corvus

Sorry to hear about Stella. It must be very hard. I know how I feel when Erik is having a bad week and he's never been anywhere near that bad. Have you tried giving her some things to do to keep her mind off her surroundings? Frozen Kongs are the Awesome. The combination of licking, chewing, and spending lots of time concentrating on the Kong is gold for us here. I don't know what we'd do without them. It may also give an indication of how bad it is and what the problem is exactly. I work backwards. What do I need to do to get Erik to a place where he will work on a frozen Kong? SammieS, Erik is very talented at turning my training around to benefit him. He will bark and lunge at things to get me to call him back. Then it's turn on a dime and race back to me and do whatever I ask him to do for a treat. He similarly learnt to 'play' with Kivi when told to go play by biting him until he squealed so I would call him back. He very much likes training. He knows all the ways to get me to train him. Generally these problems can be solved by taking a step back and calling him over BEFORE he does something obnoxious. However, I took this one step further once and started rewarding him for ignoring things he might have been thinking about barking at. Next time he saw anything he had been rewarded for not barking at he started barking and lunging at them. He had apparently decided to use my interest in these things to tell him what he could use to get my attention. That one has been much harder to deal with. I just make sure he's on leash and ignore him. If he wants my attention on walks there are two ways to get it. If we are still, lying down quietly in front of me. If we are moving, falling in beside me and making eye contact. It is still a work in progress. It's difficult at times to walk the line between responding to him when he genuinely needs my rules and guidance and ignoring him when he's being a brat. How do I know when he's barking because he doesn't like something and when he's barking at something because he is trying to get me to call him away? They sound and look exactly the same! I mostly use LAT. If he's offering lots of LAT, I assume he's genuinely unsettled and needs help. If he's firing up at something the moment I disengage with him slightly, he's probably trying to get my attention and I ignore him. If he gets carried away with the barking and doesn't come around on his own, I suggest quietly that he knows what he should be doing and it's lying down quietly. He gets high levels of reinforcement for doing that bit. ETA to fix name! Gettin' my DOL dogs mixed up. Sorry BC Crazy.

Kivi has a gift for finding treasures and ground lollies. The other day he ran 100m down the park to fossick around in the bushes by the side of the road until he found a garbage bag and gleefully rolled and rolled and rolled on it. Given he only acts like that around dead animals and this garbage bag was reminding me strongly of the time I found a drowned cat in a bag by the lake as a kid, I just could not bring myself to look at what in the bag had got my dogs so excited. We are just not going to the dog park anymore. Possibly forever. Kivi's top ten most exciting and glorious moments of his life: 1. Finding the rotten dead possum by the lake in such a state of decay it was both food and something delightful to anoint himself with. Washing chunks of rotten possum flesh out of a full coat = not fun for human. 2. Fresh dead shearwater at the beach that he spent several minutes dancing with, throwing into the air, diving onto, and trying to smother himself in. 3. Cleaning out a filled nappy he found in the mangroves. 4. Discovering fox poo in the dunes. It went into his mouth and all down his front. Cat poo is nothing compared to the stench of fox poo. 5. Finding a very large dead fish on the beach. Smelt so good! 6. Finding parts of a dead fruit bat. Yummo! 7. More fox poo in the dunes. 8. Finding a dead rat in the dog park. He spent quite a while rolling in that, too. It wasn't the first or the last, but it was a particularly good one. 9. When the council fertilised the field I took him to. Lots of bits of chicken in it. Kivi did not know what to do with himself with a WHOLE FIELD of wrongness. He just kind of frantically dashed around eating and rolling and dancing like a kid at a theme park. 10. Finding rotting bait full of maggots at the edge of the river. Thankfully that one was wedged between rocks and he couldn't quite get it plastered on himself. The worst thing I have ever encountered was a dead turtle washed up on a beach. It was quite large, and the smell hit you from about 200m away. There's no way I could get much closer. My last dog was witnessed eating some unidentifiable part of kangaroo innards. She couldn't keep it down, although she just kept trying! A dog we had when I was a kid once brought up a dead cat from the lake and rolled in it and ate some of it. Tragically, it was someone's lost pet and still had a collar on. We had to get the collar off and call the owner to tell them their cat was sadly dead. It was only just recognisable as a cat.

