Simply Grand

Aww, little Pudden! He'll figure out the directions thing, he doesn't know any different than the sight and hearing he has so he's not missing out. Love his elegant climbing pic :laugh:

I was wondering about pain/discomfort too. Maybe a thorough vet check first to rule that out? BTW she is gorgeous :)

I don't have the issue with Quinn during specific training sessions. Funnily enough as soon as she sees that I'm starting more structured training with her she is totally focused on me and not interested in whatever else is going on, even in distracting environments. That's not something I consciously trained, she just really likes training! It's during the more relaxed 'real life' times when we're just walking or at the park that people become super interesting so it's been a bit tricky to find the balance between switched on enough to control her urge to jump at people but still relaxed enough to be interested on approaching people. I could keep her in focused on me mode and not have her approach people, which would avoid the problem, but I don't want to rely on that as there are bound to be times when I slip up and she does end up interacting with people, so I like knowing that she can greet people without scaring them or knocking them over!!

Corvus, in your experience does this kind of training generally lead to the dog being less excited by someone coming to the door? And does it work if the visitor is brand new to the situation and isn't aware of how to deflect the dog's attention from their face? Genuine interest, Quinn has come a long long way in greeting people in public but we really do very limited training with visitors at home, other than me removing or physically controlling her until she is calm enough to interact with the few friends and family that come into my house. ETA I don't think Quinn is conflicted or compulsive about her jumping at people, I think it's a conscious choice because it's rewarding for her, but I guess I'm not sure. In general she seems quite competent in choosing which course of action will be most rewarding for her and whether the possible negative consequences are worth the risk! Also, sorry for highjacking your thread Willem!

Great news, so glad to hear she is fine :)

Interesting. I need to re-read and consider the post a bit more to consolidate my thoughts but after an initial read through I'm inclined to agree with you Willem. My Aussie Shepherd Quinn has long been an excited greeter of people, especially children, and is inclined to jump at faces and the training I've done with her has certainly involved starting at a distance where she could control herself and gradually getting closer and closer as she learns to control herself right up to the point of now being able to greet people with four feet on the floor. I'm not convinced that a treat, however good it was, in the hand of the person she was excited to greet would have held her focus enough to stop her jumping at the person. Like I said, I'll have another look at the article tomorrow and see what I think though.

The more I learn and see the more I think the temperament bred into a dog is vitally important. So people that breed puppies with either no understanding or no acknowledgement of the demonstrated temperament of the parents are doing a disservice to both the puppies and te people who end up owning the puppies. I also see early socialization as as important if not more important than the socialization a puppy receives once it leaves it mum and litter (assuming it leaves at a reasonable age). Of course what happens once a puppy or dog is in its new home, how it is treated, trained and managed are extremely important also and should never be disregarded, but I really think the decisions of the person who breeds the dog initially have a huge impact, and if you taking on a dog are so very worth investigating. So I actually don't think it is just luck if a dog hates people, or other dogs or whatever. However, again there are plenty of people I come across who I wouldn't bother discussing that with as no matter what I said it wouldn't change their views (not you Redfeather, more the people I meet randomly who say things like "it's all in how you raise them with any dog")

Yay! You've obviously shown her that she can have self control and that's it's actually worth using it. l love it when all the training efforts click into place for the dog and they are like"Oooohh I get it!"

And regardless of people's personal views on outdoor / roaming cats, unless you live in an area that has cat containment laws, the law says that cats can roam, dogs cannot, and that dogs cannot attack other people's pets. It may seem unfair but in this situation the OP did nothing wrong and the dog's owners have done the wrong thing. Anyway, I'm very glad to hear the dog's owners are taking responsibility, not least for the safety of their dog :) And hopefully Cookie has a full recovery, poor thing.

Good news :) that's all it's all about, showing her that she CAN have all the good things but that you are the one who decides what and when, and it's worth her while listening to you. Make sure you keep up the rewards for coming while she's improving on the recalls, and chuck in lots of easy ones to set her up to be reminded how great coming to you is even when there are other fun things to be enjoyed, so call her and reward when she's still close and when she happens to already be running towards you anyway, as well as in more challenging situations when she's further away, heading for a play etc. So nice hearing the updates too, thanks!

