corvus

Just wondering if there would be interest in a class teaching people to read their dogs and other dogs and how to respond to the signals their dogs are giving them? Kind of like a dog park etiquette/organic socialisation/speak dog class.

There's a big fat clue there! Try increasing your reward rate when he's around others and see what happens. Given you can't reward so well when you're competing, that's another clue, there.

A PhD in animal behaviour. :p Seriously, though, it's a hard call. I don't think there is a course at the moment that covers what you need to be a behaviourist. Dog behaviour isn't really a subject in of itself. It's an extension of animal behaviour in general, made up of a lot of learning theory, ecology, species-typical behaviour, but more importantly, you have to be able to apply all that knowledge to a practical case and be able to nut out exactly what is maintaining or causing a problem and then know how to manipulate that to change behaviour. This might be a bit controversial, but I don't think there's much sense taking a special course in dog behaviour in order to be a behaviourist. I think it's just gonna come with experience if it is going to come at all. Better to find someone who is doing it and try to get them to mentor you. But don't consider them the repository of all knowledge. You really have to be prepared to drive your own education to a large extent.

If Kivi gets distracted I usually assume there's a problem either with the reward rate or the environment is bothering him in some way. My attitude is that he will find heel interesting if everything is right. If he's not finding heel interesting, there's something wrong. Bob Bailey says dogs don't get bored of doing behaviours. They get reinforcement problems. Kivi gets fractious at training classes. Too much standing around = drop in reinforcement rate = frustration, loss of focus, loss of precision, loss of motivation. Not saying you're standing around, just explaining what happens when the reward rate isn't high enough. You can check if rewards are the problem by playing around with the type of reward and reward rate to see how he responds. If his response to an increase in rewards or reward value or a change of reward is still not that great, I'd be looking at the environment. Something there probably is bothering him. It could even conceivably be something you're doing. Find out what it is and do some counter-conditioning. If his interest re-ignites with playing around with rewards, try moving back to a continuous reward schedule and reward as much as you did to begin with, then move to a variable reward schedule again, but this time do it more slowly and carefully. I posted something once about Ken Ramirez' recipe for moving to a variable reward schedule. It is tried and true. Some dogs work better with lots of variety in rewards. Throw in some tricks and play between heeling bouts to make it more fun. Use favoured behaviours to reward heel, but don't forget to reward the favoured behaviours most of the time. There's all sorts of other motivational things you can do. Other people will tell you about those. I'm just the learning theory geek.

Erik is extremely alert. He knows a dog is going to do something exciting the moment they even think about it. It's fascinating to watch. He's easily picking up cues that are so subtle I sometimes can't even see what he reacted to. It's impossible to slip Kivi something without him knowing about it, but generally he's right in the middle of everything anyway.

You do my head in. Just freaking teach it to him like a behaviour already! I don't get why you won't try that, either! For me, adding some solid operant conditioning just took the pressure off. If we have a miss, that's fine, because I can rally with something he's had rewarded in the past and he still has a lot of fun and quickly gets back into the spirit of it and I learn without creating any setbacks. I think he's a whole lot more resilient and tolerant to bumpy moments than he was before I added OC, and typically much more likely to be up for a game. That is extremely helpful in the long run. Erik doesn't really have bumpy moments. :p Also extremely helpful! But I daresay general guidance from someone who has tugged with a lot of dogs is helpful as well. Info is often good! :D Sorry, I didn't mean to take your thread off topic. Just kinda fascinated. :p Had a similar discussion about on leash greetings recently. I was like "Why have arbitrary rules for greeting that don't actually match what the dog does or doesn't want to do? Just let them tell you whether they do or don't want to greet and take it from there." I think that one made me incomprehensible to everyone else.

Oooo, aren't they handsome! http://www.albanybassets.co.uk/gallery1.php

I don't get why you wouldn't just watch and learn from your dog. They know better than anyone else what is fun for them. I love the process of discovering things they love with them.