I was at the conference as well. It was discussed at some point. I thought there was some mention of the real problems when that fellow was talking about licensing hunting dogs. Did that get on the video? ETA AIAM I think has also released the conference proceedings. It has full papers in it. If it's not online yet it should be sooner or later.

Here's an article about harnesses with consideration of anatomical designs. http://www.alpineoutfitters.net/secure/usermods/article.asp

Aww, hankdog, hang in there. Some dogs really sharpen our training skills. My Erik has managed to find the slightest of holes or weaknesses in any training method I have tried and exploited the hell out of it. I don't even want to say some of the things he's done because they sound insane and no one will believe me. It takes some playing around to figure out which signals he is using to predict what and what is reinforcing. And some thinking outside the square to figure out what to do about it. I learnt to be careful about what I was doing and what it might predict. Is my cue as strong as an environmental cue he's using? Am I following one cue always with the same behaviour, thus giving him the opportunity to skip forwards to that part of the sequence and skip an earlier part? Don't beat yourself up about being a pack leader. It's not that big a deal. I don't think you need to walk through doors first and if it makes you uncomfortable you shouldn't do it. Being a good leader for your dog just means being consistent and predictable, I think. And listening to your dog. Take it slow, listen, be predictable.

Not really. :laugh: It's easier than it sounds. You just have to look close is all. Getting your timing right takes practice, but that's all.

One thing I have found incredibly useful with bringing excitement levels down quickly is teaching my dog to take a breath on cue. I taught it by holding a treat above his nose and when he opened his mouth to take it I'd pull it out of his way and then pop it to him when he closed his mouth. Because dogs inhale when they go to swallow something same as we do. Nothing calms him faster when we are out and about. I also use downs a lot and used to "trade down" active behaviours for slightly less active behaviours until I got him to a quiet down. I don't have to trade down so much anymore, but it was useful once upon a time. Take A Breath is another CU thing. Another way to teach it is to watch for nostril flares and mark and reward when you see one. A nostril flare indicates inhaling. I couldn't see it on Erik, but it was quite clear on Kivi. I still use TAB if Erik gets really wound up, but we rarely have to go through a process of calming him anymore. Just TAB, a few LATS maybe, a quiet down or two and we are good to go. It's been about a year since we had to, say, take him off the beach back through the dunes because the beach itself had got him too aroused and he was flinging LATs out at absolutely everything.

I have with both my dogs in certain circumstances, but I am very wary of using stooge dogs repeatedly. I think that as soon as you are doing it for the benefit of another dog, it becomes easy to see what you want to see rather than what is really happening. One of my dogs is very socially adept and non-aggressive and would probably make a good therapy dog for other dogs, but I don't think I'd do it. Sometimes it's hard to tell how comfortable he is because he shows discomfort in friendly ways, like with play bows, or very subtle ways. For all that he is gentle and tends to be calm, things do get to him. You just have to look really hard to see it. I don't trust my ability to look hard enough to monitor him while also monitoring the dog in need of therapy. My boy's social skills are beautiful to behold and something I cherish on a daily basis. It is not something to take for granted or mess with lightly. The degree of control of the situation is a secondary consideration to me. Having control is not much good if you don't know when to exert it.

Be careful... One of my dogs' overly extreme territorial behaviour is deeply rooted in anxiety. I would never punish his territorial behaviour around people because I know he's scared. I don't want to add to his distress by punishing him. It will probably make it worse. He has come a long way since I realised I really needed to work on it, but I expect he will need ongoing management for the rest of his life. Unless I can successfully BAT unpredictable cleaners or tradesmen. If Pomeranians have a strong guarding instinct, they are likely to default to territorial behaviour when they are over-aroused or frightened. It pays to get this checked by a professional IMO. Ideally one who has heard of emotional states in dogs. In the meantime, having him confined in some way so he can't bother guests is a necessity. You don't want him practising the behaviour regardless of its origins.

