fuzzy82

I've switched to raw now, but I used to get dog food from www.animalhealthstore.com.au. They usually ship the same or the next day, and have a $5 flat rate on shipping up to 25 kg. I still get cat food from there. I don't think they have TOTW, but they have Canidae, Artemis and a few other good quality brands.

Why does this matter? What's in a name? The suitability of the new home is what is important :) Of course it is Trifecta - I was just going with the spirit of the thread. I get quite attached to my foster babies and it is just one of those silly things that bug me - you spend ages getting the dog to respond to commands using that name, then they go to a new place where everything is different including their name! The dogs probably are in such heaven they don't care less though. The right match is far more important than a name. Do you include a written list of commands the dog knows? That's one of the things I missed when I adopted my first dog. She had basic training, but who knows what commands they'd used. I never figured it out and re-trained her using my own commands. The name isn't important, I renamed my first dog and she responded to it within a day. For my puppy I called him "puppy" because I didn't like the name he came with. He was "puppy" for 2 weeks and was responding to it, then I came up with a name I liked. Dogs learn new names very quickly, but it would be nice to know what commands they already know, because re-training a command takes longer than re-training their name.

Keep grooming sessions short and fun. Hold the puppy and don't let go until he's relaxed. If you let go while he's struggling he learns that struggling works, but if you hold him until he's relaxed for 5 seconds and then let him go, he will realise that the quickest way to be releases is to just relax. Do this without trying to brush too, just hold him and touch his paws and ears. It could also be a good idea to shave him, so that you don't have to worry about not being able to brush him for the next few weeks. The hair grows back really quickly, and while it's short you can pretend to brush him and work on handling and "relaxed compliance".

I agree with whoever said "lighten up". Your puppy is a baby, and doesn't really "know" anything yet. She's just started learning. You need to realise that a dog doesn't obey just because they should. They will obey because they think there is something in it for them, which can be either to get a reward or to avoid punishment. When a dog ignores you and does what it wants instead, it just means you haven't shown the dog how cool the behaviour really is. You need to make every behaviour really fun for the dog, that way she will WANT to do it when you ask, because she can't imagine anything else that would be more fun. Or you can introduce punishment, but to me that's like saying you're unable to make training fun, so you resort to punishment. (Of course punishment has its place in dog training, but for a 4 month old puppy who doesn't really know anything yet it's a bit over the top and unnecessary). The secret to dog training is to reward the things you like, and prevent or interrupt the things you don't like. So if your dog doesn't have a solid recall, keep her on leash or a long line, and only call her when you think she will come, and reward for that. If you don't think she will come, go and get her rather than calling her over. By setting her up to succeed and making it fun when she does come, with practise you will be able to call her away from distractions. Same goes for any behaviour, reward what you like and make it fun, prevent what you don't like, and don't ask the dog to do something unless you know she will do it. Then go back to basics and practise it more in a fun way, so that she will choose the behaviour you ask for over anything else, like sniffing. Dog training is supposed to be fun for everyone. There's no need to use a "stern" voice. That suggests you're telling the dog "do it or else", and if you take that approach you have to be prepared to follow it up with punishment. But I don't think punishment (corrections etc) is appropriate for a 4 month old puppy. Definitely look into Susan Garrett. Her dogs are brilliant, and she doesn't use any corrections, she just makes every behaviour fun and prevents the dog from self-rewarding when it makes the wrong choice. The dog's option is do the right thing = reward, do the wrong thing = no reward. It's very effective.

That's weird, when I got my puppy at 12 weeks I signed him up for 3 different puppy classes, and for the first week or two he was fine. Then suddenly he threw up one day, and has pretty much thrown up every drive since then, no matter how short. So despite the frequent trips as a puppy, he started getting car sick. He's now 2, and still gets car sick. I'm now working on desensitising him to being in the car, because I suspect that him stressing about going in the car (due to associating it with being sick) is part of the reason why he throw up.

I would break the law to protect my dogs, and I would prolly have beaten or burnt the house down (without killing anyone of course) if someone injured or killed my dogs.

I would look into Susan Garrett's "Crate Games". A crate isn't just a place to keep your dog, it can also be used to teach impulse control, really clear criteria for stationary positions, and to transfer joy and drive into whatever you want the dog to love.

