aussielover

The prong collar is not necessarily a pain stimulus, and indeed if used correctly should not cause pain at all.

Can I ask why people consider tugging to be a superior reward to food? I was looking at the 2x2 method on susan garetts site and she said ALL the dogs in her training club are taught to use the tug rather than food. Additionally does anyone know where I can get some info on training the 2x2 method for weaves? - like can you use a ball instead of a tug? or even where I could get a reaosnably priced book or dvd about this method? I am thinking about going back to basics with weaves, having a lot of trouble with entries. Once we get going, we are fine, it is just the first 2- 3 weaves that are an issue at the moment.

So would you use TOT with a new puppy huski?

I must say I find your attitude rather perplexing Are you against conventional veterinary medicine? Although I can understand your exasperation, I also have an allergic labrador. Unfortunately, if your dog has atopic dermatitis (labradors have a breed predisposition to this) there is no cure. From what I understand your dog has been itchy for years but you have not sought a specialist referral? The first thing I would recommend is to get your dog's allergies diagnosed correctly by a veterinary dermatologist. I see you are against antihistamines- can I ask why? They are considered one of the safest drugs to use for treating itchiness. Although in dogs they do not act quite the same way as in humans and are often not as effective. It takes some trial and error to find a suitable antihistamine though. You generally need to try a specific one for 2 weeks (a few days is NOT enough). There are several antihistamines available including a specific animal one (iramine). So it can take months to find a suitable one. It also won't do any harm to try some natural remedies, indeed some can provide immense relief for the dog. I believe other DOLers have used calendula tea with success. You say you have done a food rotation- what is that? To diagnose food allergy your dog must be on a novel protein/novel carbohydrate diet such as roo and pumpkin ONLY for 8 weeks minimum. If your dog reacts after the 8 weeks, when you put it back on "normal" food, then it probably has a food allergy. My dog is allergc to Chicken. Cutting that out of her diet has made a difference to her itch level. She is also doing the desensitization injections. Whilst it is true that it is optimal to ccontinue these for life, after a yera or 2, the injections may only be once yearly. I have found the injections have made difference to my dogs level of itch. She is not on any corticosteroids or immunosuppressants now where as prevoiusly she was taking prednisolone 10mg every second day. I hope you can find something to help your dog, I know allergies can be frustrating for both owner and dog, so I definitely feel your pain These are the things that have helped my dog (some may help yours?): - claratyne tablets (2 x 10 mg tablets once a day, as needed) - no chicken in her diet, mainly raw diet - Regular bathing in malaseb or natural shampoo - swimming every day - omega 3 and 6 oils. I get the dermoscent spot on treatments but you can also get pills - desensitization injections. Currently we do every 3 weeks, but to start with you have to do twice a week. - neocort or topical cortisone cream (elocon- need a prescription for this). These are topical so do not have systemic effects. I only use if very itchy/redness in area.

I love the lab puppy craziness!!! They are one of the most fun puppies I reckon. Always up for a game, food, cuddles, dont think I've ever met a quiet or shy one

I have also experienced this. In my opinion, the residual excitement/adrenalin from the previous exterion causes them to be more keen on an item/action they aren't neccessarily normally keen on. My dog is a keen ball chaser and if I play this with her before I tug, I usually get a much more enthusiastic tug game. Maybe they also think along the lines "well that WAS fun after all!" I know if I am pestered to go out for a walk by my dog, I usually come back thinking that it was fun/enjoyable anyway even if I was reluctant to taker her ion the first place... clearly she has me well trained lol I would recommend you check out TID, lots of people have achieved amazing results with it

Skip and Kavik- I don't understand how it is actually a "reward" if you have to pester the dog with a tug? I was always told that you should give a high value reward immediately after a good performance. If you chase your dog with a tug (though my dog would prob find that hilarious ) instead of giving a piece of favourite food, then wouldn't you be diminishing their desire to work well the next time?

