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So, my grandmother passed away last night. I've been worried about the fate of her dog, who is not housebroken or trained in any way except to sit and lay down for treats (she never even trained him to walk on a leash), but remarkably my mother was able to find him a home with one of the hospice nurses. So yay for him, one less thing to worry about, etc. etc. But. BUT. I completely forgot about her cat. He's a ghost cat, and pretty  . No one wants him. Here he is back when he knew me.  Someone threw him out of a car in front of the call center where I was working at the time. This could explain the . I was living with my parents. I moved out shortly after and my mother wanted to keep him because he was a cute little kitten. After he stopped seeing me every day he forgot who I was and now he runs and hides in the closet or behind the curtains when I come visit. When he moved in with my grandmother (my mother decided she didn't want him after all once she realized his elevator doesn't reach the top floor), he hid behind the washing machine for 2 months, coming out only very rarely to eat and use his box.  I really wouldn't mind taking him, but my cat doesn't like other cats. Twice I've tried bringing another cat into the house and she peed on the couch and on my clothes. I think that was temporary anger and hopefully wouldn't have been permanent. (One of the cats was a stray kitten I was able to find a home for, the other was when I babysat my mother's Bengal for a couple nights). The bigger problem is that if another cat uses her box she'll stop going in the box. TL; DR So all that being said, does anyone have multiple cats with a cat who doesn't like sharing a box? How do you work around that? I'm trying to think of how I can make this work this time. I don't know if we can find someone to adopt Oliver as easily as we found someone to take my grandmother's dog. Then again, I could be wrong. I'd much rather have a slow-witted phantom cat than a hyperactive dog who isn't housebroken, but, that might just be me. Lefty Lugubrious fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 21:56
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Oliver has a really cute little face! If you attempt to take him, I would recommend trying multiple boxes, with 2 cats, 3 boxes would be ideal, but if you could get at least 2 boxes that would be good. I would also try Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter and maybe Feliway. And make sure you scoop the box at least once a day. If you have a really picky cat then you might try twice a day. I had a picky cat that would pee on things (like my bed) if his litter box was too dirty. That was before I was good about scooping daily. Once you get scooping daily in your routine it's not a big deal, it really doesn't take much time. I have 5 cats now, so it's pretty much required.
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Sep 19, 2012 22:51
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Thank you, he really is a cutie. It takes him a loooooong time to warm up to people, but, once he does he's a very sweet little guy. We would most certainly have 3 boxes if I do take Oliver because my cat, Her Highness Queen Kismet, requires a spotless box at all times and prefers to have 1 box for peeing and a separate box for pooping. How could I implement Feliway? By putting it on Kismet's boxes but not Oliver's box? I would have Kismet's 2 in one room, and then I'd have to figure out where to put Oliver's box. Definitely in a different part of the house, I just don't know where. I don't have a washroom or a mudroom, Kismet's box is in the spare room closet (with the door cracked). Lefty Lugubrious fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 23:05
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I posted up a few more in the dog sport thread, but I'm reposting this one here 'cause I like it. Here is a shot of Cohen's noise hole, which she makes good use of while doin' 'gility. 
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Sep 19, 2012 23:16
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The Oatmeal has a new comic and it's all about the paradox that is DOG that PI will hopefully appreciate: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/dog_paradox?ref=nf Fun fact, I accidentally wrote that as "paradog"
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Sep 20, 2012 00:21
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Lefty Lugubrious posted:Thank you, he really is a cutie. It takes him a loooooong time to warm up to people, but, once he does he's a very sweet little guy. I'm not sure where would be a good place for the Feliway. I think in the house in general would be good, not necessarily on/near the boxes. You could do the plug-in version. I might put it in the same area as Kismet's boxes, but not sure. Not sure if you would have a spot for something like this to put a box in: http://www.amazon.com/Designer-Catbox-Litter-Enclosure-Espresso/dp/B005AFMJWC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348097257&sr=8-2&keywords=litter+hider It would keep it a little more out of site. Good luck with either integrating him into your house or finding him a home.
