sidoney

I don't have dogs that have thick necks - all their neck sizes are smaller than their skull sizes. If I did have a dog like that, I'd use a fabric martingale collar initially. Also probably because I take it so step by step, I can't remember having a dog try to pull back out of a collar. They just accept it as a restraint. Oh! Apart from, after being adopted, that timid foster I mentioned in my first post, at a lure coursing day. She was SOOO keen to get the lure that she dragged the lead out of her owner's hand, then after that she slipped her collar, which was replaced by a martingale type collar that I had in the car. She is Kelpie x Whippet and does have a skinny head.

I'm editing the post, since I reread the post above!! Teach me to try to read at 2am! Be prepared before you start. Buy her a collar that fits. Buy her a fabric lead if she doesn't already have one. For training, give her a short lead - cut an old fabric one or buy a cheap one that you can cut short. Long enough to drag a little but probably no more than her body length. Light to move with and not too scary. Otherwise what you have been doing sounds appropriate. As you have said you have been doing, I'd be making a gradual approach. Teach her (off lead) to come a short distance to you for pats and/or treats. While patting her, clip on the short length of lead that she can drag around with you supervising. Keep patting. You can put a little bit of pressure on it while calling her to you. Release pressure and reward if she steps forward. Teach her this way to give to the pressure on the collar. If she's worried about it, start with you kneeling or sitting. Only stand up gradually, as she can handle it. Let her drag the lead around a bit. If she doesn't move straight away, let her think about it for a bit. You can also try a higher value item than dried liver treats. (If she doesn't move, and you then take it off, she may learn that the way to get it off is to remain lying down and not moving.) As she learns to move with it, she can get used to the weight of it and the pressure of standing on it. Do nice things with her while it's on, like patting, treating and so on. Make sure that you don't accidentally reward behaviour you don't want, such as lying down without moving with it on, by patting her and going "good dog, don't worry". You may feel like you are reassuring her but it will have the effect of rewarding the "timid" behaviour. I don't know if you do that, but it's worth mentioning. When she's confident with giving to lead pressure, and having the lead on, you can try a normal length of lead (I would avoid putting a chain on her at this stage - I don't use chain at all) and encourage her to come with you, let her feel a bit of pressure and release the pressure and reward her whenever she gives to the pressure. Change direction, let her give to the pressure with you in different locations relative to her. Reward her well. You may find it all goes along quickly and well. She may simply not have been on a lead before. I had a timid foster that I used the above steps with and it took her not long at all before she was confidently walking on lead, going to flyball training, etc.

But cute downies.

LOL! Told you I didn't have any experience of it! :rolleyes:

It's been shown that human neural pathways can be changed somewhat during brain growth and development ... I would suggest that there may be some likelihood of something like that happening in the dog brain, although to what extent I don't know ... and I wonder whether permanent changes can be made in some aspects of the dog's behaviour/reactions/etc. Edit: Perhaps "fear periods" may coincide with times that these changes occur more ... and strong fear, especially, has the ability to make permanent changes in the brain.

You mean, where the Russian scientists bred tame foxes?

Hm, that's interesting and a very good thing to know. I never knew that. Thanks.

Some people DO breed for temperament. As well as health, conformation, etc. It's not all one-or-the-other.

In my prior experiences, you have to pay for a dual or family membership rather than a single one, and ground training fees are per handler rather than per dog.

Hmm, if you really really want them to stand up, you *could* try taping them. They don't seem committed to staying down ATM. Part of ears standing up is having a partial cone shape that's firm enough to keep them up, and without creases that fold them down. I don't have any experience of taping though.

disorder, she's a working Kelpie, and registered with the Working Kelpie Council. Her colour is called "cream". Audrey, good luck. I had moments when I thought that ear would stay down, so you never know. If Guinness is the same as Xia's, it may well come up. What are the ears like of Guinness's family? I had hopes of Xia' ending up erect as I knew that her family has erect ears, although her grandmother does have VERY huge ears. Check out these spinnakers - Avenpart Georgena.

It's perfectly acceptable for working Kelpies to have ears that don't stand up. How important is it to you? Edit: Here is Xia's ear progress for you to look at. 3 months: 5 months - you can see the left ear is quite folded over: 6 months - that left ear is still a bit soft, but has come up: It was definitely up (although wobbled at times) at about seven months.