If she can't be trained using food or toys, I would prevent the behaviour from happening in the first place. Fixating, sniffing and licking would be very rewarding. So whenever the cage is in the room, put the dog on a leash and your foot on the leash so she has to settle at your feet. If you're up and moving, I would tie her to something near her bed. If you do this consistently, she will give up fixating on the rats eventually, but I would still never leave them unsupervised together. Or, you could just keep the rats in a room where the dog doesn't have access.

And why would a dog not just make its own fun outside too? That's why there are so many dogs that bark, dig, escape and pull washing off the line. Inside or outside doesn't make any difference, you still need to provide entertainment for the dog.

I experienced something similar, but from an adult staying at our house. We have a friend who lives in UK, he got married and decided to visit with his new wife. They stayed at our place for a month, and had to put up with our 6 cats, but they love cats so it was all good. They slept on a mattress in the lounge because we don't have guest rooms, and during the day one of the cats would hang out on their bed. One night the woman wanted to go to prepare the bed for bedtime, and the cat was resting on top of the doona. She made some half hearted shooing sort of hand gestures at him, which he ignored because of course they meant nothing to him. She then picked up her pillow and smacked him. Not hard mind you, but it startled him and he ran off. I yelled at her, and I was seething and ready to throw her out of the house. I can't remember why, but I left the room, had a bitch to hubby about it, who told her hubby, and the next morning she apologised. But still, if she'd done anything like that again she would've been kicked out of the house.

I disagree with the idea of "reinforcing fear". Fear isn't operant, and can't be punished or reinforced. If that was the case, you should be able to punish a scared dog and the dog would stop being scared. So if that doesn't work (which it doesn't) then it doesn't make any more sense to give a scared dog a treat resulting in the dog getting more scared. I think it's fine to pat and reassure a scared dog. You can reinforce fear, all you're doing is making a scary situation a little less scary. But of course, there is reassuring, and there is mollycoddling and fussing and making it a big deal. Edit: Just read about the vet visit, sorry to hear he's not feeling well. Hope he gets better soon.

My poodle x goes to training weekly, but my JRT x hasn't been for ages, can't even remember the last time we went, but might have been late last year... What was the reason why you stopped training your dog? I didn't stop training them, we just stopped going to classes. The reason we stopped was that I was doing the NDTF dog trainer course and I needed to train him for the scent detection and assistance dog assessments, and I was running late with them and decided to focus on them. Another reason was that the training classes were getting boring, as they weren't challenging enough for him. We were doing Motivation & Control, which is like advanced obedience geared at agility, but because of the NDTF course I didn't want to start agility with him, so we just stopped going to training. Do you feel your dog is well trained enough? They're well trained enough for around the house and on walks, but not well trained enough for obedience or agility. Did you not get results from previous training attempts? We never attended training for the training. I had the training under control and we were always way ahead of what they were doing in class. We only went for the socialisation and distractions, and for the structured training. I get a bit slack when I'm not working towards a goal. Is training too far away/ too often/ too expensive? It is a bit of a drive, and my JRT x doesn't travel well. And weekly is a bit often, unless it's basic obedience. Our DWD class with my poodle x is every 2 weeks, which is nice. Gives us lots of time to practise new tricks. Not too expensive, I've never attended a class that was more than $10 per session, most of them are $5 per session. Are you simply too busy? Yep, quite busy, which is why I like the fortnightly training. Did you find training boring? Basic obedience and Motivation & Control got boring after a while. I would like to see a drop in class where you pay per session and can attend whenever you feel like it rather than every week for a set amount of weeks, and it's advanced stuff, like advanced obedience or agility or something.

I've adopted two dogs and never been contacted. But the 2nd dog was a puppy and he flew up, so it was only natural to let the foster carer know how he went, and then about 2 weeks later I emailed her a video to show him playing with my other dog, and after that I've sent the occasional photo or video. So she might have checked in with me if I hadn't contacted her first. With the first dog I never heard anything from the foster carer though, and the meeting with the dog last about 5-10 minutes before we decided to adopt her, filled out the paperwork and were on our way, and that was it. No further contact. In fact I couldn't even get a hold of her when I discovered the dog was crawling with fleas and had an ear infection, so the whole thing was a bit dodgy. I know I would appreciate the foster carer checking in a few times during the settling in period. I don't think I would personally need it, but it's nice to be able to tell them the dog is settling in nicely and it shows that they actually cared what happened to the dog, they didn't just send it on its way and then forget all about it.