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Sep 20, 2012 00:30
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Hey PI, very curious on what you think of this opinion on reactive dog training. I think training works, but hes of the opinion that a dog that has a bite history is a liability and danger to people because it is unpredictable. Coming from a non-animal person, apologies for the disjointed way it is written because it was on skype. While I accept his opinion that he wouldnt want to own a dog with ANY issues, I dont agree that its a public hazard? (about holly in the milan vid) "it still unnerves me that the dog thinks biting is an option, seems like he needs to have a much greater aversion to biting it seems band aiding the real problem? like you fix the food aggression cool but he still doesnt have a real problem with biting people and that could be a problem in other ways like say when we had to cut julies nails, she absolutely freaked the gently caress out like it was life or death, she really didnt like it at all, but she wouldnt ever bit if the dog doesnt have a problem biting people thats the real problem" (about the JRT in sophia yins counterconditioning vid) "i really really dont like that it doesnt seem like a good idea at all to just train one little thing outta them like that and be like its helping! i mean if the dog flies off the handle and poo poo that simple, maybe, its better to just put them down and get them out of the gene pool was it just blowing? i doubt it. they said he was aggressive with kids. its still a problem. that dogs got some real serious behavior problems and just building a positive association with blowing in his face? so....what he still probably doesnt need to adopted by anyone. its not really the end tho, thats the problem. that dog doesnt mind people blowing in his face cuz he thinks he's gonna get a treat. cool. is he still safe to have around kids? i dont think so he's a safety hazard to other people i'm not saying, take him out of the home and put him down right there i'm saying..i dont think that training is actually doing anything maybe i'm wrong" I'm not looking for angry comments but.. wondering about the science to back it up... if its a nonissue or not, whether a dog is "safe" with people when it has shown a lower bite inhibition. Im aware the thresholds a scale instead of black/white. Malalol fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 02:00
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a life less posted:You might see less of the guarding behaviour when you're back to normal, or you may see it continue since Sitka has had opportunity to practice it. I would advise you to address it via training instead of hoping it goes away. Yeah. It's just a matter of finding someone that I can used to do training with. She doesn't guard me against other dogs. She guards me against people. Specifically strange men. And it's fairly subtle so most people don't notice it unless they are used to primitive breeds. But it's pretty big signs for me. (Hackles up, head down, ears flat.) I think I know some folks who can help me start working with her. Biggest problem is I kinda don't always mind. It's comforting when we're running and its starting to get dark out. But last thing either of us need is her preemptively dealing with a 'problem.'
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Sep 20, 2012 02:19
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Uhhhh the point of that JRT video was to prove that giving a dog treats when it reacts aggressively does not reward the aggressive behavior, but changes the dog's emotional state. If the dog does in fact have issues with kids, those should also be worked on, no one's saying otherwise, but the blowing-in-the-face exercise is still helpful. You can't just work on the big picture, you have to take care of small things too. Gradual, baby steps, etc. My brain is fried. A bite isn't a death sentence for a dog, most dogs bite out of fear and if you work to resolve that fear then it's not an issue (but the dog should still be monitored in my book). It really, really depends on the circumstances and severity of the bite. Holly showed a great deal of bite inhibition at the beginning of that video and gave him all sorts of "please back off" signals. He pushed her really far to where she felt forced to bite, and it was COMPLETELY unnecessary. She likely would have never bitten anyone since chances are no one's going to behave that way toward her. He significantly worsened the problem by pushing her, whereas in the beginning it was a relatively minor case of resource guarding that could have been easily worked on with more positive methods and never been remotely the bite risk he made it into. Sorry, I'm tired, so I just rambled off the top of my head.
