sidoney

Arya, that would be here.

You can also do body awareness exercises, such as trotting over poles. You can make them out of bits of PVC and squashed aluminium cans to hold the ends. You can run the pup over a low plank - just a few cm off the ground is fine to start. You can make a wobble board, a 1m square board placed on a small ball is fine. Another park training exercise is to call the dog to your side when it's running free, reward the dog for coming, let the dog be with you for a few paces, reward again by releasing to free run. You can pick up the distance the dog stays with you before you release. Do this on both sides. Make sure you show the dog what side to come to, and don't have the dog cross over behind you. When on a walk, don't let the dog cross over behind you in general, esp. when on a lead. When on a walk, if the dog is ahead of you, cross behind it, say "cross" or some other rear cross cue as you do it. By cross behind it, I mean if the dog is on your left, go behind it laterally as you walk, to put the dog on your right. At first the dog will find it strange and look back at you, as it gets used to it, it will look for you on the new side. When on a walk, you can teach the dog to go out ahead of you by saying "go" (or whatever go on cue you want) and tossing an easily seen treat out ahead of you. Then you can either use your side cue to bring it back to you (and reward), or cross behind it, and bring it back to your new side (or not).

I had a foster doggie here that loved to chase things, but was worried to come close. I started her off chasing a toy on a long rope - it had to be long and away from me, or she would not go near it. Then she found out she could play tuggy on the long rope, at a distance. Gradually she learned to come closer and closer for tuggy until she would tug pretty well on top of me. When she learned that rewards would come close to me, she was much easier about working close. Don't know if this would suit you, but worth mentioning.

Here are a couple of foundation exercises that I do at the park, when taking the dogs for a run. It's just general stuff but is good for later agility work. One that I do with my dogs is to have them sit and wait for release in a variety of situations. The park is great because they really really want to run. I start by asking for a sit, and then release. When they learn that, I take a step away, and release, and so on. Spread over a number of weeks. I might do only a couple of sit and releases in a walk, or maybe just one. But since you walk them every day it builds up. A variation is to call the dog/s to one hand or the other. Facing away from the dog, looking over my shoulder, showing the dog the hand to run to. I have a reward in the hand. If the dogs arrive at the same time, or if I have one dog only, when the dog arrives at the correct hand I can release to free run instead of food reward (toy reward not so good with multiple dogs). Again start close and get further away as the dog learns what is wanted. I find if I do it with a group of dogs, all but one of which know what to do, the untrained dog picks up the behaviour quite quickly from the trained dogs. This then transfers when you have that dog on its own. I work up to where I can run away, jump, sit on the ground, etc. The aim is to maintain the dog/s's keenness to run, their attentiveness to cue, their speed at release, in addition to their reliability in maintaining the sit. Be very consistent in what your cue is. If it's word ONLY, then you need to use that word while you stand still, hold an arm up, hold a leg up, move a bit, move a lot, and so on, until the dog works out it's JUST the word that releases it. I also have one that I do which helps the dog to learn to watch my body language at a distance. If the dogs are running out in front of me or to the side, I can turn and start running away from them, at 90 deg., or 180 deg., or at other angles. They will see me (sooner rather than later if they are looking) and run and catch me, at which time I can reward with play or food or just tell them to "run away" (my free run release words) in an excited tone. This also works at a walk, but a run helps them to get started. I also use the 180 deg. turn away from them if I think they are getting too far in front, in general walking - they bolt to catch up with me, and then if they get too far ahead in that direction, I turn back ... it helps teach them what distance is acceptable.

The dogs going backwards were fun. Some seemed to think that if they placed the dog's body firmly enough it would somehow keep the dog in place.

There are several of Pickle in the BC photos thread: this post, this post, and this post. (Can get a bit off centre as thread photos load up but it'll be just above or below where the page ends up.) Can provide more.

Especially when a puppy, you can set your dog up for a lifetime of fearfulness if your pup gets attacked by an out of control dog. It's nice to let the dog run off the leash, but the suggestion that you set up play dates with known dogs is a good one, and I'd be avoiding any dog I don't know. Or owner for that matter, we've had people come on here having had their dog kicked.

Aaawww Pickle's not in it. *is disappointed*

feralpup you may have accidentally been trying to download the full version rather than the player; the player is free. tollers you may need to update your version. Edit: re contacts, I'm yet to practice the contact proofing we learned from Rhonda Carter; I'm going to set it up as soon as I am able to. I'll talk to Liz Y. about doing it at Parra.

Very noice. Super weave entry. Would you say the dog has handler position dependent contacts? Maybe she was just making sure for the competition environment.