My dogs sleep apart and they're great friends and it hasn't affected them. My youngest has always slept in a crate in our room, while our oldest sleeps on a bed next to our bed. Recently the crate was moved to my office so he now sleeps in his crate away from us, while our oldest still sleeps next to our bed. Hasn't changed anything.

I don't see how it's something you can really train, other than using punishment consistently every time he does it, which means not leaving him outside when you're not home. Other than that, try putting up some kind of barrier so he can't see the other dog, like putting shade cloth or plastic on the fence, or putting in a hedge or something? You could work on generally reducing his reactivity to things, by working on impulse control (check "its yer choice" on youtube) and using "look at that" (LAT) on walks and in the backyard when the other dog is around, and then hope that his reduced reactivity transfers to barking...

Interested to know when in your dog's eyes a black staffy crossbreed becomes a black staffy. Where did it say anything about a cross breed? What I am trying to say (perhaps clumsily) is that I don't think dogs can tell one breed of dog from another. A negative reaction from the dog is the result of the handler tensing up I do disagree. it doesn't explain why dogs of particular breeds have a good reaction to dogs of their own breeds, or dogs of breeds they usually interact with. My Weimaraners will get excited when they see Irish setters, because of their positive and regular interaction with a friends Irish Setters. I don't get excited and they react to my excitement, they do it all on their own. apologies for the previous comment - i thought you were having a go because i said Black staffy (because they don't technically come in black!) Thankyou. I don't know the first thing about staffies. I just often wonder what dogs see when they meet other dogs. I think they see friendly or unfriendly body language regardless of breed which they interpret in their own doggy way which is all a mystery to me. They are probably always more comfortable with body language they are familiar with. For example I have owned boxers and my boxers always got on well with rotties because of the similar body language. That's all. It's not colour or breed it's body language. IMO My JRT x has an issue with BC's and staffies. BC's because they stare, and I was told staffies have a very strutting, forward sort of walk, which makes them seem very assertive/dominant/confrontational to other dogs. So yes, I agree it's body language, but if a dog was around a lot of dogs of the same breed, I think he could form the association that dogs of a certain size and colour = certain behaviour and so develop an issue with dogs of a certain breed even when the individual dog isn't displaying the body language the dog has an issue with.

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.

I was walking my poodle x maltese off leash through a bush area this morning. I saw a woman with two kids coming towards us on the path, so I called my dog back and put her on leash. They were still about 20 metres away. I heard the kid say to her mum that the dog would "get her" and she was scared to come towards us, while the mum reassured her and pointed out that the dog was on leash now so it was fine. She had to keep encouraging the kid to move forward the whole time they were moving towards us. I walked past with my dog in heel position and on the side away from the kid, so nowhere near the kid, and after they had passed I heard the kid say "the dog didn't get me". And this is a tiny dog, a swf of about 4.5 kg. Should I have left her off leash and let her run and jump on the kid because it's ok for dogs to jump and scratch kids and if the kid had an issue she was just "too much of a princess"? Ridiculous.

You are very lucky to be in WA :) They are about 10 years ahead of the rest of Australia when it comes to agility and overseas instructors love visiting you because you are much closer to them in terms of progression. The Eastern states are in general (not saying all clubs or all instructors) a long way behind in their thinking. One of the biggest differences between WA and the eastern states is the foundation work. I loved participating in your training sessions in the lead up to the Perth nationals as they were a real eye opener for us in the way that training is run. There is a huge emphasis on doing things right from the start, which you have highlighted in your post. Unfortunately most clubs over here push dogs too quickly and the difference is very noticeable when you look at the end product. The most successful dogs on this side of the country belong to experienced people who have done a fair bit of training outside of a club environment rather than following the club training programs. Unlike WA dogs who seem to be successful regardless of whether they go through the club program or a home program as there is not a lot of difference between the 2. If there was no other influencing factors I would move to WA in a heartbeat purely for the agility training :D That's interesting. I actually did find the club's approach a bit old fashioned. They train a contact as one finished behaviour, rather than breaking it down into several and making sure it's done right from the start. I did always think that if someone wanted to get serious about agility they would have to go back to basics and re-train a lot after doing the beginner's class. But the club isn't all bad, I don't want it to seem like I'm criticising everything they do. They do use crate games and 2 x 2 for the weave poles, so it's like they've tried to improve, but aren't quite there yet. And I understand that they cater to pet owner who want to have fun and would get bored if they didn't get to do the equipment, not people who are serious about the sport and want to do it right from the start, and there's nothing wrong with that, I just wish they could also cater to people who are serious about the sport.

