Lollipup

Your Border Collie is two of my Border Collie put together! Hope he is feeling better soon.

Great to hear! We too had a great outcome with chesters ED operation at 11 months. You would never know he ever had an issue now. We are so pleased with the results, it has been better than expected.

Soooo cute! Thanks for sharing :)

I guess this lady was trying to help but I would have been annoyed too about her kicking my dog. I was walking a client's dog the other week and we passed a 6ft timber fence which usually has 2 dogs behind it and they always bark when I pass. But this day, there were 2 visiting dogs as well and one was a small white fluffy dog. They were all barking along the fence and the biggest dog redirected onto the small white dog and attacked it, the little one was screaming and was being pinned down. I was horrified but all I could do was scream at them which I did and he let go but then went back for more so I ran at the fence screaming at them and thankfully they stopped, the owner came out and told them to shut up. I asked him is the little dog ok!? And he said yeah, thats just how it barks! I explained to him what had happened and he was shocked. It's awful looking on and not being able to do anything.

All the suggestions are really good and I love the photos people have posted I don't transport client't dogs at this stage, just my own, but I have a lot of gear as well and finding the balance between dog crate space and gear space is hard, because I want a nice car too haha

I could see you in a Caddy Maxi Anne! False floor/drawer for the gear and the greys on top. FHRP made a good point about vans to me a while back - avoid side windows - they add a lot of heat to the vehicle in Summer. enabler alert :laugh: The renault is slightly bigger in the back but might be harder to find and more expensive to service. See doing some research already. Whatever I get it must be ok to drive around town in, won't be just my dog car, it will be the only car. Similar situation here. It will be my training car but will also be our main car.

I could see you in a Caddy Maxi Anne! False floor/drawer for the gear and the greys on top. FHRP made a good point about vans to me a while back - avoid side windows - they add a lot of heat to the vehicle in Summer. I know a trainer with a van without side windows and I've seen him leave dogs inside for quite a while. I was always worried about the heat which is why I was leaning towards a ute where you can open the windows, but maybe a van without windows would be cooler? Vans are great for sign writing too :)

I'm loving all these ideas! So much to research now.

I think a blood test for cortisol (hormone) gives an idea. You'd have to train the dog to be cool about having it's blood taken first. or some way of measuring what's in the blood while doing the "experiment". Or you might be able to do a mass testing of dogs at dog club - and then compare steroid levels with collar types. But it would be hard to attribute cause from that. I was thinking it could be fairly straight forward for vets to report to an online database - patients that come in with neck injuries or trachea problems and what kind of collar they came in with and what their owner says they usually wear. With humans you can see some nice bruising and swelling - it's a bit harder to see that in dogs. I actually asked Emily Larlham about this at her seminar on the weekend. She only told me verbally so I don't have links unfortunately but she said that studies have shown that cortisol levels are unreliable. She said they tested cortisol of abused and non abused women and both could either have high, normal or low levels and there was no real pattern. I would be interested to find out more.

Finding an accurate way to measure stress and pain in dogs as I believe currently the only option is observing behaviour. Then using this to study the effects of various training tools and methods.

I think I am leaning toward either a falcon/holden ute or a dual cab 4x4 ute. The advantage with the sports utes is they are lower to the ground and bigger tray. But 4x4 might be handy too and a diesel ute may be more economical (?) plus having extra seats is good too. Does anyone have either of these set ups?

I do love the X-trail but could do with more space and something I can set up more customised. Only thing about a van and the x-trail is the heat as I would like to be able to leave a dog inside if needed. I think the x-trail is the ideal dog owner's car if it weren't a business

I'm looking at upgrading my car which is my daily driver and my business car for dog training. Currently I drive a Nissan X-Trail and the back is full of gear, plus I transport my own dogs too. I almost always have the back seats down but they are handy to have if ever I need to transport more people. Ideally I would like to have the car set up with some built in crates plus plenty of room for gear. So for those who have dog related businesses, or just carry a lot of dogs and gear, I would love to see your set ups and suggestions. I would love to be able to have a custom lockable canopy where it is sheltered but I can open up the sides or something to let air flow through so that if need be I can leave a dog in the back for short periods of time. Currently I am considering: A dual cab 4x4 ute with canopy A commodore or falcon ute with canopy A van (least appealing option to me)

Was lovely meeting you too! I got home this evening after a very long drive home

And I am leaving tomorrow - eek!

