Weasels

Aww what a cutie pie! From that photo if someone told me she had kelpie in her I'd certainly believe them :) Edit - sorry I was assuming she was a puppy there - how old is she?

Hi all :) My herding trainer mentioned to me yesterday she'd heard someone was starting up agility in the Cockburn area, but she didn't have any details. Does anyone here know anything about it? Thanks :)

The only reason I suggested mat instead of crate was that I was worried that putting a dog in there while it was so amped up would damage the crate=calm association generally. But I haven't crate-trained yet so I'm out of my depth there :) Lavendergirl you can just keep sending him back everytime he gets off. In the right spot=reward. Off the right spot=getting sent right back again, then reward.

This link just showed up in my FB feed - it seemd relevant here :) http://www.petprofessionalguild.com/PPGOfficialBlog?mode=PostView&bmi=912006

As an alternative option to the sit (which is a good idea), you could send them to a mat every time you come in, then go to them on the mat for pats. No pats off the mat within the 'excitement phase' of getting home. You could train the door opening as an environmental cue to go to the mat - without anyone coming in through the door first, then going out & straight back in, then go out for a couple of minutes etc. This training might have the added effect of helping to desensitise the people entering = go crazy reaction :)

I took my girl off advocate once only to discover she has a demodex suscepibility I'm sure this isn't very common but something to look out for if a dog starts getting bald patches after they go off it.

Perfect partners it sucks that so many dogs had bad experiences due to these methods I always wonder about the thinking behind the method I quoted above. You still need to feed the dog - so are the dogs working for praise and getting food for free? I like this, I try to absorb a lot of doggy information from people, books, wherever and then mentally sort it into 'rational', 'not rational' and 'possibly correct but not right for me & mine right now'. I heard a good explanation the other day - back when we didn't really understand much about dogs, people just tried a lot of things and kept doing what worked. But since so many things were all tied together, a lot of extra stuff got swept along with the good stuff (in a similar way to how superstitions arise). But now we've learnt more about the specific parts that were aiding in dog learning, but it's proving difficult to clear all the extras from the public conciousness I have to say though, trainers etc. that cite scientific principles for their work get a lot further with me than the "I've owned/walked/bred dogs for x years so I know best" crowd. I'm not saying I dismiss the latter, but it's harder to verify their claims. Plus, whenever I watch Cesar Millan, I am overwhelmed with how not-fun it all looks compared to actually training a dog to do something new

Here's a good video from the 'godfather' of wolf ecology :) Edit - I thought your summary was very good Alkhe

Last week I was training both my dogs together and trying to improve my girl's "wave", with both dogs sitting in front of me. The whole time my boy Weez was furiously moving his paw up and down and I could almost hear him thinking "for gods sake woman I'm waving! I'm waving!!" :laugh: I've felt like this many times The first dog I got is just a biddable, focussed little sweetie pie that finds almost any kind of interaction or acknowledgement rewarding. Then I got Weez, who can be timid, reactive, less predictable, and also a bit overly bonded to my other dog. But I love him to pieces and even the little wins some days make me feel like we could take on the world :)

*peripheral rant* The thing that gets me with this is that we HAVE a wild dog that was semi-domesticated and is much closer to dogs than wolves are - the dingo. And a dingo social structure is basically whatever will get them the most resources: if they want to take large prey, they'll team up in packs. If they want to just grab a few rabbits, they'll strike out on their own. Basically it fits everything we understand about how dogs, being opportunists, will work for resources in the most efficient way possible and don't need a fixed social hierarchy to do it. Yet people insist on looking to old, flawed studies of captive wolves to inform how they see their dog's social ambitions. /rant *late for work now*

Luke W are you rewarding with treats? Can you use lower value treats to reduce the excitement? When Weez barks at me in training I stop, turn away until he quiets, then go back a step or do something he already knows so he re-focusses. Or could you slow how quickly you are raising the criteria, break it down even more? This is something I struggle with too, it's the flip-side of having willing workaholic dogs I guess

Poor dogs have put up with so much in the name of humans' half-baked, ego-fuelled ideas

.... I'm just imagining all the 'settling down' my two would do after 2 weeks of no walks :/ .....