They do look like down ears in that photo. My Kelpie has very large ears but they were up at your dog's age, although it took them a long time to come up - some do it faster, some slower. You could tell they were on their way up. Do you have any photos of his ears looking different to that?

Regarding the physiological component ("nature" rather than "nurture"): "Shy" dogs may be more reactive (to noise, sight, etc. stimuli), and so avoid too much of these kinds of stimuli. In humans, I have read that "introverts" (shyer people) require less external stimulation in order to maintain an optimum level, while "extroverts" require more - and so extroverts look for noise, company, excitement, while introverts look for more quietness, solitude, etc. There can be a heritable component to this. IMO dogs may be similar.

Ah no apologies needed, on rereading I can see that it seems as if it could have been aimed at your post. That wasn't my intent! So apologies from me also.

Well Tony if the fruitcakes diss their dogs instead of locking them in a closet for days on end, then it's not all bad. I noticed he was using a kind voice with the dogs while "dissing" them.

Just thinking in text here. Perhaps you could see if he's interested in a trick training project or something like that, using clicker training, which focuses on positive rewards. Maybe some kind of useful or impressive behaviour that you can't force, like a nose touch or some other targeting behaviour. Something that is not the things that you are training ATM, and then you can get those things sorted without his input. ETA: Using this kind of training approach could help him to understand the power of training without using forceful methods.

kelpie-i, my comment was a general one, not aimed at what you said. I don't believe you can make a blanket statement about how individuals and groups think about and relate to dogs. Their motivations, their behaviour, and the consequences and implications of this. There is not one way that people think about and relate to dogs. There are a number of ways. A lot of these are associated with social beliefs and changes in these. Socially we are in a state of flux. Changes happen quite fast, blindingly fast compared to pre industrial revolution. Note here that I am talking about Australia as other societies are quite different. (1) Overall, as a society, there is a desire to behave more humanely (less beating of children, no more capital punishment). An implication of this may be that people beat dogs less (overall) and desire to be pleasant to them. A negative outcome may be that some people are unwilling to give their animal any kind of discipline. They may adopt a laissez-faire approach to living with their dog. As we know, this leads to problems. There is a move towards knowledge as being the domain of the "expert". A possible implication may be that people feel that they are not qualified to train their own dog, and should look elsewhere for help. (If they do.) There is increasing specialisation. This may be part of a widening between different "schools" of training. Also these different "schools" may be affected by (1). Also people may train in their area of specialisation and look for the expert to help them in other areas. There is an increasing distance between "public" and "private". Households become more insular, play moves off the streets, and even out of the yards. People live inside more and more, rather than outside. A couple of implications here. One is that there is less involvement in a neighbourhood community, there is less community gaze upon the household, and there is less interaction between neighbourhood members - people don't get involved in others' problems and people reject attempts to help as "interference". (Associated is the idea of responsibility as the domain of the individual and not the community.) Dogs are confined to their immediate environment, people spend less time with them, dogs are less socialised and more frustrated and bored. This causes problems. Because many people spend limited time with their animals, they have less opportunity to understand their animal, its body language, its likes and dislikes, and so on. For many people, there is a lessening of the conceptual gap between "human" and "non-human/other". For others, dogs are still "other" or even "object". The same person can move between different conceptualisations. This different (and in some, changing) stances can lead to lack of consistency, lack of understanding, lack of discipline, lack of proper care, lack of consideration of the dog as a being with needs that go beyond food and water. There are other social changes but I think I'll stop there. I also mentioned a couple in a previous post. I've already stated that very few people avail themselves of the knowledge that exists, for whatever reason. This is statistical fact. It would be worthwhile finding out why this is. I think it's fallacious to be looking back at the "good old days". A few examples of "good dog men" does not illustrate the general trend at the time. In the good old days, learning was largely associated with punishment, of humans and animals. This was not universal but was a general trend. There has been a great change in the understanding of learning, especially in humane roads to learning. There is also greater understanding of dog needs, behaviours, capabilities. This is a good thing. In some ways, it is easier to access this knowledge - books, DVDs, etc. Training clubs. In other ways, it's harder - less community networking overall. Greater insularity between households. I think that the main issue is not what is known, but how many people take the trouble to do more than the minimum, and how to encourage people to find out and use what is known. ETA: for those who trial their dogs, who are looking for performance, who are confused with motivation and so on - there is a greater expectation for performance from these people, particularly in areas in which the dog has NOT been bred to work. Earlier, dogs in the main did work for which they were bred, for which they had an instinct. Either they had it, and succeeded, or they did not, and were culled. Or else they were pets and no great expectation was put on them to walk just so, or to run as fast as they can over a set of obstacles, and so on. Now we want dogs to perform to their ultimate in artificial activities. And so there is a greater need to find the key to that animated, perfectly positioned "heel", or that fast and precise agility run, and those sorts of things. I don't know of any dog that has an inbred instinct and desire to do these things. Another edit to add!: When things are not changing, then there is certainty - people have a belief that what they are doing is right because "that's the way it's done". When things are changing, then there is less certainty. Overall, people are not so sure of themselves or of their actions.

