corvus

Normally when we take Kivi and Erik to the park in the morning they get their breakfast soon after we get home. However, recently a few times OH left for work from the dog park, so made up their breakfast beforehand and left it on the kitchen counter for me to give them when we got back. EVERY time this has occurred, Erik has started whining in excitement as the car pulls into our driveway. When I let him out of the car he runs to the door and scrapes on it with his paw, whining if I'm not fast enough letting him in. Then he runs to the kitchen counter and looks up and then looks back at me. Can he really remember that 40 minutes ago his breakfast was prepared and left on the kitchen counter? Does he know it's still there, or is he responding to a heightened anticipation of breakfast that may occur because he has already seen and smelt it being prepared? I don't think he's had a chance to learn the association that coming home from the park = immediate breakfast. He didn't seem to need to learn it. It has happened a few times and he is starting to show a generalised, slightly-more-excited-than-usual response to coming home from the park in the morning, particularly when OH is not with us, but when his breakfast is on the kitchen counter waiting for him it's much stronger. He doesn't show any sign of being concerned about leaving the house while his breakfast is on the counter, and he is his usual self at the park. The only difference is when we pull in back home. I have tried to do some training with him before going inside and he wants none of it. He went and stood in front of the front door at every opportunity. What is going on, here? How can he possibly remember/know that breakfast is waiting for him?

Robert Stabler is the only one my mother will have anything to do with. I think once she got him in for a behavioural problem she was so relieved to actually have someone who understood dogs advise her after a string of people running training classes made things worse that she just doesn't bother to look anywhere else.

Wouldn't the people who say he is kicking dogs also believe they know what kicking a dog looks like and that is exactly what Cesar has been doing? How can you say you are right and they are wrong? Even if he 'tapped' you the exact same way you couldn't say "I felt no pain therefore the dog feels no pain and Cesar is not kicking dogs." because you can't say that what you feel is the same as what a dog would feel. If he tapped you on the shins I am betting it would feel more like a kick than if he tapped you on the calf, for example. You may think you know what kicking a dog LOOKS like, but more importantly, do you know what kicking a dog FEELS like?

We have found a Thundershirt to be extremely valuable in helping calm an overstimulated dog. My Vallhund gets noisy usually when he is more aroused than usual. A few things work very well. Massage, the Thundershirt, a Kong with peanut butter and/or cream cheese, and a time consuming chew of some sort. Large raw bones will keep him busy for hours. Sometimes it helps to try to set up routines, or head the arousal off at the pass so to speak. If I think he's going to be noisy or hard to settle I make up a Kong for him before waiting to find out. I've also been experimenting with Buster Cubes and Kong Wobblers. They do a good job of distracting him and giving him something to do for a while so that he naturally wears himself out and is ready for a sleep by the time he's finished with the toys. But he gets pretty intense about them. One day he's going to put one through a wall he hits them so hard.

There was a fellow on another list that had a Pharoah Hound who had this down to a fine art. He would even stare out the window with ears up and forward while he barked his alert bark for added effect. It was mostly used on the other Pharoah Hound but it was a tactic he was very practised with. Meanwhile, I get the *barkbarkbark.... pause.... look expectantly at human* "Oh, good boy, nice shutting up and stuff. Here's a treat." I swear, Vallhunds should come with a warning about responding to them when your mind is not 100% on the job. The number of times he's used unwanted behaviour to create a window for me to reward him and I've walked blithely right into it... Along with my sticky notes on the monitor reminding me what to screen out of my written work should be sticky notes reminding me of the suspicious nature of brief periods of angelic behaviour in my dog.

No one speculated on why 1080 was used. No one has said it is humane. There is a difference IMO between hunting for recreation and hunting for population control. There are organisations that actively maintain feral animal populations so they can hunt them. As a former ecologist, I find that abhorrent. They are mostly after deer, pigs and goats, but anything that has value will be preserved. If it's fun to hunt foxes there will be people translocating and preserving them so they can do it. That is not an answer to feral populations in my mind.

I don't think there's anything 'natural' about a fox hunt. It's a sport.

