melzawelza

Yep, I cried when I read it the other day

How AWFUL. That poor family. Again shows how important supervision is with dogs and babies, and to not get too comfortable about the potential damage of small dogs on small people. I hope the family can heal.

Hi all, For anyone who hasn't seen this already: A small number of non-bull breeds are welcome. The workshop will cover the following topics: Public perception and the media Owner responsibilities Canine psychology Stimuli, what it is and how to control it Social importance Top 5 canine related issues Practical workshop You can book here (not many spots left so be quick!): Canine Diem All profts are going to Fetching Dogs for the awesome rescue work they do.

How dreadful, but I don't see what BSL has to do with this? Poor lady, and RIP little doggy It has everything to do with it. BSL is supposed to protect the community from dog attacks. Victoria has the strongest and most draconian BSL in the country, with hundreds of dogs being seized and killed because of their appearance within the state. Yet horrible, horrible attacks continue to occur. This is a perfect example of how BSL targets dogs that may never be an issue, and misses dogs that are. I've seen this logic before on DOL and it doesn't make any sense. Do you think we should abolish laws regarding murder and rape because it doesn't stop them occuring? Laws only exist to reduce crimes/violence, they don't prevent it altogether. Whether the laws have reduced dog attacks is another matter, but the fact that dog attacks still occur is not a perfect example of the uselessness of BSL. BSL is proven to not reduce the rate of dog attacks. Attacks still occur at the same (sometimes higher) frequency despite harsh BSL laws. This attack is an example of many. Way to miss the point.. It's not missing the point at all. You stated that laws are there to reduce attacks not eliminate them altogether. BSL has been proven all over the world to not reduce attacks. If aggressively enforced it may reduce attacks BY THAT PARTICULAR BREED but the overall attack rate does not go down (i.e, other breeds just start attacking more often as the same shitty owners go and get them instead). This attack is just an example of that happening.

How dreadful, but I don't see what BSL has to do with this? Poor lady, and RIP little doggy It has everything to do with it. BSL is supposed to protect the community from dog attacks. Victoria has the strongest and most draconian BSL in the country, with hundreds of dogs being seized and killed because of their appearance within the state. Yet horrible, horrible attacks continue to occur. This is a perfect example of how BSL targets dogs that may never be an issue, and misses dogs that are. I've seen this logic before on DOL and it doesn't make any sense. Do you think we should abolish laws regarding murder and rape because it doesn't stop them occuring? Laws only exist to reduce crimes/violence, they don't prevent it altogether. Whether the laws have reduced dog attacks is another matter, but the fact that dog attacks still occur is not a perfect example of the uselessness of BSL. BSL is proven to not reduce the rate of dog attacks. Attacks still occur at the same (sometimes higher) frequency despite harsh BSL laws. This attack is an example of many.

Awful

Oh and they can send her a notice every six months telling her to register within 28 days and fine her another $165 every time. Best for her to contact the council and ask if her dogs are considered as exempt and if not just register them. It'll cost her lots more in the long run if she's caught.

If the Council deems it to not be exempt as a working dog in NSW the fine is $165 and the same again every time they catch you with the dog in a public place. May be exempt though as per above post.

:laugh: :laugh: Glenn is absolutely fantastic, I think everyone will get a lot out of it.

As always, I think a balanced approach to this is the best approach. Alpha rolling, 'dominant' dogs, eating before etc etc is all old school and out the window. BUT I don't like a lot of the other side of the coin who state that dominance does not exist in any form (of course it does, and it manifests in the ownership of resources), and dogs are like furry children who don't look for leadership or ever challenge their owners. Both sides are silly to me. In my mind, dogs are animals that co-exist with humans and benefit strongly with the owners being in a position of leadership. This doesn't mean alpha rolling and eating first, this means training the dog consistently in a balanced manner, practicing some form of NILIF and having the dog work for appreciation and valued resources. Some dogs crumble without leadership and others challenge their owners over resources without it (see the Lab bit me thread). Some dogs will do just fine without it, but it's still important and worthwhile.

Wobbly! Yay!! I was part of the organisation of this one and will be there with Cocoa... we can meet!

Aahhahahaha, so even legislation is not enough for Luke GSP to admit he's wrong. But then he still hasn't even admitted that no pure bred APBT is 50kg so why am I not surprised.

The dogs often have lots of othe behaviour issues stemming from the complete lack of exercise and stimulation and the cumulative effect sees them end up in the pound. I'm not saying every dog is there because of these reasons; but it happens and it happens too often. I'd agree that the people on the other side are also closed minded and just as bad - the people who rely heavily on corrections and not much reward. That's why I value balanced training methods.

