corvus

Incidentally, the picture of the three dogs in my avatar has her staring into the distance. No doubt, she is wondering why we are still sitting here taking photos. She is not super keen on sitting still when there is so much world to be explored, on leash or off. She does it because I pay her pretty well, but she would rather be moving.

I can appreciate the dog that just gets involved in their environment and forgets about the leash. I'm pretty sure to get Kestrel not to do that, I would have to be quite vigilant. It's in her nature to zigzag and explore and follow her nose. But, I do practise calling her in for a treat or a quick trick and release every now and then. My goal is not to be more interesting to her than the environment. I mean, if it were either of my herding breeds, yes, that is a reasonable goal. But this is a primitive flushing hound. I am never going to be more interesting to her than the environment. My goal is just to balance her responsiveness to me with her responsiveness to the environment so that when I need her attention, I can get it promptly. It's not easy with her, as she wasn't really bred for it. However, with about a year or so of hard work, she does actually actively engage us while out on walks sometimes, and that is super exciting given how hard we had to work to get it. That balance where she can go chase birds and bounce around in the bush and also come back when called and do a few tricks and learn to back up onto a log is what I am after. She doesn't need to think I'm everything, or even the best thing there is. She just needs to think I'm a good bet. The more she thinks of me as a good bet, the more leverage I have with her.

I get that some dogs don't like walks. I was just curious about what exactly they didn't like about it. Kestrel is pretty similar if she's off leash, but a lot smaller, so I guess not so fast and doesn't cover as much ground, and obviously can't pull as hard when she does get going on leash. She also settles in to our foot speed without too much trouble most of the time. I kind of think of her breed as an all-rounder, which I suppose means she is not fixated on any one sense or behavioural pattern. She tends to get very aroused about bounding around in the bush, most especially if she finds birds or some other animal. I'm not sure how long she would do it for, because we have never seen her voluntarily stop. I can run take her for a 2 hour trail run and she is begging to go on yet another trail at the end. She would certainly prefer to be off leash, far more than the hunds do. She'll take on leash without complaint as long as we are moving, though.

Really? Why not? Thinking of my podengo, who I guess is another flushing breed. She is so little that pulling on leash can sometimes be overlooked, but she has been trained to walk on a loose leash anyway. Sometimes (okay, frequently) she gets carried away following a scent or exploring and she starts pulling. We stop and wait until she remembers her leash manners and sits, which does not usually take long. She LOVES walks. She likes to be off leash best, and trail runs are her absolute favourite, but she will take any outing in any form.

Dogs that don't inherently want to stay within coo-ee can be trained to. My podengo is enormously excited by exploring and novelty. As in, she won't get in the car at the end of an hour long walk because she's not done yet. She is perpetually trying to convince us to go a little farther with her, even when we've just run 13km on bush trails and you'd think she might be ready to go home. It has taken a fair bit of work to get her interested in hanging around and seeing what we are doing. Lots of reinforcing check-ins, prompting them if need be. More importantly, effort needs to be made to show her it is really worthwhile sticking around until dismissed. That means spending a good 30s+ actively engaging her and giving her lots of opportunities for easy reinforcement before releasing her. The release is important as well. They get used to waiting for it if you try to make sure you always release them before they release themselves.

If you feel like you need to punish a behaviour, an e-collar is a powerful tool that can be used with a finesse that is beyond really any other form of punishment. I wouldn't judge a trainer for deciding they need one, but it's extremely unprofessional to sell them to clients in a state (e.g. NSW) where they are actually illegal to use. Whether they ought to be illegal to use is another issue entirely.

Corgi. One with rubbish driving instincts. ;) Tibetan terriers are a nice sized dog that's pretty fun.

Positive Puppies is in your area: http://www.positivepuppies.com.au/ Also Domineque at The Dog Brigade: http://www.thedogbrigade.com.au/dog-training/

This is classic herding dog behaviour, but herding dogs will revert to herding behaviours whenever they are uncomfortable. Trying to control things that scare them is a great way for a herding dog to feel more secure. If H goes still, there is a reasonable chance he is reinforcing this behaviour, because it's supposed to stop movement. Driving from behind is also a behaviour that is supposed to control movement, but this time move rather than stop. As such, this is getting tricky. If H doesn't stop, the dog escalates. Every chance the dog will escalate to something overtly aggressive. Jumping up is pretty confrontational in this context. If H does stop, he likely reinforces the behaviour, so there's no winning with those two options. The way might be for H to de-escalate (e.g. slow down), and someone diverts the dog. You have a behaviourist, right? I'm pretty uncomfortable with how this is shaping up online. Think you need a good behaviourist to work on strategies to lever the dog gently out of this behaviour pattern. Pre-empting it is absolutely key. Every time the dog is triggered but DOESN'T start this problematic behaviour pattern and everything turns out all right anyway, he's learning that another behaviour works just as well and is less confrontational. Most dogs prefer that, but instincts are hard to train away from. I actually would hold off on desexing. There is increasing evidence that desexed dogs are MORE fearful and aggressive than entire dogs.

