Lollipup

He looks really similar to a litter of pups arctic breed rescue just placed into homes. They called them alaskan huskies. I'm not sure if thats a proper breed here or not but if you look them up on facebook, there are lots of photos of the pups. They were born into their care.

I have 2 crates, just worried about setting it all up while watching 2 dogs. are there free runs to leave them in while getting organised? I know they will be very excited and might be hard to manage with all the gear as well, thats what i'm worried about. :) thanks for that. Apparently it will be freezing there this time of year!

Zora is beautiful!

I can't decide whether to take just Chester or Lola as well. You need to have crates for the dogs and I want to take my camera and video camera as well. Plus I'm staying in a caravan without a yard for them. So I don't think I can handle them both at once. But there might be spectators that could handle Lola for me. What do you think?

Thanks :) I even shot it in RAW.

One of Lola today. Working on the challenge of her being black and white.

I've been wanting to get her DVDs too, will have to save up. Did you get them from Tawzer? Yep got them from Tawzer - it's actually of her Seminars - so loving it! Cool, I wonder if they'll put the Australian one on dvd. As long as I'm not on it when Chester is being naughty and embarrassing me! Because I'm sure that is going to happen.

Weasels, where in Australia can you do a Masters degree in dog behaviour? I'd be interested in doing that.

The Canine Classroom on the Sunshine Coast is run by David Haywood who also runs the NDTF block training groups there which I attended, so I would recommend him. Mixed method trainer/behaviourist with 10 + years experience.

I've been wanting to get her DVDs too, will have to save up. Did you get them from Tawzer?

Great topic. I haven't been training the public for very long and already I have seen and heard of lots of cases where the owners have adopted a dog with serious issues and they don't realise the amount of work needed to overcome the problems. Sometimes they don't realise how serious the problems are and other times they are not willing to put in the work to fix the problem until the situation gets worse. Many times the dog has not been properly or thoroughly assessed or is placed into a home that isn't suitable.

Yes sitting down reading a book

Good point. This is why I don't generally use prongs or e-collars on client's dogs. I know that for one thing I am not experienced enough with them but the main issue is handing over such a tool to the client and then leaving it in their hands. The only tool I sell regularly to clients that they can give corrections with is a martingale collar. They still need to be shown how to use it correctly but fallout is less than with an incorrectly used prong or e-collar. When I give them the option, most clients will just choose a front attach harness anyway as a quick fix solution rather than spending training time. I wouldn't want them to approach the prong or e-collar with the same attitude.

On the way to and from one of my regular dog walking clients is this cute little old house that looks all run down and I genuinely thought no one lived in it. I kept thinking I want to take a photo of it so today on my way out I pulled over and took some shots. They are pretty unremarkable though. Anyway I got back in the car and pulled out to leave and as I was turning out of the street, I see this old man in the rear view mirror coming out of the house yard looking for the person who took photos of his house! I had no idea anyone was there. He was asking some people walking their dogs that had also been nearby. I just drove off, was a bit scared! Anyway there is a big sign on the back of my car with my business name and number on it so if he really wants to hunt me down he can. I just got home and looked at the photos and realised he was on the front porch the whole time! I didn't even notice him otherwise I wouldn't have stood there blatantly taking pictures! Should have gone to Specsavers!

Why would you bump up the ISO so high? Wouldn't that cause graininess? Genuine question, I'm a beginner. for action shots in those conditions you need a fast shuter speed = high ISO on the 7D ISO 1600 is more than fine if you expose correctly Okay, I have a Nikon D7000 which should be close. So I will keep that in mind, thanks. I probably have read it somewhere before and it hasn't sunk in yet haha ETA because I wrote Nikon 7D instead of D7000 whoops!

Looks can be deceiving!! haha Mum is lovely, sis, hmm needs some work lol! I like the photo of the man and his dog.

Why would you bump up the ISO so high? Wouldn't that cause graininess? Genuine question, I'm a beginner.

The first one looks a bit fuzzy still. In some of the shots the background is distracting. But all of them are better than what I could do so well done :) ETA: I think I like the third one the best

