corvus

Herding dogs are usually more interested in controlling movement than killing things. They can get crazy aroused and reactive about anything that moves, or some things in particular. If they get aroused enough, they are liable to bite. With small animals, they may not be trying to kill it, but you probably don't want to see what will happen if they escalate their controlling behaviour, especially if they have decided it's fun if the animal moves and then they can make it stop again. Likewise, if they are not sure what to do with something, they may try a variety of things and essentially teach themselves to bite it harder and harder. I'm hoping to launch a study next year to look at how different breeds interact with things they have been chasing when they capture it. I'm really looking forward to getting some breed type data to compare. Stay tuned if you are in the Sydney area and would like to participate. ETA: We're not gonna feed live animals to dogs! Just in case anyone misunderstood that. We can obviously only use inanimate objects.

My girl's new running harness from Indidog. I wasn't sure how the second strap would work out. I was a little worried it would affect her collecting, but decided to risk it because she's such a slippery thing and tends to twist and jam on the brakes sometimes. I think in the end the extra strap isn't necessary, but it does help her balance better if there's pressure on the leash. It is loose enough that it doesn't seem to affect her flexion and she'll curl into a tight little ball with it on no worries. I'm very happy with the harness. It is well made, fits her great, and the padding is minimal. Nothing to rub anywhere. It was pretty cheap, too!

We have Web Master harnesses for all three dogs. The handle is awesome, but they are kind of bulky. The older dogs are on their second ones. They go through the wringer, here, but they didn't last as long as I hoped harnesses that cost that much would last. I think ours lasted about 4-5 years and then the D-ring on the back started pulling loose. I have switched to using lighter nylon walking harnesses when walking the dogs on leash. Just seems like overkill otherwise. I must be really fussy about harnesses, because I have explored far and wide trying to find the perfect harness and couldn't find it. I think I might be giving up and just getting people to make them for me. At least then I can get the design I want. The WM harnesses don't *seem* to hamper the dogs at all, but they just don't seem right for active pursuits.

I would go canicross gear - a waist belt and a bungee line - rather than a front attach harness, and just embrace the pulling for now. Weird gaits are how runners get injured. I would assume the same for dogs, so if the equipment changes the way the dog would normally move, then I'd be worried they are heading for injury. In fact, I just bought my girl a bungee leash today for running. Thought she might prefer a bit of give in the leash. She is running in a very light and cheap nylon harness at the moment, but has a custom made one coming from Indidog. Someone recently broke the world record for fastest mile run with the help of a pulling dog! Incidentally, I had an Alpine Outfitters flyball harness made for one of my other dogs in the never ending search for a harness he tolerates well. This was NOT it! He loathed it. They are quite stiff and heavy with the fleece lining. Not bad for a big dog, though. If you are sure you can't make the pulling work for you while you're training cues like slow down, I would consider a Wiggles Wags and Whiskers Freedom harness and use the back ring. It's attached to a martingale that tightens when the dog pulls. Sometimes it's enough alone to slow them down. They sit a bit higher than most front attach harnesses, so less restrictive, but still go across the front of the chest. As much as I hate seeing runners with dogs on head collars, you could consider using one that attaches at the back like the NewTrix and attach it to a separate, light line so it's there if you need to slow him up, but you can mostly leave it loose so it's not in play. At least if they are ahead of you, you won't get strung up around a pole, which is why I think dogs should run on harnesses.