We go to Sylvania and very happy with them there. They are happy to spend lots of time talking to us and helping us make informed decisions and they are always delighted to see us and the boys. It's a big practice with a lot of clients, but they keep good records so they always know where you're at when you come in, no matter how long it's been since the last visit and who you saw.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realise it was a new thing. Disregard most of what I said before. I thought it was an ongoing problem. I think it's fair to just monitor at the moment and see what happens. I find it quite hard to identify triggers for humping sometimes, depending on why they are humping. Without an identified trigger it's hard to treat it. I think if he does it again, put him back on leash and get some distance like I said before and see how he behaves once his head is back together. It might make it easier to work out what he's on about. Humping can be a part of natural play, and it can be displacement for social anxiety or over-arousal, and it can be an information-seeking exercise, and it can be bullying behaviour, and genuine sexual behaviour.

That's the bare bones of it. If your dog looks back as soon as you give the treat, that's okay. Just click and treat again. You won't encourage her to be reactive as long as she is not over-threshold when you click and treat her. If she's staring fixedly, barking, up on her toes or doing any of the obvious things she does when she's reacting, then get some distance and calm her a little first.

It's not that hard to protect your dog from humpers. For a while there, Erik was a veritable hump magnet, typically for large breeds. They never exactly 'flung' themselves at him to the point where I was concerned for his safety. Like any well socialised dog, he warns before he snaps, so there's time for me to just pull the dog off if it doesn't let go on its own. I never had to kick a dog or shout at its owner. I have held a dog's collar and waited pointedly for the owner to materialise and take it away. That works. Before E we had a small, elderly corgi with a bad back. She just never even got humped in the first place. She was a bit frail and grumpy, so we kept her close to us and just headed any dog off before they could get to her, so no dog ever got a chance to hump her. If it came to it, I would push a dog away with my hands. It was the most that was ever needed and I was always apologetic to the dog's owner. "Sorry, she's old and grumpy and sore." It's not very hard to be polite about it, and in return people were very understanding and they would take our apology as a message to keep their dog away from her. I think you are rude to other dog owners at your own peril. They are your first line of defence if your dogs ever get out or get stolen. They are the concerned public that will keep their eyes peeled for you, and pull over to get your dogs to safety if they see them on the road by themselves. They are the ones that will rush to help you if your dogs get into danger, and warn you when there is danger you are unaware of. They are the friendly nod when you're out walking your dogs in hideous weather, and the understanding sympathy when you have a dog ailing, injured, or recently given their wings. Personally, I don't care what you want to do. You be rude if that's what you think you have to do, or if you don't care to be anything else. I will smile and make friends and consider it money in the bank.

I wish people would stop referring to anyone who doesn't know as much about dog behaviour as they do as an idiot. Ignorance and idiocy are totally different things.

When I first started using it (the moment it came out - we had a terrible infestation by fleas resistant to every other flea treatment available) I found the fleas would start turning up in low numbers about a week before they were due for another one. I dosed them on time every month and in 3 months our horrifying infestation of super-fleas was decimated and all our flea problems over. We now take them off Comfortis over the cold season and they are not even on it right now, although I'm planning to start them again given I saw a flea on Kivi the other day. Anyway, IME it is extremely effective. Our flea problem was truly very bad. Even flea bombs only knocked them down for a week.

Oh dear... I beg to differ. I meet a lot of walkers who don't even know what rude dog behaviour looks like. If you know what it looks like, you're in the minority right there! To the OP, I would consider the humping as a sign your dog is over-aroused. IME that is usually the problem. For all we know he can't really help it, because it's a behaviour that is coming out in response to his emotional state and his arousal level. It's a symptom rather than a problem in itself. You can punish it and that might work to squash the symptom, but my guess is it won't solve the underlying problem and other little niggling behavioural troubles will just keep popping up. If I were you, I would take humping to mean appropriate behaviour is largely out of his reach until he is a bit calmer. The first place to start is to get him some distance between him and the other dogs. That will lower the intensity of the situation and give him some space to breath so he can start thinking again. If he's trying to get at the other dogs, he's still too close. Move him far enough away that he's not obsessing over them. THEN you can start working on his behaviour. The problem for you is figuring out if he's over-excited around dogs because he wants to interact with them, or over-excited because he actually finds it all a bit anxiety-inducing. Honestly, you may not be able to tell until you get that distance. Once he's got room to think, then you'll see if he really wants to go to them or not. Take a step closer and see what he does. Does he surge towards them or hang back or stay with you?

