Staranais

Thanks, I didn't think of that but you're probably right. He knows not to pull - perhaps he even thought he'd get the ball if he just waited patiently without pulling like he'd been taught. YB, Sidoney and Slim: he actually was in a harness not a collar, but I often walk him on a harness and he knows not to pull on it! Can't remember how I tied him up, since it was a while ago we tried this. Thanks for the other suggestions, I'll have to try them out.

Would it? A halti exerts far more leverage on a dog's neck vertebrae than a flat buckle collar does, when the same force is applied to the end of the leash. That's not really under debate - everyone knows that is how the halti works. Simple physics would dictate that a tool exerting more twisting leverage on a dogs neck is more likely to injure his spine than a tool exerting less leverage, especially if the dog inadvertently hits the end of the leash at speed. I'm not saying you can't injure a dog on a flat buckle collar, just that common sense dictates it's easier to injure his spine on a halti. And yes, any tool used correctly can cause injury (though come to think of it, I've never heard of any injuries caused by a harness, so perhaps that tool is exempt?)

Yogi, Slim and K9 - you're talking about building drive by tying up a dog and teasing him with a toy, right? I tried this once with my dog a while ago. (I don't know much about training in drive, but I figured it might help his motivation in training if I managed to make his prey item of higher value to him.) He lunged at the toy a few times, then gave up when he realised he wasn't going to get the toy by lunging. Just sat there patiently watching me, no matter how I teased him with the toy. I even bounced it off his head, with no reaction. As soon as I untethered him, he jumped up and happily obeyed my commands (sitting, downing, heeling, and weaving) in order to earn his toy. Is this unusual behaviour? He's not normally that smart. (I totally understand if it's too hard to diagnose over the internet - just thought you might have come across that behaviour before) ;)

Heel is a position - it means the dog walks at your left side, with his neck approximately even with your leg. Walking a dog in heel means he stays in that position as you are walking along. Heeling properly is quite hard work for the dog. Walking on a loose lead just means the dog doesn't pull on the end of the lead. ETA: Ooops sorry Cheyenne, think we crossposted.

OK, thanks.

OK, thanks K9 and Myszka - I guess that answered my question. I was just wondering why a dog would choose to pay attention to a stim that was merely annoying, when there were interesting things to play with (like lady dogs). I was thinking that most dogs would just block out the low stim, and keep doing what they were doing. But I understand now that the dog has had some kind of prior imprinting training with the collar, so doesn't react like a "normal" untrained dog would. ;)

Get well soon, Ollie dog.

Yup, I reckon you're spot on. My understanding is that you can instigate patting any time, but the dog can't demand patting - if he tries to instigate petting, he has to earn the attention.

With the ecollar, is it right that you're using the ecollar as sort of an "anti-clicker"? By that I mean, it's like a conditioned "punishment" marker to mark unwanted behaviour, instead of a conditioned "reward" marker like a clicker? Just asking because I've felt low-stim ecollar, and it's not painful or even particularly uncomfortable. I don't see how that sensation would stop a dog who was intent on some hot dobe lovin', unless you'd already given the dog an association between the ecollar "buzz" and an unpleasant consequence? (PS - Erny, is that your dog in your new avatar? She's pretty!)

I have heard of some people using very low level stim as a marker. i.e conditioning the dog so that the stim was a reward marker, exactly the same way you could condition a clicker as a reward marker. Have you heard of that being done successfully, K9?

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet - but heights, wobbly bridges, and different walking surfaces. I thought my dog was scared of nothing, but the big swingbridge we met last month terrified him. I think it was a combination of the strange footing (wire mesh), the height, and the way the bridge was swaying in the wind. Next puppy is definately being socialised to this type of thing!

I think it depends on the situation. I would be especially uncomfortable offering advice about any serious behavioural problem over the internet, but any information has the potential to be misused. It's hard to "diagnose" a dog properly over the internet. There's the chance that the person you are talking to might misreport the behavioural "symptoms", or might misinterpret what you tell them to do. You also have no idea of the dog owners previous training experience, relationship with the dog, ability to read dog behaviour, or level of co-ordination. Giving someone the incorrect advice, or having them apply any advice incorrectly or in an overly heavy-handed way, could mess up a dog. Having said that, though, I don't see why people couldn't share ideas on curing dogs that are determined pullers. Perhaps if another thread was started, we could all do that?

There's some referenced information here, by James O'Heare (2003): http://www.kerryblues.info/index.html?http...EALTH/SPAY.HTML When you spay a female dog you greatly reduce the amount of estrogen and progesterone she produces, but the small amount of testosterone she produces remains roughly constant. This means that she now has a much higher ratio of testosterone to estrogen/progesterone in her system than before, which may cause her to display more aggressive and "masculine" behaviour. When desexing a male dog, you just reduce the amount of testosterone he produces, which often results in the opposite (less aggressive behaviour). Hope that helps?