Think of it like a game. The aim of the game is to try to trick your dog into failing to respond to a cue correctly, but this game is rigged because dogs are so fun when they are winning, and your goal is to see your dog win. So, for the dog, they just have to decipher the cue and respond correctly. For you, the fun is in that moment when they are not quite sure what to do and they hesitate and look at you and you're like "Aha! I have you this time..." then they pull through and do the right thing and you're like "OMG! YOU'RE SO SMART!" and you get super proud of them and make a huge fuss. Make it hard, but not so hard they can't win. This takes a little calibrating. If your dog can't respond to your cue or gets confused or distracted, then you lose, and you just have to make it a bit easier next time. "Easier" means fewer stimuli to process, and/or less intense stimuli (stimulus is farther away, not as noisy or fast or big etc.). You get to "collect" achievements. My dog performed a down at home in the kitchen - yay! My dog performed a down in a quiet park - yay! My dog performed a down when a strange dog was on the next field - yay! My dog performed a down on a novel surface - yay! My dog performed a down while another dog walked past - yay! My dog performed a down on a rock or log - woot! My dog performed a down on a narrower log while my other dog was barking at her - hoorah! If you hit a bump and your dog can't perform in that scenario, then you've found a goal! This is exciting. You get to try to find a slightly easier version and try to get the behaviour in that scenario. And then try the harder one again. There will be more achievements to collect! And eventually you are finding it difficult to still find ways to try to trick your dog. When you have a really hard thing to tackle, then you ask for super easy behaviours, like a millisecond of almost-eye contact. My youngster has discovered the tremendous joy of chasing swallows. So, all she needs to do when there are swallows about to earn a treat is respond to her name or a verbal marker. And I keep the reward rate very high so she doesn't get the chance to fixate on the swallows too much. She is too busy looking at swallows and then turning to me to get a treat to stare at swallows and forget about treats. I wrote this article a few years ago to help clients with this concept: http://blog.creatureteacher.com.au/2013/12/building-reward-system-or-my-dog-wont.html

Well, yes. It's the nature of any industry where animals lose their value over time. Even in the pet industry. The issue with the original plan as I saw it was that there was too little time to wind up racing activities without making keeping healthy dogs economically possible. That's a lot of dogs that suddenly have no industry support. I understand the task force was trying to find ways to enable greyhound owners to keep their dogs, but I'm not sure they had any solutions, and it's not straight forward. Some people were just gutted. It's like, what would you do with your dogs if you were no longer allowed to do nearly all the things you currently enjoy doing with them? You and I would probably not euthanise them, but we might consider rehoming them to somewhere they might be happier if we believed there was such a place. And maybe we might shake our heads in disgust over the way some people treat their dogs, but if it suddenly looked like we might lose our dogs because of them, we might do more than shake our heads in disgust next time. I think we have to decide as a society what is acceptable. Is it okay for people to make money off dogs? Is it okay if some dogs are hurt, sometimes fatally in the process? Does how much the dog enjoys it factor? Is it okay for dogs to die in accidents if there is not big money in it? How responsible should owners be for how their dogs are cared for if they are paying someone else to care for them? Is it okay for people to rehome a dog that is not successful in their chosen pursuits? Is it okay for such dogs to be euthanised? We need to answer these questions, and not just for racing greyhounds. And if we decide something is not acceptable, then there needs to be proper support in place for the animals involved so that there are options for them to transition into another kind of life.

Different dogs, different styles, strengths and weaknesses. My lapphund is soft and gives up easily, so for him to really enjoy training, he needed some encouragement for persisting and trying new behaviours. He loves targeting, because it's unambiguous for him. He is not great at cue discrimination and prefers not to have to try to guess anything. My vallhund, though, totally the opposite. He has persistence in spades and seems to particularly love trying to figure out what the end behaviour is before I'm ready to go there. He is a fiend for problem solving and likes challenges. The lappie leaves if the training is difficult, and finds my partner, who is easier to get treats out of than me. The vall will stick with it if it's hard, though. Sometimes I think he prefers it that way. My new podengo is very eager, but has way more interest in the environment than the other two dogs combined. She's super alert, and doesn't have the working focus that the vall has. So, she gets antsy and distractible and I train her in small bursts. She doesn't lack enthusiasm! Every dog has a beautiful "aha" moment when they realise you are communicating with them and they understand it and they know how to get treats. Hers was expressed by leaping abruptly into my arms to plaster my face in smooches. She gets pretty excited by training, and her self-control isn't all that hot, so even though she can now train for longer before her brain breaks, it pays to anticipate that moment and quit while you're ahead. She will probably continue to get better.

