corvus

NILIF is a great place to start. Also look up Karen Overall's Protocol for Relaxation, which is a structured way to teach dogs to be calm no matter what happens around them. It is particularly geared towards dogs with separation-related distress.

I think you just have to let them take it at their own pace. We encourage Erik and Kivi in, but neither are big swimmers. Erik will do it, but he's not very confident and so we find quiet parts of the river without waves for him to practise in. ;) Lately he's learnt to swim out to go around behind us and then swim back through our legs and back to shore. Framing it like a trick has helped him, I think. And he likes to know he can go straight back to shore again. Kivi thinks he breathes through his belly button and I doubt we'll ever see him swimming. That's okay. He happily gets his feet wet, now. It took most of his first summer to convince him to do that. My previous dog took about 6 months of coaxing to find the courage to get her feet wet. Once she was in, that was it and she discovered she loved swimming. It was very cute. She'd go in and swim around in circles just for the joy of it.

Sorry, I know a female Kenya. Good to hear. Handsome boy.

How is she doing, now?

We have one that is currently not in use if you would like a second-hand one. We got it for the corgi as she was too frail to pull herself out of the pool on her own. Mind you, we were never able to teach her to go to the end of the ramp instead of where it touched the side. Corgi is no longer with us and Erik can climb out on his own no worries and Kivi fell in once as a pup and has never got close to falling in ever again. OH can't remember where he bought it, but it was online and somewhere in Sydney, I think.

'Feed the position'. I would rapid fire treats to her while she's in the right position for maybe 3-5 seconds, then release her with a release word and stop the treats. The rapid fire treats in the right position will get it in her head that it's a good position to be in, and releasing when you stop the treats will act as a "bar closed" cue and tell her she can move, now. It shouldn't take long before you can reduce the reward rate, or perhaps still do the rapid fire rewards for a few seconds, but wait another second before you release her. Slow the rewards down, but only if her position is steady and she doesn't look like she's about to pop up again. I don't really teach a 'stay' anymore. I use release words and teach them that they stay in the position they've been asked to take until I release them or give them another cue. Look up "It yer choice" or "dog's choice" or "doggy zen" for help with that approach if you want to use it instead.

Absolutely. I 'came' with a rabbit, a hare, and a dog, and they were non-negotiable. It was understood they wouldn't be the last pets I would ever have. OH and I share the responsibility for the dogs because that's the way OH approaches sharing a life with someone. If he was happy to let me do my own thing with them, it wouldn't be so important that I discuss animal-related things with him to such an extent. I would definitely not be with someone who was not cool with pets. I'd never be happy. I love the fact that they are every bit as important to OH as they are to me. I love that I can trust him to make good decisions for them. It's nice having someone who cares about them as much as I do and knows them as well as I do to help me make decisions about them.

I would never get an animal without discussing it at length with OH. He will have to at least feed them once in a while when I'm not around. He is part of the family, so he gets a say, obviously. I didn't have to convince him when we had Penny that we should get a puppy as well. It was understood and we had been looking at breeds together. When Penny died, it didn't take long for us to get another dog. Kivi obviously needed a friend, and I had a big hole in my heart I wanted to be distracted from, and I was working from home so in a good position to raise a puppy. We lost both our lagomorphs this year, so we are down to just the dogs. I didn't want to get another rabbit, and we are in agreement about that. OH would be happy with just the dogs, but I want something else. He doesn't understand, but if I say I want something else he can accept that. I said I wanted some native doves, and he was not keen on that. So I suggested a miniature goat and suddenly the doves were a shoe-in. ;) We have kind of said we only want two dogs. I have entertained the idea of getting a third a few years down the track, but I keep changing my mind about it. I think I'm happy with the two boys for the moment at least. I wouldn't get a third dog without making sure OH was well and truly on board. It wouldn't be fair. He does half the feeding and helps walk them and gives them cuddles and pays a lot of the vet bills. He is also utterly devoted to the dogs we have and takes their welfare very seriously. Getting another dog would absolutely impact on them and he would be pretty pissed off if I did something that was going to impact on them without talking it over with him.

You can always do the 'bully test' where you call the one on top away and hold them while the other dog gets up and see if the other dog approaches for more play. If they do, then there's no need to intervene and they can go back to playing. It's good to be able to break up a game with your voice anyway and what you're doing is a good idea.

Well, I DID tell her how I did it. :rolleyes: Just saying it's good fun working it out yourself and good experience. Maybe Becs is interested to know that. If she's not, she could ignore me. Maybe someone else is interested that is not Becs. I wish someone had told me that when I was wanting to know how to train tricks.

I actually think that working these things out for yourself is a valuable exercise. I've started behaviours based on how other people have done them and later realised that there is a more efficient way of doing it. I'm at the point now where I am starting to plan behaviours myself based on what my dogs already know how to do and what they are strong with. Nutting it out makes me think about my dogs' skills and gets me breaking the behaviour into small parts and figuring out the prerequisite skills my dogs will need to learn the new behaviour.

