Kelpie-i

With my own dogs, I came away from the traditional, command-release-reward method as I found the dog's anticipated the release too much and would sometimes break prematurely. The release was cued by a release word such as "free" followed by the reward. I switched to the clicker because it was more precise and I liked the idea of marking/shaping the behaviours I wanted, as well as rewarding the dog when it was in position. I still use the release cue but it means nothing and the dog merely gets a good boy/small pat and he is on his own time. For adding distance and duration to an exercise, I am able to mark/reward at increasing intervals and/or distance yet keep the dog in position. I have also ensured that I taught a pause between click and treat. I believe that if you've conditioned the marker correctly, then you shouldn't have problems with creating secondary behaviours due to the delivery of the primary reinforcer. To me, using a clicker as the end of the exericse is no different to the traditional C_R_R, just that the dog is conditioned to the sound of the click as the release, rather than the word. Not a very powerful way of shaping IMO but hey..I'm relatively new to clicker (well only a few years ).

I think different trainers have different ways of using the clicker and it can get down to semantics as to whether the click is the release and/or the marker. I prefer to use the clicker as a pure marker rather than to cue the end. My dog's eyes light up like light bulbs at the sound of the click and awaits his reward so this has worked for me. This makes perfect sense to me. Remaining in position should be rewarding, more rewarding than the release. Feeding for position works very well and eliminates the dog breaking through anticipation of the release.

Wasn't aware that he is still unwell, my apologies...therefore persephone is correct as well my initial advice of just letting him be. The jolly routine is good but the dog really needs to be feeling well for it to help.

The highlighted bit is your clue. Another idea, which behaviourist Bill Campbell is famous for, is the Jolly Routine. Since dogs have allelomimetic tendencies, means they mimic certain things, using the Jolly routine when he goes into one of his 'crate fear' states might work. If he is in the crate and starts to act fearful etc, go into another room, put on the music and pretend that you are having so much fun, act happy and well....jolly. His curiosity will get the better of him and he will come out to have a squizz at what the hell you are doing. The jolly routine is supposed to help change the mood in the dog since they tend to mimic our moods. So once he's out, it's party time! Well worth a try.

Whilst not exactly the same, here is a similar situation with my youngest kelpie Gabe that happened last year. All 4 of my dogs sleep in side on their mats. The old GSD boy sleeps near the kitchen table and he has a habit of kicking in his sleep. One night, he must have kicked too hard and toppled one of the chairs which made a loud thud. I awoke and ran into the lounge/kitchen area to find Buddy (GSD) standing looking a little dazed and Gabe (kelpie) trembling with fear. He headed for the door....he wanted OUT...and NOW! For a few nights after that, when all the dogs came in to settle down for the night, Gabe was extremely reluctant to come inside. I would try to coax him in, even bribe him with food (it was winter and bitterly cold outside) and whilst that managed to get him in, he was not settled at all. It seemed that the more I fussed, the worse he got. So I put on my "dog trainers hat" on and decided that if he really wanted to sleep outside then best to leave him to it. I stopped trying to get him to come inside and eventually after a week, he decided it was way too cold and came in on his own. A little apprehensive at first but I left him to his own devices and found that he settled down without a problem. Sometimes, the more we fuss, the worse we make things. And as any good dog owner wants to do the best for their dogs, I do believe that letting sleeping dogs lie (pun uninteded) can, on some ocassions, work the best. The crate is obviously the trigger for his behaviour due to the association with illness/pain, so you can either remove it all together or do a whole heap of counter conditioning work to get him comfortable with it again.

Great pics SBT123 It is difficult to capture intensity in still shots but we certainly get a good idea. 3rd image shows intensity in the eyes!

I agree Aiden. It's dependant on the dog and the situation in which the correction is applied. I believe it was Jack Volhard who first "pioneered' training in drive in the 70's, although I think he termed it "motivatinal training". Whilst it was probably not a new concept, I think he may have been the first to actually put pen to paper with it and introduced it formally as a training technique. Further to the break downs as mentioned by Erny, I was given a link many years ago to a theory paper written about drive and how it works. I printed it out but I cannot for the life of me remember where I've put it. It was about 20 pages long and made for very interesting reading. From memory, the writer mentions both drives and modes within a dog. Drives are intrinsic and therefore hard-wired into the dog. The 3 main drives all dogs have are Pack, Predatory and Defense, with a dog being able to switch from one to the other very easiy and quite quickly. Then he spoke about Modes, which are 'off shoots' of each drive. Ie: Predatory: play, chase, catch, tug, shake or kill Pack: running (as a pack), eating (food), mating etc Defense: growl, lunge, attack Therefore, all the different modes we see from our dogs stem from one of the 3 main drives. Whilst we may term behaviours as prey drive (as an example), the actual behaviours such as chasing and even tugging are modes, or part of the sequence of behaviours of predatory drive.

