Staranais

I train my own dog (and help with friends), but I'm not a professional trainer, so my answer may not be what you're after. But personally, I do think many dog behaviour problems can be solved by the owner simply being a better leader and setting clear boundaries for the dog. I also think that there are many behaviour problems that can't be solved that way. Not every problem behaviour is caused by the dog being unsure of who the leader is. To take a completely random example, if your dog pees in the house, he's not necessarily going to stop just because you become a stronger pack leader. It all depends on what motivates the behaviour. I can think of scores of reasons why a dog might pee in the house, and lots of them have nothing to do with leadership. I mean, perhaps he does respect you as a leader, but he still gets separation anxiety when you're away, so is marking in order to reassure himself when you're not around. Or perhaps the dog genuinely misunderstands what you want him to do, so he couldn't do it no matter how much he wants to please you. Or perhaps he has a medical condition, like a urinary tract infection, causing the problem! Same goes with most behaviour problems, IMO. Some might be caused by poor leadership, but lots aren't. JMO.

I'd be concerned about keeping their teeth clean if they were fed only kibble. I know some kibble dog foods advertise themselves as teeth cleaning, but I don't personally buy it. If I were feeding kibble, I'd definately give bones as well. But that's just my opinion.

I think you can enter desexed dogs in endurance. You can definately enter them in obedience and agility, and I think in weight pull as well. If you want to test your dog's strength, weight pull could be the way to go. Just don't start any proper training till he's fully mature, you don't want to hurt his joints.

I'll give the corners a go then, and see if with patience he picks the idea up. Can't hurt! Have you got any suggestions on how I can tell whether he's actually on track, or whether he's just "pretending" to track while letting the line guide him? By letting the line guide him, what I mean is that for all I know he just pulls randomly, and since I hold him back when he's off track and only let him advance when he's on track, he could easily be finding his way by pulling but not by scenting.

Oh yes, he cares for just about any type of food you could possibly name. Thanks! Are you saying I should start throwing in some corners in now, then? I think he's still a bit confused about the straights, but if you think adding corners will help him understand what I want him to do, I'll give them a go.

I have been told that as a very rough guideline, your dog will need to eat approximately about 2 - 3% of his ideal body weight per day in raw food. For my staffy, his ideal weight is about 18kg, so 2 - 3% is about 400g of food per day. This seems about right, in my limited experience. Obviously, some dogs will need more food than this and some will need less, depending on their individual metabolisms, their activity levels, and depending on what exactly you're feeding them. But IMO the 2 - 3% guideline is a good place to start. As you said, you can then adjust upwards or downwards, depending on how thin or fat your dog is looking.

In NZ, there are 3 leves of tracking titles (we call them working titles). These are UD(X), WD(X) and TD(X). UD and WD require the dogs to jump, as well as do other obedience exercises, and of course do tracking. The tracking is worth the vast majority of points, but the dogs must also complete the jumps and other obedience exercises in order to qualify. I assume it's different in Australia? Interesting idea, thanks. So you think if I threw something less smelly down (small bits of bread or water cracker) he should be able to find them, if his nose is functioning OK? He's pretty excited already by the toy, honestly. It's really not that the motivation isn't there. Honestly.

The jumps that you need to do if you want to enter in a tracking trial if you're in NZ (like I am). I'm guessing you don't do any jumping in tracking trials in Oz, then? In NZ tracking trials include a little obedience as well as the tracking. You need to do a long (broad) jump, a scale jump, and a clear jump in both the first two levels of tracking trial. My poor boy is simply not able to do these anymore. Nope, I razz him up with the toy, then I lay the track and drop the toy at the end, then I circle back and pick him up to run the track. Since we're only running short tracks, it's pretty easy to do. He's very very interested in finding the toy, and gets quite ecstatic when we come across it at the end of the track. I'm just not sure if he's using his nose to follow my track, or if he's just pulling with his nose down, relying on the tracking line to guide him in the right direction.

I have a word for it, I use "uh" (said in a neutral tone as it's not meant to be aversive, it's just informing the dog that he's lost the chance to earn the toy). The word is more useful than just stopping training when the dog does something wrong, IMO, since you can say it at the exact moment the dog does what you don't want. Like a clicker, this lets you mark the behaviour, i.e it makes it clear to the dog exactly what he did wrong. I've found this works well if you have a dog that really wants the reward, since the dog learns to avoid repeating behaviours that delay the reward. Probably wouldn't work so well if the dog wasn't so keen to get the reward.

Thanks for the links Wendy, I'll have a look at them, hopefully there will be something useful there. I'm not using food right now, have been using a toy as a motivator, as this is the way that both tracking groups I attended suggested. So have been doing short straight tracks with the toy as the article. Haven't introduced other articles yet. We're unfortunately not going to be able to enter tracking trials, since my dog cannot do any of the jumps required (he's an older dog with arthritic front legs). Just doing this for my own education and entertainment!