The first time I did it I made a U-shaped channel using boxes and furniture to guide him. Then just as I had it on cue something odd happened and he refused to do it. He avoided the whole thing and acted as though he had never been taught it. About a year later I taught him again using a back up command and a nose target to steer him. I've just started teaching him to weave backwards the same way. It was much easier, but the steering thing takes practise, both from me and him. It's easy for both of us to get confused or off track. Takes a bit of shaping to tighten it all up, so probably not the most efficient method. ETA I got the stall in the corner the first time as well. I used food in my hand and pushed it towards him until he had to move back in order to get to it.

IME, the more you jackpot recalls the stronger they get. Kivi has always been one for kind of randomly not coming when called. He has spitz moments. The times he doesn't come are slowly but steadily decreasing. He is 3 1/2 and has been practising recalls for most of his life. He only gets more reliable, so keep plugging away.

This never worked with my old corgi. She could predict that her behaviour resulted in being cut off one way or another, but it never ever actually changed the frequency of the behaviour. Erik resource guards training cues. :p He tries to drive Kivi off when I'm doing something with Kivi that he wants to do. It is not much of a problem given he has a rock solid 'down'. If he gets silly, I cue a down. It calms him and gives him something to do that has a strong reward history. He still needs to be watched and sometimes physically stopped if he's extremely aroused, but that down takes care of a lot of problems. Every dog I have from here on will have a rock solid down.

My dogs are only allowed in their yard under supervision because the neighbours are intolerant of dog noise. I've never had to train them to be good inside. We have baby gates on the kitchen doors and when they were pups they stayed in the kitchen while we were out because there was nothing in there they could wreck that would cost a lot to replace. With time they earnt access to the lounge room as well. I would trust them 90% with the run of the house now, but E tends to shut himself in rooms that have doors that he can open from one side but not the other, and he has his moments when he's bored and finds something to do. Generally it's just something small he has found to chew up. The most expensive thing he's chewed up is a playstation controller.

I got the impression Deejay wasn't talking about a dangerous dog that has injured others. Every dog has 'had a go' at another dog for whatever reason. Most of the time it's not a problem. Both dogs will get over it. It becomes a problem if it's a default behaviour, if injury is occurring, the frequency of the incidents is increasing, the intensity of the aggressive behaviour is increasing, or if the triggers are broadening or are difficult to predict. I have had other dogs 'have a go' at mine every now and then at dog parks and it doesn't upset me. For a lot of dogs, that's how they talk. Erik has 'had a go' at a few dogs as well, always because they have been knocking him around and then ignored his signals asking them to stop. He has never hurt another dog and his aggressive behaviour is entirely appropriate and properly inhibited. He's yelling at them, basically. Before jumping to conclusions and condemning Deejay's mother for apparently letting an aggressive dog attack other dogs, maybe we should establish just what this aggressive behaviour involves, how often it occurs, and what kinds of things trigger it. ETA Even though Erik's aggressive behaviour is uncommon and appropriate, I don't let him practise it if I can avoid it. I'm pretty fast at rescuing him before it gets to the point of aggressive behaviour, and I heavily reward non-aggressive options. Erik has a great way to 'scream' "Please leave me alone" without resorting to aggression. It usually works, but if it doesn't, I will move mountains to get him a break before he snaps.

It really depends on how anxious they are, I think, and quite possibly has something to do with what's going on with their chemical balances as well. Who knows? Ours puts Erik into a coma instantly just like Hugo. It's gold for times when Erik has got himself worked up barking at things and is having trouble settling. Put it on and he goes to sleep. It doesn't work if he's REALLY worked up and upset, or if the stimulus he is reacting to is ongoing and keeps getting him aroused again. He barks during storms, and the Thundershirt does help take the edge off and he can be more relaxed, but because he's getting excited every time there's a clap of thunder, it kind of undoes most of the good work. If it was more of a case of him getting worked up anticipating a storm and the actual storm was made a whole lot worse by the anticipation, I think it would work much better, because it would bring him down in that anticipatory phase when the thunder is still distant. But he doesn't even react when the storm is distant. He barks when it's loud. Different problem to most thunderphobes, I think. I'm really impressed with the Thundershirt. It's not a miracle cure for all anxiety related problems, but for some things, it's just what Erik needs. Massage does much the same thing, but obviously takes a bigger commitment, and it takes longer to work. If the thundershirt didn't work for a specific problem, I wouldn't throw it away or ditch it completely. It can be used for over-arousal in general, and you never know when you're going to have something happening around you that your dog turns out to be upset by. I've considered getting one for Kivi just to have on hand, even though he's about the most chilled dog I've ever met. You just never know when it might come in handy.

