Mrs Rusty Bucket

Most of me wasn't working properly - especially my feet - after a long day of stewarding at an agility comp on Saturday. But I don't think there is anything wrong that could be fixed by surgery. Limping like that - three steps - with my dog - usually she's got a gumnut stuck in her foot. Or an ant... It's worse if it's a caltrop - she just looks at me with a paw in the air like the end of the world has come and I should fix it. Big round eyes of misery. So hopefully it's nothing serious enough to require surgery and a bit of rest will fix it. I am amazed at how much of me stops working when I'm not doing enough of the right kind of exercise. Just walking the dog for two or three hours split between morning and evening - is not enough to keep my balance muscles awake and stretched. Sigh.

I have heard reports of a problem where GPs will miss less obvious causes of symptoms - ie they've seen this set of symptoms before so it must be this common thing... But they can be wrong, and they lose some of the knowledge they came out of medical school for the rarer kinds of problems. I tried to find the study(s) but failed this time. But there is this sort of curve of ability to diagnose which depends on the diversity of experience of the doctor - ie if they always see the same kinds of problems, they're less likely to diagnose something that doesn't fit - even if that's what is there. I'd guess that kind of problem would be common across professions. I'd still want to know why Jonah was sore and limping - and then he wasn't. Frosty has been through this recently - first time she got better with rest - I had to put her on lead in the back yard so she couldn't do "patrol" at full blast. And then she cut her foot pad. Argh. But initially the symptom looked similar to me... but my dad the orthopod could tell which joint was damaged by the way the person moved. A specialist joint vet would be able to do the same. So when I took Frosty to the vet the first time - I was surprised they didn't ask to see her moving. They just did a very intimidating joint feel up. When I did my knee - I not only tore the ligament right through the middle - and the complete tear only showed up on the MRI, not the xrays, but I also shredded but not completely the ligaments on each side. So the whole thing was loose and wobbly (didn't work, would not hold me up). And the first doctor did not take the lateral tears and lack of stability into account when recommending a treatment. Took me two years of trying and failing rehab because my leg wasn't stable enough to do it... and then I changed docs. Sometimes - that's what it takes - going to a doc with a different perspective. And that's not always the one in the same practice. Annoying that doctors and vets etc - sometimes get a bit complacent about the seen it before - must be this kinds of diagnoses. As a computer programmer - I start with what is most common and then work through until I find a way of fixing the problem. But I test each step - ie there's no point saying this will fix it - if you don't check that the fix has actually worked - and not broken anything else. But vets and GPs don't follow up. They ought to follow up. They might argue that it's the customer that should follow up but - what I have done each time some GP/vet has said "this will fix it" and it didn't - is gone to someone else who doesn't say things that are wrong.

I guess a clean hack saw would do it. The easiest way for me to do it - is to use my dog's teeth... but she might not be happy with what happens to the other half.

I think Hustle might be hard to yell across the park, but otherwise - good going... :)

Hi All It's hard to avoid this one if you live in Adelaide and I don't know how this dog can have so much damage and still be alive. Looks like really bad pervasive mange, hot spots and skin infections, abscesses and ulcers - don't click if you have a weak stomach. Not to mention starved. The RSPCA would like help finding the owners and people responsible for this.

I always thought that was a bit of remnant dingo in my dog - but maybe she's got a bit of spitz too...

I dunno if training related to recall is so different to training related to heelwork. It's all in what's rewarding for the dog. Given my dog will also work for attention, and chase games, and tug, and butt rubs... And even tho I might have great food on me - that doesn't guarantee a recall with her... I'm wondering if the whole food thing is sort of a cue for work. So the cue that looked like food but wasn't... that was the cue. I will have to experiment with that. Evil hound did get a treat for working with my friend - when I got back.

There's a website for that - of course http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/

Gawd that needs a cruelty warning for the second clip Man picks up his dog by the neck and throws it when it finally comes back. WTF. Tell me I saw that wrong. Kind of reminds me of Fenton tho.

Evil hound actually did some of her lovely trick heelwork for a friend tonight at club who was just pretending to have a treat. Hmm... It doesn't seem to matter if the treats are on me or not. And I don't need them at all for some games - just the heelwork. I just need to be more random and fun with the heelwork rewards and build up duration I guess. But that's not really anything to do with the really reliable recall.

really? Neither does dog fighting or cock fighting. Or pig shooting. But you don't need the general population to support it for it to exist. I think it's better to have it legal with animal welfare requirements than force it underground.