Oh sorry, I shouldn't have abbreiviated. NRM is a no reward marker. You have a bridge or clicker as a postive reward marker, indicating that the dog has just earned a reward. A no reward marker is exactly the opposite, tells the dog that he has just lost the chance to earn a reward.

Assuming your dog really wants the reward you are offering? Then my suggestion is to teach your dog that looking away from you means he has lost the chance to access the reward. i.e, during training, the minute his head turns away from you, mark that with your NRM as you immediately break off the exercise, then start again from the beginning. If he really wants what you're offering, he won't take long to work out that looking away means a delay in getting the reward. If your dog doesn't really want the reward you're offering, then IMO you need to find a better reward.

That could be true, I guess. He certainly snorts a lot when he breaths, which could be related? I know of pitbulls that track pretty well, but have also never seen a staffy doing it. Of course, even if some staffs can, doesn't mean mine's not broken. I'm sort of giving him a visual cue with tracking sticks, and I'm not sure it's helping - I try to keep them far apart so that he doesn't just walk from stick to stick instead of scenting! I'm not using articles, just running short tracks with the reward (toy) placed on the ground at the end. I haven't really even tried the footstep food tracking, since both tracking groups I've trained with use something similar to Leerburg's training in drive. That's a cool idea, however I'm pretty sure my boy would just run round like a maniac while looking for the cool stuff I'd hidden. How did you explain what you wanted to your dog without any sort of leash? How did you encourage your dog to keep her head down and scent a track, instead of allowing her to just go looking for the item? Got that, thanks. I normally track either in the cool of the evening or just after rain as that's suppose to be when it's easiest for them to scent. Have tried two suggestions as far as wind direction goes: the wind from behind us (blows scent away so that his nose is forced to go down to the track) and in front of us (so the scent is blown in our direction) with no real difference in his success rate. Myszka - no drugs, but thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks a bunch! The last article looks like what I'm after, but since it's not peer reviewed, I might as well just reference the book I think.

That must have been what I was remembering - thanks! For some reason, I thought it was a proper peer reviewed study, but if she doesn't give a reference for the study in the back of her book then it must just be an informal one. It's only an undergrad essay I'm doing, so I might reference it anyway (naughty naughty, I know!) Thanks Erny - you rock! Will PM you soon, but right now have to run off to an anatomy lab.

Hi Pax! Maybe. Although he continues to look as long as I encourage him to do so, it's not like he gives up searching and starts begging or offering other behaviours. More like he is trying really hard, but can't actually find it. Nah, this was the first time this spring I trained with food outside on the lawn, so no possible other kibble smell in the area. Just a flat patch of mown lawn. He couldn't find even the first few bits of kibble I threw (and it's pretty stinky for kibble). Nope, if I leave the area he comes too. Same with any training we do though. I think he assumes that the motivator is no longer available when I've gone. Oh yes, he's super super toy motivated, and when we track I do usually leave a toy at the end of the track instead of baiting the track with food. I bait him with the toy till he's very excited, then go lay the track, then get him out and run it. Motivation isn't the issue, he knows that there is a toy out there and he's very keen to get to it. And the tracks we've done are all short and fresh, so it's not like I'm pushing him too hard. (Have tried leaving them 10 min to see if letting the ground scent develop makes a difference, but it doesn't seem to). I'm just beginning to suspect that he's learned to pull me along with his head down in order to get to the toy, but he's not actually been scenting anything. It's more like he's been relying on the tracking line to guide him (as per the advice I got from the tracking people, I will stop him if he wanders too far off the track and wait till he gets back on the track before allowing him to proceed - so I sort of wonder whether he's just learned to pull me along in a straight line for as long as I allow him to do so, in order to find the toy?). After trying the kibble hiding experiment, I've started to wonder if I'm asking him to do something that he simply physically just can't do - perhaps some genetic quirk or accident has just resulted in him having a crappy sense of smell? It's frustrating and weird. Thanks for the help.

Thanks Pix! That's probably where I read about it. I don't have the book myself, and unfortunately it's out of the library here. If anyone out there has access to a copy of "The Other End of the Leash", I'd be really grateful if they could post the details of the study!

I'm writing an essay at the moment and want to reference a paper I read a few years back. It was about a study compared the effectiveness of teaching dogs using verbal cues versus using hand signals. From what I recall, the researchers taught puppies using both types of cue, then compared whether the hand signals or verbal commands were more readily understood by the puppies. I think they used a couple of different breeds of puppy and compared them, finding that some breeds were good at responding to both cues, and some breeds more readily obeyed the hand signals? I have a feeling they might have used beagles and foxies, but could be dead wrong. I can't remember the title, author or journal. If anyone out there knows anything about this study, I'd be really grateful if they could post the details.