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Sep 20, 2012 02:27
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This article may help. It's a summary of a Dunbar seminar, and Dunbar was the guy who set the bite scale which all behaviourists etc use today to gauge aggressive behaviour. http://reactivechampion.blogspot.ca/2010/11/ian-dunbar-seminar-aggression.html All dogs bite. Some have a lower threshold than others, but ALL dogs can bite. And not all dogs need to be so trustworthy that you can leave them alone in a room with a thousand screaming children and know that nothing bad will ever happen. The dog in the Milan video has a serious problem, yes. The bite that she gave Milan was a level 5, which is a dangerous and very serious bite. As said in the article linked above, once a dog displays this sort of behaviour they need to be treated like a loaded gun. I wouldn't ever trust that dog with food ever again, even if with PROPER training you could train the resource guarding down to almost nil because the dog has practiced very dangerous behaviour. The dog may be able to be worked with. It may always be a liability. I like this post pertaining to the damage we can do to our dogs if we utilize incorrect training approaches: http://thedogsassistant.ca/blog/uncategorized/cassis-way-how-training-is-killing-our-dogs/ The JRT in the CC video is obviously not cured of all its problems by conditioning it to enjoy being blown on. Assuming the dog has other issues is merely an assumption of course. It's a brief, simple example that we can radically change how our animals feel about certain stimuli with a concerted effort on our part as trainers. What exactly does your friend thing training IS? I think your post is a call-back to the discussion from yesterday about how a lot of people only see dogs as Good or Bad. Again, all dogs can bite. And we as trainers can do wonderful things to stretch their threshold.
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Sep 20, 2012 02:32
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a life less posted:
I think the main issue is that once a dog has proven itself to bite from a simple thing (i say simple as in everyday things..maybe resource guarding, grooming, vs kicking a dog hard), other situations become unpredictable which is where the danger lies. You can desensitize the jrt to like the blowing (the bandaid), but there are infinite other interactions that can trigger him to bite that you dont know about which is the main issue. The dog can bite. Baby steps to fix those issues but can you fix every single one if there are so many possibilities. I think he is afraid to be bitten/and has no tolerance for it. Also, it is a liability if you walk a dog and some idiot kid comes up, touches the dog on the ear and gets bit. Youll be sued, in for a lot of money/legal issues. All which can be avoided if you had 'A Good Dog' .. yes its very black and white and he is under the belief that a Good Dog does not bite. Ever. He had never encountered a dog that was "aggressive" growing up until he met my ex-dog which adds to that fear I guess. The main issue with me (E/N now) is that I'd be sad if I ever got a dog and baaw, it has issues and he won't ever trust it, it is a bad dog. That training article is depressing. But I'm glad I wont be adding to that potential problem as much as I would be if I were still Yay Cesar : )
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Sep 20, 2012 03:03
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hhgtrillian posted:I'm not sure where would be a good place for the Feliway. I think in the house in general would be good, not necessarily on/near the boxes. You could do the plug-in version. OK, now that I've actually read the Feliway site I understand how it's supposed to be used. I thought I knew before, but I was thinking of something different. I spoke with my mother a few minutes ago and she said they can't find Oliver. There was a lot of commotion last night, but she doesn't think he got out of the house. Poor guy is probably petrified with fear, he doesn't handle change very well. 