I don't think you can make a blanket statement about how dogs are treated and how people understand them (or not). There are "now" people who want everything to happen "now" with little effort, and throw things away if they don't work. There are people who don't understand that a dog is a dog, and don't understand the problems that this lack of understanding brings. There are people who don't understand that a dog is more than an object, and don't understand the problems that this lack of understanding brings. There are those that are "too busy" to do anything about their dog. Those for whom their dog is very low on their list of priorities. Statistically, when compared to the number of dogs and owners in society, the number of those that actually participate in dog training classes of any sort is tiny. I think that the knowledge and experience is out there, for people who want to seek it. I think that people have to be discriminating "knowledge consumers" as much of it conflicts. But the vast majority of people will never seek it.

For the pulling back, I've recently come across this gadget, which makes sense to me. I've made a couple out of an old bit that I wasn't using (which I expect is what it was developed from). Baling twine isn't much good for a puller, as it just teaches the horse that it can easily be successful at releasing itself. Blocker tie ring - there are videos on the site - click through the links. You can also google for more info. I saw some in a Saddleworld not long ago.

Yes, I agree with Erny. Twitching is a short term behaviour management tool, not a behaviour modification programme that will see constructive changes for the long term. BTW, Erny, was "he mentions" a typo? I know you often get the "he", although I can't recall getting it myself!

Please don't nose, neck or ear twitch the horse. This won't help him learn and you could end up with a permanently ear-shy horse. I've seen ear-twitched horses that are head-shy - many of them - some people on the Arab stud where I used to work, many years ago, ear twitched instead of trained horses to be confident with things. My 18yo boy that I got from there is still stressed about having his ears touched. It can be uncomfortable for a horse to stand for a farrier. Holding up a leg can be tiring and strain the muscles. This may be happening to your boy. How long do you hold his legs up for, in training? (You may also want to get him physically checked, in case he's having some pain.) If he mucks up, it's usually either stroppy mucking up (don't want to do this, it's hard work) or nervous mucking up (this is hurting, I'm worried I'm going to fall over or get whacked or that something bad will happen). Not always easy to tell which. I'm giving you a link here to the first page in a sequence of pages that give you some tools to help train calm behaviour with the farrier. The first one is circling to get calm behaviour with the farrier and the second one is clicker training for calm behavior with the farrier. Particularly if the horse is nervous, emphasis needs to be on rewards. If you can, get a training partner to be the "farrier" so you can work with the exercises regularly. Remember to work on duration of holding the leg up. ETA: he's a cutie! So squoodgable!

Where are you located? The best course of action in this kind of situation is to get yourself and dog to a reputable behaviourist or trainer experienced with this kind of behaviour. One can't advise on or fix this over the 'Net. If you tell us your location I'm sure someone can advise you on a good person to see.

IMO a horse needs to be controllable no matter how fit and/or full of rich feed it is. (Or how scary things nearby are - this could save a life one day.) This is where a good structured foundation groundwork training programme is invaluable. The horse learns self control and trust and respect for the handler. This relationship extends to work under the saddle.

Do you specifically want to do obedience, or do you want to do something with your dog that you can both enjoy? I've found that agility can be a terrific confidence booster for worried and timid dogs. It's less controlled than obedience, the focus is on making it fun and happy and rewarding, and learning to go over and through the things (in steps, not forcing them over!) helps dogs to master worries. Also you don't need to learn to be quiet so you can praise all you want. Once you have established a good training relationship in agility, you could do what pf did with her timid dog, and then go back to have a go at obedience. If you did decide to have a go at agility, make sure you go somewhere that focuses on the positive and trains using gradual steps.