Checks are a different story. They are very hard to get right for most owners and have much more potential for physical damage. I'd choose a prong over a check 99% of the time. I agree that prong collars seem to be much more effective than slip collars and they can't choke in the same way - but they have the same problems in the hands of untrained beginners. Ie the dog gets continually punished for all behaviour and never rewarded for good behaviour. And the nature of postive punishment is - that you have to continually escalate it to keep getting a response. And then there is the fall out you get from using postive punishment (adding + an aversive). Unless the handler's timing is perfect and they remember to get good behaviour and reward that immediately after - the dog does not understand what it is being punished for or what the handler wants instead. So at dog club - there's not enough one to one supervision and encouragement for the handler to be able to get it right. And getting it wrong can have nasty consequences for dog and handler. In my experience they rarely have the same problems in untrained hands as checks. Most dogs who have a long history of pulling need some pretty hefty whacks on a check to get any sort of result. This sets a precedent for heavy corrections and actually puts the dog owner in a more agitated state. They have much, much more potential for physical damage. Dogs on prongs don't get continual punishment (sounds like head collars to me). Not unless the owners are stringing them up, but again I've found that almost all people regardless of how 'green' they are are incredibly delicate on prongs because of the way they look. You don't have to continue escalating at all, most dogs only desensitize slightly if at all on a prong, and if you're using the prong IN CONJUNCTION with rewards for Correct behaviour (which you should be), the need for corrections all but disappears quite quickly. Dogs learn very, very fast on prongs. It's a brilliant way to get big progress with a dog that an owner has all but given uP on for walking, and show them the light at the end of the tunnel. It also means that the dog is finally getting exercises which makes EVERYTHING easier.

Checks are a different story. They are very hard to get right for most owners and have much more potential for physical damage. I'd choose a prong over a check 99% of the time. I agree that prong collars seem to be much more effective than slip collars and they can't choke in the same way - but they have the same problems in the hands of untrained beginners. Ie the dog gets continually punished for all behaviour and never rewarded for good behaviour. And the nature of postive punishment is - that you have to continually escalate it to keep getting a response. And then there is the fall out you get from using postive punishment (adding + an aversive). Unless the handler's timing is perfect and they remember to get good behaviour and reward that immediately after - the dog does not understand what it is being punished for or what the handler wants instead. So at dog club - there's not enough one to one supervision and encouragement for the handler to be able to get it right. And getting it wrong can have nasty consequences for dog and handler. In my experience they rarely have the same problems in untrained hands as checks. Most dogs who have a long history of pulling need some pretty hefty whacks on a check to get any sort of result. This sets a precedent for heavy corrections and actually puts the dog owner in a more agitated state. They have much, much more potential for physical damage. Dogs on prongs don't get continual punishment (sounds like head collars to me). Not unless the owners are stringing them up, but again I've found that almost all people are incredibly delicate on prongs because of the way they look. You don't have to continue escalating at all, most dogs only desensitize slightly if at all on a prong, and if you're using the prong IN CONJUNCTION with rewards for Correct behaviour (which you should be), the need for corrections all but disappears quite quickly. Dogs learn very, very fast on prongs. It's a brilliant way to get big progress with a dog that an owner has all but given uP on for walking, and show them the light at the end of the tunnel. It also means that the dog is finally getting exercises which makes EVERYTHING easier.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you. But I'll also say that a lot of balanced trainers are sick to death of seeing dogs surrendered at pounds because the owners can't or won't do what's needed for a positive only approach to leash training a dog that has already learnt to pull like a steam train, when it could have been addressed if the trainer had a more open mind.

Checks are a different story. They are very hard to get right for most owners and have much more potential for physical damage. I'd choose a prong over a check 99% of the time.

but cause they are smaller and their owners don't think they are a problem they are often not contained properly. This is true.

Not necessarily. Take a 60kg dog that hasn't left it's backyard in a year because the owner can't hold it back. Sure, we could put it on front attach harnesses and spend weeks to months trying get the owners timing right for when to stop and not move forward (thats if they can stop at all!), when to reward, how to reward, how to reward quickly enough that the dog associates it with the behaviour we want to reward, all the while expecting the owner to be unbelievably patient and go on walks where it takes them 20 minutes to move 10 meters. Would we get there in the end? Sure, if the owner was really patient, and picked up the many different concepts involved and the timing. But it the owner wasn't any of those things, and wasn't willing to spend weeks to months on it, and/or simply couldn't physically hold the dog back, we could introduce a prong collar and just carefully and clearly ensure the owner understands that this took is NOT for cranking and yanking, and a lot of the work is done by the dog anyway. I find that prong collars LOOK so harsh (much more harsh than they actually are) that most people are very ginger and careful with them, and very very soft with corrections. People figure out very quickly that they don't NEED to crank the dog on a prong, and therefore they don't do it. With a prong collar we can usually go for a nice walk first go. Dog gets exercised adequately which means other behavioral issues start to improve very quickly, and the owner doesn't have 5 different things to think about when teaching the dog how to walk.