Usually in front or at the side. Side she is easier to call off. If she has got in front of someone and is barking at their feet, she is a bit more serious about whatever it is she thinks she's doing and a bit more aroused and so it's harder to interrupt. She is doing a lot better now than she was when we got her. Training has helped a lot, but she's also maturing and starting to get a brain. Phew!

If you want to to introduce food in an attempt to counter-condition, I would have H throw the food behind the dog just before he gets up. That way the dog moves away from him to get the food and it breaks the dog's focus on whatever H might do that is worrying. I'd be reluctant to introduce food coming from H because you risk drawing the dog in where they are not comfortable, and then they get triggered, only they are closer than they should be, so more likely to react strongly. One of my dogs is leery about my dad. He does strange things around her sometimes, and she starts barking at his ankles. It is kind of a bail-up behaviour, but she's small and not entirely committed, so she doesn't follow through. I sure do not want to find out if that ever changes, though. I call her off and ask for a sit and play Look At That. Usually, with a bit of distance and focus, she realises he's not that threatening and settles down. If I can't call her off because she's too upset, I tell my dad to stop moving around and crouch quietly. She seems to think that most people when they do that mean to let her come to them at her own pace, and that seems to reassure her and she will come right in. Events sometimes overtake her. She's still young and pretty emotionally reactive. If we slow events down for her, she is better able to process it sensibly.

I don't think picking dogs up makes them fearful of other dogs, unless it often results in other dogs coming over and investigating intensely, which actually can be the case. My little one still seems to prefer to be in my arms even though she sits there and snarls at a dog that comes close to us. We have had some big dogs try to jump up and grab at her while I've been holding her. Scary for her (and me), but still better than her being on the ground I guess, where she will almost certainly get skittled or trodden on or pushed around. I let my little dog mix with bigger dogs if she wants to. She can judge from their behaviour if she thinks she wants to interact or not, so I just help her. If she doesn't want to, I let her jump into my arms. If she does want to, I get her to be sensible about it and not too intense. I wish I could vet all dogs she interacts with, but I can't! We meet them on walks and we don't always have much choice. I am very conscious that she is little and can be easily hurt. I don't want to leave her to handle a dog on her own that she is frightened of. If the dog is friendly and she doesn't seem worried, I'm happy for her to handle an incoming dog on her own, but she's still young and kind of conflicted about dogs. I think given her size and temperament, it's sensible to err on the side of caution with her, because many unplanned interactions with bigger dogs can end up not very pleasant for her. But by the same token, every time it works out fine, she learns to be more relaxed about it. So, that's the balance we are always weighing up.

Sounds like your dog is kind of scared of H. I would be very concerned the dog was going to bite him sooner or later. If H is not terribly committed to figuring things out with the dog, I would work on teaching the dog to come away when called and engage with you. Some people give dogs all the wrong signals, and if you try to get them to cooperate in counter-conditioning or desensitisation, they seem to accidentally make it worse. Better to just concentrate on being able to quickly call the dog off if need be. You can also pre-emptively soothe the dog when H does anything that might possibly set the dog off. If you can disrupt the response before it really starts, you will have better success than if you try to treat it after it has occurred.

IME, local obedience clubs are pretty hit and miss. Sometimes there are good trainers and sometimes there aren't. I have seen a lot of dogs in training clubs that take forever to learn anything because the training is not good quality and the owners are therefore not learning effective training. Many dogs also learn to be obedient at the club, but nowhere else. It's the same for any place that uses trainers that may not be qualified. A good place to start is to ask for trainer qualifications and ask them for details about what quadrants of operant conditioning they use and whether they use respondent conditioning. ;) Might sort some of the wheat from the chaff. You may also benefit from classes for adolescent dogs run by qualified trainers. Are you in Sydney somewhere? I know a few more advanced training classes that are good. You learn to train by doing. It's just a matter of how much 'doing' you want to do and with how much one-on-one assistance. If you want the dog to be trained and then pick up where the hardest work has been done and continue on learning with a dog that already knows some things, board and train or day training are good options provided you can find someone you trust. Hanrob is about as trustworthy as most boarding kennels, which is to say, I wouldn't leave my dogs in their care if I could avoid it. I think day training is safer because you are still caring for your own dog.