We use a place in Darkes Forest. It is just outside the southern outskirts of Sydney. You would have to head off the Hume early and come into Sydney from the south, which is unlikely to add much time to your journey. The lady who runs it is no nonsense, but has been in the business for a long time. Police dogs board there when their kennels at Menai are full. She also tipped us off to the place we now buy our meat for the dogs from. Thanks! Dogs don't get mixed unless you have dogs you have asked to have boarded together. Our boys stayed there for 9 days. When we picked them up they smelt a bit like kennels, but were otherwise clean and healthy and Erik had put on weight, undoubtedly from scoffing Kivi's food as well as his own. I am involved with ADA adjacent to Hanrob in Heathcote. I wouldn't send my dogs to Hanrob.

This sounds very much like you are bringing him in too close to the other dog. He is uncomfortable, so when you ask him to turn his back on the other dog you're actually asking him to put himself in a more vulnerable position as he can't see clearly what Chilli is doing when he's turned away. It sounds like you're doing something like Behaviour Adjustment Therapy (BAT), which is awesome! But it's also quite a subtle method. I wouldn't want to presume it's going right or wrong. That's up to you and your trainer to assess. The general aim of BAT is to avoid all unwanted reactions. If the dog does any it is presumed they are too close or are being taken away before they are ready. The emphasis is on allowing the dog to disengage in their own time and rewarding that by taking the dog away. That may not be what your trainer is going for, though. Might be worth discussing it with them.

What happens if you squeak the ball before you are about to leave? This kind of thing is dog dependent. For some dogs it's a sign that they are getting the idea and are in the process of exchanging one behaviour for another. For other dogs it means they have figured out screaming results in squeaky balls. ;) Depends how clever your dog is. Trust me, dumb dogs are better! Anyway, regardless of which one it is, squeaking the ball before the screaming starts should go a long way to making sure you're both on the right track. You can't reward a behaviour that never occurs.

SSM, there was an interesting paper on this. The authors conducted extensive interviews with people relinquishing their pets to an animal shelter. Your experience (my bold) is similar to what they found - however, it turns out there had been extensive procrastination (at least months) prior to suddenly wanting to be rid of the animal straight away. It was a difficult paper to read without some level of subjectivity (and fist shaking!) but it was a very interesting insight. In particular, the way people only "heard" what they wanted to hear from the shelter staff - even with serious issues such as aggression (and biting the owner!) they convinced themselves that the shelter would find a home for the dog. Doesn't surprise me at all. That's cognitive dissonance and bias for you. I don't condemn these people. I doubt they made the decision lightly. It's just tragic that they felt they had to make it at all.

I think this take the dog back thing is a red herring. I think most people don't even realise they can send a dog back to the breeder. They take on a dog and they tend to consider it their responsibility after that. I remember when my mother was having a terrible time with one of her dogs and she was afraid she would have to put him to sleep. I told her to call the breeder (who was ANKC registered). She hadn't even thought of it. She did call the breeder, who did take the dog back and said she would rehome him to somewhere quieter where he wouldn't be so stressed out all the time. I'm still not sure we shouldn't have just had him PTS. He had been assessed by a vet behaviourist and it was suggested he was probably dangerous. Incidentally, there is no way I consider this breeder ethical even though she did take a problem dog back and even replace him with a purebred dog at a discounted price (original dog was from an 'oops' cross breed litter). The dog my family got as a replacement is riddled with health problems practically unheard of in the breed in question, is undersized, has an incorrect coat and colour, and behaves highly unusually for the breed. He is loved all the same, but the promised papers were never seen and there were a lot of suspicious circumstances. The second dog my parents got from an ANKC registered breeder is healthy at least, but has major behavioural problems. All my parents want is physically healthy and mentally stable dogs. They have had more success with this from the pet store than ANKC registered breeders. One can't blame them for not having a great deal of faith in the idea of registered breeders.