Awww see, I wanted to know what that said. Me too

Thanks for the link Aiden. Our previous Kelpie would play with the medicine ball. We would throw it at him and he would punch it back with his nose...the game would go on forever! He would then chase it around the yard and round it up. A great way to exercise. Our current kelpies think it's more fun to try and puncture the balls with their teeth.

I don't run anymore...not for any reason just plain laziness these days, but when I did my GSD boy (Buddy) was always my running partner. He was always by my side with a nice trotting pace equalling mine. There was nothing like the experience of hearing my heartbeat and his breathing in sync. He was my running partner for years but is now too old unfortunately. I knew it was time to start leaving him at home when he started to lag behind, sometimes dragging his back paws and stopping...a sure sign that his arthritis was commencing to take hold. When I got my Kelpie boy, I waited until his was about 12 months old and started taking him with me as well. I initially took Buddy (GSD) with me so show an inexperienced Gabe the way. Initially it was "wow we're going at a faster pace...woohooo' but in time and with some guidance he learned what I wanted. Taking his lead from both myself and Buddy, Gabe learned to stay at a lovely pace along side Buddy and after a while I was jogging with a dog on either side of me. I was then able to retire Buddy. It does take some training to get them used to the pace but if you apply the same techniques to teach loose lead walking, you shouldn't have a problem. After all, running is a faster version of walking.

Done! Agree that first question is loaded. Part of my answer to that was that the situation has many variables and if the officer makes a decision based on and/or is only able so "suspect" then he/she should not be employed as a council animal control officer.

Or you could tell him to go and rent a room

I believe we humans call it "masturbation" and it's a pretty darned hot looking pillow!!! It's a 'feel good' thing.

No I didn't, it would have been too long-winded, so I just blamed it on the heat....so embarrassment I'm sure he's having 2nd thoughts about his enrolment... he's probably thinking "this chick can't even spell the name of a popular breed of dog, how the hell is she going to train it?" How Kissindra? Do tell

LOL....yes I think I will write it down as Sibe from now on....I couldn't possibly get that wrong....or could I ???

At dog training today I was taking enrolments. On our enrolment form it asks the breed of the dog. One particular newbie forgot to write down the breed of dog, so I asked what breed their dog was. He said a husky. Not hard right?? Well... Because I am always reading threads on DOL and your DOL name is "Huski", I wrote it as HUSKI. The owner sort of giggled and I looked up and asked what was wrong and he said it's spelt H.U.S.K.Y, not H.U.S.K.I :D Totally you're fault Huski.....you must take full responsibility for this

Like I said Corvus, Drive is the animal's motivated state. Corvus it most certainly doesn't look like the video you posted.

If you want to know if your dog is in drive, simply look at the eyes. The higher the state of drive and arousal the larger the pupils. It is the animal's motivational state...Staranais put it very nicely.

Petbehavourist, much has been learned since the "dogs are from wolves" theory and No, we did not domesticate or "modify' the wolf as was first believed. Since wolves are naturally fearful of humans, it was only those wolves who were less fearful of humans that took to scavenging around the early human settlements. Without wanting to go into a huge amount of detail as to why they changed shape, a natural evolution began taking place and the proto-dog of some 15,000 years ago formed. This process was NOT by the hand of humans though athough humans did inadvertently play a part!!! However, it was these proto-dogs that were later modified by humans based firstly on natural selection ie the dog’s genetic disposition as well as their tendencies not to be fearful of humans, and then based on the dog's natural instincts ie guarding and chasing etc, which we moulded/modified etc to become the many wonderful breeds we have today. What I am guessing is that this man-made process of ‘creating’ dogs to suit our requirements may just be happening all over again. And they say history never repeats!!

NILIF - Nothing In Life Is Free! You can google it and find some good information about it.

Hear, hear Christina...well put!

What Cosmolo said...NILIF is a good basic foundation grounding for leadership. And on further thought, apart from the re-directed behaviour, it could also be a reprimand towards you.

Gabe is the one in the air...the black/tan below is Tasha (Miss Precious)

Sounds like re-directed aggression to me but difficult to give a proper analysis without seeing it, although from what you describe it would ring true. Fighting fire with fire is not the answer when it comes to re-directed aggression as he will continue to escalate the aggression as you do yours. As you've probably guessed it, I would advise seeing a trainer/behaviourist who has experience in dealing with this sort of issue. Counter-conditioning is one solution here.

Thanks Erny and Terranik..only shame is that I didn't keep the camera clicking whilst he flipped. He landed heavily and was a little 'shocked' afterward, but in true kelpie spirit, kept going. I tried to get more pics but he didn't do the full flip again. Here's another...all that's missing is his cape!