Lol, perhaps that is true for the tracking bit. But when I threw the pieces of kibble in the short grass and encouraged him to find them, he knew exactly what he was trying to do. Understanding and motivation wasn't a problem, but he was still quite unable to locate a single piece of kibble without my help. Thanks for the thought though.

I'm guessing you're concerned about a play retrieve, not a formal (competition) one, right? In that case I'd like to ask, if you throw the ball, does he run after it but not pick it up? Or does he pick it up but just not bring it back to you? If it's the second scenario, then placing the "two hoses" game might help, i.e you have two identical toys such as hoses, you throw the first hose, and once he picks it up, you whip out the second hose and start teasing him with it, you don't throw the second hose till he's dropped the first. When he's dashing off to get the second hose, you can go pick up the first hose and repeat the whole thing again. Having two identical toys keeps the focus of the game on you, plus you can gradually shape him bringing the first hose back to your feet in order to get the second hose thrown.

I've taken my middle aged staffy bull to tracking classes for the last year, on and off, with no real success. He's certainly very motivated - he'll stick his nose down and power forward on command, apparently on track, but completely misses corners, and often veers off the straight track. I've been putting this lack of success down to me being too busy to practice frequently, coupled with him being a very slow learner (I love him, but he really is not smart). I've been assuming that if I only stay patient and keep practicing, he'll eventually pick the idea up. He will never be able to get a tracking title (due to being unable to jump) so we're not in any hurry. However, recently I've been wondering if his nose is just really underdeveloped or something. :rolleyes: He can definately smell somewhat, if you hold something very smelly in your closed fist right in front of his nose, he will sniff your hand and get quite excited, so he definately knows that it's in there. But his sense of smell just doesn't seem to be very powerful. For example, yesterday I was training some obedience on the lawn with him, throwing royal canin kibble into the (short!) grass for him to run and get for a reward. For anyone who hasn't smelt the royal canin kibble, it's really quite stinky for kibble, after I've held it I can smell kibble scent on my hands easily. So presumably, he should be able to smell it quite easily too? Anyway, he was unable to locate the kibble on the grass without me pointing it out to him. It's the same deal if I hide kibble in the lounge for him, under the edge of a mat or something - he will sniff as well as look for the kibble, but won't be able to find it unless he sniffs within maybe 20 or 30cm of the hidden kibble. And even then he won't zero right in on it, it will take him a while to figure out where the smell is coming from, and if he can't find the kibble in the scented area he rapidly gives up and goes looks somewhere else. Has anyone else out there had experience with a dog who can't or won't use their nose? Does anyone have any suggestions for telling whether a dog actually has something wrong with his sense of smell, or whether he just doesn't know how to use it? Help or suggestions much appreciated, as I'm feeling a little frustrated.

The only two books I know that deal primarily with pack leadership are by Cesar Millan and Jan Fennel, and I didn't particularly like either of them. But I guess you might as well give them a go if they're available at your library, different strokes for different folks eh. :rolleyes: Patricia McConnell's "the other end of the leash" is mostly about human-canine communication, but it touches on pack leadership a little bit, and I'd recommend it as a good read. There are lots of free good articles on the web too - check out the Leerburg website for their free e-books on "groundwork" for example. Hopefully others can help you more?

Congratulations! :rolleyes: He look so happy. You must have put a lot of hard work into training and conditioning. I'd love to try weightpull, unfortunately my SBT's conformation isn't good enough - maybe with the next dog eh.

I'm quite lucky at the club where I am now, I have a nice instructor who is happy to respect to my dog's needs (i.e he simply can't have other dogs getting in his face) and who is happy to let me do my own thing even if it's different to how she has trained in the past (yes, swinging my dog round on the end of a tug then repeatedly kneeing him in the belly is really reinforcing to him...) But I've had some pretty poor trainers in the past - ones that wouldn't allow me to reinforce as I needed to, ones that refused to allow corrections, and like you said, ones that seem to have become instructors by simply progressing through the levels of the club without actually learning much on the way. But I figure, since I don't help instruct classes myself (way too shy), I don't really have the right to criticise too loudly.

Did your vet just present you with PTS as an option, Kaos, or did they tell you that it was definately the best idea? Just asking, as presenting PTS as an option is pretty much your vet's moral obligation (having a client PTS an elderly or sick animal is better than having the animal live neglected or in distress if the client can't be arsed catering to its needs). But if the vet told you that PTS was the best idea, that sounds a little extreme to me. If the vet said this, I too would suggest seeking a second opinion. Good luck with your elderly dog, I'm sure you'll do your best to make her old age comfortable.