Interesting article: http://www.livescience.com/16814-animals-wrong-clues-point.html

Must be the day for it. There was a loose dog at the dog park this afternoon and me and another dog park regular couldn't find the owner and neither of us had phones on us. I caught the dog and put him on one of my leashes and the other dog park regular ran off to find someone with a phone. Meanwhile, apparently putting the dog on one of my leashes made him ours in Kivi and Erik's eyes, and they got all excited and gave him a loving pack initiation and invited him to play with them seeing as he was going to live with us, now. He was a bit skittish and excitable, so I had to tell them to settle down and leave him out of it. We found someone with a phone and called the number on the dog's tag (after he slipped his collar and I had to catch him again so we could put it back on) and his owner came right down to the park to pick him up. Much excitement, happy ending. Another dog park visitor said it was the third loose dog he'd seen in the park in a week. He hadn't been able to catch the other two so had reported them and hoped they'd get picked up so they'd be safe.

Yay, Sheena! Don't forget Leslie McDevitt has a YouTube channel where you can see some of the games being played. I think you can also buy short videos of the games from CU separately and view them online/download them. Check Clean Run or Dogwise. They are very cheap.

Glad you have found something that works. Some dogs can just be a real challenge, and I imagine it can be very stressful battling to make headway with them. I know dogs that have been on no-pull harnesses or head collars all their life. I don't think there's anything wrong with long-term/indefinite management of LLW if that suits the owner. Plenty of people just buy the one tool to manage them and it does the job for the dog's whole life. That's cheaper than a trainer.

If Elbie gets excited right away, you may need to teach him the game using other stimuli and generalise it, then introduce it from a distance from other dogs. It depends on how aroused he gets. If he's still able to respond to a clicker by looking at you, that's workable as long as he's not barking or bouncing on his toes. I'll pay even a borderline fixated look as long as Erik isn't barking, but barking is the first thing Erik usually does when he gets excited. Other things you could try to lessen the intensity of the trigger is, obviously, distance. If you can set it up so you can be confident he won't end up too close, that works. Perhaps he would also be able to tolerate being closer with a barrier to lessen the intensity, like being in a car for example, or having a fence between you and the other dog.

He's a darling. He is happy to share himself around. ;) A family friend had a Pembroke that I was in love with. She was soooo easy going and she let me do anything to her. I was 13 and wanted a dog that would hang out with me wherever I went. I definitely got that from my corgi. She was my best pal all through adolescence and into my early 20s. I recently visited the friend who first introduced me to corgis and her current old girl had me all nostalgic for corgis again. My girl was a one-person dog, though, and I found that difficult at times. It's a lot of pressure to be the world to a dog. I always worried how she would cope when I was away. When I got back she would be very clingy and possessive. It's all right if you like a dog that's very devoted to you above everyone else, but I'm happier with my silly spitz boys with a stronger independent streak. Less pressure, don't need to mind my moods so much, and they don't give me traumatised looks if I get frustrated with them once in a while. They suit me better, but I'm a bit weird. Most people seem to like dogs that are very attuned to them and devoted.