Isnt' that funny!? CK, Wizza and Andy (his sister who went back to Tag's breeder) are all exactly the same. Wikki (same Dad) is very similar as well. Some people say it is a lack of drive, I think the drive is there, I've come to the conclusion that its just a matter of 'letting' them display it in their own time and manner. It's taken a long time, but CK is almost at the point where he is going ot overtake Xena in agility ability. Ha, you would love my PhD project. I basically leave dogs with a machine that trains them for me and just watch how they learn. It's really interesting. Every dog seems to have a different way of going about it, but they all get there in about the same amount of time. I reckon the fastest are actually the ones that are the most pessimistic. They are less willing to try things and as a result, they make fewer mistakes. Some dogs patiently wait between cues and others spend most of their inter-trial intervals throwing behaviours at the machine to try to make it give them a cue. Some of them seem a wee bit anxious when they get it wrong and have to go and sniff the ground or get some distance and look away from the machine for a bit. It's fascinating. Incidentally, a PhD student recently did a project on laterality and hair whorls in dogs with some really interesting results. Here's a quick report of laterality as a predictor of guide dog success: http://www.guidedogs.com.au/Content/upload/files/amc2010/presenters_papers/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Lisa%20Tomkins%20-Association%20between%20lateralization%20measures%20and%20guide%20dog%20success.pdf

I don't think there's any sense continuing this discussion. It's clear that certain people have invested a lot of energy into convincing themselves that killing snakes is justified and any suggestion to the contrary feels like a personal attack to them. Meanwhile, apparently an appropriate way to disagree with people is to try to kick them in the stomach. I will make it clear right now that I am still mourning my dead hare (who lived to the ripe old age of 7 years and had been slowly and gently declining through the winter) and find some of the comments that have been made about him to be hurtful and mean spirited in the extreme. I am happy to go into excruciating detail about how I knew he was not leading a stressed and tortuous existence when I can think about him without the desolation of missing him. It's interesting stuff and includes a lot of behavioural indicators from the literature. If anyone actually cared, they could gently remind me in a month or so, but something tells me this was more about attacking me than a concern about animal welfare. I'm not going to visit this thread again because I am still raw about Kit and it just hurts too much to hear this crap. I have never been so hurt on a forum before, and I have been around on the net for a while being controversial. So congratulations, you've driven me out. Does that make you right about snakes, now? I hope it was worth it.

Still no solid justification for catching and killing snakes. Incidentally, RJ needs to check her facts.

What does "actively trying to get in" mean? If the snake was on its way somewhere and hit an obstacle, it's likely to go back and forth looking for a way through. They are kind of used to being able to find a way. If one snake went through and it's breeding season, it wouldn't be surprising to see other snakes of the same species come the same way. They are looking for mates after all. Given your yard is clear, maybe the snakes were trying to find cover. Sometimes I wonder if you could funnel snakes through a little mini corridor. Our Blue-tongues can get from one end of our block to the other with very little exposure and we don't see them in the open much at all. Blue-tongues are slow, though, and maybe more careful about open areas than snakes.

acutally I think this has the potenial to be very cruel, done right it can work, but done wrong - yikes! It's a red herring anyway, and I for one am not wasting my time addressing it. It has only been brought up because someone just doesn't want to accept that what they are doing is inhumane, illegal, and unnecessary. I for one am not going to keep quiet and leave people who want to believe that killing snakes is the answer to find ways to do it in peace. Because it's not the answer and it is not justifiable. If that upsets you, then come up with a decent argument as to why it is justified. Accusing other people of cruelty or being a do-gooder is NOT justification for your actions!

Oh dear. Is that all you've got left now that illogic and sheer bloody mindedness didn't make an impression? My hare has been dead a month and I'm still grieving. Do you think you could stoop any lower? Go on, I challenge you. Seriously, where does it end? Is it so important that everyone choose to kill snakes illegally like you do? Why are you even arguing? Because you don't like being called cruel? So you fling it at others who are just trying to make it clear that you don't have to be cruel if you don't want to? You could just accept it, you know. It doesn't hurt. No one will think less of you.

You should see Erik trying to go around a pole clockwise. Anti-clockwise, no problem at all. Clockwise, though, and he repeatedly goes wide, turns towards me in an anti-clockwise direction, then rotates all the way around until he's at about one o'clock and then goes around the pole. Last week I was shaping both directions from scratch with no prior training and he really struggled with that clockwise turn. Even when I clicked it as he headed in the right direction and tried to deliver the treat to where he was heading, he was prone to turning in and ducking around the front of the pole to get the treat from that side. Crazy. Kivi's laterality bias is on the other side, but I don't think it's as strong as Erik's.

:rolleyes: What part of 'effective' do you not understand? It is a pretty simple concept. A snake that can't physically reach your dog can't bite your dog, either. Obviously we are all wasting our time because some people have decided there is ample justification to kill snakes and won't be convinced otherwise even though it is really very, very obvious to the rest of us. KILLING THEM IS NOT NECESSARY. They are not hunting your dogs down. They are not hellbent on getting past any barrier errected between them and your dogs. It is not very hard to keep them out of a small area if you keep your barrier well maintained. Killing them will not make your dogs safer than a good barrier will. Go aquaint yourself with population carrying capacity. Ignorance is not justification for killing animals. Netting is a barrier So is shadecloth.