My Erik is a little bit like your kelpie, Blackdogs. Crazy smart creature. He makes me a lazy trainer because he tries so hard to figure out what I want him to do and he just gets it. I was trying to get him to bring his bone inside one day and I'm pointing and repeating words and he's touching things with his paw going "This?...No... This? Pick it up?...Okay, was that it? No.... Pick it up again? Er.... Coming towards you....? Yes? No... Oh, pick it up again. Yes... Bring it inside. Yay!" He didn't actually want the old bone, but he went through this convoluted process of figuring out what I was on about so he could do it anyway. Darling. Recently he was being a pest at the playing fields and I told him to go dig a hole. First time I'd ever said it to him, so you can imagine my shock when he promptly turned around, jumped into the sandpit, spent about 5 seconds digging in the sand, then came trotting out looking at me like "Did that. Treat?" The third time I sent him to dig my partner looked up and said "Is this something you've been working on?" I just shook my head and said "Spooky, huh?" He also taught himself a send out instantly. I picked up the clicker one day and he ran out to where I'd left the leashes, jumped on them, then ran back. I clicked the second time he did it, did a handful of reps, then we took it on the road and I was sending him out to fences and steps and all sorts of things. I swear he browses the internet when we're all asleep or something. Where does he get these ideas? I started teaching him to do a figure-8 around Kivi's legs one day and I basically just told him what to do. "Under, back there, under GOOD BOY!" He is a natural at cue adduction and is known to spontaneously put two behaviours he already knows together into some creative new behaviour. Once he carefully backed onto a curb so he could jump off it onto a wooden fence. I was like, "What was that??" Just Erik flair. The other day we lost Kivi in the weeds and long grass a good 20m behind us. I said to Erik "Erik, where's Kivi?" E looks behind him, looks at me, then runs back up the hill, disappears in the grass, and a few moments later Kivi comes out and starts trotting down the hill towards us. Erik comes out a few moments later, passes him, then turns around and goes back to get him when he stops again. I've never taught him what "Where's ...." means, but he somehow picked it up and generalised it to anyone whose name he knows. Training clever dogs is addictive. I'm wildly in love with Erik and training him is so much fun and regularly leaves me stunned at what he can do both physically and mentally. My other dog is just not in the same ballpark. I love him all the same, but I suddenly understand why people like drivey, biddable working breeds. Sometimes it's like having a furry kid around. I don't like to think on how much English he understands. I would probably find it disturbing. He understands even more human behaviour. We've had him loudly protest in the bedroom before when we started canoodling after he had decided we'd all had enough morning cuddles and it was time to get up. He was being very polite about telling us we should get up until then.

It is possible they don't know what they are talking about. They certainly haven't read the relevant literature that I have read. Like I said, in gundogs it's likely this is more heritable than in other breeds. I know of no traits that have been shown to be 100% heritable. I know that the service dog organisation I work with does not just trust blindly to their dogs 'nerve'. They breed most of their dogs themselves, and still they include dealing with loud noises in their training. Counter-conditioning a panicky dog may be possible with added support of a Thundershirt or in more extreme cases, medication.

When I was at uni the first time I was living below the poverty line for most of it and all my friends and family were in another state. Sometimes even not-real life can be seriously trying. I sucked it up and got on with it, but kind of like a yabbie who's got so stressed they've dropped a few legs sucks it up and gets on with it. Listing to the side a bit. Benefiting from puppies to cuddle is not the same as being dependent on puppies to cuddle in order to cope with normal life. Universities like it when their students perform well, just as workplaces like it when their workers are productive. That's why animal therapy is allowed in these places. Not because it's necessary. Incidentally, Freud was the first one to use dogs in therapy. He had a dog he brought to work because he found his patients were more open and relaxed when his dog was in the room. There's a growing body of literature on it, now. Dog assisted therapy is being applied all over the place with positive results. Both long-term and short-term.

My partner wanted a bulldog at one point. I said, go for it, but you're doing the research to make sure you get a good shot at a healthy dog. We don't have a bulldog. That should give you some indication of how motivated the average person is to research their future dogs. Sometimes it just seems like a very big job, especially for popular breeds where there are many, many breeders. My partner still goes gooey over bulldogs every time he sees one, and says to me "Why can't we have a bulldog?" "We can. You just have to be the one to research it." "Yeah... It was too hard." He adores dogs, but for him, it really is too hard. It is too confusing and time consuming and tedious. He started, but soon realised he didn't have the stamina to see it through. I'm a freaking dog scientist and don't have the stamina to see it through. I'm just not that passionate about lines and so on. I don't like calling people. I don't really like trying to talk to people at shows unless I've organised it beforehand.

