PetSitters

The only black and white views from what I have seen stem from the positive trainers in all cases. I don't know anyone who trains in pure compulsion or markets that they won't use a clicker, won't use a treat or won't train motivationally, it's the positive trainers who master the "wont's". Won't use check chains, won't use prong collars, won't use Ecollars, won't correct a dog, won't issue consequence along with the statements of negativity against trainers who do use complusion when required and of course the scare campaign of the fallout and injury potential of using compulsion and tools of that nature fills their marketing campaigns. To be thruthful on the matter, the purely positive is where the black and white views start and finish?

Pulling on the leash is high on the agenda for most pet owners and the first problem that causes many not to walk their dogs and leave them in the back yard especially large dogs that are physically challenging.

Really? By what measure do you judge leash obedience? How do you know the time spent training is comparable? How do you know the dogs' learning ability is comparable, or the trainers' skill is comparable? How do you know this isn't an artefact of the skill and preferences of the professional trainers in your area? In my area most puppy schools recommend walking puppies on head collars or no-pull harnesses. It's not surprising to me that there are a lot of dogs around that are walked on those tools. I don't think it necessarily reflects a trend in training methods or their effectiveness. If only. I see A LOT of dogs that get roused on, leash popped and smacked when they misbehave. I'd rather see them on management tools. The punishments don't seem to be helping at all. Their timing is terrible and they are punishing dogs for emotional state or arousal most of the time. All it does is distract them or bring them down a notch it if does anything at all. What makes you think that speed is all that matters? I do a lot of clicker training. As Kathy Sdao says, behaviour is our currency. We want our dogs to be very comfortable offering behaviours. Suppressing behaviours is therefore counter-productive to our aims. What's more, I don't even consider punishment a viable option if I can't guarantee I can do it every time the behaviour occurs. Besides which, I'm not sure what you mean by motivational leash obedience, but I find training with rewards to be just as quick as training with punishments. If there's no change within a session, I question my methods regardless of what they are. I began in the era when all the obedience schools used choker chains to the present trend where most schools don't allow them and as you mentioned often recommend head collars and harnesses for puppies now. What I am using as a measure is an observation from 21 years ago when I began walking and managing other people's dogs or pound and shelter dogs, the dogs that had been through obedience schools trained on choker chains as they did then were fairly good in leash obedience, you could tell instantly within 20 metres if the dog was leash trained or not and by memory back then an obedience course was around 6 training sessions and they had to pass a routine. You would think with today's understanding of animal behaviour and how the training methods have evolved for the better, a dog that has been through obedience school would be a whole better in leash obedience than they were 20 years ago, but infact my observation for the most part they are worse. I can't recall any dogs that attended obedience training for 3 months that were not almost centimeter perfect in leash obedience, where the equivilent now of 3 months obedience training many are still terrible on leash is what I have noticed more and more frequently and wonder why this is happening?

I know a lady who paid $1650 for a Golden Retriever X Poodle from a pet shop that was "papered" She showed me the papers which was something the breeder printed up as a pedigree Groodle nominating the sire was a Standard Poodle and the dam a Golden Retriever with photos of them with their "pet" names. This lady in not someone you would take as a fool, but she was totally hooked on this papered cross breed she got for a bargain price, I couldn't believe what I was hearing and seeing on these papers, the whole thing was on the nose almost fraudulent really

What a lovely looking girl, so sorry for your loss of her, she did have a wonderful innings for a GSD nearly 14 years old and a testament to how well she was cared for, run pain free pretty girl

No, he hasn't blown off my commands yet, he is quite good so far He's from a line of dogs who have a predisposition for handler aggression when rampled up from harsh compulsion so we don't train him along that path. My husband tried it once calming him with a correction instead toy focus as I use when he's ramped up and he came back at him with a nip on the chest. He's definitely not a dog you would try and alpha roll