My dog might win on a twisty track but not in a straight line. She's well out run by whippets, some border collies, kelpies, wolf hounds, but put a corner or two in and she's back in the race. We did lure coursing at Virginia a while back - they had greyhounds running on the same day - and their times were nearly half my dog's best effort... wow.

Could be right. So how would you transition to behaviour -> reward... for heel work. I get short bursts for other rewards like toys/tugs/balls but not nearly as good as for food.

Thanks Lisa CC The studies all look promising but there's not a lot of info on side effects and the sample sizes are very small (less than 100 dogs). Some of them - they called the study "double blind" because the vets doing the parasite count to check effectiveness didn't know what the dogs were treated with. I thought double blind study meant the person administering (or receiving) the dose didn't know if they had an active treatment or a placebo. But I guess the person measuring results and taking details of side effects would do a better job if they don't know who got the active treatment either.

hi Simply Grand The classically conditioned recall should not fail. If it does fail - the training is incomplete. The other kind - it's called "brilliant" by Susan Garrett, is not the same. And I think a running cat would fail it for my dog. Sometimes a running possum will but we've had a bit more practice with those - if they're far enough away we're good but otherwise... oh dear. And crows... she hates crows. And those kinds of distractions are hard to incorporate into training sessions. They just refuse to co-operate. The other kind of training - actually works better if you only reward the best performances - once the dog understands the task. Which does my head in. So we've got great results with the start line stay, and release. And seriously crap results with heel work (cos I've never managed to fade the treats or even reduce them)... She does lovely heelwork as long as she knows there's a food reward in it for her. Otherwise - she nicks off.

Hi Simply grand That's why my post before yours is called "the other kind of recall" and it is less reliable than the classically conditioned one. But it's more fun. I'm more likely to do that kind of training. It's the one you use your other recall word not the emergency recall word... Classically conditioned responses are hard to train especially ones that don't happen naturally for the dog (against instinct). Hence classically conditioned slobbering - I can get that fast and reliably.

Much as Frosty likes to fetch my shoes (tho not a matching pair yet), she'd stop at bringing them through a patch of caltrop... she doesn't like them any more than I do.

What those neighbours need is a tree full of nesting sulphur crested cockatoos or red tail black cockatoos. I have a friend whose neighbours complained about her dogs barking - and they didn't bark all the time and they were inside at night. She said - I will make my dogs quiet when you shut your geese up (more 5am Sunday morning noise).

Cool. if you can persuade your friend to post a small results summary here - I'd love to know how it turned out. Tho I suspect that DOLers might have skewed the results some (and written a lot in the boxes).

That's going to be a fail for me any where there's water... there goes the phone. And the treats...

Hi all SA Government is finally proposing some changes that will help catch them up with the Eastern States. in particular - more microchipping. And stricter requirements on breeders. Unlike the Eastern States - as best I can tell - there is no minimum number of bitches that makes you a breeder - if your animal has puppies - you have to comply. They have made it confusing by mixing cat stuff in with the dog stuff, and some of it is too vague to be enforced and a lot of it is "guidelines" ARRRGH - ie rules that are not intended to be enforced. So they're doing a public consult where you can have your say. Or you can write your local state MP directly. You can do the online survey and you can send in your own submission. Remember if you do want to have your say - focus on what you want, and what the rules would need to say to achieve that. http://yoursay.sa.gov.au/yoursay/south-australia-s-dog-and-cat-reforms