I actually think it's better when it's busy. Dogs have trouble focusing on one dog in a crowd. Like others, I have never directly seen a dog get hurt by another dog in an off leash area. Some people will tell me if they have had a bad experience, just so I know to keep my eye out for a particular dog. Generally we never see the dog that caused trouble. It comes once or twice, behaves alarmingly, and it and the owners are never seen again. I don't know how we could live without off leash areas, so I am definitely in favour. The bigger the better. You don't have to use it, but others will be delighted and their dogs will too. I think it's worth supporting it just for them, even if you don't want to take your dog there.

Yes, that is generally what is meant by 'learning'. And the point I was making is that blaming phobias on breeding may mask HANDLING practices that could have been done better. Because the behaviour expressed is a product of genetics and environment. Maybe my older dog had the potential for thunder phobia all along, but when he was younger the conditions weren't there for it to be expressed, but now they are. What if they had never been present? I would never know what potential that dog had for a sound phobia. What's more, I don't know at this point whether his current behaviour is in response to the thunder itself or whether he has associated the thunder with his pal being stressed out and is therefore actually concerned about that instead. Those are two completely different traits. On top of that, we don't actually know the heritability of sound sensitivity, but I would not be surprised if it is greater in gundogs than in other breeds, for example. There's nothing to be gained from oversimplifying this, which is exactly what you are doing.

So, you don't breed from any dogs younger than 10? Ten years?? There is some indication that sound sensitivity may be inherited, but it's not as simple as that. A lot of what we might consider genetic traits are more like genetic potentials. What is actually expressed at the end of the day is likely to depend not just on the dog's genetics, but the environment they grew up in, the current environment, stressors they may have been under at times in their development, and of course learning. Maybe even nutrition and what state the dam was in when she was pregnant. My older dog is 4 1/2. He showed his first indication of thunderstorm fear just about a month ago. There's no way that is purely genetic. I am 90% confident he learnt it. And I imagine he learnt it partly because of his temperament and partly because of the relationship he has with other members of our family. I think we have to be very careful here. I imagine that there are fewer selection pressures on dogs these days for things like trait anxiety than there once was. This is good in a way because we are better equipped to help dogs that are a bit different, but bad in that because we can manage them and are more compassionate towards them we don't select so strongly against them. Writing dogs with problems however minor off as having 'weak nerve' is grossly over simplistic and it isn't fair to the dogs. Maybe they are more prone to things like sound sensitivity than other dogs, but we are also capable of managing them so that this is less of a big deal than it might have been many years ago. In some cases we can even 'cure' them. It is not helpful to the dog to label it as having weak nerve and saying "See, this is why it behaves this way." A) that is not necessarily why they behave that way and B) So what? You owe it to the dog in front of you to do what you can to help them. Putting it all down to genes is a good way to absolve yourself of the responsibility of trying to help them and avoiding the opportunity to examine and possibly improve the way you manage and train dogs.

Medication should not be considered a "last resort". It's not a failure of yours if your dog is helped by medication more than behavioural modification or training. For dogs who react in a big way to storms, risking injury to themselves and destruction to property, or if they are hysterical and can't settle down at all, medication may be the best thing you can do for them. I urge people to break away from this idea that medication is a last resort and consider instead how bad your dog is feeling when there is a thunderstorm. Is it acceptable for your dog to feel that way? Would you change it if they didn't have to feel that way? Medication may well mean that they don't have to go through that every time there is a storm. It's worth investigating in some cases IMO. Not picking no you, bianca.a. I'm glad you got your dog on medication and I can guess what a huge decision that was for you. There IS a stigma attached to it and I think that is wrong. Those of us who love our dogs are unlikely to be using medication to simply manage something we find irritating. We are doing it because we love our dogs.

