know why he is acting up. I give him the benefit of the doubt because it's easier to change behaviour based on reinforcement than change behaviour based on fear or anxiety. I don't even give him all the guidance he wants from me because he becomes so dependent it hampers him learning to handle things on his own, which is ultimately what I'm trying to teach him to do. All things in moderation. I think that dogs generally respond well to lots of guidance and structure, which is why things like LAT are so useful and effective. But it's in their best interests to learn to handle things on their owns as well. And it's not necessarily a dominance issue. Sometimes dogs just don't know what they should do and having us tell them takes a lot of pressure off them and probably feels pretty good.

With updatable probability models.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is actually not an established fact as far as I'm aware. Unless you have some numbers no one else seems to have. These arguments can't be settled without it because obviously there are deviations and diseases and health issues in both pedigree dogs and non-pedigree dogs. Where there are people saying they have only seen problems in non-pedigree dogs there are others saying they've only seen problems in pedigree dogs. And those who have seen a lot of problems have seen them in both. I think it's irresponsible to make statements with such certainty when they are in reality uncertain. of the known diseases and hereditary conditions that can be tested for, why would you think the odds in pedigree dogs as opposed to those without would be the same? That's a different question, isn't it? My question is are the odds in fact better for pedigree dogs? The answer to that question is nobody actually knows because the data don't exist. What I think is an opinion. What you stated sounded like a fact. It's not a fact at this point as far as I'm aware, regardless of what I or you or anyone else thinks.