I think the jury is still out on desexing as far as science is concerned. Personally, I would hold off until the dog is probably fully grown. I think the evidence for doing that is strong. Of course, council requires registration at 6 months, and the cost of registering an entire dog if you are not a breeder is around the cost of desexing. Something to consider. I recently got my girl done at about 11 months. It was a decision based on the scientific literature (which is practically non-existent in small dogs), and some good old-fashioned over-thinking. I am perfectly comfortable with that decision. I weighed it all up quite carefully, and it was anything but rash or thoughtless.

Every dog gets swabbed now if that's what you are alluding to.

I really don't know. I am keenly aware that the people that talk to me are the people that are genuinely interested in doing better by their dogs, and most of them were already working towards change, and I have had some good times with them and their dogs. Their passion for change is obvious. It's impossible to see beyond those positive experiences to parts of the industry that I don't see and people I don't talk to. I hope, for all the happy people and dogs I have met in the industry. It is a little bit complicated. Dogs that are not racing are supported at least in part by dogs that are racing. On the outset, it looks like, well, we know most of them don't live past 2 anyway, so if they die at 9 months old instead of 2, what's the difference? At least the cycle has come to an end. And in some cases, particularly large, professional enterprises, that is probably true. In other cases, maybe not. Hobbyists are more likely to be holding onto dogs that are not racing, and there are no figures for how many of them have non-racers still in their kennels, and if so, how many. It could include retired racers, injured dogs, young dogs, dogs on suspension, and failed racers, and it could be a temporary or indefinite arrangement. These dogs are pretty much invisible, so maybe there's just 4 in the entire state, or maybe there's 400. Maybe some of them would have been there all their lives, or may have been sold, or eventually adopted out, or euthanised... Whatever the case, if racing were suddenly ended, people may find that they can't support their non-racers anymore, and I expect some of them keep them because they sank a lot of time into them and grew attached and could afford to keep them. So, maybe it's not just the dogs that would have died anyway. It's dogs on top of that as well. I find myself at odds with a lot of colleagues I respect who are angry the ban has been repealed. I don't know if my concerns are coloured by my positive experiences in the industry, or biased by the types of people that like to talk to dog behaviour scientists, and if it matters. There were a lot of people in rescue delighted to see it coming to an end, while at the same time in denial about the sheer number of adoptable dogs that were probably not going to make it purely because there were going to be too many of them. I can't help feeling that everyone grabbed at the first deal offered and just talked themselves into it being the best for the dogs. There has to be better ways, though. I'm not sure if no ban, or a trial period is better in the long-term, but it is in the short-term IMO. I sincerely hope if they ever do decide to ban it after all, they will put a lot more thought into how they will do it.

Oh, I think I could find a shred without looking very hard. It's true, some don't believe they have done anything wrong, but not everyone thinks that, and not everyone that thinks they haven't done anything wrong will continue doing something that has been outlawed. GRNSW are genuinely trying to catch people doing the wrong thing, now, which is not lost on industry participants. I guess the industry is now in the hands of the lowest common denominator. Lots of people realise that it's clean it up or lose it. I hope that's enough. At the end of the day, there are some daunting problems to overcome, but I think we should try, because it might just help the plight of other racing animals worldwide. I guess I'm more of the opinion that killing a lot of dogs with a ban with an inadequate wind up period in one state is not the net gain I want to see. I want to see racing cleaned up everywhere. I'm not sure if trying will cost more lives and create more misery than the short wind up and ban. No one can know. I can only work with what we've got, and I'm glad I'm not going to be in the middle of the industry while tens of thousands of dogs are made homeless in the space of 6 months. That was scaring me quite a bit.