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Sep 20, 2012 03:04
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Malalol posted:yes its very black and white and he is under the belief that a Good Dog does not bite. Ever. Well, this is simply and unequivocally wrong. Until he understands that, there's no reason to even discuss it with him. In fact, this is a very dangerous attitude because most people believe they have Good Dogs and will often overlook signs that their dog has growing fear or anxiety issues. I read an article a while back about a family that ignored all the "subtle" signs from their dog that he was uncomfortable with their child and then the dog bit their child on the neck and killed him. That dog had no bite history, though he was giving off signs of fear and anxiety if they had known to pay attention. All dogs can bite. Period. And really, a lot of fear-based behavioral issues are very predictable once you get to know the dog. My dog freaks out over many, many things that would appear random to a stranger, but they are utterly predictable to me and I manage them. I manage HER 24/7 (including crating when I'm not around) and take a lot of steps to ensure that she doesn't come into contact with anyone who isn't explicitly working with us/her. And we do spend a lot of time fixing 'little' things. We spent months having a trainer come to the house and do stupid things like bending over and picking up objects in different locations/ways. But it all works toward a general goal of desensitizing her and showing her how to use appropriate responses to anxiety OTHER than bringing out the teeth. (and just two weeks ago, while being boarded, Psyche was SO HAPPY to see that trainer and jumped all over her and gave her kisses  )I also don't like the idea that the only way to traumatize a dog is to physically hurt them and nothing else should make the dog fearful or anxious [enough to bite]. My dog's former owners never admitted to kicking her (though she was fearful for feet for a while, so I wonder). They DID admit to various forms of emotional torture, such as, in lieu of training a real recall, getting Psyche to come to them via the father pretending to hit his daughter, who was Psyche's favorite. Eskies are a neurotic breed already and it is really obvious that this was emotionally scarring to Psyche, since she has trouble handing physical contact between people she likes to this day. Anyway, I would question the distinction between biting for 'simple' things and 'real' things, like a dog who bites for something we find stupid is a Bad Dog, but if they are kicked, it's okay. I also wouldn't call desensitization a 'bandaid' , as if it's done right, it produces a real emotional change. There is always the possibility to revert to old neural pathways, of course, but that just means that a dog that has had serious issues such as these will need to be managed for life. (not to say you didn't know all that already, I was just responding to the ideas he's presenting  )
Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 05:00
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Lefty Lugubrious posted:I spoke with my mother a few minutes ago and she said they can't find Oliver. There was a lot of commotion last night, but she doesn't think he got out of the house. Poor guy is probably petrified with fear, he doesn't handle change very well. Keep us informed. I'll feel better when I know he's been found. Does anyone else have a cat that feels like their temperature runs 1,000,000 degrees? We have 5 cats, and they all lay on us at some point during the day. But Frank just heats up like crazy. He's pretty so I'm assuming that the excess energy that is normally supposed to go to his brain is just being shed as excess heat. It's my theory anyway. This is Frank:
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Sep 20, 2012 14:33
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Malalol posted:I think the main issue is that once a dog has proven itself to bite from a simple thing (i say simple as in everyday things..maybe resource guarding, grooming, vs kicking a dog hard), other situations become unpredictable which is where the danger lies. You can desensitize the jrt to like the blowing (the bandaid), but there are infinite other interactions that can trigger him to bite that you dont know about which is the main issue. The dog can bite. Baby steps to fix those issues but can you fix every single one if there are so many possibilities. Here are a few more articles for you, since I'm having trouble articulating what I want to say. http://reactivechampion.blogspot.ca/2011/09/good-dogs-bite-too-why-you-need-to.html http://reactivechampion.blogspot.ca/2010/05/thresholds-what-they-are-why-they.html Dogs are not unreasonable wild animals. Heck, even wild animals aren't unreasonable wild animals. Their behaviour is rooted in their experiences in life and they practice what works. The most exhilarating part of training, to me, is that you can change a dog's reactions through providing new, healthy, constructive experiences. A dog who has bitten in the past is not guaranteed to bite again. A dog who has never bitten in the past is not guaranteed to never bite. And don't don't just bite out of the blue. As mentioned in the Cassi's Way article I liked in my last post, biting tends to be a last resort for dogs. If you nip behaviours in the bud and aren't a total loving retard you can probably address just about any issue. It's a touchy subject with dog owners - the idea that dogs are either good or bad, bombproof or a bite risk. As Kiri showed, we know that our dogs aren't perfect. Mine sure as gently caress aren't. I'm pretty sure just about any regular PI poster has talked about various issues their dogs have and, sometimes, how they're trying to work through them. I'm at a point where I'm meeting more "aggressive" dogs than not these days since I'm travelling in sporting dog circles. These are trainers who know what they're doing, and dogs with loads of energy and drive. Most of them are at least moderately reactive, and allowing two dogs to greet each other at one of these events is a pretty big faux-pas. Their owners are aware of the risks of an altercation and take the steps to manage their dogs so everyone is safe. It's second nature and no one gives it a second thought. I have a friend with a Malinois who will turn and bite her if the dog gets frustrated while excited and she has the scars to prove it. However she brings this dog out to meet and greets with kids because this dog is wonderful around children. I'm just kind of rambling now, but basically it's easy to paint a hard line about Dogs Must Be A Certain Way until you're faced with the reality of the situation that no dogs truly fit that mould 100% of the time.