I see now that I shouldn't have explained about how SG does it. The only reason I did that was because I wasn't sure how familiar they were, and I wanted them to see where I was coming from. In hindsight I should have just asked a simple question about lowering the contact equipment, but judging from their reply the answer would have been no anyway. I built a seesaw on the weekend, so I can now do all the seesaw related stuff at home, and the only thing I really need is a low A-frame. When I emailed the club I thought I would also need to use their seesaw, which is why I wanted to explain that that's how SG does it, so they didn't think I was just making it up on my own and had decided that my way was better. They claim to like SG, so I thought they'd be happy to maybe learn more about how SG would train the seesaw and maybe actually show some interest in seeing how she would do it, even if they don't want to change their class over it. I'm reluctant to do a private session with a trainer, because that's like saying "I don't really want to train your way, I want to train the SG way, and I just need your equipment". Wouldn't that be rude?

I have found another club that has a foundation class and breaks training into separate classes like that. But the club where I have been training (been doing their advanced obedience geared towards agility), they have nothing like that. The beginner's agility class spends 2-3 sessions on planks, then up on equipment and seesaw. Not full height, but higher than I'd like. They have a slightly smaller than standard seesaw to start out with, but it tips all the way. Ideally I would have liked it to only tip part of the way by putting the end on a table or similar and work up to a full tip. The A-frame they start out with is really high too, no way a dog could get up it unless it runs at it really fast.

I cross the road when any dog is approaching us head on. What else are you supposed to do? Just keep walking and hope the other dog isn't aggressive or wants to invite to play or is scared etc? I wonder why I'm always the one who has to move out of the way. Is it the norm to just pass people really closely with no attempt at creating distance between the dogs? Genuinely asking here, not having a go. So for me it's not breed related, it's just what we do.

I can kind of understand it too, but only from the perspective of how some people think if someone wants to do something differently it's somehow a form of criticism of their methods. Had I thought they would be that sensitive I would have worded my email very carefully, rather than jumping right into it. They basically said I can't use the equipment the way I want, because it can't be adjusted to accommodate me, and I know from the last class we did there that the A-frame is set quite high right from the start. I have found a different club that seems to take things slower, so I emailed them and practically grovelled while asking if they would allow me to start out on really low equipment.

After about a week I finally got a response to my email. In my email to them I explained that I have done an online course with SG, and that I would like to train SG style. I also pointed out the difference between how the club trains and how SG trains, because I wasn't sure how familiar they were with it. The email response I got back had a bit of an attitude. First they said there was no way they could accommodate it, and they don't think any club would, because I would need help from the instructors to change the height of the equipment and would need to be supervised while using the equipment (which is fair enough). Then they said "we are fully aware of who SG is" and pointed out that they have met her multiple times, and then at the end of the email said something about I had insinuated that they don't train the dogs to go over equipment "properly" and they are "concerned" about my comments to that effect. I re-read my original email to them, I also had hubby read it, and neither of us can see how I was criticising their methods. All I was doing was pointing out how SG trains differently and asking them to accommodate a different method. I replied and explained that I never intended to criticise them and said I fully understand that they cater to people who would get bored doing foundation work for weeks. But I guess their defensive attitude means I won't be training with them. I wouldn't even need to do weeks of foundation work. I can train the contact behaviour at home and have it ready to go for the course, but I don't have full size equipment at home so I would need to go a bit slower to start with on the equipment. I actually built my own seesaw this weekend, so I can train that SG style, but I don't have room for an A-frame or dogwalk.

It ran onto the road because it was being attacked by the other dogs. So they are directly responsible for the dogs death. The only thing sensational about the title is the reference to pit bulls. The headline actually says "Guide dog killed after being ambushed by pit bulls in Bellfield in Melbourne's northeast" This is true, but what if it was something else that had startled the dog? It wouldn't even have made the news then. Say it was a windy day and there was a tarp that suddenly moved, the dog startled and jumped into the road. My dogs have almost done this on several occasions. What if it had been a golden that suddenly jumped out from behind a corner and startled the dog? Other than the pit bull type dogs involved, it's not even worth reporting.