I think the training quality at Hanrob has increased considerably in recent times. I used to run Volatile Dog classes on their training oval, so saw a bit of what they are up to. I know some people in the States that do great board and train programs, and it can be really helpful for owners that need to get on top of multiple behaviours in young dogs in particular. Dog trainers are better at training dogs than owners are, obviously. I have done the odd day training job where I come in several times a week, do an hour of training with the dog and then show the owner how to maintain the behaviours we have been working on. At the end of the day, maintenance has to come from the home, because that's where the dog is living. But, that doesn't mean a trainer can't train the dog for someone and leave them with a dog that already has strong behaviours so it's only maintenance that is necessary.

There are two keys to LLW: 1) consistency; 2) meaningful signals. I teach leash pressure signals, because it doesn't need food and most dogs pick it up super fast because it's relevant. Pressure on leash = go nowhere. No pressure = go wherever you like. But if you just stand there, the dog has to figure out for themselves what they have to do to make you go again. Instead, give a little tweak on the leash - enough to pull the dog back towards you just half a step. It's supposed to me more like "ahem" than "BAD!" It creates slack in the leash, so the dog has the opportunity to choose whether they leave the slack or take it. If they take it, the go nowhere and you create slack again. If they don't take it, you say "GOOD!" or whatever and walk on. Works best with a long leash - at least 2m. The more steps a dog takes on a loose leash before they hit the end, the more practice they are getting LLW, so longer leashes facilitate more success. You can help them accumulate more success by walking faster, and using light tweaks on the leash and verbal cues to coax them into changing directions slightly. Not u-turns, but tangents. You can also steer them around obstacles on the go to get them thinking about staying with you and paying attention to where you're going instead of just plowing forwards. I think it's a bad idea to have walks where they can pull and walks where they can't when they are still learning. How are they to know when it's a walk and when it's a training session? Just be consistent and they will learn it faster. The first few walks take a long time and you don't get very far, but my clients usually find they come good within a few walks, even if they have been dedicated pullers for a long time. I've had dogs that have pulled for years walking on a loose leash in 10 minutes this way. They want to go forwards, so you just have to make it clear how they get to go forward. You want clear contrast between leash pressure and no leash pressure so they can learn more easily what the criterion for going forwards is.

Equally, stuff for small dogs that is actually functional. I had a ridiculous time trying to find a running harness for my 5kg dog. She runs for real, okay? Also, she tugs for real, and we need loooooong tugs because my arms don't drag on the ground.

Sometimes dogs can use frantic "greetings" as a mad appeasement attempt. Or they can get so stimulated by a human actually being close to them that it's actually not very pleasant after all. A good, quick test you can do is ask for a sit when he's been trying to jump on you, but then take a step or two away, crouch, and invite him over. Do it several times and try with different distances. If he's not readily coming to you when invited, there's a good chance the jumping at you is actually an attempt to buy space. It's counter-intuitive, but learning theory proves the point.

I'm aware of that. As I said, it's a terrible argument for not changing anything within the industry. It's illogical and irrelevant and the purpose is emotional framing, which doesn't count as an argument to me. That certainly was not my intention in offering a different comparison. I think the key is precedent rather than comparison. It would be nice if we could avoid conflating the two. Precedents for banning anything because some are not doing the right thing are often roundly criticised. E.g. bikie clubs, pitbulls... That's not a comparison of the issues involved. It's a comment on where banning things that are not inherently damaging through legislation has occurred before.

The uni people involved are VERY "doggy". GRV is extremely interested in socialisation. I didn't really think the questions had a foregone conclusion. Depends on what your experiences have been with predatory dogs. Racing greyhounds represent a pretty unique sub-population that a lot of people don't really see much of. I know trainers that would answer both ways depending on their experience. Trainers that have a high success rate with greyhounds are systematic in their training and introduce the dogs to the conditions that cause the most distress on a track early on. "Keenness to chase" is highly sought after, and suggests both high motivation to chase, but also plenty of resilience. It's very easy for a dog to have a bad experience on one or more of their early races and suddenly they don't think it's so fun anymore. A dog that is resilient has a better chance of overcoming incidences like another dog running into them or growling at them on the track.