I feel ya! To be honest I think that people like that who feel so strongly that they are right are probably not worth your effort. If people have already made up their minds about pure breeds ( and really we are talking about registered pedigree purebred not just any 2 apparent *insert whatever breeds* that Joe blow decides to breed) then most of the arguments about meeting standards, bettering the breed, proven conformation or performance and even health testing tends to just prove their point in their own minds I think the best non-biased arguments you can use with people who think they know everything already are 1. Predictability ( a Pom x Husky could end up the size and appearance of one breed, the other or anywhere in between and could have he temperament of a lap dog, a determined , independent sled dog or anywhere in between); and 2. The conditions the pups and parents are raised in - stress that if you cannot go and see where the mum, pups and any other dogs live and that they are happy, healthy and cared for then there is every chance you are supporting a puppy mill. It's pretty hard to argue against either of those points no matter what someone's personal views on pure or cross breeds is. But when it comes down to it there are plenty of people who just get their heart set on "that cute puppy I saw one of" and will justify it to themselves and disregard what you say no matter what

The only time I've come across the dogs with a blue tongue in the yard I could hear Quinn doing a steady but excited "woof woof woof" bark that she doesn't normally do. I called her to come in and be quiet a couple of times but she didn't come and kept barking so I went out to find Quinn, Riley and the lizard standing in a triangle all looking at each other. None of them knew what to do :laugh: Same happened with a little green tree frog. Not so much prey drive in this house!

Re aggression for whatever reason, I think a lot of people don't take it seriously. They see their dog as their harmless family pet or companion that they know so well and are in total control of and don't realize that they are still dogs with animal instincts and behaviors. There are a few regular dogs at our park that resource guard really quite seriously, like you can see that if they come up against another dog that doesn't back down there WILL be a fight (and there have been) but the owners will just say "oh yes s/he doesn't let other people near his/her ball/stick/whatever hahaha" without realising what the consequences could be. The other thing that really worries me is when dogs are giving very clear signals, if you have some idea about dog behavior, that they are pissed off and the owners are just oblivious. Especially when, like Snook says, they are big powerful dogs. We had an almost fight the other day between two adolescent dogs, one guarding "his" stick, the other, a GSD, getting increasingly annoyed at him trying to guard the stick from her, even though she hadn't initially been that interested in it. The GSD was giving beautiful increasingly serious warnings with lip lifts, teeth baring and growls and the other dog was reading her and licking at her mouth appeasingly but still wasn't willing to back off the stick. Everyone stood around actually watching them, with me focussing in keeping my three out of the way but also saying um, watch out. The dogs eventually erupted, no harm done but the owners were surprised it had happened! The owners are both nice people, responsible and not dumb but just obviously completely ignorant about dog behavior

In principle I don't like parks having separate areas for big and small dogs because I think dogs in dog parks should only be there if they can recognize that dogs are dogs and behave appropriately with all of them regardless of size. I think it can add to owners' attitudes about the divide between big and small dogs (ie the other is automatically to blame) and lets people use the excuse of "oh my dog just doesn't like big/small dogs" for poor behavior. Having said all that though, in the real world I do like them and I worry when small dogs run free amongst much bigger ones too. My little ones are pretty good at judging for themselves now when they are best to just keep out of the way but I still keep an eye one them. I think often people don't realize their small dog or puppy is distressed too, you can often see the moment the little one goes from "yay fun chase game" to "oh crap I'm actually scared and don't know how to get out of this" and owners don't realize At my local park there are two tiny little Chi puppies, 4 mths plus but they are sooo small, like 1kg. They walk around amongst all the other dogs, including the really big ones, and I always worry that a person will accidentally step on them and I think it is inevitable that a dog will accidentally injure them at some point. I think it's actually quite traumatic for them too, being down there amongst all the big feet. They are great little dogs attitude wise but I just think size wise they are really to small to be on the ground with random dogs.