Gee, why would you be shot down in flames? Perhaps because being chased for several hours and then eventually torn to shreds by a pack of dogs doesn't sound like a very humane death? Let's compare it to a 1080 death. Convulsions, excessive salivation, squealing and biting at objects, taking several hours to die.... There is contention about whether the animals are conscious. I don't think anyone really knows, but I think we should err on the side of caution and assume that it is as painful as it looks. Does that make it a less humane death than running for your life for several hours and then being torn to pieces? We can only guess. Whether this actually occurs or not aside, what do you suppose would happen then? Where does the fox move to? Do you think a vacated fox territory stays that way? ETA I forgot to mention that historically, hunting leads to translocations. That's how foxes got here in the first place. It still goes on all the time. Native and introduced fish translocations in Australia, for example, are ongoing and have had a severe impact on other native fish species. And there were the foxes introduced into Tasmania back in 2000. I believe it's happening quite a bit in some parts of the US with foxes and coyotes.

There's barely holding a stay and then there's not holding a stay. Letting a dog creep forward when they are meant to be staying is messy criteria on the trainer's part. I don't think it's necessarily a reflection on how keen the dog is. Erik is very keen about a lot of things, but when I say down, to me that means no inching forwards, no squirming, no raising the butt, crawling backwards or getting up and walking forwards for pity's sake. Because that's what I consider a down, that's the down Erik habitually performs regardless of how keen he is. As far as relaxation goes, I decided there certainly were times I wanted Erik more relaxed in training when I tried to teach him to offer a paw for nail clipping. He'd sit there like a coiled spring and the moment I looked like I was going to cue him to give me his paw he'd leap to his feet and slap his paw into my hand and practically quiver waiting for me to mark and reward. It was very silly. I just didn't want to be cutting the nails of a dog that may explode at any moment. Also, "lie down" means stop running around barking every few minutes, lie on your bed, shut up, and preferably go to sleep. I did actually train that. Total relaxation was the aim. And the hysterical barking when we were preparing meals... I wasn't after total relaxation, but a lowering of arousal was fairly important. There are lots of interactions I have with my dogs where I just don't want them bouncing about looking like they might die of happiness if I tell them to do something. I guess that's why I'm not into traditional herding breeds. The relaxation protocol to me, though, is more of a general behaviour modification tool rather than a training tool.

Gah! Look at all those messy criteria! *has heart palpatations* I cracked up watching that guy pushing his dog down over and over again and the butt comes back up as soon as he takes his hands off, though. OT, but lately I've been messing around with teaching my dogs to crawl backwards. Not very successfully so far. I think I have the wrong breeds! ETA Erik does the most rigid down you've ever seen for his meals. He won't move a muscle, just hovers there staring holes through his bowl and drooling. He doesn't like it when I make him face away from his bowl. I'm cruel. But not as cruel as OH, who makes him hold it for several minutes before releasing him. Or there was that time I was watching TV and I was like "Why is Erik whining? Is he all right?" and OH who had been reclining next to me goes "Shit! I forgot to release him!"

A bad thing is not happening to the dog. They fixate on a person/other dog, ready to go through their typical response of aggression. Words and sounds are not enough because the dog has formed a habit and is in a fight zone. He touches the dog in a non-painful way to distract them, not to hurt them. Result is the dog remembers the person is there, and the person is then able to communicate with the dog again and prevent the undesirable action. Previous chain of events is broken, dog can learn a new respons I've seen just that kind of thing make an aggressive response to a stimulus considerably worse. Dog is in fight zone fixated on trigger, aversive applied, dog redoubles efforts to kill the trigger from then on. It was very scary, and resulted in a dog I grew up with being PTS because she eventually became too dangerous for my family to manage. The aversive was not painful. All it had to be was startling. She wasn't even a particularly sensitive or soft dog.

No, I get it, I just didn't realise you were only talking about stays. Maybe it's just the way I see it, but I tend to think stationary behaviours are inherently calming, and the longer it takes to get moving again the more calming they are. I like downs for Erik because it's always as though once he's in a down he takes a slightly longer breath and calms just a little bit. Sometimes it's only a fraction, but I think it's there. He can spring into action from a down very easily, but it's still that little bit slower than from a sit. It's much more noticeable with Kivi. A rule of thumb I was taught is you can tell how relaxed an animal is by how long it will take them to get up from the position they are in and moving. I think that tends to hold true, and it's why I cue downs for the relaxation protocol with Erik instead of sits. Kivi can sit. He doesn't need much help. Personally, I like to have my dogs nice and calm when holding a stationary behaviour because I want them to feel comfortable in the position and not be anticipating the release. I know other people that aren't so fussy, though.