Maddy, you were the one that complained about false equivalences. But as soon as someone brings up an arguably fairer equivalence, apparently that's an argument for not changing anything in the greyhound industry. Sounds like moving the goal posts with a straw man to me. If someone is making that argument, then it's a terrible one. Equally, banning a practice state-wide because some people are breaking the law over it somehow just doesn't happen very often. Nor does self-regulation often work, for that matter, but people are usually given a chance to make it work for a reason, and sometimes it turns out to be the compromise that allows a practice to continue. I don't see any sense in arguing bitterly about it at this point. The industry has a lot of work to do. They seem to realise that, at least in some states. We can argue that the industry will or won't change until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is we get to find out, whether we wanted to or not. I'm interested to see if they can raise the bar for animal welfare in all animal-related industries. Some of them might find themselves left behind.

It's not hard to find people within the industry that are good to their dogs. It's not hard to find people that are not making money from racing but do it anyway. It's not hard to find people racing dogs that also have retired or failed racers at home that they are supporting as well. If you want a fair comparison, we could easily argue that some dog breeders (hoarders) are immensely cruel to their dogs, to the point where they can be charged and convicted with animal cruelty. There is no argument that some participants in the industry should not be allowed near animals, same as some people in the public should not be allowed to own animals. It doesn't seem fair to me to punish everyone involved (and their dogs) because of that.

Separating commercial and regulatory functions has been promised by GRNSW along with life long tracking, and was a major cornerstone of recommendations from the reform panel. An independent regulator is a part of that. I do believe it will happen, because I think it has actually been legislated, now, if I'm not mistaken (which is possible - it's hard work keeping up). Of course they will try to get sympathetic people in, but some of the problems in NSW at least in the past were exacerbated by an uneven balance of power between greyhound owners/breeders/trainers and the government within GRNSW. I think participants in NSW are most concerned that kind of thing is going to be repeated. GRNSW promised they would clean the industry up. None of the other states have made any such bold statements that I know of, although Greyhound Racing Victoria has some bold moves coming through the pipeline from their recent policy update. The government in NSW wants the greyhound industry gone. You would be mistaken to think that has anything at all to do with animal rights advocates, PETA, Animals Australia, RSPCA, or even animal welfare. Animal welfare was just a convenient out at the time - or at least that's what Baird seemed to think. It is a lot more political than it seems. The greyhound industry has an agreement with harness racing and horse racing industries about income from gambling. The agreement sees all gambling income from the three codes pooled and then redistributes it according to the percentages in the agreement. Greyhounds were contributing considerably more to that pool than they were getting back. This is a ticking time bomb for the other two codes, because sooner or later, this is probably going to be rectified and they lose a bunch of money. If they can squeeze greyhounds out, punters are predicted to shift to the horse codes, and they get more money and don't have to worry about the greyhound industry getting the agreement changed. They can't do it on their own, though. They need the government to legislate them out. So, the greyhound industry in NSW got a reprieve because it turned out there were more people that were involved and wanted it to stay AND VOTE than it seems Baird was counting on. The special commission recommended that the TAB agreement be changed so it was fair. The other codes obviously have no interest in this, but the greyhound industry could take it to court and there's already a precedent set. The greyhound industry would almost certainly be successful. But they haven't, and AFAIK, there are no plans that they do this. Think about it. GRNSW is still to some degree a state body, so it's still at its core ruled by the state government... which wants it gone.

Depends on what kind of training you want to pursue and what your current skills are like and how hard your dog is. If you want training as a way of life, that's quite different to getting some critical skills trained into your puppy and then just focusing on having fun with your good canine citizen.

My short dogs get fleece padding on the underside wet just by running through wet grass. I think it's the bulk that they dislike most in harnesses. I thought it was going over the head, but the AO harness I got for Erik had a neck buckle so it didn't have to go over his head and he loathed it, so I guess that's a secondary concern for him. He's most cooperative about his cheap, nylon harness, so it seems he prefers lighter. I just don't trust it, and I get annoyed about the poor fit. The Indi-dog harnesses come padded, but you can get airmesh (or neoprene) instead of fleece. The airmesh is lighter and dries quickly. More practical for running as well.