The reasons why we have legislation and policies and enforcement is to make sure everyone is a part of the culture change whether they want to be or not. There are always people in any community that need that in place. To me, it's more a matter of how much checking and enforcement is going to be necessary and whether that can be achieved. AFAIK, GRNSW are probably in the best position to judge that. But that's okay, I'm happy to agree to disagree. I kind of have to be optimistic, or I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing in the first place. Mike Baird could not care less about greyhound welfare. He has caved to save his job, and I bet he's not happy about it. He has undoubtedly incurred damage. He made a misstep and a half and now he has to wear it as best he can. If it all happens again, I doubt he will be bothered. He will just axe it good and proper this time. Provided he has the political support. I expect if he's smart he'll be a lot more careful about making sure he has that if there is a next time. I'd be astonished to see significant political support for the closure of the racehorse industry, or the pet industry. Greyhounds are small fry next to both.

Ostensibly, his colleagues do speak for the people - i.e. their constituents. In country areas, this is a much bigger deal than it is in the city. The Special Commission report suggests that the economic situation is unclear. A fair bit of it is censored, but the general conclusion is that GRNSW can afford increased staff and upgrading tracks to make the recommended welfare improvements, but that participants may not be able to afford to make the required updates to their kennelling facilities and the likes. I'm not sure if industry participants understand this, or necessarily care. Many of them are hobbyists and are operating at a loss now. Maybe they will find the need to sink a lot of money into their facilities to be challenging, but then again, maybe they won't. I haven't heard anything about expectations of participants beyond penalties for live baiting, so maybe that is what the government has decided to ignore. westiemum, I did not say I believe the industry WILL improve. I said I hope they do. Otherwise we're back to square one and nothing gained. I am sure there are people in the industry that will try to do what they have always done because they think they have to, or they think it's stupid not to, or whatever reason they have. Others seem very willing to change to save the industry, but need guidance, and that is kind of what my research is supposed to produce. I'm not sure who is in a position to decide how entrenched the issues are and how hard change will be. I'm not! You might think former CEOs would know, but I dunno. Newson says he pretty much gave up on them all. Everyone I speak to is desperate to see the industry change. My best guess is it is like any collection of people. There is a very vocal group that have been a pain in the butt and fought every step, and they probably don't represent the industry as a whole. To what extent they do represent the industry I don't know, but I sympathise with the people that just want everyone to wake up and toe the line before it's all gone. I know what that frustration is like. It doesn't affect me much either way, but I don't want to see a lot of dogs die, and I was increasingly thinking that's what the ban was going to produce. It was disturbing me more and more! It wasn't just the dogs that would not have made it to their second birthday anyway. It was beginning to seem scarily more complicated than that to me at least. I believe there are better ways to do it if it has to be done, and postponing (perhaps indefinitely if welfare can become acceptable) it while implementing some big animal welfare reforms may be one of them. Depending on what the reforms are.

I never said that, Juice, but seeing as you're asking, I sometimes sell a breeding pair of doves to make room for keeping on one of their offspring to improve genetic diversity or keep colours I like. Do you think that means I don't love or care well enough for my doves? Is that an ethically questionable practice? If so, why? GRNSW are careful who they put me in contact with! I have no clue how they are going to make the changes they say they are, but I hope they are successful. I do believe there is more of a willingness to change than some seem to think. They got super close to losing something many of them love dearly. I think if anything can change attitudes and practices smart, that will. Let's hope it does and they don't squander the chance they've been given.

If that's what you need to believe. Because I can't imagine where else that exact practice might be occurring regularly and is not considered a welfare issue. FWIW, I think she's there to stay, but what would I know after talking to the owners for hours and hours over several days about greyhound training and rearing and welfare and having them show me how they train their dogs.

I don't think they are the same thing. Premack is performing a less frequent behaviour for the opportunity to perform a more frequent behaviour, as TSD says. NILIF is at its heart a deference protocol. "Ask" for what you want by performing a single behaviour in all contexts. They are both good for developing impulse control and strengthening the target behaviour whatever that is, and improving handler responsiveness, but in my mind, NILIF is more about structure and consistency and taking control of reinforcers so you get the behaviours you want rewarded, whereas Premack is more about working with the dog's goals.