I grew up with a Pembroke Corgi. She was my first dog. I made stacks of quite terrible mistakes with her and she was still an angel. Great with kids until a toddler poked her sharply in the eye by accident one day. She air-snapped, but didn't make contact. After that she was a touch defensive if any small child waved their hands around near her eyes, but was fine if we kept an eye on things and warned the kiddies not to touch her face. She would put her face in their hands anyway, so mostly she didn't care. It was just a precaution. She loved a good hike and could go for hours, but happy to sleep by your feet as well. Very adaptable. She didn't need a lot of exercise, but would take it happily if it was on offer. She was very tough, played chase and a little wrestle with the other dogs, very easy to train, very biddable, really no trouble until she got old and went mostly blind and deaf. When she was old we got Kivi, who is a Finnish Lapphund. He is even less trouble than my corgi was. He's basically the perfect companion dog. Easy going, tolerant, gentle, playful, very social, great with other dogs, friendly to absolutely anyone, happy to go on long walks or play, but also happy to veg for most of the day. I have never met a more social and sweet-natured dog. Probably too much fur, though. I brush it every few days, although most lappies have less coat than he does. I don't find it hard, but I wouldn't want more than one like that to look after. People often look at him and say his coat is so beautiful and I must spend so much time on it. I do and I don't. When he's shedding, it's time consuming getting all the undercoat out because it stays in there until I comb it out. When he's not shedding, I brush him quickly every few days or so.

It might be a case of mis-matching cues. As a rather extreme example, one evening I was staying with my parents and 2 of their dogs got out and were missing for many hours. They came back on their own at about 10pm, wearing the stench of a thousand rotting carcasses washed up on the side of the lake. They came in and were greeted by Kivi (who approved of the new scent) and the other dog, then flopped down on their bed, exhausted. At that point, Erik completely lost it. They looked like the dogs he knew, but they sure did not smell like the dogs he knew, and the dogs he knew did not waltz into the place at 10pm at night and make themselves at home. The combination of familiar and unfamiliar cues really spooked him and he would not even go near them, just stood back barking at them. It took putting the thundershirt on him, whereby his arousal dropped and the unfamiliar cues became less of a big deal and he accepted it was in fact the dogs he knew and not alien bodysnatchers (I'm looking at OH for showing him The Thing ;) ). Seriously, though, it can particularly be a herder thing to be sensitive to things out of place. As Temple Grandin has said, animals are experts in differences. They notice when not all the cues align just so, and it's a much bigger deal for them than it is for us. And within dogs, it's a much bigger deal for some dogs than others. On top of that, different cues can be stronger depending on how the dog is feeling or what kind of cues they are used to using and how many types of cues they are used to using. I suspect a lot of dogs don't pay much attention to scents because they live with people who put much more emphasis on visual and auditory cues, so they focus there as well. Mind you, I've had dogs never taught to use their nose figuring out where the milk comes from on my apparatus. A few have crawled underneath it looking for a payload they can presumably smell. I expect all dogs know how to use their nose, but sometimes they need to have other more common cues like pointing taken away or become meaningless for them to consider that smell might be the answer.

I really want to do my post-doc on how dogs identify and categorise the things they come across. It utterly fascinates me. I think while dogs have a fantastic sense of smell, they don't always pay much attention to it. It depends on what is the most salient cue at the time. I think that with other dogs this is usually body language, because it is the most immediate and useful cue for them to get through the next few moments safely. How old is your GD? Some really funny things go on at various times in a dog's life that haven't really been documented.

It might not have been aggression so much as frustration and over-arousal. Not that it really matters. I agree that it would have been better to be actively working on teaching the pup what she should be doing rather than ignoring it and letting her self-reward. Whether it's likely to become ingrained or escalate is hard to say without knowing why the pup is acting that way. Suffice to say that practising highly aroused behaviour around particular stimulus is pretty much a recipe for ongoing troubles around with that stimulus. It just depends on whether the pup is doing it to just one dog for some reason, or doing it to other dogs as well. If she's doing it to one, she may well start to do it to others, which would be a red flag. I think all pups ought to be doing exercises where they connect with their owners. Perhaps it's especially important for one that is a bit of a handful, but ultimately training is going to largely depend on that foundation work you have done. There is little point doing things like LAT if you don't have things like a whiplash turn, default behaviours, and a good history with a marker already sorted.