In the case of barking collars, dogs definitely become aware, I know that through working in pet retail! People would say to me quite often that they don't need to replace batteries/refill collars because the dogs recognise the collar being put on as a cue to be quiet/behave/shut down (not in those words, but that's obviously what's happening). Lollipup, did you continue using that particular setting on Lola when you realised the effect it was having on her? Why/why not? What were you trying to train and would you do anything differently with hindsight? What corrections do you use on Chester? Why don't you use the e-collar on him? (I'm not picking on you, I just find this kinda thing really fascinating and don't really know any trainers locally whose brains I can pick :)) Thanks to everyone who has replied so far and THANK YOU for remaining civil. Looking forward to more discussion! I also appreciate that the thread is remaining civil :) The e-collar I have has 127 levels of stim and Lola responds to level 9 with a slight twitch. If its on vibrate, she bolts with her tail between her legs so I don't use vibrate on her. I was training a recall at the time and I have also used it for barking a couple of times and it has worked well but I haven't kept using it because at the time I was just wanting some experience with the collar as I haven't used them a lot and also I feel I would like to go back to using some other methods for those situations first, but as I've been time poor I haven't done a lot of training with my two lately at all. I have tried to try out the e-collar on Chester but its been unreliable on him because of his thick hair. I think I would need to shave a spot to use it effectively on him, but since I don't really need it for any particular purpose with him I probably just won't use it for now. Other corrections I have used on him are a check chain, martingale collar, verbal corrections, and he has worn a prong collar but has had very few corrections on one. I won't use a check chain on him anymore as he hates it and takes the fun out of training. He is happier to have the prong on. But mostly I use a martingale collar on him if I feel I might need to use corrections, depends what we are working on. Hope this answers your questions and doesn't raise too many more? lol. I am not good at these threads, I am always worried I will say the wrong thing and go down in flames and cry.

Following up from what NotMidol (who the hell is he anyway ;)) said... Do you have a definition of cruel in mind? Abusive? IMO, "without a doubt" is pretty strict criteria. I'd modify it down to 'likely' or even 'possible'. Good point but I guess the hard part is that we will never know exactly what the dog is thinking or feeling. And my definition in my mind of cruel and abusive could differ to someone elses as well. If I had to come up with something - cruel is enjoying inflicting pain, abuse is the intentional misuse (in this case, of a tool) for a bad purpose such as to cause suffering. To answer your question though, I didn't really have a specific defininition in mind when I wrote it. Anything written is subjective I suppose. I guess I say "without a doubt" because previous studies presented that I have read about as evidence against P+ have left a lot of room for doubt. I would want to have that doubt lessoned at least before basing my training decisions on it. I guess what I want is reliable data from studies.

oh yes, Lola hates the vibration, has a real reaction to it which made me feel terrible for doing it! Yet with the stim, she just pays attention to it, doesn't react nearly as highly to it. She finds the vibration more aversive.

Haven't used e-collars a lot on Chester, but I have used corrections on him regularly and have found he is still really active in offering new behaviours as soon as we start training. He has learnt how to learn I guess, and so he knows when we start clicker training or shaping that I want him to try new things - he loves it. I think it does depend on the dog though too

If you are using it as a punisher, it has to be aversive to work as a punisher, so the stim is an unpleasant feeling to the dog in some way. Doesn't necessarily mean it is pain though. If you are using it as a negative reinforcer, the dog still wants it to stop or go away like an annoyance, a constant tapping that they want to stop because it feels weird. The higher settings are for dogs with high drive or a dog that is in high drive and will push past the lower settings, such as stock chasing. I don't agree that they are so readily available to just anyone because these higher settings are there. Yes. It is recommended to get the dog used to the feel of the collar before using it. You can also get fake ones with the weight of the real one so the dog gets used to the feel of it first.

If you can maybe speak to a trainer that would let you try an e-collar and a prong, you might be surprised? I'll admit, when I first got into training I was going positive all the way and I thought prongs were the most evil things, and "shock collars" too. But I decided to learn about it with an open mind, tried them on myself and was genuinely surprised. The prong looks way worse than it is and the e-collar sounds way worse than it is because of wide spread views on them. Trying it out on yourself is the best way to make a decision on it :) I have even put both around my own neck and let someone else do the pulling/button pushing. I don't think just anyone should be able to use them without the guidance of an experienced trainer though, same goes for any tool. Abuse or misuse is in the user. I'm still learning too so if it was proved to me without a doubt that a tool was cruel or abusive, I would take it seriously and not use it.

Yes I think you're talking about invisible fencing which is different to an e-collar, usually less adjustable and more of a shock. Try a remote controlled e-collar - many of them are adjustable by less than 1% per increment and the level that my dog can feel, I can't feel and most people I have tried it on can't feel. I have felt it up to the highest level, the higher levels are like an electric fence type zap but I still wouldn't call it pain although definitely not pleasant. The levels most people use on dogs are more of an annoyance, almost a tickle. I know when I have tried it on Lola, she looks more like its a mild annoyance than a pain. With the invisible fences, I have had limited experience but it hasn't been positive so far and I personally would choose a plain electric fence that the dog can see, over the invisible fence. I met some people who had to put their dogs in the ute to take them through the front gate because the dogs were so fearful to go through due to the invisible fence system they had, which was a cheap one on ebay. I think quality does make a difference too and you would want something that is adjustable in level of stim to suit the dog its being used on.