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Sep 20, 2012 15:17
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Random question: does anyone know where I can find a list of dogs born with naturally short/stubby tails? I don't want to fly off the handle at every dog with a tailstump. On another note, I went to a shelter the other day and it was just awesome. They offered all sorts of incentives to adopt small animals and older cats and dogs. Plus the area leading to the adult dogs had a box of free earplugs. That was a pretty neat gesture.
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Sep 20, 2012 15:56
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It's kind of funny how much more relaxed sporting and working dog people about most bites. My search team just had this discussion last night because a handler's dog had bitten a subject out of frustration. She was concerned that he might bite a victim in an actual search. The response from the team leader, who has been doing this for like 20 years? "So what if he does? No one's going to complain about a couple of punctures when he's just saved them from dying from exposure." Obviously the conversation didn't end there and we talked about ways to manage the situation, but I thought it was a good illustration of the different attitude. Actually last night was a bad night for bites, I got nicked too but it was because I didn't present the reward toy to the dog very well. Protip: when you're working with a dog with an extremely high toy drive and you present the toy by putting your arm in front of his mouth, he's probably gonna miss the toy and grab said arm instead. But that's another good example, no one was concerned about that bite at all even though he got me pretty good. They just gave me a ton of poo poo for it.On a tangential note, I was reading that thread posted yesterday about the Schnauzer who bit someone, and I looked up the Sit Means Sit training method because I had never heard of it. They seriously use electronic collars on every dog right from the get-go? 
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Sep 20, 2012 16:05
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Pew! Pew! posted:Random question: does anyone know where I can find a list of dogs born with naturally short/stubby tails? I don't want to fly off the handle at every dog with a tailstump. The genetic mutation that causes the tail to be short may be at BEST homozygous lethal and at worst can cause pretty severe malformations in the homozygous state. Is it REALLY better than docking given that? Honestly, don't fly off the handle about random people with docked dogs unless you want to look like a dickwad.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:24
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2tomorrow posted:It's kind of funny how much more relaxed sporting and working dog people about most bites. My search team just had this discussion last night because a handler's dog had bitten a subject out of frustration. She was concerned that he might bite a victim in an actual search. The response from the team leader, who has been doing this for like 20 years? "So what if he does? No one's going to complain about a couple of punctures when he's just saved them from dying from exposure." Obviously the conversation didn't end there and we talked about ways to manage the situation, but I thought it was a good illustration of the different attitude. I was going to say something about that but I wasn't sure if it was verboten to mention threads closed due to drama potential and just general ignorance. I cannot understand why the owner would go back to using the shock collar since clearly it worked so well before . Also who the hell would train their dog using an all punishment based regimen?