Tip I got at a seminar once was to use resistance to stabilise the stand. Start at a sit. Push gently against dog's shoulder (or somewhere that the dog is going to brace against). As soon as you feel the slightest hardening of the muscle as the dog braces, click or otherwise mark the resistance, and reward. Progress until dog resists happily resists quite hard pushes. This gives the dog "something" to do rather than just hanging about standing still. Progress to doing the same thing at a stand. Do it with just you at first. When you feel the dog is stable with you, bring in someone else to gently push the dog, progressing to when the dog resists being moved by someone else. You may need to go all the way back to the beginning each time you bring in a new person. Go as far back as you need to, to achieve success.

IMO love is a label. Nobody has the ultimate definition for it. Dogs do things when they interact with us. If some of those things appear to be love to you, then call it love. The danger is when we assume that they do all the other things that people do, that is, the scheming, lying, deceit, and all of those things. If we just take what they give us moment by moment and realise that they can be nothing but genuine, some of it we call love, then I see no problems.

That's true. I was just thinking about it the other day. Dogs and young children give you love that never judges and always accepts. And they are the ones that we find it so easy to love unconditionally ourselves.

IMO it depends somewhat on how you define the word. I believe that dogs experience emotions. But they do not have the same kinds of cognitions as us. So the mix of cognition and emotion, no, not the same. I think yes they can love but not the same as people do. And they are never destructive with it.

Can't add much except to say, brilliant!

On the topic of horses, briefly, if you push the hindquarter sideways of an unhandled horse, before you have taught it to yield, it will push back against you. They may almost fall over in resisting the pressure of your hand. If you pull against its head, it will pull back. Foals are sooner to give as they are weaker but you take a hefty big thoroughbred weanling and you learn about resisting pressure if you don't train them to yield. Horses must be taught to yield to pressure since they are so large you can't just drag them around. Dogs are mostly small enough to drag around and physically push around and I think that's why many people don't ever get to training them to do any differently. A horse can be trained to take any pressure on its mouth. I rode a horse owned by my sister, who trained with Judy Dierks. He was ridden with a VERY firm rein, but was able to respond to changes in pressure. (The racehorses I rode were also trained to work into firm rein pressure under most speeds - so firm that you had to bridge the reins across their neck in order to retain balance when standing in the stirrups.) In contrast, I worked for a French dressage guy, trained at the Cadre Noir, and his horses were trained to work on a much lighter pressure. "Hard mouth" IMO would most likely refer to lack of response to changes in pressure.

Australian Crested, of course!

I think it's appropriate to stay ... the statement that dogs can like biting based on breed is a problematic one (thinking BSL here) and IMO good to address it for those that read that original statement, and what to do with misunderstanding of how dogs think/act.

ACDs are bred to "heel". Mine did occasionally. That is different to biting out of fear.

Something that I find easier when I have dogs en masse is to train a new one to wait for release in the park. The four of them sit, and I take the leads off. With some treaties for sitting still while this is all happening. Then I walk away. At first it's just short distances but it's not long before I can run away and jump up and down and so on. The latest is the BC, who is sooooo ready to run but she takes her cue from the others and waits. Only a very few times has she moved and then I just replace her where she was. It's also easy to teach the release cue as she can see what all the other dogs do when they hear it!

I just had a ludicrous image ... of the trainer doing "destraint therapy" on a DOLer (and getting bitten?).

On the topic of walking multiple dogs. I have four here. I started by walking them in pairs, and rewarding the dogs for walking in the places they seemed happiest to walk, without swapping around places too much. It wasn't the same pair each time: I would mix up which two I walked together. Then I combined the two pairs and now I have four dogs I can walk on loose leads, in a group of four. They all have their preferred place. I carry treats with me and treat often for doggies being in their places. I prefer them beside or behind me when I have this many dogs, not out in front. Although I do practice sending a dog out in front and then crossing behind it, so it's on the other side, when I want. I don't let the dogs change sides behind me. (This is partly for agility and partly because it reduces lead tangles.)

Seems to me that there are three main problematic actions here, all of which ended up in this situation. 1. The trainer doing what she did to the dog (as described). 2. The OP giving out the trainer's personal details (yes, there ARE all kinds of people on the net, and that's why many of us choose to remain more or less anonymous). I don't have a problem with the OP describing the "training", but if you say something so negative about someone and ALSO post their personal contact details, that can be a problematic combination. 3. The person or people emailing the trainer. IMO everyone involved in this chain has cause to look at their actions. Edit: just reread Vickie's post and she makes an important point, the actions of the trainer are representations by the OP, who was the only person both at the site of the training, and on this board. I agree that the trainer has the opportunity to give her account of the actions. Edit: fourth action: OP complaining in a very inflammatory way.

MrsD I was much too busy chortling at the two on the left to be thinking about where you were!

The two on the left are very cute (doggy and human).