Anne, not trying to start an argument, but wouldn't this method have worked equally well with a prong or check chain?

I'm not really a fan of head collars - mostly because of the safety aspect, but also because in my experience most dogs don't actually like them. I also really don't like the way a lot of people use them. I have seen many people keep their dog on a halti year after year, because they haven't actually been putting any effort into training the dog to walk nicely. Since the problem is masked by the halti, they can't be bothered training their dog. To my mind, that's just wrong. I also have seen a couple of dog trainers insist on forcing certain dogs to wear haltis, even though the dogs were clearly hating the experience. (I guess the trainers honestly believed that the halti was less "aversive" than a correction collar, even if it was clearly making that particular dog completely miserable?) Anyway, to my mind, that kind of thing is also really wrong. If a particular dog thinks a correction collar is less aversive than a halti, what's "positive" about forcing him into a halti? I grant that a headcollar might be an effective management tools for particular dogs, to allow the dog to be walked until he is able to walk nicely on a loose leash and regular collar. But I'd probably recommend an anti-pull harness for this purpose before I'd recommend a headcollar. From what I have seen, the no-pull harnesses seem safer than a halti, as well as being more easily accepted by most dogs. Like I said, that's just my opinion. My dog has a prong, and it suits us both fine. *edited for sense and spelling!*

Yay, a question and answer session with the King of Drive. K9, can I ask a question I've been wondering about? Is it true that a dog can only be at one drive at the same time? (Like, if he's in prey, he can't be in fight drive, etc. Or if he's in food drive, he can't simulatneously be in prey drive.) Or can a dog sometimes be in different drives at the same time? I have been wondering about this since an incident about a month ago. I was playing with my dog at a park, we were playing retrieve and he was very focused on his toy. A strange dog suddenly ran round the corner (no owner) and before I could intercept it, it started sniffing and bumping and crowding my dog. Normally, my dog would have whirled round and taught this dog a good lesson, but in this case I was able to keep his attention almost entirely on me till the owner came to collect the rude dog. My boy was so focused on the stick that he totally ignored the new dog, just waited for me to throw. I assumed that was because he was in prey drive, so he wasn't interested in pulling rank on the new dog. Am I right, or just confused?

If the dog is getting no reforcement from the surroundings, then why would he ignore you?

OK, I get it now, thanks. And this is something you can only do with a puppy, right? That makes sense.

No, that's pretty much my question too. If a dog is properly neutralised, does that mean he will completely ignore other dogs? Or does he only ignore other dogs when told to do so? Or does he acknowledge them, but just not let them distract him from his work? Perhaps we're confusing each other.

I'm a bit lost here I think Erny, can I ask a question? How would would a properly "neutralised" dog be expected to behave in the situation you described? Just sit there totally ignoring it, as the other dog jumped on his head? That would surely be pretty hard to train? Or would a neutralised dog still respond to the other dog, but just with a few sniffs or something?

Lol @ haven. A set of these jackets might be a good investment for any obedience school. You could hand them out to people with reactive dogs at the start of class, and caution the other owners to be especially sure to keep their dogs under control round the dogs with the jackets?

LOL @ this, because I thought my dog knew no fear either until I took him tramping last weekend. We had to cross a thin chainlink swingbridge over an extremely high river gorge. "Mr Tough Stafford" ended up being carried across, whimpering, by his kind human friends. (That was kind of off topic, sorry.)

Oh OK, thanks Poodlefan.

OK, fair enough - I was thinking of pets, not working animals. In that case, a lot of farmers probably do something quite similar, as lots of farm dogs are kept in their 'boxes' or runs when they are not being 'used'. I'm confused, did I say something wrong? I've met dogs who have been hurt and scared by strange dogs, and they had dog aggression issues afterwards.

Lol @ Tess, I assumed we were just talking about basic obedience under distraction! All I meant was that if a dog won't recall away from a distraction (such as other playing dogs), then I don't think he's ready to be off leash in that situation yet. If your dog will happily recall away from other dogs with near perfect reliability, then I really can't see any problem with him playing with other dogs off leash (not that you probably care for my opinion anyway! ). I don't expect my dog to heel through fire, or do anything else that I couldn't do myself! What is Ruff Love, exactly? If it's just crating for a few hours before each training session, then it's actually a pretty old idea - I think I saw it in "The Koehler Method". Or do you mean it involves crating the dog at all times except when he's being trained? That would seem extremely harsh, unless the dog has severe behavioural problems.