I met one that didn't make it just yesterday. She is not sitting on her owner's lounge, but she has a yard and a kennel, she gets a lot of cuddles, and she has raised puppies who are now winning. I suppose she made it via her offspring. There is quite a lot of variation in what you might consider a "trainer". Some seem to actively ruin dogs and others sink enormous amounts of time into them daily from an early age. Those are the extremes. Both exist, and there is definitely a continuum between them.

I have such an eclectic trio, now, that people keep asking if they are all mine. I don't think we'll be a 3-dog family permanently. Just need one loveable, easy, sociable teddy bear and one training fiend and running companion. Lots of breeds I'd like to own someday: Bergamasco, Saluki, Basenji, Akita, Canaan Dog, Pharaoh, Tibetan terrier, something that will leap into the water recklessly, but I think I'm realising that I need versatile dogs or lots of dogs, and I don't have time for lots of dogs. Love my social genius lapphund and my crazy smart and eager vallhund, and my very companionable little podengo. I'd have any of those breeds again in a heartbeat. OH says we can't get another lapphund when Kivi leaves us, though. I'm angling for maybe a brown or cream so there's less similarity. Or a Bergamasco. ;)

...but that is exactly the point here! No it's not. The whole point of the thread is a pre-meditated strategy, and most of the suggested strategies require prior planning. You can't be like "I would not have thrown dog treats at the dog if I didn't think it was about to hurt someone." Why would you even have dog treats unless you planned to feed them to a dog? Assuming you are not me and thus usually have dog treats on you. My point is if you have a plan, then someone has to check it with the owner. They have to have the opportunity to consent or they will have the opportunity to kick up an enormous fuss. If the dog's owner does not okay any of the strategies people are suggesting and boss won't get involved, it needs to go higher up, and that will be all kinds of misery, but it's that or you go through all due process and make sure it's witnessed so you don't get in trouble if (when) things go pear-shaped. And make sure you are okay with the risks you are taking on behalf of yourself, the dog, and your workmates. If we are talking purely about what do you do in the moment when the dog is humping you and getting kind of growly and you want the dog off you without getting bitten, then that is a different question and most of the answers given don't apply (you know, because you didn't pack your treats/noxious scent or whatever).

Guys, you can't be going into other people's yards and doing anything with their dog - give them food, expose them to unpleasant scents, shove them, pull them by the collar - nothing without checking first with the owner, unless the dog is about to be injured or injure someone else. I'd be very peeved if someone deliberately came here smelling noxious to repel my dogs, and I would not be cool with them tossing treats unless I knew what they were doing and was supervising. Sorry, I have a dog that is anxious about tradies visiting, and things are delicate. I learnt long ago the hard way that it's best if I do all the training. Just tell me you need them out of the way. I mean, you wouldn't have to because I'd ask you before I let them loose in the first place, but you get my drift. Any messing with a client's dog has to be with the client's knowledge and consent, otherwise, you do risk rocking the boat. You don't know what they care about and what seems unreasonable or rude to them. Talk to the boss. If that fails, ask the dog's owner if they would mind if you tossed the dog some pieces of Schmacko as you are worried the dog dislikes you. Gives you a chance to drop a hint to the dog's owner and have a backup plan at the same time. Always toss food AWAY from yourself and behind an aggressive dog so you are using the food to turn them away from you. This almost never results in resource guarding (never in my experience, but anything could happen). One piece of food at a time and they are gone before the dog can feel threatened. Keep them small and the only thing to guard is the source of the food (the human). This does happen sometimes. The dog usually quickly relaxes, but anyway, that's why it's best to try to get the dog restrained instead. And who wants to train a dog while they are trying to work, anyway? Not even me.

I know what it's like, PK! Back in June we made one emergency trip to ARH in the middle of the night with a seizing puppy. It was a few weeks later before Erik had a seizure as well and tipped us off to environmental causes. Erik did not recover nearly as quickly as Kestrel did, although he had a much longer seizure. It seems like they can be quite variable. I reckon Erik was a bit stiff and sore the day after, and he both dogs were not quite right until the next day, really. Hope Malcolm is feeling better and it never happens again.

