Aidan3

Really? That has not been my experience. You have to set them up for success, though.

Too slow, verbal marker would be better. Clickers are best where precision timing is required.

Feeling anxious is horrible, fixing that is a kindness.

If your dog is genetically predisposed to being reactive or timid, then medication is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I don't know what anyone could have against it.

I took my foster in to be desexed. I took him partly because the rescue was full.

In general, they try to prevent trouble. Good Roscoe! Sounds like a lovely dog.

I let one of my old dogs do a lot of teaching, but never, ever knowingly at his expense. My current GSD is quite good at getting the socially inept ones to play. If I thought I would need a bite stick and pepper spray, there is no chance I'd think they were ready.

Definitely a vet check, a thorough vet check.

1. Affordable jet-packs 2. I want to know why so many of us have had a dog pass away shortly after losing another dog? Looking for that answer may provide us with any number of important or useful insights. If it is indeed something statistically significant.

Might have been her kid, but it's your dog and you have every right to protect him.

Really cool, Snook! I remember having an experience just like that at the vet surgery with one of my previous dogs. It was then that I figured I was probably on the right track, and I found out later that I definitely was.

Is there some chance he has been taught food refusal? Was he trained in tracking or retrieving? If he's lived with other dogs all his life he could have learned not to eat if someone is watching him.

I just wrote a long reply then lost it, so here is the pared down version. Before BAT we used to have discussions on one of the old listserv forums about the use of functional reinforcers (and extinction procedures) in behavioural modification for aggressive and reactive dogs. One of the moderators of one of these forums was a lady by the name of Kellie Snider, who with her post-grad supervisor, came up with a protocol they called "CAT" which is an acronym for Constructional Aggression Treatment. Their argument (supported by evidence from the study they undertook) was that because aggressive behaviour has a "distance-increasing" function, the use of other rewards (e.g food) motivates the new behaviour and doesn't necessarily change the old behaviour (aggression). Grisha diverged from this idea and was happy to use other rewards as well. She called this BAT. The key difference is that BAT will use other rewards (e.g food) and it fudges the extinction side of the equation a bit (BAT doesn't necessarily wait a barking dog out without changing the environment). BAT also lacks support from empirical data, but this doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't work. A key idea in the early discussions (and in CAT) is functional analysis. This is a tool that applied behaviour analysts use to determine what is reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. You look at Antecedent, Behaviour, and Consequence. Then play around with the Consequence, and maybe the Antecedent, measuring changes in Behaviour; and hopefully you figure out what triggers and motivates the behaviour and form a plan of action for modifying it. I mention all this because I think it makes a big difference to how well you can apply these ideas when you understand the background. I think it's especially helpful to do the functional analysis bit, because then you understand why the dog is doing what they do and how it benefits them.

I taught my two previous dogs not to steal food using "doggy zen" (outline in Sue Ailsby's "Training Levels"). They were impeccably mannered their entire lives and I made no effort not to leave food even on the coffee table or while I was out of the room. One of them did begin to steal food from my daughter because she would leave her plate on the floor (food on the floor was fair game). But while those two dogs were young I was a dedicated trainer. I do not expect the same dedication of every client, although many are quite dedicated once they see what is possible. My current dog came as a counter-surfer (and bin thief) and I have only used management with him, which has been fine. But if I do leave food on the kitchen bench he would probably steal it and I would only blame myself.

If she is grieving strongly it is not unreasonable to talk to your vet about medication to help her through.

Exactly. Even used competently things can go wrong, and fall-out isn't always obvious (the cause of a problem may not be correctly attributed). We need to balance those risks against the dog's welfare. I look at it a bit like medication. I can weigh the risk of side-effects up against the risk of not taking the drug. I can weigh the risk of something going wrong against the risks of not solving the problem. Fortunately I have a well developed tool-box of +R solutions that mean I rarely have to worry about adding risk.

I don't know, I know trainers who are good enough with +R to not need anything else in their toolbox. Should they use prongs and e-collars because they aren't "proper trainers" without them? Isn't that suggestion "method pushing" in itself?

If you don't believe there is any harm in using an ecollar and that it's more efficient and more effective, why would you ever bother with +R? Because I believe a combination of both is most effective. Plus +R is fun sometimes. Clicker training and shaping passes the time. I taught my dog to walk ladders with clicker training for fun, but my dog is never going to need to climb a ladder so I didn't put much effort into his ladder climbing reliability. EDIT: I also thought I should point out that I already wrote that in my previous post. <removed> Errr, your other post came after my question. But sure, I will make a better effort to read your mind in future :laugh: I'm not sure that you answered my question though, not that I had a problem with what you did write.

If you don't believe there is any harm in using an ecollar and that it's more efficient and more effective, why would you ever bother with +R?

Yes, that's absolutely right. But it's no longer a "tickle". A kick to the head is still a kick to the head no matter how we perceive it, and if someone kicks me in the head in the ruck on purpose I don't judge them any differently just because it didn't hurt as much as if they'd done it while I was walkIng down the street. Not that it makes much difference if someone has a compelling reason to use an ecollar, but people don't always have a compelling reason when they use them. They will justify the use with reasons such as "it's only a tickle".

That's the argument, but the two scenarios are quite different. We can't really say "it's just a tickle" just because the dog doesn't freak out when he receives the stim and therefore make the assumption that he perceives it in the same way as a lower stim in a lower distraction environment. Does that make sense? I'm on my iPhone so I'm being lazy with my response :laugh:

Yes, the working level changes with the environment. If we're going to work in a high distraction environment, the working level is going to be quite high. In a low distraction environment a little tickle might be ok, but when the distractions increase, so does the stimulation. It's a mistake to believe that the dog perceives the higher stimulation in the high distraction environment in the same way he perceives the lower stimulation in the low distraction environment.

But surely, as previously said, the stim level has to be found as a working level in that environment, hence why the level control is on the handset, doesn't mean that it is not being used at the lowest level to get a reaction/acknowledgement. I don't think anyone has said that you can use the collar on it's lowest level (ie 1) it is the dogs lowest working level, in the circumstances that it is being trained. I'm confused too, what are you questioning? I wasn't talking about the collar's lowest setting.

Yes, to prevent a greater harm when to do so using +R would be beyond my level of ability.

So are you saying you'd use them on a higher setting only? Either on a higher setting or with the full expectation that I will have to turn it up should it be necessary. If I could genuinely use only the lowest setting, I would use +R instead (and mostly that's what I do, I will use an ecollar but almost never do).