The trouble with trying to train out the behavior using aversives like shocks or noises is that you really need to be able to apply the aversive every time the dog sees the thing you want then to leave alone until the dog decides it is only ever going to get that negative consequence and leaves the thing well alone OR the aversive has to be massive enough the first time that the dog won't risk trying again. And how each individual dog feels about what is 'massive enough' varies a lot. If the dog only gets the aversive when you are there to see it spotting the lizard it's entirely possible that the rest of the time when you are not there the dog will either a) realize that the aversive doesn't come when you are not there or b) decide that the chance of the aversive coming even if they don't realize where it is coming from is worth risking for the chance of the rewarding kill they may achieve. Hopefully that makes some sort of sense Conditioning the dog to see these creatures as something other than prey as Thistle is doing may well be more effective as when you are applying positive consequences they are actually more effective when not applied every time so if you can reward enough for not going into prey mode when you are there you have a chance of the dog responding in the same way when you aren't there. All depends on how prey driven the dog is though, and especially if they have already achieved one or more kills and found it super rewarding it could be next to impossible to train out unfortunately.

Quinn doesn't seem to have a particular time that she does it but I definitely notice it the most when I'm either falling asleep or just waking up and my brain registers the gross slurpy noise that seems to have been going on for a long time. Ew. And it's only Quinn that does it too, the boys don't seem to lick their bits!

Thistle it took me three tries to pass one of the levels with Saxon and even then we got lucky with being able to retry a group stay when poor old Saxon eventually broke after all the other dogs had :laugh: I was so frustrated I went and begged to the instructor we'd had in that class to be allowed to retry. It was entirely my fault it took that many tries too, it took that long for me to figure out I wasn't giving Saxon some of the cues in ways he understood properly, and the only way we can learn that is trial, error and practice. It's no reflection on you or Thistle if it takes a while, Saxon is pretty bomb proof and super trainable (and of course I'm a naturally brilliant trainer *wink* ), and we still had trouble, it just takes time for everything to click sometimes. It's also taken four odd years of work (although not as intense as what you guys are doing) to get my Riley's sometimes-dog reactivity and Quinn's way over excitement with humans under a reasonable level of control and that's with me having a reasonable amount of training and behavior knowledge and having worked as an RSPCA trainer so don't feel that you are doing any less of a great job with Thistle than anyone else does! I really think you are doing well and once you get to that break through point you'll see how all your efforts have paid off

Merle is so beautiful. And puddenhead, well Apologies if I've misses it but have you confirmed his hearing and sight are ok?

Hey ThistletD don't feel bad about not passing a class level! I've had to repeat levels a number of times between my three dogs and even tho it feels a bit frustrating looking bak it was actually good because I learned more each time we went through a level. Especially if you have different instructors each time but even if not, you can pick up on different bits and pieces and ways of doing things. And it's still beneficial for Thistle to repeat the exercises. She looks gorgeous sitting there in the shop smiling :D

It sounds like you and she are doing really well :) She's come a long way quickly. Keep doing what you're doing

Hahaha, so good!

Craig Murray's dogschool.com.au are trainers who do boarding. I don't know if they do temp assessments but they do trainIng of assistance and I think various working dogs so worth asking.

Oh that is so good to hear Snook! How amazing that he's come so far again so quickly. Like you were saying I'm sure all the previous knowledge was still in there so he's feeling like he knows what's happening and can get his confidence up more quickly now. Thistle sounds like she's doing great too, and she's soo gorgeous :D

Not much!! Just kidding, they do make me proud :D I had a little moment just yesterday, I went through with each of the three and had them do 'shake' with each paw, 'high 5' with each paw and 'high 10' with both paws. I knew they could each do elements of that but all three did all of them perfectly, even Riley, my speshul middle child. I'm most proud when they show how far they've come with their "problem" behaviours - Riley has in the past been reactive towards certain types of dogs and we've put a lot of work in so when I now see him interacting politely with a dog that previously would have set him off I am very proud of him. With Quinn it's her jumping on people, she looooves people and if she could would lick everyone all over their face and stick her tongue in their mouths, same thing we've put lots of work in and I see her approach people now and look up a their faces but control herself not to actually jump on them. I'm proudest of her around kids, little kids are her absolute favorite and she never used to be able to be off lead around them in case she knocked them over but now she can go up to them and stand around them wiggling her butt off and smiling at them but not touching them and it's so nice to see :)

Not really on topic but Canberra Lost Pet Database is a fantastic, Facebook based resource. It's run based on donations, they have admins online most of the time, they are in touch with RSPCA and DAS and are widely known as THE place in the Canberra region to list and look for lost pets. The admins really work hard to reunite pets and owners