They were doing exactly this at Renbury Park shelter when I was there last year. I was there towards the end of visiting hours, and many of the dogs were no longer taking treats. Kibble was on the floor and they were not interested. They wanted other reinforcers is my guess. Kennels are challenging environments. Food is one of the few things dogs in kennels get plenty of.

Hardly. People are allowed to do a lot of things even when a minority abuse that right or privilege and cause harm to others. Smoke, own guns and knives, drive cars, drink alcohol, operate heavy machinery, parachute, gamble, have children, etc. etc. We have laws so that people can have freedom while not endangering or harming others. When a group is identified as having broken the law repeatedly and it is having a serious impact on others, they may be targeted with additional legislation. Typically it seems to be a knee jerk reaction that victimises a lot of people that weren't breaking the law, and it's questionable if it does any good. I imagine it depends. However, I doubt the greyhound industry is a victim of such targeting. It's a convenient excuse, and one that's only available because the greyhound industry is far from squeaky clean in the first place. It's a slippery slope. No it's not. It's a logical fallacy. Unless you can provide a valid inductive argument or a mechanism by which the banning of greyhound racing on apparently welfare grounds will probably lead to the banning of pet ownership on welfare grounds, then it is a fallacious slippery slope. You mean the same AR activists who have just got greyhound racing banned in NSW? Those ones? I think you give them more credit than they deserve. The government might be painting it as an animal rights decision, but I'm almost certain it's not. At any rate "AR activists just got greyhound racing banned so therefore they could get pet ownership banned" is also not a valid inductive argument. Just so you know. It is the exact same slippery slope fallacy I was originally objecting to.

I think it's individual to a large extent. Could I personally live with the risk that my dog would kill someone else's dog if the opportunity presented itself? No. I would feel responsible. I do not want to be responsible for someone losing a pet, however tenuously. All risk assessments are a matter of balancing the likelihood of things going wrong with the impact if they did. People are going to judge this differently, and some people might be able to live with a low level of risk that is still unacceptable to me. On the other side is measures to reduce risk. I could reduce the risk of my dogs being hit by a car, but it would limit their freedom and impact on their quality of life. So it becomes a matter of when are the risks of them being hit by a car overshadowed by the unlikeliness of that occurring and the benefits of not taking every precaution? There will be miscalculations and that undoubtedly results in dogs being killed by other dogs. I would never forgive myself if that was my miscalculation, so the impact of something going wrong is extremely high for me personally. If I can't reduce that to my satisfaction without an unacceptable impact on my dogs' freedom and quality of life, then it's an untenable situation for me. This is sometimes the reason why people euthanise dangerous dogs. They can't reduce the risk to their satisfaction without an unacceptable impact on their dog. My heart breaks for people that have made that decision. I pray I will never have to myself.

Maintaining arousal levels that facilitate good performance is entirely different to a 72-hour return to cortisol baseline. When you work a dog in a distracting environment, there's a good chance you are challenging them. If you are frequently working them at the upper limits of their ability to focus, then you won't get the best performances from them, and training sessions themselves will prompt high levels of arousal and possibly conflict. I've been there! Even if they are enjoying themselves, arousal is likely to be a touch too high. I have a video I use in lectures to demonstrate how arousal climbs as more peripheral stimuli appear, or they become more intense. There are a couple of ways to tackle this just with training. If I had a dog that was taking even the rest of the day to recover from a stressful event, I would be talking to a VB. In fact, I have a dog that was taking a few hours and I talked to a VB. It's maladaptive and a sign of unsuccessful coping. Training can help, but to me it's a medical problem. There are always exceptions. One-off traumatic events can take time to recover from. If it's happening regularly, though, that's a problem, whether caused by repeated trauma or how the animal is recovering physiologically.