How well behaved your dog is tends to come down to your criteria and consistency rather than what method you use IMO. When we stick to criteria, so do our dogs. It's not really that difficult. Most people just don't pay a lot of attention to exactly what their dog is doing or what they are doing and don't have the motivation to learn to. I'm often grumbling at my partner for rewarding behaviour that doesn't meet criteria and muddying cues. He thinks I'm a criteria bore. He understands why I'm such a nazi about it, but he doesn't care if his dogs aren't precise. I care, but most people don't. Near enough is good enough. Little wonder their dogs appear semi-trained. Incidentally, consequences for behaviour are not just aversive. My dogs behave and the consequence is they often get rewarded. Yes, I agree entirely with this too, it's exactly what happens, but what I mean is that I have noticed for the amount of work people are prepared to put into their obedience training, the dogs trained more traditionally on chokers for example seem to have a higher level of leash obedience than the one's that aren't for a similar amount of training time. The motivationally trained dogs unless the handler like in my case walking someone else's dog knows the format trained on that particular dog to gain focus and control, they don't respond well to leash management as does a more compulsion based leash trained dog when their training is incomplete. People who aren't prepared to put the training time in for one reason or other tend to become lost more in the motivational training process and seem to give up faster resorting to management tools as I mentioned like harnesses and head collars to get by from I guess is a lack of fast results and loss of interest? Then on the other hand I have a couple in training one on a head collar with the bait bag and clicker and we continue a specfic training format in the owners abesence which is interesting working other trainer's routines. Some routines I have worked have some good points in motivational leash obedience but others are simply method based routines modelled to avoid subjecting the dog to complusion presenting a long winded way to achieve something that with the application of mild compulsion would otherwise be a simple exercise for the dog and owner to learn.

I can think of plenty of reasons why I wouldn't. Why would I? The reason I ask is in my job, I am hired to walk and exercise dogs which are the result of other people's training strategies and it's quite interesting what I find. There are a lot of dogs with basic obedience training on the purely positive strategy where in their training process, check chains were not permitted etc with the dogs never experiencing consequence with the pupils from these training groups heavily influenced upon the potentially ill effects of compulsion based training. We know that positive motivational training does work and there is no question when carried out properly it will result in a well behaved obedient dog, but for many pet owners the process is cumbersome and takes a lot of time and understanding to train the different pieces of the jigsaw and fit these pieces together to get the result they require and in that process, they often give up on their training and resort to the management strategy of a partially trained semi obedient dog and accept that the level of obedience they have attained for their particular dog is the best it gets. One example of many similar I have encountered was a 2 year old Rotty I was hired to exercise for the owner recovering from knee surgery with the dog prepared for his walk and exercise on a harness. I questioned why the harness? and was told that he can pull badly on the leash and being a strong Rotty her training group recommended the harness, as a collar was potentially detrimental to his neck and because of his bodily strength it was likely a collar would collapse his wind pipe requiring surgery along with the handler fallout from suffering a collar related trauma? The dog was every bit as described on the leash, a cronic puller and a little bit insecure on the street for gaining effective food focus and by the end on his session I returned him feeling quite tattered and torn and not really looking forward to his afternoon walk I had been hired to complete. To cut a long story short after much discussion and debate she finally agreed to a training session with a prong collar whereby after 30 minutes on the prong we were able to settle him enough to gain some food focus where he would take a treat and by the second session on the prong and food lure we were establishing a focused heel. Yes, I could have retrained this dog without a prong starting from scratch in the back yard and easing him onto the street in the same context as her previous trainer's anti compulsion regime and from a business perspective made a lot more money from this customer retraining in a purely positive fashion, but the dog being heavily learned in poor leash behaviour without consequence in the circumstances I felt was more effectively rehabilitated on the prong to break the cycle he had previously learned and start again. I exercised this dog a couple of weeks ago, 3 months after his first session on the prong and was a dream to walk now on a martingale collar and is a nicely obedient happy boy I can honestly say that the only collar my working line GSD has worn is a flat collar or locked fursaver trained from 8 weeks old with motivational training only and unless he begins to really blow me off on commands beyond his 15 months of age now, I don't think I will ever need to apply complusion the way he is coming along, also my young boy has a tendency to become aggressive with compulsive handling being a path we don't need to take with him. That said and the purpose of my post, is that I have noticed the concepts of purely positive type training is often taken way too far beyond the real effects of compulsion using the absolute extremes of handler abuse in these methods as an example to scare people into false beliefs to the point of managing poorly behaved dogs as a result. It doesn't seem to matter to some of these hard core motivational trainers that the dog is shockingly disobedient as long as the training process didn't include the use of compulsion tools or the dog learning consequence they seem happy with partial obedience and tools of management like head collars and harnesses just to enable owners to have reasonable control and partial enjoyment of walking their semi obedient dog. It's not about how well the dog turns out in their training process as the priority, it's about the training method and the fact they don't use compulsion as the marketing strategy they hang their hats on which I think is a bit sad? It reaches a point sometimes where positive trainers will admit that complusion to some degree has worked well on particually difficult dogs, but on the flip side will support their lack of results with that dog on the basis the trainer using complusion measures who fixed the dogs behaviour placed the dog at great risks and was an irresponsible trainer by doing so even though they achieved the desired results without negative side effects on the dog? I love motivational training especially with a high drive dog it's fantastic there is no comparison between total compulsion based training on a choker chain, but when it gets too silly and biased towards method over results who ultimately suffers from this scenario is the dog at the end of the day.