I think it's extra impressive that Chaser was able to take those cues from someone he'd just met too! :)

Agree with everything Megan & PME said :) I find Weez copes much better when I give him guidance on what to do rather than him trying to figure out the world himself. Whether that's some heeling, some targetting, some "chase me" or just a few tricks, when he starts to get uncomfortable these things help to put him back in his comfort zone. He also likes having a 'job' to do on walks, which is usually either chasing my other dog or just herding a tennis ball (he doesn't 'do' fetch :p). If you find a clicker unweildy you could use a marker word like "good!" or "yes!", or alternatively you can buy wrist straps to attach your clicker to to keep it handy :)

Wow, that is an odd mix of little tidbits IMHO - the bedroom thing is a red herring. I can't see how them sleeping somewhere comfy would have a bearing on fear agression. - the waiting thing, that's just training. They'll do it if you train it but that's all they'll get out of it. - the 'no' and turning thing, is a kind of redirection so I guess that could have an effect. Saying 'no' won't mean anything unless you train it to mean something though. - I'm not a big fan of checks, prongs or haltis so I'll leave that for someone who's tried them. Personally I like my trainers to explain their methods in a bit more detail than vague concepts like "leadership" and "respect". But the most important thing seems to be that YOU aren't comfortable with her, and that alone should be reason enought to doubt whether the two of you can work as a team to fix your dog. Edit: too slow :laugh: I hope you can find a good trainer you can trust in the near future :)

Enabler!!!! ETA...and they are so cheap! Someone lock up my visa card :p :laugh: Welcome to my world! I even have one-click buying turned on

Mine get the majority of training on their morning walk/run (so before brekky). I will usually just throw in one or two things at a time for a ball or treat, either to redirect their attention back to me or if they are hanging around doing their "hopeful heel" :laugh: I do heeling, recall, down-stays, leave-its, all the basics really plus 'lefts' and 'rights' to direct the foxdog to her ball when she inevitably loses track of it. Sometimes at home in the evening I will train one dog at a time into a quiet room if I want to teach them something new. If I am teaching something new I will throw in stuff they know well too if I think they are starting to get frustrated or overexcited. Plus whenever I have some suitable food scraps I want to get rid of I will make them work for those. On weekends we have 2-3 hours of herding, and I have a few agility obstacles in the backyard to work on if the weather's good (jumps, weaves, table & A-frame). We used to do agility classes but they folded I've been thinking about doing obedience with Weez but our local club is vehemently against clickers () and pro-choke chain so I'm looking for somewhere else close that is more consistent with our previous training. I should probably keep better records and plans, but nope If I'm about to teach a specific trick I will mentally plan out how I will break it down and what I will click at each stage, but of course that is subject to change depending on how the dogs go with it :)

:laugh: Like Aidan said I would try to work out a way to lower the level of excitement. Whether that's getting in before he's really focussed in on the dog, moving further away, practicing on a smaller/calmer dog depends on what Justice finds more comfortable. With Weez he goes coocoo-bananas over those razor scooters, so we aren't training on them yet, we're starting on bikes where he does have a 'safe distance' before he reacts (which is getting closer every session )

Personally, I don't worry about having them look at me. I'm more interested in reinforcing calm behaviour when they look at the other dog. If his anxiety/arousal is going too high, then wait until you're in a less arousing situation. It's exactly like training a dog to sit or stay. that's my interpretation of the initial criteria too. I started just clicking impromptu look at the thing, then a cued look at the thing, then once he 'got' the game I clicked looking at the thing then looking at me (so actually clicking when he turned back). On the Control Unleashed DVD she says she wouldn't worry whether you are clicking the look 'out' or the look back at the start, just reward whichever part of the behaviour chain the dog is offering.

Another option NOR is K9 Positive Works - Link

Kathy Kopellis McLeod lists "reactive rover" classes on her website, which sounds like the sort of thing you are after. I haven't been to her but she comes highly recommended by others on this forum.

http://pawprintspettraining.com.au/ http://kathysdogtraining.com.au/ :)

Thanks for all the interesting replies :) It's really helped me think about what I do not only in different contexts but also differently between my 2 dogs. With Fox I really expect her to follow the commands so if she doesn't respond on the first go I will generally yell her name in a sharper tone, so she looks at me, and then repeat, and that works with her because she's a Good Dog. With Weez though (the 'problem child' :laugh:) I try different things on different days and I'm not sure it's doing me any favours I think I'm going to need to set him up for success more to keep the commands sharp :) Plus I think I'm repeating too often with Weez, I should probably stop being so lazy and go over to him more often When I say flank commands it means "go in a circle until I say stop", I have a different command for picking up sheep and bringing them in. So I only repeat the flank when they are starting to fall in or start going "really? are we done with this yet? There's some sheep poo over there I could be eating". The ones I really end up repeating are stops and downs, which is probably just a matter of more training to get those commands overriding their instincts better as you say. But at least in training I've got some experienced feedback, it's more their "real world" obedience I am trying to tweak for maximum efficiency :)

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