That's not what I would call skilful application. Is that what you would call skilful application? Really? Then how can we say it's being used effectively if it doesn't work? We know that in some cases at least it does work, so if it doesn't, can we be certain it was applied skilfully? No, every species that is capable of some level of cognition responds to operant conditioning. They don't just respond to the quadrants that suit them. Pretty much anything with the ability to sense its surroundings responds to classical conditioning. Arguments about the effectiveness of quadrant-based methods are mostly pointless. They are all effective. It's a matter of the balance of reinforcers and punishers, the ability to control the environment, and what's driving the behaviour. You don't have to be a balanced trainer to be a good judge of these things, and many good trainers get by just fine with hundreds of difficult dogs without using things like prong collars. I'm sure it's a confronting thing to hear and it's more comfortable to shrug it off or come up with reasons to justify using tools others have decided they don't want any part of, but honestly, it is fact. There are plenty of people out there training all manner of big, powerful, reactive, aggressive dogs without prong collars or corrections and having great success. Are they better trainers than you? Many have done the prong collar thing once upon a time and don't anymore. It's not hard to find them. Are you game to look? Can you accept that it can and is being done? You could even learn how if you wanted. Arguments based on a single dog are also pointless. If you've been through a bunch of different methods there are a bunch of big fat question marks surrounding the whole thing. How skilfully were those other methods applied? Were they tried for long enough? To what extent did they affect the methods tried afterwards? How were other confounding factors like arousal and emotional state managed? Were they managed at all? How much practice did the dog get performing the undesired behaviour? Was the driving force correctly identified in the first place? Were the antecedents correctly identified? Was there conditioning involved? Oftentimes things work, but they don't always work for the reasons people think they work. I've seen dogs basically bludgeoned with the same awful training over and over and I wonder how on earth they actually managed to learn anything, let alone the desired behaviour. But they do. Dogs do stuff like that. They are so easy to train they are their own worst enemy. It doesn't matter whether the trainer can train and control the dog without tools or corrections (that only matters with their own dogs). It matters whether the OWNER can, and many do nt have the skill set, timing or knowledge to apply completely positive training to very tricky, dangerous behavioral issues. ETA: and more importantly, are not willing to invest the length of time needed to get adequate results using those methods.

But owner capability is a huge factor into how you teach them to train a dog. MUP had success with a check chain, The fact that you or I or anyone else may have had success with different techniques doesn't matter, because the person who has to handle and live with the dog didn't. That's the problem with only subscribing to one philosophy. If the owner is unable to do it and isnt given an alternative that they can, the dog is the one that often pays when it ends up at the pound or with the green dream.

I'd just as likely report a SWF if it was 2/3 of the way through the gaps in the fence too. They just aren't as relevant to the discussion as they are much easier to contain.

BINGO You've already been shown that in many cases they WOULD be doing something wrong, yet you still say 'bingo'? It is up to the Council to decide if the fence is adequate or not. If you report it, they aren't forced to act. If the person is being over the top then once Council has gone and checked out the fence they won't take any action. If the fence is inadequate they will. That's what Councils and ACO's are for.

Why is it always the "pitbulls" or larger breed types that get such a bagging in these sort of threads? Seriously - if there were one or more swfs in an inadequately fenced yard threatening to get out and do me or my dogs harm, I'd be just as narked off as if the dogs were of a larger breed. Funnily enough, around our way, it's more likely that it will be the swfs that will have a go... not the larger breeds... ... and don't give me that malarkey about smaller dogs doing less damage so it's more acceptable for them to be nasty... it's not! T. I think Megan was saying that because Luke GSP has been on a rampage in quite a few threads recently about 'pitbulls' (50kg ones apparently) initially and then all large breed owners needing to take many more precautions than other dog owners because their dogs are more powerful (which I actually didn't disagree with at all, once he wasn't only singling out 'pit bulls' and was addressing ALL large dogs). I think Megan, like me, picked up that that seemed to be in direct contradiction to his posts in this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong Megan. Edited for clarity.

I would report if I felt the dog could get out and attack because the fence was deteriorating. But if the fence is ok, I will leave it up to the neighbours of that dog to complain if the noise is excessive. I wonder how some people put up with living next door to some of these dogs. I wouldn't leave a dog in a front yard where it will feel that its territory is being threatened by people walking past in the street. Poor dogs and poor neighbours. Yep, agree completely. If there's very little risk of the dog actually escaping, then it's of no concern to me.