Or he needs a stronger reinforcement history. I wouldn't dream of correcting my low drive dog. He's easily put off. Out of interest why wouldn't you dream of correcting a dog that's easily put off because it would only take a very mild correction in that case to have an effect perhaps even a little leash pop and a verbal to correct easily put off dogs?

What a great video concept, I really enjoyed it

It does look like a bi-colour I think also. I would do the same thing in the circumstances to protect my dog too.

I have a ball obsessed working line GSD, but although ball and toy obsessions can be frustrating, you can actually capitalise on these obsessions and use them to counteract the effects they cause as the dog has great focus on a high value reward for motivational drive training. Ivan Balabanov CD's demonstrate drive training well where the ball or toy is used as a reward for the dog performing the correct behaviour. After learning the concepts of drive training and having an obsessive dog with balls and toys, they are easier to train than dogs of less drive and focus I believe.

What I would advise in a council visit is to ask for times and dates when the dogs were supposedly noisy which they are unlikely to provide which at that stage it's ultimately hearsay and there has to be some proof in the allegation before any action can take place. I would explain that you crate the dogs when going out and you can't recall any times where the dogs could have barked to the point of creating a nuisence when you are home and question is it actually your dogs the complaint is against or an assumption? I work with barking dog issues in the south of Adelaide and the rangers are fairly reasonable down our way and allow you some time to straighten things out if they are a bit noisy, especically at the first complaint. I wouldn't worry too much at this stage but keep your eye on the situation and reduce barking where possible. The SA law is "barking to the extent of causing a nuisence" so dogs can have a bark but not to great excess for hours on end is the basis of the law and what they look for primarily. With the Real Estate agent just deny it and tell them no way is excessive barking coming from your dogs the complainant must be mistaken and likewise ask for dates and times this was supposed to have occurred.

A responsive dog sure makes you look like an awesome trainer so you can blame the other dog

I agree.. up to a point. Guiding is limited to the dog being within arms reach. What happens when the dog gets further away? Hands on guiding is for early basic teaching phase, so you wouldn't have the dog/pup that far away from you? ... or perhaps I'm missing your thought/point? If your method of reinforcing the sit is to guide and place, what do you do when the dog is out of arms reach and fails to sit? I know the argument would be to bring the dog closer to you again but my view is that some dogs know damn well when you can't reach them. I wouldn't command distance sits at the guide and place phase until the sit was properly established, then increase the distance.

Leelaa17, sometimes dogs learn a routine over an actual command, like the back door example, the dog understands the requirements for the reward to come inside, but may not necessarily understand the actual sit command as such which is clouded in a particular routine. I have worked with many dogs that perform a rountine obediently well, but walking the dog on the street and command sit for example, they remain standing, no way will they sit, so you have to train the sit basically from scratch. I agree with Nekhbet's suggestion guiding the dog into place because often that's all it takes for the penny to drop outside of a particular routine what sit really means or with a hands off approach, hold a yummy treat over his head and moving it backwards will cause an involentary sit, then praise and reward.

What a shocking thing to happen to the poor pony and the owner, but I hope in search of the culprit that they find the "right" dog and not condemn the first dog they find wandering or has the geographical potential to have committed the attack.

