Lablover

Sure. I do think it is important to learn of operant and classical conditioning, but I certainly do not dissect every behaviour I personally exhibit through the day. I am just like my dogs eh, I do what works for me - trial and error. I was actually speaking to a friend yesterday who mentioned, IHO, Balabanov as the conditioning king. I should stay out of these topics, as I feel the most important criteria is an active dog, with good temperament. Not many of those!!!!!!!!!

Good suggestions. He needs to learn to play the game (by your rules/expectations/criteria). Does he run about -generally? Fast recalls are wonderful, but it worries me IF you are concerned on his recalls, is his other obedience exercises less than ideal?. It may be, he is running about, not focused, to play by his rules/not focused/trying another tactic to halt "boring" obedience?

Now, that takes experience and knowing the individual.

Denis, I have been away......dog training ..........of course, for a week. I have yet to review the added links, but if I can ask, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how do you rate your dogs prey drive, as shown on your original video?

In a secured crate where it is safe and sound,and comfortable when you are in the car or exiting/entering your car. If you have a station wagon or similar, on hot days make sure you have shade over the windows. I travelled in the back of a friends air conditioned Toyota 4 wheel drive on a hot day last week, and I swear it was at least 10C hotter than the front. Crates are portable and have so much uses.

Those little needle point puppy teeth hurt, don't they? I also consider such, normal puppy behaviour. Their lives have been governed by their mouths and noses. Stimulating milk from their dam by suckling and front feet pumping. And the joys of our movement, all good things from from our hands and when we move, what fun, chasey for the pup (until we may accidently step on the poor pups feet or fall over the furry monster). Look at ways you are accidently encouraging the behaviour. I had a terribly mouthy pup. When on the couch I would simply stop petting him and praise. Pups eye sight is not mature at the 12 week stage, so take this into consideration as well.

Denis the end was funny. Hey you and I could be lookalikes, regarding hats. I call mine the Elmer Fudd hat. I wear the hat in trusted company on very cold days.

Hi Denis, Human psychology is not an exact science. That being said, I feel its use to animal, in our case canine, behaviour has limited merit, good for translation purposes. I judge my dogs by their behaviour at training and during competition. How we obtain the best from our dogs in the most humane manner, is my goal. Regarding pack drive. Depending on the dogs? Stock guarding dogs, sled dogs, dogs for the visually disabled etc etc etc. I know my labs would prefer to retrieve than be in pack drive, but.......I might be missing your point. A normal occurrence, might I add.

Normally it takes a while for a dog to settle in a professional kennel environment. Owners expect miracles in a short time frame. As a result techniques may be rushed. Time is money. I would suggest locating an excellent trainer who offers one on one training.

Really good video link Seita. Well done. Lovely to see a dog having a great time with its owner.

Is this Denis as well? http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...128174767790804

Yes. :D The link in my opinion, shows many bad/good/bad/good consequences. Retrieving may not be the best example as the reinforcements vary.

http://www.geocities.com/welshealth/Articles/CANINEEPI.htm

Laffi, Stop with the abbreviations. I thought the topic title was H2O so wondered why you would want to dog to hold on. I think I need new glasses. Due to the heat currently watching Ted Turner. Thanks to you, no housework being done again.

Great to read!! Keeping focus for long periods is simply the best.

Diet coke just went up my nose. I agree it is a very confusing video. Literacy exercise?????? No sound, I had to study as he placed the whistle in his mouth. I think is video is too vague. I should imagine Dennis, will be up and about, hopefully soon. What time is it in the UK - 5am???

I find bumpers all the time at my training spots........pity they are ones I had previously lost or forgotten. LOL.

Funny looking thingos, aren't they. Surprised some/one? of them float.

Did you pass this weekend? I train at different locations with varied distractions. For interest do you train in different distraction areas? A training friend recently wrote on my hand, trial like you train. Slow down LOL. I drill a alot, rarely test. Yesteday I TESTED with 2 of my younger dogs. The set up was a quad water blind (hidden retrieves) down a long channel. Before testing, I thought of the various ways to simplify if my dogs got into difficulty - or to drop the test if they ignored whistle stops, my casting etc. First blind 50 yards, second 75 yards, third 100 yards, fouth 150 yards. You know what. One dog needed a few casts, to stay straight and progressively go past areas, where the shorter retrieves were obtained. We call past pick up areas, distraction BTW. My second dog lined every single one, apart from two casts. I was a happy owner/trainer.

Reward based. Explanations and concerns not requested, so not included.

I do not know how to answer this question. As soon as a collar and lead are placed on any puppy, I reward with fun, so it has never been a problem. Is the collar and lead heavy?????

Could have been worse, made the dog sIck due to training.

Those damm vowels!!!!

Hi Kyndaara I was having(and to some extent, still having) problems with triggering high drive with food. Like you, I am getting super drive at night time, (the time when I have always fed him) as opposed to a medium drive during the daytime. I have now started to feed in the mornings, and there has been a definate improvement........but still at probably 60 percent of what his night time drive is. I am thinking that the darkness may be a further trigger? Another of my problems in the past was that I was not consistantly using a trigger command. I think that these two mistakes were the reason for this problem......maybe K9 may want to chime in? No, I didn't have a trigger command either. I feed at different times. Its not really set in stone. All she has to know is that I'm preparing the food. All the dogs have it down to the sounds I make in the kitchen. Then she starts to go nuts. It took awhile but once I started doing clicker based training, then I started getting the food drive and her offering me the behaviors. Is it bonkers drive like when I feed, no. Ultimately, I'd like to switch to the tug. She's just not really seeing the tug as ultimate prey and the rode to drive satisfaction yet. K9's program seems ideal but the tie out seems to presuppose her seeing the toy as a high value prey item. I don't think we are quite there yet. We are doing better though. This is a dog that initially looked at the tug toy as who cares. Now she is playing with it with me and even thinking in terms of possession. With the prey increasing though, I she's reverting to puppyhood and with that comes her prey obsession with our house cat and my call ducks. For instance last night she jumped two baby gates in pursuit of the cat. Once she got to him it was like a light bulb---uhhh, I'm not allowed to continue with this. I've been instilling in her since she was seven weeks old---thou shall not touch the cat. I usually keep her under a pretty tight rein but had gone downstairs. I try not to give her opportunity for self reward or prey satisfaction. I know part of it is that for most of her life I've said no prey drive so she's not comfy with me going into drive. I've had a lot of success with her on the porch and me standing on the ground so essentially she is elevated above me and wallah I get drive with her bringing initiating play with the tug. Maybe I need to stay in this scenario much longer until she is just nutso and then change environments. Cyber training is tough and unfortunately I can't travel so far for a clinc. Our training director just started telling us after the winter trials that we need a word to signal the start and a word to signal the end. So for sure I think the drive trigger command or cue I need to incorporate with both dogs. With my corgi, he just automatically goes into, what can I do for you and he's in snappy drive. But, he's been trained this way from the start and doesn't have any baggage. Kyndaara I agree. Cyber training is tough. Heck, ask 10 trainers and have 10 different opinions, but with thought 9 are saying the same thing. Regarding words though..........dogs read body language (canine and ours) so well. Often we can forget this gift.

Deelee, I apologise and should read the whole thread, but apart from leash pulling, is your dog obedient generally with other commands? I have found if one criteria is poor......everything is not perfect.