Says who? Kevin Behan knows better than behaviourists, does he? When my dog feels safe after being frightened, he licks his lips, yawns, makes soft little barking sounds, and walks in circles. In short, he finds non-confrontational activities to calm himself down. If he is still wound up he will run at the thing that scared him and bark at it, but pull up well short and come back to us. Running around like a nutter is pretty much the polar opposite of this, and he only ever does it when he's excited in a positive way, i.e. we have come home, he has been having a good play session with the other dog. Certainly, it is a behaviour that only occurs when he is highly aroused, and certainly, a bit of stress when it is removed can create the conditions where he might run around like a loony, but the conditions don't occur every time he feels safe. Only when he feels safe AND is in a playful state AND is very aroused.

You should get professional help because anything someone on the internet says is probably going to be a stab in the dark. Take a look at the chill out game from Dee Ganley. You can find it by doing a Google search. Sometimes dogs need to learn to control their arousal when they play. It is possible to teach them that. The Give me a Break game from Lesley McDevitt's book Control Unleashed is along the same lines. The aim is to get the dog to lie down after a very short period of play (no more than 30 seconds). You're trying to teach them that play is about a little excitement, then a little break, then more excitement, then calm down a bit. When you watch dogs play with each other, this is the usual pattern. When they don't take a break after a few minutes it can sometimes get noisier and rougher and everyone gets a bit over-excited. I find that dogs are quite cooperative when they understand the most efficient and reliable way to get the good stuff. If he keeps pushing through the door he doesn't understand that it's in his best interests to wait. Help him understand! Why should he wait? Are you going to close the door in his face before he gets in if he doesn't wait? Is he going to get a treat if he waits until he is invited in? Break it down into smaller pieces and make it a game. Can you wait for 3 seconds?? Yay!! Come on in! Have a treat. Can you wait for 4 seconds? Yaaay! Come on in. You have to make sure he's not ABLE to do what you don't want him to do. If he can push in through the door then he will keep doing it until he has a better reason not to. Until you get that nailed, just don't leave the door open. Don't let him. He can't bully your lab if he doesn't have access to the lab. The chill out game could help here as well. What is 'respect'? Some dogs automatically mind their humans, but others just don't care that much. That doesn't mean they can't be worked with or that you can't teach them to live in harmony with you. My dogs generally couldn't care less if I'm annoyed with them. What's it to them? Personally, I like it that way. They do care if I've called their name or told them to do something that is historically rewarding. They are generally quite pleasant to live with and obey the rules. They don't obey them because they respect us. They obey them because it has been rewarded in the past. My youngest dog is not your typical laid back, biddable, submissive domestic dog. He is always looking for situations to exploit. Always. It was hard work teaching ourselves how to manage him, but once we got into the habit of always checking what he was doing, making snap decisions about whether to stop behaviour or let it go, always giving directions, and thinking several steps ahead to try to anticipate what he was going to do, it wasn't that big a deal. These days it is second nature and we don't really notice it. Sometimes I think you just have to accept your dog for who they are and find a way to reach them rather than expecting them to just be what you want them to be.

Humans were my weak point for the longest time as well. I got this wonderful human anatomy book that is packed full of photos of athletes in really nice lighting. I started to get more interested in the human figure after that. Actually, an interest in werewolves helps, too! I always liked drawing foxes. Arctic foxes in their white coats are not as hard as they look. I don't think I've drawn a real animal for ages. I make up my own these days. It's good to work out feathers. It is hard, but once you have learnt the pattern they follow all your bird pictures will look really impressive. My partner is a film art director. I can always depend on him to give me constructive criticism and he helps me out with Photoshop as well. I think I like Painter better, but PS is easier to learn IMO.

A good piece of artistic advice I once received was to make sure I always have some black shadow and white highlights.

