Kavik

Mine are lickers!

AWDRI have lost a couple of pups that have come into care to parvo lately

The inital owners of the dog daycare I worked at own bull breeds (it has changed hands now) :laugh: so didn't have a ban on them in the daycare (though other daycares did ban them).

What training have you done with her? Have you gone to classes? Play dates or off lead play at the park with other dogs generally encourages them to play with other dogs rather than a greet and move on approach. Teaching your dog to meet and move on or to be comfortable around other dogs but work with you and listen to you and not always interact with other dogs can often be taught in training classes.

A dog daycare would teach your dog exactly the opposite to what you are trying to achieve! They generally encourage the dogs to play together. It can be an overwhelming place for some dogs - my dogs would not enjoy it, and it is opposite to what I try to teach for training. It is a long time with non stop stimulation and can be very loud. Also remember she is used to it being s short amount of time outside with you and other dogs and then you leave together - most that I have seen are inside and she would be in a big group supervised by staff. I have worked in one.

She sounds like a character :laugh:

Just curious...but why can't you use this time to get her interested? Especially if you are considering agility in her future... I'm never going to use her for agility. I'm going to eventually compete with Maybe my rescue kelpie. Torque is just for working. She hate the agility equipment (and kinda sucks at it lol) and would rather herd the chickens all day. You don't just throw them on it and hope for the best :laugh: What have you tried to do?

Don't beat yourself up Wobbly - it is not the worst problem to have! I have years of bad habits to undo as well, just from a different direction :laugh: If you really want to continue with tug, you should, and find a trainer who can help you. Having all your fingers is a good sign :laugh:

I have always found the dog will instictively either bring an item back in prey or run off with it in the opposite direction and the one's who instictively bring it back to the handler are easier to train a formal retrieve. The Schutzhund retrieve is the only one I am familiar with and trained by throwing the dumbell for the dog to bring it back as the basic manouver...........I am not sure of other retrieves in sports, but my dog picks up the dumbell ok from a static position, bit like many dogs on command will retrieve a ball if you tell them "get your ball" they will race off hunt for it around the house and bring it back, all similiar basics I think? The book on Schutzhund I have starts with a hold and then backchains the retrieve (though not using shaping which is the method I use).

Thanks for the heads up Rev Jo :D +1! I was very interested in the 2 papers he put out in 2010 about dingo performance on locating things (plus the footage of one moving a table to get food! ) http://www.newscientist.com/video/1314673917001-dingo-moves-table-to-snag-treat.html Wow that video I had no idea they could work that out!

Good luck with it guys and let us know your progress!

I'm sorry, but I do not follow the way in which people are responding to me. Of course extrinsic reinforcement is useful, I use it all the time in my training. I don't know anyone who doesn't. My point was that a dog that cannot maintain a behavior without extrinsic reward is nether trained nor 'loving' what he is doing. Susan Garrett says something along the lines of a behaviour never stays the same. With some behaviours it can be easy to lose specific aspects if they are not reinforced. I am doing an online course on stopped 2on2off contacts with a nose touch at the moment. It has been made clear just how easy it is to lose the nose touch if you are not careful, and that you will need to continue to reinforce it if you want to keep it. That is because once the dog gets excited and loves agility, he would prefer to continue on and do the next obstacle than the specific behaviour of the nose touch.

That is fine for you not to be interested in competition, but some of us are. And as TSD has pointed out, competitions are stylised, and some people enjoy the challenge of getting precision, speed, independence, whatever it is that makes that sport a challenge, and for this extrinsic rewards are very useful. I think TSD gave a perfect example, when looking at a dog that will retrieve a ball and drop it at your feet for you to throw again and comparing to what someone wants in a competition retrieve.

Fair enough, I agree. But I am also inclined to think that the point of teaching anything is to bring the dog to the point of understanding whereby the behavior becomes intrinsically reinforcing. The constant emphasis on extrinsically rewarding the dog seems to me at least, to be getting in the way of the dog's understanding. I mean if you saw someone who was constantly correcting their dog, you would rightly say to them that their dog does not understand. The need to constantly be reinforcing the dog is a least to my eyes an indication the the dog does not understand the value of what is being taught. Rather the dog is simply working for the value of the extrinsic reward. And yet whenever the behavior in question starts to drop off the advice always seems to be increase the extrinsic reward. I think it depends on what your aim is? If your aim is competition then you are trying to get a happy and fast performance to a certain standard. Also you may try to tweak small things in their performance, or challenge them or proof them, and to do this extrinsic rewards are very useful as it allows you to increase your criteria to get a better performance or non reward a less than average or poor/incorrect performance. If the action is reinforcing itself (and certainly not all competition behaviours would be able to be made self reinforcing) then it is more difficult to change small aspects of it.

That is great news

My biggest fear with leaving dogs inside (highly unlikely but still ) is what if the aircon stops working on a hot day? Our house is an oven in summer in the middle of the day. While the aircon has never stopped working, I worry that the one day it stops would be the day I left the dogs inside on a hot day .

Just noticed on Clean Run that Silvia Trkman has produced a DVD on her running contacts! Very exciting for those wishing to teach running contacts to their dogs! Has anybody here taught their dogs using her method? I have a stopped contact on Kaos. http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3398

I second Jumabaar's suggestion - lots of stuff you can do before classes and will make classes much easier when you do start most clubs are just about to finish for the year and have a break over summer until February.

I also had the flinging problem with Diesel for a while - and yes they can fling while sitting :laugh: I can't remember what I did to fix it sorry

ANKC affiliated clubs do not allow prong collars at training or trials. But they are not banned as in illegal anywhere except VIC.

A recall is a very good example. If the reward is there every time the dog comes to you, there is no incentive to get there quickly - as the reward will still be there when they eventually do. They can therefore do what they want until they are ready to come and get the reward. No that is about criteria. If you only reward fast recalls you will get fast recalls. If you reward anything as long as the dog comes back you will define "come" as come whenever the heck you feel like it. But that is a variable schedule - as you are not rewarding the dog for every time it comes on command, just when it comes fast on command. The variable schedule is used to 'shape' the behaviour. My understanding is that a variable schedule is just that - variable. So you would reward maybe the 1st time, then the 3rd time, then the 2nd time then the 5th and bounce it around. Increasing the difficulty of criteria and only rewarding those that meet or exceed criteria is not variable.

A carrier would be the same size as a crate. I would go a hard crate until he is an adult for the reasons outlined - they can learn to chew the soft crate and they are harder to clean. For use in the car, I would say only a hard crate is safe enough, the hard plastic ones like the ones airlines use.

Susan Garrett uses a similar principle - she calls it average or better - only pay for average or better responses, and to grow the behaviour quickly only pay better. She loves Bob Bailey :)

It seems Labs have that look down pat :laugh:

Your young dog was lovely! Can't wait to see your progress :) And naturally I agree with you, Wis is definitely the bomb :cool: :laugh: She's still so young so will be great to see how she develops. I would love to meet Wisdom some time, I bet she is awesome :) All of the dogs from that kennel that I have met have been awesome :)