I totally get what you are saying Huski Corvus: :laugh: DO you honestly think anything other than food is more important to a lab? LOL Seroiusly though, she works for a ball as well as she works for food to the point where she will sometimes reject food for the ball. I should really utilise it more in training but I find it difficult especially in groups training situations (my aim is not good and the other dogs get excited by it as well). I have another question- Why do some dogs enjoy being chased?

Given the choice (if I had an acerage) I probably wouldn't take my dog to dog parks. I do not agree with Buddy1- I beleive that some dogs (not all) do need have a free runto burn off some energy and have fun. This doesn't neccessarily mean with other dogs. At the moment I do take her to dog parks but I'm not keen on her playing with or even interacting with smaller dogs that we don't know. Unfortunately most of the aggressive dogs we encounter are little dogs and really pick on my submissive girl. Its probably not their fault- they may have had bad exeperiences with big dogs and are just acting defensively but all the same I prefer my dog not to go and greet any strange dogs willy nilly. Having said that, I do trust her judgement her judgement around other dogs.

Corvues- do your dogs now find the tug equally as rewarding as food? Why wouldnt you just continue to build value for food, if this is already their most desired reward? My dog actually plays the chase and tug game MUCH better than the food game, but I think as a reward she prefers food and would inherently always pick food over a game of tug. We are not talking about playing a game of tug, but talking about using a game of tug as a reward. If you have to train a dog to enjoy a game of tug, is it really ever going to be as rewarding as the primary reinforcer you originally used eg food?

I believe by 4 months old most puppies should be pretty much toilet trained. I would worry if they weren't 99% by 6 months. They aren't able to hold on for longer periods until 5-8 months depending on the dog. So although they are toilet trained, they still need to be let out or have free access to outside more frequently. I believe had I provided free access outside, toilet training would have been much quicker, but unfortunately we got a winter puppy so leaving the door open was impractical and we don't have a dog door.

Lavendergirl- the OP isn't allowed to be annoyed when a difficult client rocks up to her private home with a difficult dog and demands on the spot service???

Mindy does it as well, when she is happily playing with a friend. She has never been aggressive to anothe rdog in her life, so it dosn't neccesarily= aggression I was speaking to her puppy trainer and apparently it is quite common in labs- as an excitement rather than aggression thing.

Just drive questions in general thanks to all who replied, lots of interesting thoughts. Will of corse ask Steve his opinions too!

Wuffles- Satch sounds like such a character! I'm feeling a litte frustrated atm, although Mindy is far from difficult, she is variable and unpredictable in how well she will respond to training. Also for a dog food obsessed enough to break into a 6kg bag of dog food and scoff it, vomit and then eat it again she is proving rather hard to motivate to chase a piece of cabanossi. I also feel like I don't know how to reward her properly- at training if I offer a toy she'll want food, but then if I offer food, she'll bring me a toy and want to tug. Very confusing. Anyway we are working on the drive program at the moment- she improved a little today so I am happy with that. I think I'm just going to focus on the program only at the moment (and give all other traininhg a rest) and she how she goes and then re evaulate our suitability for competition.

Maddy27- Good luck with it! You sound very responsible and I wish you all the best. The purebred dog world needs more people like you involved

Don't want to upset you corvus as I know you have a pet hare but... Mindy kills rabbits; or at least the sick ones she manages to catch So she is pretty serious about it. I have heard that some people cosider food drive to be a type of prey drive, so I agree it may not actually exist as a completely separate drive, but be an expression of prey drive- if that makes sense? Is that what you were getting at? By ruin a drive- i guess I mean supress it to the point where it would be impossible or at least very difficult to utilise again. Your electronic dog trainer sounds interesting! Thanks for responding, always interesting to hear peoples opinions Although I have to admit it sometimes hurts my brain to interpret your technical speak, all these different "trainer speak" terms confuse me

TOT is triangle of temptation, it is avail in the training forum.