So for the other kind of recall... Based on Susan Garrett's methods - which work quite well for my dog tho do mess with her head somewhat... She has a rule "only reward average or better performance" - ie no rewarding the crap stuff. Which is not how you do the classically conditioned recall (or slobber at the sight of the yogurt tub). And she's always "building the value" (setting up the dog for success, and rewarding at a high rate) then "testing the value", ie setting the dog up for a planned failure (adding a distraction that the dog might be tempted by, eg bowl of food that the dog needs to ignore to get to you on recall). If the dog falls for that - you reset and start over. Sometimes you have to put a lid on the food but my dog gets really "embarrassed" when I reset her and tends not to fall for the distraction a second time - if the environment is sufficiently well controlled. Eg I can catch her in the yard, but it's not so easy at the beach. So with my start line stay and release - which works really well as a recall for me - because the reward is with me (my hat)... if she moves her feet... I laugh at her and put her back and we start over with no fun game of chase me until she can hold her feet in place no matter what I do. So she's pretty close to rock solid at this, with any distraction I can throw at her. She's even managed to stay put when another dog in the line has gotten up, done a play bow at her, then sat on her. Cos what I've got is better than that. And the more twitchy I am, trying to fake her out - the better her stay is and the more fun she's having doing it because she doesn't know just when she will get to "pounce". Ie the people who are trying to get their dog to stay and eliminating all the distractions get a dog that's crap at staying. Hence making distractions part of your recall gets you a better recall (easiest thing for me is a bowl of food - often the same one she's going to get the reward from if she's successful). The worst thing you can do is be the vending machine of treats, and taken for granted. The pokie machine model works much better. And all that - is quite different to the classically conditioned recall. Eg a dog might fail this recall if something really distracting goes by - like maybe - a horse and buggy. Or a kiteboarder. Or a dolphin. Or the lady that dishes out 3 minutes worth of roast chicken treats. So - if you're training the brilliant recall - use a different word or signal than the classically conditioned recall.

I don't know any dog (agility/obedience) judges that make enough money to give up their day jobs. They get paid and if they are qualified enough to get an interstate or international gig, their expenses are paid (food, accommodation, transport) but I don't think it covers the cost of taking time off work. Might be different overseas? I think given breed judging is such a long term thing - that actually stewarding and helping out judges will make the study a lot easier. Will give it all context.

Lemme see if I can sum up the dvd... It involves treats that your dog loves... You may have to reduce the size of his dinner for while. First you have to have control over the environment - so the DVD suggests starting at home - in the house... I might have to review it for details but essentially - it's like physio - you do three recalls in the house with a new word for recall not a previously broken one eg "Beer" (sounds a bit like here)... say word when dog is already headed your way, when dog arrives feed it cheese - try to drag the reward out for 30 seconds telling the dog how insanely clever he is... 30 seconds is a really long time but Afghans can be a bit slow on the uptake. Do this three times a day. Do not use your special word any other time than when you're sure the dog is already coming. You can train a less reliable every day recall word as well but don't break your Beer. You need to get about 100 perfect responses in a row (record keeping anyone?) before you try the word in a less controlled space. Takes about a month if you're doing the three times a day. And when you've got your super recall word - you need to maintain the training - maybe not 3x a day but fairly often - otherwise instinct drift will win. If your dog has a natural tendancy to nick off - you will need to train for the rest of it's life - intermittently. I will watch the dvd again and check - but that's the gist of it. The hard part is doing the 3 times a day - which is why my dog responds so well to the fridge door opening - cos that's where the good treats live. You can prime your house ahead of time and put some treats in the telly room, in the bathroom, in the kitchen... or out on the sulo bin etc. Start in the house, then the back yard then the front yard (on lead)... then a small fenced space that isn't home eg inside a friends house or yard... a neighbourhood public tennis court (is Adelaide the only place that has these?) - make it fun, and drag the reward out for 30 seconds, 3 repeats per day).

This is what the original breeder of these dogs thinks. He's sorry. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/nov/13/inventors-idea-regret Same Rutland Manor lady involved but I can't remember her name sorry The 'cobberdog' name gives me the heebies :laugh: I don't know anything about developing breeds but isn't this the way it is done? Apologies if that's a dim question, not my field of expertise obviously. I went and looked at the RM website and on the home page she says she did not invent the breed. She also connects the "labra... dle" and "cobber dog" directly. Ie effectively says they are the same thing. And she says she's a member of the MDBA. And it's nothing to do with the guide dogs associations. Personally I agree with Wally. I've not met one that isn't crazy and difficult to train. Most of the owners seem not that interested in training. And increasingly the ones that show up at my local park - get themselves into trouble with other dogs. Not just mine. They've got no dog to dog manners - I'm guessing because most of the pet shop ones got taken away from their mum and littermates too young to learn.