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Sep 20, 2012 16:27
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Kiri koli posted:Edit: For everyone depressed by that video, have a video of what a GOOD trainer can do! This is Psyche being boarded at my trainer's house with her dogs and other boardees. Psyche, for anyone not paying attention the last two years, is extremely dog reactive and usually looks like a barking/growling/biting whirling dervish when faced with another dog (on-leash). This is amazing, I can't believe how relaxed she is. I was at a wedding last weekend and a girl was telling me about her struggles with a pit mix she adopted. Said she didn't believe in negative reinforcement at all and had spent 1.5 years with various R+ trainers trying to tame her dog's DA to no avail, and had finally resorted to a police-dog trainer who quickly improved the dog's behavior. I felt bad for her because she clearly had done a ton of homework before resorting to R-. I also told her all about you and Psyche and how after years of work Psyche was really making progress.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:32
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2tomorrow posted:On a tangential note, I was reading that thread posted yesterday about the Schnauzer who bit someone, and I looked up the Sit Means Sit training method because I had never heard of it. They seriously use electronic collars on every dog right from the get-go? Oh my god, their website. It's 99% "MONEY PLEASE, PAY US MONEY NOW, YOU CAN MAKE MONEY TOO." The first link under "dog training advice and tips" is to the owner being interviewed about promoting his business through YouTube. So I have no idea what their training is like, but the ~patented collar~ seems to be a big part of it.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:32
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Topoisomerase posted:The genetic mutation that causes the tail to be short may be at BEST homozygous lethal and at worst can cause pretty severe malformations in the homozygous state. Is it REALLY better than docking given that? Honestly, don't fly off the handle about random people with docked dogs unless you want to look like a dickwad. Not really, I just wasn't sure which were bred that way. Not so much "flying off the handle" as knowing whether or not the owner can help the way their dog looks. Should have worded that better. I don't usually do that anyway since rescues/shelters exist and I want to give people the benefit of the doubt before going "hey it's a bad idea to..." I don't know. I'm trying to word it right without brushing off the underlying problem of tailless dogs in general. e: That Sit Means Sit stuff holy poo poo.  those poor dogs.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:33
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Andrias Scheuchzeri posted:Oh my god, their website. It's 99% "MONEY PLEASE, PAY US MONEY NOW, YOU CAN MAKE MONEY TOO." The first link under "dog training advice and tips" is to the owner being interviewed about promoting his business through YouTube. So I have no idea what their training is like, but the ~patented collar~ seems to be a big part of it. They're all shock collars all the time. New puppy that needs to learn the basics? Slap an ecollar on it. Overexcited dog that jumps all over everyone? Zap it. Fear aggressive chihuahua? Shock time. If your dog is doing something you don't like you just start shocking it and don't stop until it does something you do like. SMS is the only training place within a half an hour of me and it is horrifying. Pew! Pew! posted:Not really, I just wasn't sure which were bred that way. Don't be a goon and lecture random people with nub dogs. No one appreciates it and you're just going to come off as a dick no matter how you word it.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:43
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Pew! Pew! posted:Not really, I just wasn't sure which were bred that way. Here's a link for ya! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_bobtail e: And breeding dogs for a shorter spine is not exactly the bestest idea ever. I would rather not see dogs docked, but as the owner of a docked dog, it's annoying when people try to give me poo poo for it.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:45
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Understood, I won't be  about it. Thanks for the list though, a life less.e: yeah I got it jeez Hardwood Floor fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 16:49
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Pew! Pew! posted:Not really, I just wasn't sure which were bred that way. Puppies are docked within the first week of life. The current owner would generally have absolutely nothing to do with the decision to dock or not, unless the current owner was also the breeder in which case I'm sure that they have heard that lecture a billion times before from random goony assholes and don't care at all what you have to say about it.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:49
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Every owner of a dog with a docked tail literally cuts the tail off first thing every morning. Stop the abuse!
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Sep 20, 2012 17:01
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Bad Munki posted:Every owner of a dog with a docked tail literally cuts the tail off first thing every morning. Stop the abuse! You know that old rhyme that says little boys are made of slugs, snails and puppy dog tails? It's actually puppy/dog tails. Every docked dog's owner just donates a crate of chopped off tails every few months to people who want little boys. Farmers donate the snails and slugs. This is how boy babies are made.
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Sep 20, 2012 17:07
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Then they are promptly eaten by locking jaw dogs.  My bad though, guys. I was being dumb. I would say "thanks for setting me straight" but nope my brain was off somewhere else entirely when I was thinking that
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Sep 20, 2012 17:11
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Instant Jellyfish posted:They're all shock collars all the time. New puppy that needs to learn the basics? Slap an ecollar on it. Overexcited dog that jumps all over everyone? Zap it. Fear aggressive chihuahua? Shock time. If your dog is doing something you don't like you just start shocking it and don't stop until it does something you do like. SMS is the only training place within a half an hour of me and it is horrifying. One thing I read described it as the trainer forcing the dog into a position after giving a command (like pushing the butt down for sit), then after they've done it a couple of times deciding that the dog must understand and they'll shock it until it cooperates. It makes me so sad for those dogs.