I am staying in a caravan behind the cabins :) Hmmm might be ok. Only thing is I know Chester will probably bark while I am handling Lola. They are both well crate trained though and love their crates. I will also have camera gear to set up and keep an eye on.

http://www.thundershirt.com/ ETA the video add on the main page of their site is a little creepy!

I won't be able to make the seminar unfortunately, I will only just be getting back from overseas those days and won't have any extra time off. Oh well maybe can get it on DVD if Tawzer does it.

Thank you! I do find it very interesting but it's hard when different things I research conflict with each other too. I will look at those links :)

Thanks Corvus. It's interesting what you say about the thundershirt. I have tried it on 3 dogs - my 2 and a foster. I have noticed no difference whatsoever so I just keep saying they are in the other 20% since the thundershirt site says it works on 80% of dogs! Or maybe there are just subtle differences I haven't picked up on, but seemed to make no difference to me. Do you think BAT is particularly useful for herders since they find movement so rewarding? Would you choose BAT or LAT or other method in particular when focusing on reactivity to other dogs? You say you would use BAT if you thought the dog needed to be able to interact with the stimulus, do other dogs fall into that category? :)

Yes I am intested in her new book as well. Was waiting for the kindle version as my bookshelf is overflowing now, although I do prefer to have the real thing too! It looks good.

Can you give me an overview of how LAT works? I have heard of it but not very familiar with. The way I was taught was to makr and reward for looking calmly at the trigger without reacting, keep dog underthreshold and correct for any signs of reacting/prevent response. Maybe LAT is similar to the mark for looking at stimulus part? I like that BAT doesn't really use treats because I have seen dogs that get protective of their food in the presence of the other dogs (when thats the trigger) so I think taking food out of the equasion would be useful in that situation. I noticed during the block training for the NDTF course the referred to giving the dog a correctioon for reacting as "response prevention". But it's not. That's response interruption. Response prevention is when you keep the dog at a distance where he's not reacting. And what you're doing sounds like LAT, you basically just keep the dog below threshold and click and reward for looking at the stimulus. The person who came up with LAT (can't remember her name now) actually said somewhere that she uses BAT as well, she clicks and reward for looking, and then moves away to increase distance between the dog and the stimulus. Grisha Stewart is coming to Australia in October/November, and doing seminars on BAT in Sydney (I think) and Cairns. I'm going to the Cairns one, can send you the info if you like. There will be demo dogs. Yes I would love that info, thank you. I think in the NDTF course the wording they used was along the lines of prevent and/or correct desired responses but I get what you mean. If BAT is effective I would much rather do it that way. Especially for dogs who become worried about the food in the presence of other dogs.

Can you give me an overview of how LAT works? I have heard of it but not very familiar with. The way I was taught was to makr and reward for looking calmly at the trigger without reacting, keep dog underthreshold and correct for any signs of reacting/prevent response. Maybe LAT is similar to the mark for looking at stimulus part? I like that BAT doesn't really use treats because I have seen dogs that get protective of their food in the presence of the other dogs (when thats the trigger) so I think taking food out of the equasion would be useful in that situation. Her name is Grisha Stewart :)

I just bought a book called BAT - Behavioural Adjustment Training, which is written by a trainer who I think is in the US, and it is her term for her particular way of using counter conditioning for reactive dogs. I find the method sounds interesting and she claims to have had a lot of success with it, but some of it does contradict what I have been taught and so I am curious for others opinions. Using BAT, the 'environmental rewards' are used instead of treats. The dog is marked with a verbal marker or clicker when it shows calming signals or looks confidently at the stimulus and then is moved further away from the stimulus as a reward(as long as this is what the dog wants and is therefore rewarding). Calming signals could including looking away and I was always taught that if you reward the dog for looking away, even for focus on the handler, you are just teaching the dog avoidance. The writer of BAT claims that rewarding the dog for calming signals teaches the dog that it is control of the situation, therefore instilling confidence and alleviating the anxiety. She has videos on youtube and her website about it, I don't have them on me but a simple google search should find them. She runs a training business called Ahimsa Dog Training. So, what do you think? Have you used this method for reactive dogs, would you use it and why/why not? Do you think it would teach the dog avoidance or confidence as claimed? She seems to have achieved good results with her own dog. She claims it can be used no matter the reason the dog is reactive.

Does he have a website at all? Yes its www.thecanineclassroom.com.au im fairly sure. .Also I run dog matters in bundaberg if you want to list me. Www.dogmatters.com.au