Prydenjoy

Well I hope I don't set too poor a standard then

Would a dog like Berri be likely to be terribly bothered by it? He's only 3.5kg, I don't want to spend the money and then have him not want to walk on it. Grippy sounds good ;)

I'm fairly confident with his stay's, he rarely ever breaks no matter what the distraction is. Yes, stressing I am - My first trial and I'm first in line, how on earth am I going to survive this!!! LOL.

Interesting, we had a dog that walked perfectly ever after being trained wearing a gentle leader. I guess every dog is different.

No need to apologise, I did ask Good thing you have such good timing, not everyone does

Oh dear... Just got my obedience numbers back for the weekend... For Saturday morning my number is 1 - Does that mean I have to go first??!!! I wont have anyone to watch before me! I can't describe my feelings right now lol

I for one love trying to work out what makes my dogs tick I agree with corvus, there are too many dogs suffering abuse in the name of dominance, and there are also too many dogs that suffer the confusion of a lack of leadership. Understanding how dogs work is the path to creating meaningful interactions to improve a dogs quality of life.

Can you give me an example? I'm not saying that anyone here is stressing their dog, but I have seen instances when dogs have been severely punished to the point where they are hyperventilating, tail tucked between their legs, yet the dog is claimed to be "obedient" because it is doing what it has been told (or forced) to do. It is too easy to abuse power, I'm not saying that some people can't and don't apply it correctly, but on the same note it is silly to say that some people can't and don't use rewards correctly (even when the initial rate of reinforcement is high)

I just ate 3 chocolate eggs... Didn't do anything to earn them though. I'm a naughty trainer!!

Which is why your dogs will work for verbal praise, it is the non positively trained dogs equivalent to a no reward marker - The dog knows that when it is being praised it is not about to get a correction. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying dogs don't like being praised, just on the scale of things (in absense of any corrections) praise is generally not as potent as food or play, a walk, or an off leash run in the park, or any other number of things that are primary reinforcers to dogs. My mum has a dog that will not work outside of the house for food, not because she doesn't like food, simply because she is stressed. Dogs wont eat or play when they are stressed, if your dog isn't eating or wanting to play it is something to think about whether your dog is stressed (yet a stressed dog will still respond in some level to punishers, which I guess is why some people insist they are the only way to train their dog, thus adding to the stress...).

OK OK, I'll video myself

I keep getting told that Berri doesn't need me to look at him etc, and it's true. He actually works beautifully when I don't look at him. It's my own bad habit I'm breaking. Jules perhaps you need to go back to basics and reward immediately for the correct position (from the left hand, treating with the right hand can increase forging) and work your way up from there. Mango was a forger when I first trained her, I see her now holding herself back (it seems so hard for the poor mite, she just wants to take off). If she gets in front of me I pause and she scoots back to my side, and we start moving again, Mango keenly looking at me waiting to be released (I train her with a tug toy, there's nothing she loves more). She's only 5 months old though so still in the very beginning stages of training, and no, I don't trust her enough yet to take my eyes off her! I do about 95% of our training off lead, I want them to choose to be with me, you know you have your dogs focus if its off lead and is simply choosing to be with you because it's the most reinforcing place to be! They both love to heel though, if I'm walking around the yard they are both pushing each other aside to get next to my left leg ETA and Jules, another thing you can do is "shape" your own behavior. Don't go straight from adoring eye contact to looking in front of you, try slightly averting your eyes, reward you dog for maintaining position, and slowly work up from there. That's pretty much what I've been doing with Berri, I just wish someone was standing there with a few morsels of cheese cake to reward ME for correct position!!

This one has also been posted in the obedience forum, thanks for sharing though - Always an interesting read!

So what are the situations that you might use a long line? Berri has a fairly good recall on walks (I wait until he looks at me, then call - Not too sure what he'd do if he was in full flight in the other direction), but not when he gets out the front of the yard. Once he realises his freedom he's off (thankfully we're on a quiet road, but of course I still worry!). Would a long line work in this situation, or would he just generalise the line equalling his lack of freedom?

If he's really strong and you're worried about a shoulder injury or something in the meantime while you're training him I've heard that black dogs "easy walk" harness is good. I'm not sure about others experience with this but there is a beagle at our dog park that uses one and the owners have told me it was a God send. It is not a training tool as such, just something that might make your life a little more comfortable

I know a lot of people who struggle with this bit:

That was never a problem for me and Berri I think when is comes down to it, if the dog is set up for success you wont have to "lure" or "bribe" the behavior anyway, the dog will be able to work it out quite easily (as dogs do) what is getting them the reinforcement and what they need to do to keep it up

It's the problem in the real world, we can't control everything (as Aiden said controlled set ups are useful, so that you can set the dog up for success and not have to "shovel" them in so much). I haven't read Click to Calm, sounds like a great book, on my list of books to buy, but in uncontrolled situations where you are past the dogs threshold of "look, take it in, but then make a rational decision to look back at me" I do find distraction with a high rate of reinforcement a handy tool, for me, as I got closer the rate of reinforcement crept up, and as I got past the thick of it the reinforcement dropped down again. If the dog is looking at you eagerly in anticipation (there is a strong association there) then you can drop the rate of reinforcement down by about 1 treat per 1/4 or 1/2 second, very gradually so that the dog doesn't realise what is happening and you don't "lose" it. I'm assuming that the lunging behavior is self reinforcing for the dog, so you really want to set up for success and not "lose" it by rewarding too slowly when it is past its threshold.

I was just surfing the net and came across this comment that remined me of the original post "In my opinion, both the overly cookied-dogs and the positively punished dogs live in a life of frustration (but perhaps the ones that never get punished enjoy their frustration slightly more:))." http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2010/04/...s-and-cons.html I think one thing we can all agree on is that without the correct timing you wont make progress with any method. At least the idea of the bad timing of positive reinforcement and the dogs "enjoying" their frustration appeals a little more than the problems that can come with bad timing of punishments

Probably would have taken 5 minutes with a "proper" reinforcer... Pats are OK, but not something many dogs would work their absolute hardest to get. For those who want to talk about reliability, try not giving a dog a reinforcer it considers valuable, asking it to perform over and over again, then see how reliable it is.

Is that the "tracking" lead on their website? Wow, it's not cheap!

Sorry, double post

Just found the book, it is "The Cautious Canine" - Over friendly, fear aggressive, whatever, if you are correctly counter conditioning and you will be teaching the dog that when it sees another dog (or whatever) YOU are the best thing in the world because it has a wonderful association between seeing that thing and wonderful things coming from you, so it should automatically cause your dog to look at you. When I started at a distance I would cross the road. I would keep my eyes peeled and make sure I saw the other dog before Berri did and start shovelling the food into his mouth as we passed, I mean really shovelling it down so that he didn't have a chance to react. If he did react I'd say a quick watch me and start reinforcing again as soon as he looked at me (no point feeding him while he's looking at and lunging at the other dog!). Obviously this decreased over time, we got closer and closer and the treats came less and less. He still isn't always perfect, lets out a woof here and there just to have his say (he really makes up in attitude what he lacks in size).

Hi Jeanne I would have thought a Pap would be well below your hand signal, from an upwright position?? Should be no need to worry. I think I'm just making excuses of why I need to look at him ;)

There's a short booklet about counter conditioning and desensitisation by Patricia McConnell that I read to help get Berri's lunging and barking under control, I can't think for the life of me what it was called though, perhaps someone else knows? Basically start at a distance with a high rate of reward, never move past your dogs threshold, gradually get closer over several weeks. A good "watch me" command also helps.