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Sep 20, 2012 17:21
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2tomorrow posted:One thing I read described it as the trainer forcing the dog into a position after giving a command (like pushing the butt down for sit), then after they've done it a couple of times deciding that the dog must understand and they'll shock it until it cooperates. It makes me so sad for those dogs. There was someone around PI a little while ago who owned a Sit Means Sit franchise who said that he would risk having his franchise taken away if he was seen/reported to use a clicker to train. He used marker words, food reinforcement, etc on top of corrections and seemed pretty level headed, but the stigma around clickers for SMS boggled my mind.
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Sep 20, 2012 17:38
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Papercut posted:This is amazing, I can't believe how relaxed she is. I was at a wedding last weekend and a girl was telling me about her struggles with a pit mix she adopted. Said she didn't believe in negative reinforcement at all and had spent 1.5 years with various R+ trainers trying to tame her dog's DA to no avail, and had finally resorted to a police-dog trainer who quickly improved the dog's behavior. I felt bad for her because she clearly had done a ton of homework before resorting to R-. I also told her all about you and Psyche and how after years of work Psyche was really making progress. This makes me sad. For a DA pit bull, the focus should be on management, not supressing or training out the behavior. I see so many people making their end goal be "make my dog aggressive pit bull no longer dog aggressive and friendly/safe towards other dogs." Their goal SHOULD be "minimize reactivity towards other dogs by giving the dog a go-to behavior to focus on instead when presented with other dogs, while providing positive outlets to relieve the frustration of that drive on a daily basis." Pit bulls are very, very easy dogs to crush, and it is often very easy to suppress even high levels of dog aggression through negative (and what I would personally consider abusive, given their handler softness) training techniques. It is also nearly impossible to suppress dog aggression through positive techniques, since there is often no reward you can offer that can compete with their desire to get other dogs. For someone trying to make their DA pit bull "safe" with other dogs, harsh, negative training techniques ARE often the only option. I see so many nervous, sad, shut down pit bulls because of it. And so often, those dogs STILL "snap" ( ) and end up going after another dog at some point anyway- and then their owners piss and moan about how they can't believe such a thing could ever happen. And it is usually out of the blue, with no warning, because they have been taught to never show any signs off aggression towards other dogs no matter what they feel or what they are about to do. I see it over and over and over again and I have never been able to convey to a single person why approaching pit bull DA as something to delete from them is such a terrible and potentially dangerous thing. People just can not, and do not, want to understand dog aggression as an inherent, and even POSITIVE drive, and they will not change their minds. I try to compare it to teaching a retriever to never retrieve or a collie that it is wrong, bad, and terrible to feel the desire to herd. But because dog aggression is a "bad" things, and a dog aggressive dog is a "bad" dog, dog aggression must not be an inherent drive like herding or retrieving, because if a dog with a "bad" drive was born that way, it must be a "bad" dog. And if all pit bulls are born with some level of DA, that would mean that all pit bulls are "bad" dogs, and BSL is valid, and the media is right, and oh no my precious furbaby ITS ALL IN HOW YOU RAISE THEM.  I get a lot of flack for "letting" Moses "remain" dog aggressive. When I casually mention that he is dog aggressive, people ask if I'm seeing a trainer/behaviorist about it. When I explain that no, I EXPECT him to be dog aggressive because it is correct for him to be that way, and that instead I teach him that he must be polite around other dogs and if he will do that for me, I will reward the hell out of him AND get him away from that dog as quickly as possible. He knows that I'll do that for him, so he minds himself around strange dogs in public. If he does react to another dog in public, it means that *I* hosed up somewhere, by either not paying close enough attention to where other people's dogs are when out in public (because I do have to watch other people's dogs for them, because they don't give a gently caress and will let them barge up to him) or that I was not fast enough in finding a way out of the situation. Because we've been doing this since he was a puppy, and he knows the deal, he will tolerate strange dogs getting in his face for a LONG time before reacting- his go-to behavior is to sit down, look at me, and wait for me to do what *I'm* supposed to do- then we jog away a few feet after I find a way out (he likes that part, getting to suddenly run fast helps release a little of that energy he held on to so well for me) and then we tug and shake a toy REALLY HARD for a few seconds before moving on- he has to work so hard to contain himself that he's generally shaking, throwing off heat, and slobbering by the time I get him away from the other dog, so getting to grab and shake SOMETHING really helps him blow off all that steam and get his poo poo together again. He has never been punished for reacting to another dog, and he never will be, because if it happens, it will always be my failure. People see the above as me allowing a "bad" dog to "control" my by "catering" to his "bad" behavior. No, if I wanted to stomp the dog aggression out of him, I could do it. If I wanted to do that, I would own another breed. I don't mean to wall-of-text at this, but it just bothers me deeply that 2/3 of the dogs I see are pit bulls, and nearly all of them are emotional messes with mishandled drives and I want to give all of them hugs and tell that that it is okay to grab a thing. Don't try to train the DA out of a pit bull, just ugh.