I was watching a documentary on Numbats once. A storm came through and the Numbats in their hollow log got all wet. When it passed and the sun came out, they came out of the log and ran around acting like fools. The narrator made the point that all that silly rolling and chasing each other helped get them dry and warm. Maybe there's an evolutionary advantage to post-bath exuberance. Certainly every time one of the boys have fallen in the pool they run around like nutters afterwards. My old corgi girl used to do it after a swim as well. She loved to swim, but I used to fancy she loved the post-swim rolls and run even more. We joked that she liked to spin dry. A word of caution, though, arousal can go both ways. For a while we had a dog with no bite inhibition and a slight tendency to go off the deep end when arousal mixed with uncertainty. We learnt it was a terrible idea to let her mix freely with the other dog after a bath. Nothing like finishing bathing one only to have a massive fight break out, hair everywhere, and a formerly clean and damp dog now muddy and gritty and shaking in terror while the other one still to be bathed is skittery and looking for the other dog to get back into it. That was a nice introduction to serious dog fights for a 15 year old. Actually, there's a photo somewhere of the same dog a hair's breadth from flying at the other dog's throat when we were trying to encourage her to jump into a dam for the second time. Too much excitement and a dash of uncertainty. Fortunately I was close enough to grab her and disaster was averted.

Depends how you work your cues, maybe? We know dogs are outrageously good at discriminating, so if you do the relaxation work on a mat and allow them to move around as long as they don't leave the mat, then the mat becomes a cue. Personally, I try not to cue very much at all when I'm doing it. I want lying down or sitting and being calm to be a default state when they are on their mats. Eventually, just being sent to the mat should calm them. I think that people often pair it with a verbal cue and sometimes a smell as well so they always have some way to 'cue calm'. So if I wanted to train a formal stay and use "stay" as my cue, I just wouldn't use it in the relaxation protocol. There's no need to, right? Having said all that, in my ideal world the dog should be calm enough that they naturally don't change positions anyway. I would still reward if they changed positions just to get more comfortable, but ultimately I think they should see the mat and go "time to relax" and get into a comfortable position from the start. Erik and Kivi are getting through entire sets now with just one cue at the start. They don't get up until they are told to at the end.

The point I made in my first post, Corvus was that in answer to your question, many trainer/behaviourists possibly do utilise stay training in the rehabilitation of unwanted dog behaviour but wouldn't necessarily put their hands up to say they use "Karen Overall's Protocol". If no-one put their hand up to say they do or don't use "Karen Overall's Protocol" you might draw two conclusions from that. One being that perhaps they don't know what "Karen Overall's Protocol" is and/or the second being that trainer/behaviourists don't use it. When in fact, there's a fat chance they DO use it, but that it is not "Karen Overall's Protocol" but merely something that they do because they know how to do it. Yes, I know. I read it. And that was why I asked whether you use Karen Overall's protocol for relaxation or something like it in the first place. You basically told me why I worded my question the way I did. And now you're telling me again. Thanks. It doesn't change the fact I think it's misleading to refer to Karen Overall's protocol as stay training. I get that some people use stay training instead to achieve much the same thing. Good. They are free to call it that and tell me that's how they use it or not comment because they haven't realised that they do. It's all the same to me. You're right - but I don't think it is a point I made? But perhaps this is your thought and not something you are projecting onto me . I am having difficulties understanding what points you are making to be honest. You didn't make it. My apologies for misunderstanding you. Where did I say that "obedience training is strongly about training in calm behaviours"? Er.... here? I'm talking about a very broad generalisation I thought you made. My apologies if I again misunderstood. Self control is not necessarily the same as calm IMO. I can have a dog that is coiled like a spring but still holding a cued position. Yes, I do agree that there are elements of self control in a lot of training we do, but I don't think that necessarily equates to calm. By calm I'm talking about protocol for relaxation kind of calm. A dog that is relaxed. I think perhaps we are talking about different things. I did read it and understand it the first time, Erny. You appear to have missed my point, which was simply that I don't think stay training and training relaxation are necessarily the same thing, which you then agreed with anyway insofar as the purpose and focus of the relaxation protocol is not to train a stay. I think we are arguing much the same thing. I get that you use stay training in much the same way as someone else might use Karen Overall's protocol for relaxation. You answered my question just fine the first time. Sorry, I thought we were talking about obedience in general. Lablover: Both of my dogs relax. The 18 month old one is just only good at it sometimes. I'm doing the relaxation protocol (and variations thereof) so he can manage doing nothing any time rather than only when he's already relaxed or at least not far from it. Without the help of some serious arousal-lowering tools like a Thundershirt or a massage session. The thread is not about my dogs, though. Edited for clarity. I hope.