Risk assessment is high on my agenda caring for other people's dogs, and there is no way I would take a customer's dog into a dog park unless I was instructed to do so in writing by the owner. I wouldn't be confident that I would have any grounds to defend myself for doing so if the dog in my care was attacked and injured or the dog in my care attacked and injured someone else's dog. It's not the concept of dog parks that isn't good, it's the other owners bringing dogs to the park that present a danger to others or have no control over the dog they are exercising which concerns me.

There are some sitters/walkers in the northern suburbs try here: http://adelaide.gumtree.com.au/f-Pets-pet-services-W0QQCatIdZ18439

We were told forthwith that strange dog can bite you so I guess we feared them and kept clear, but there is a lot more influence today given to anti trauma type regimes in parentage where you don't tell kids dogs bite etc making life a supposedly more positive experience I have heard on a few occassions?

It does sound a bit like that from the report with a leashed dog lunging could happen easily on a footpath on a standard 6 foot leash. I am really proactive with this sort of thing especially walking dogs I have little history with as to their reactivity potential and keep well clear of kids passing. I agree on the trend Joe mentioned about kids running up to pat strange dogs which is an escalating problem I have noticed also. My parents were very firm in their rules we must abide never to approach and try to pat strange dogs which kept us safe in that respect as kids.

The spots on the tongue appeared around 3 months old which I originally thought was ink from a biro he had chewed and then noticed it was a pigment spot

Black nails and black inside the mouth is what I know of strong pigment too in the GSD puppies. Black spots on the tongue are a definte bonus, one of mine has the spotty tongue

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, there's "aggressive" and then there's "dangerous". For the most part, aggressive behaviour in dogs is designed to avoid injury. Particularly in social situations where the only resource at stake is personal space. That's not what I am thinking of Corvus? My point is that I do know particluar dogs for some reason set off a more aggressive retaliation from a growling episode than others, have you not experienced that before? Sure, but my point is it shouldn't matter what kind of growl it was, because chasing the dog down and delivering multiple uninhibited bites is still a far cry from a 'normal' aggressive response. I can't believe there is so much discussion. Why does it matter why the staffy attacked or what it perceived? How could multiple uninhibited bites to a fleeing dog be considered anything other than wildly inappropriate and downright dangerous? There really are no excuses. I've seen a dog do something silly and threaten a dog that always takes threats seriously and deals with them very aggressively. Still, no one got hurt. It's not usual IME for dogs to get hurt no matter what kind of growl it was. Most people thankfully are responsible enough not to take dogs with a predisposition for serious aggression into dog parks to mix with other dogs, but there are dogs out there who react to threats from another dog and will make a meal of it like this Staffy did so normally most pet owners are not exposed to dogs like this on a regular basis. What I see as inapproriate is taking a dog like this into a dog park in the first place that poses a danger to other pets but having said that, it has to happen once for the owner of a dangerously reactive dog to know that their dog presents a threat to others to re-assess their management of that dog unfortunately? Some dogs can be fine and freindly with calm non expressive dogs, but can switch into serious aggression if challenged with defensive growling or posturing. I understand and agree with Corvus that dangerous aggression is rarely seen in a social setting amoungst dog mixing together to gauge normality in dog behaviour, but for the most part this occurs because owners of dogs predisposed to dangerous aggression don't allow their seriously aggressive dogs to mix with others socially to demonstrate the severity of their reactivity and injury affliction capabilities to discover what is normal or abnormal behaviour for particular types of dogs.

Some treats I have found can make my boy a bit soft again and he is not good on raw meat for some reason so he gets his mince cooked medium rare Once we got his feeding regime established and he was delivering nice formed poos, his digestive system became a lot stronger. Now he can have a meaty bone with no ill effects. The plain yoghurt mixed in with his morning kibble providing the probiotic effect was the essence of the breeder's opinion to stabilise his system which made sense to me. I could never get him over 34 kilos when he was ill and for a large male he was very ribby on the skinny side no matter how much he ate, it basically came out the other end undigested a lot of the time. He's now 40 kilos and feels nice along the ribs and in good shape for his size. He has got a sensitive digestive system compared with some dogs, but fortunately he's come good after a long time and frustration finding the right feeding regime to suit him. Good luck with your girl, hoping you find the balance that works for her system.