What is the difference between play and prey drive? Is there a difference between food drive and food obsession? Can a dog be low drive but high energy? Can you change a dogs drive levelin either direction ie up or down ? How does work ethic relate to drive? Can you ruin a dogs drive? Going off training sessions I would probably say my dog is low/medium drive for both food and prey. But if you see her do a trial (well we've only done practice ones but still a full course) you might say she has more energy/drive Additionally she is food obsessed and will offer an infinite number of attempts and behaviours just to get a crumb of a muffin or a piece of dry kibble. She loves chasing balls, birds and rabbits (but is scared of cats). She enjoys playing tug and tugs hard around 75% of the time (you guessed it- in training she doesn't!) She loves running around at the dog park and beach. Today she ran full pelt from one beach to another (I'd say at least 500 meters) over a series of rocks and ramps (rather like agility lol) several times between me and my mum calling her. This was after swimming for and running for a ball for over an hour. I just can't seem to focus this into training! I'm wondering if its because she has a poor work ethic, or is stressed or has play drive, not prey? Or if she is a low drive dog with higher energy levels. Or if I have ruined her drive.... She was a full on puppy, really outgoing, energetic, inquisitive, naughty etc but was only rewarded for calm behaviour and not encouraged to tug or chase things. I have only recently started playing tug and ball with her. Just starting a drive training program so hopefully that will help! - interestingly although she normally WON'T give up to trying to get food, she doesn't actually seem to want to chase it- not sure if this is manners (we have never trained or encouraged this sort of behaviour before and to be honest when she was a puppy if she were to grab, jump up to get or chase down food she would have been corrected).

Just to note here - I personally don't see it as 'taking away the food' if you raise the food back up BEFORE you present it (i.e it hits the floor), you are simply giving the dog a choice. It behaves = it gets to eat dinner. It's like when you are training a trick ect, the dog does not associate not being able to get the treats in your treat bag with you, they learn to behave in a way you find desirable to earn those treats. (I know that is worded really poorly but hopefully you get my meaning Mas) Thankyou RallyVally, at last someone that agrees with me. You put it very nicely. I have found this method has created a very well mannered puppy & he has the most fabulous stay, during all distractions, not just at dinner time. His startline stays for agility, are fantastic & he is not quite 6 months old. To him, it's a game, & he loves it Hey Sheena, I hope u didnt get the impression that I disagree with your method I do think TOT is effective and as I said before it was also uselful to teach accepting tieback- very important for my dog who was a guide dog pup and had to come with me everywhere and was tied up under my desk at work etc. It is also good for agility training where it is impractical to carry a crate around everywhere. I think your method also sounds very sensible, I trained my prevoius dog in the same way

I would say that TOT is what I practice with my pup, but I have taught it in a way where he has never needed to be tied up then released to his food. If you can shape your pup to learn the behaviour by "offering" then he will learn quicker & it will stay in his mind better than if you physically restrain him. Each to his own... there are many diffrerent ways to teach the same behaviour ;) I'm aware you don't "need" a tie back to teach this particular behaviour but I found it an excellent way to teach self control as well as to teach them to settle on a tie back, which has really come in handy.

Mindy sounds like Gibbs- she was extremely greedy and desperate to eat! Which is why i went with TOT- the tieback means they can't fail and they don't associate not being allowed to eat with you (compared to if you physically held them back, took away the food or corrected them). I don't use the tie back anymore because she is really reliable. Mindy and TOT (dont mind my shoes lol)

I think it's very nice of you to refund if the puppies gey hip dysplasia and also a little naive. but I do hope you realise that in large breeds dogs hd is unfortunately quite common and multifactorial meaning that even if you breed dog with only 0/0 scores, puppies can still get hd. If not given good nutrition and appropriate exercise puppies can get hd which would be not your fault.

What would be the consequences of reporting this dog? Am I right in assuming that if they are adhering to the dangerous dog restrictions then they are safe? Or would the dog be at risk of being seized and PTS?

I used tot with mindy and she is totally reliable now, you can leave the room for several minutes and she will not eat until released. You have lots of drool to clean up if you do this though lol!!!