How do you start out with a long down while tethered? I sure would love it if Erik could stay down while the cleaners vacuumed around him. We are still struggling with cleaners. He is less noisy while they are here than he used to be, but needs the Manners Minder to focus on to stay that way. Poor cleaners are a teensy bit scared of him.

I have never had a child approach my dogs to pat them without either them or their parents asking if it's okay first. Sometimes they reach down to pat my dogs if they are right there. I guess I'm fortunate in that I have one dog that loves any kind of attention from anyone and I can say "You can pat this one. He likes cuddles." If they want to pat Erik they get "He likes to do it in his own time. Pat Kivi and he'll probably come over soon enough. We let him decide when he wants to say hello." People have always been understanding and co operative. To be fair, sometimes parents want to socialise their kids to dogs. If they don't have dogs then the only thing they can do is ask people that do if it's okay for their kid to pat. I applaud any parent that's making the effort to familiarise their child with dogs and how to behave around them. I can only assume that's why the kids in my area are wonderful and always ask first even when there is no adult around to remind them. They are much better than the adults! I've had people do some pretty weird and rude things to my dogs just out of the blue. Someone once grabbed Erik's muzzle and paw. What the hell?? Recently someone tried to finger bite Erik on the neck Cesar style. Glad he's not stupid enough to let something like that happen to him.

I don't disagree, but I think it is misleading to refer to it as stay training. A good stay might be a side effect, and the protocol might be helpful to stay training, but it's beside the point. I don't really agree that obedience training is strongly about training in calm behaviours. It's not a prerequisite to me that my dogs be calm while doing what they are told. Sometimes I like to see them do it with a great sense of excitement and joy. That's what keeps them coming back. The only thing I really want them to be calm about is a stay. The Dog Scouts website says the following: I have seen similar things written by Leslie McDevitt, who was taught to use the protocol by Karen Overall.

Karen is very adamant that it is NOT a stay exercise. The dog is allowed to move around a little bit, they just have to be calm. For example, if Kivi wants to move from a sit to a down, he can and will still be rewarded. If Erik wants to get up and then sit down again, he can and he will still be rewarded. If he gets up and walks a circle around the coffee table he will not be rewarded. Most moving around he's likely to do is probably going to be displacement behaviour, even if it looks calm. The aim is to teach them they don't have to do anything. They can trust that whatever weirdness is going on, if they remain calm they will be rewarded. It is encouraged that once the basic protocol is finished, you extend it to other areas of the dog's life where it needs to learn to be more calm. I have a whole list of places and situations where I want to use it to help put Erik into a more sensible level of arousal. It is often used in treating separation anxiety. Supposedly if done correctly it is very effective, but it's not always easy to get someone to do it properly. It takes a pretty big commitment. You don't need a PhD to want to use a fairly standardised approach (or write it down). And just because you use a standardised approach it doesn't mean you apply it the same way every time. Gray Stafford says a good trainer always goes into a training session with a detailed plan... and then throws it out the window as soon as they are face to face with the animal. I've always liked this idea and found it to be very true. A plan gives confidence and direction to the trainer, but for me at least it is simply a framework. Something that guides me rather than a recipe to follow. I don't think anyone that uses the protocol for relaxation as a first step in behavioural modification applies it as is every time.

Erik had to do Day 1 four times before he was ready for Day 2. I like it. I think it teaches good skills. Kivi loves it. He thinks it's the easiest way in the world to get treats. He'll sit for as long as it takes to get Erik through the set. He's a darling.

Oh, they get walked plenty. We just don't usually do it on the streets. To be honest I'm pretty comfortable with dog parks. I have my eye in and can usually predict trouble before it finds us. What I find difficult about the street is not having that opportunity. Often I can't see the dogs and the first indication I get that they are there is if one of my dogs' ears go forward. Naw, just don't like being surprised. Especially given we're talking about territorial aggression. To me it is a whole different ball game to stroppy dogs in parks or dogs trying to pick a fight for no real reason. My dogs can generally deal with that kind of thing very effectively and won't be drawn into conflicts. Haha, usually I am cool as a cucumber. I've snatched my dog right out of a scuffle, calmly headed off unwanted attention, and held other people's dogs for them to prevent brewing trouble. In normal circumstances me and the dogs shrug off aggressive behaviour and move on. But a dog appearing 5 metres away already in an aggressive frenzy is not a normal circumstance for us. It's not fearing what might happen, it's being startled by what is happening.