If the dog will take treats, a counter-conditioning program may be helpful. I use a kind of bar open/bar closed approach. The moment the thunder roll starts I start shovelling food into the little E's mouth. When it stops, food stops. I use that because lots of food gets Erik excited. It helps for him to associate it strongly with something or he just gets over-aroused. Moreso. We have now graduated to down-stays. It is a bit of an art form adjusting the reward rate. Erik runs around barking as well. I don't let him. The more he runs around the more aroused he gets and the more reactive he gets. Down-stays are the opposite. If he's doing well, I can start rewarding for a quiet down while the thunder is rolling. He gets the treat if he was quiet and still until it ends. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Yesterday we had rolling thunder for over an hour. After about the first 20 minutes Erik literally wandered off and took care of himself. It was incredible. Erik is sensitive to any deep or sharp, loud sounds. We are making a lot of progress with counter-conditioning. It's very effective with most sounds, but takes persistence. Storms and fireworks are harder because they tend to provoke extreme reactions and the dogs get overloaded. Recordings of thunder may help, played at low volume at first and then increasing it, but it might not. I've heard that for the best shot one should try to get the sound from the CD coming from outside with speakers to best imitate a storm. E gets very aroused by storms, but he is always up for treats. My other dog has recently apparently learnt to be afraid of storms. His fear is different and he won't take treats. Just wants to sit close and shake. I let him press against me. It seems to help him. My previous dog was storm phobic all her life and I never did manage to combat it. She would shake, pant, and not eat. It seemed the best we could do was just let her find somewhere she felt safest and make sure she had access to it.

Dominance hierarchies in dogs have not exactly been debunked. It's complicated. There was definitely a backlash against it because it was being used to explain behaviours that were not actually related to dominance, which does not help dogs. Now it's kind of going back the other way a little bit. There are circumstances where dominance is in play, but it doesn't describe all interactions. Most of them can be explained by learning theory and resource holding potential. In my house, my smaller dog will regularly take Kongs and the likes from my bigger dog, because he gets away with it. Possession is 9/10ths of the law when it predicts success and/or failure to obtain a resource. My smaller dog is an excellent judge of this and seems to know when he can be safely obnoxious and steal and when he should be more cautious. This offers a clue as to what these interactions are all about. They are about living in harmony while maximising access to good things. This means there is not a law set in stone for all dogs. Dogs in groups will figure out how they stand with other dogs in different contexts, and that is why hierarchies often appear fluid. The exception is those dogs who very badly want priority access to everything. I know one in particular who certainly does not believe possession is 9/10ths of the law. He's very well socialised and gets on well with other dogs, but they must understand that he gets whatever he wants whenever he wants it. He seems to go out of his way to teach them this. Dogs that have lived with him have learnt that he's very serious about his right to anything that takes his fancy and usually come to believe it's better to just let him have it. So he learnt to be a little turd and claim possession to anything at all because it worked, and they learnt to let him because it worked for them. They would rather avoid the inevitable confrontation of trying to keep possession of their stuff. These days he is not allowed access to dogs that have good things. You can see that in this dog's case, possession does not predict his ability to access a resource. He takes whatever he wants from whoever he likes (as long as they are dogs). Thus, he doesn't respect any kind of possession is 9/10ths of the law rule. Evolutionarily speaking, behaviours become stable in populations when they are beneficial. Dominance is widespread in the animal world because it is often a way for animals to contest resources relatively safely. But if there's a way to cheat the system, there will be an individual out there who does. The dog I just described who has done just that is not terribly social with the other dogs. They don't like to play with him because he has poisoned so many of their interactions that they are a little bit scared of him. That's unsurprising, and I guess the price he pays. But this does not seem to bother him. I expect if he was the kind of dog that valued social bonding with other dogs he would not be the kind of dog that demands priority access to everything.

Kivi and Erik are kind of embarrassingly full on when they play. Occasionally someone is like "Are you SURE they're playing? Really? Are you sure??" and I show them how if we split them up they both try to get back to each other for another rumble. Most of the time, though, people just stop and watch them with a smile. It's quite a spectacle. Kivi will grab Erik's tail and use it to yank him off his feet, Erik cannons into Kivi's side, bowls him over, and pretends to disembowel him. Sometimes Erik gets really intense and makes some pretty scary noises. I say "Gently!" and probably about 70% of the time he'll reign himself in a touch. I will break it up if he doesn't. I wouldn't want them to stop making all noises, though. It's not fair. They are having fun and watching them play always puts a smile on my face. Maybe people are more accepting because I have cute, cuddly looking dogs, but if people were less accepting, to hell with them. Never had much of a problem with other dogs getting riled about the crazy play. They stay out of the way or they dance around trying to keep up.