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Sep 20, 2012 17:54
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Yeah Superconsndar, I read the bully thread and have learned a ton about pits from you and SuperTwo. Unfortunately trying to explain what you just wrote to someone I just met, especially having never owned a bully breed myself (well growing up I had a pug ), is out of my range. I ran into a similar thing at my friend's house. Their border collie would come up and give me a little bark to get my attention, which to me was a cute expression of her breeding, but they would grab her snout and yell at her to stop  . It makes me want to grab their heads and yell in their faces, "she's a border collie!"
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Sep 20, 2012 18:17
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There are people in this world who go out of their way to buy a dog of a breed that they aesthetically like, but know literally nothing about, and then get mad because that dog exhibits the characteristics of the breed. These people will never stop existing and they will never stop being loving idiots.
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Sep 20, 2012 18:22
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Superconsndar posted:This makes me sad. For a DA pit bull, the focus should be on management, not supressing or training out the behavior. I see so many people making their end goal be "make my dog aggressive pit bull no longer dog aggressive and friendly/safe towards other dogs." Their goal SHOULD be "minimize reactivity towards other dogs by giving the dog a go-to behavior to focus on instead when presented with other dogs, while providing positive outlets to relieve the frustration of that drive on a daily basis." I mean I can understand seeing DA as a negative trait and having a dog who is DA (and is not typically thought of as a characteristic of that breed) being a stressful and negative experience, but I do agree that shutting it down instead of having the dog learn to cope as best it can and managing it is wrong. Not all dogs need to like or play nice with other dogs, and given the tendency to anthropomorphize dogs, I don't understand why people can't just go "oh yeah that's cool he's just not social/extroverted/ whatever".
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Sep 20, 2012 18:23
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wtftastic posted:Not all dogs need to like or play nice with other dogs, and given the tendency to anthropomorphize dogs, I don't understand why people can't just go "oh yeah that's cool he's just not social/extroverted/ whatever". This may just be me, but I feel like overall that was the dog training/owning climate before Cesar Milan and his dumbshittedness errupted. People anthropomorphized their dogs a lot more, which was both good and bad, but now I feel like more and more of your average owner thinks 'ITS THE OWNER NOT THE DOG' and 'DOG BEFORE BREED' and other stuff that makes people think you can train breed characteristics out of a dog without psychologically scarring it. For me personally, I used to see a lot more owners having management systems for their dogs and now I see a lot more bad amateur 'training' (TSSST, or forcing unneccessary sits, punishing random behaviors, etc) instead of just using simple management like crates/baby gates/just don't walk side to side with other dogs, etc. Captain Foxy fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 18:26
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Captain Foxy posted:This may just be me, but I feel like overall that was the dog training/owning climate before Cesar Milan and his dumbshittedness errupted. People anthropomorphized their dogs a lot more, which was both good and bad, but now I feel like more and more of your average owner thinks 'ITS THE OWNER NOT THE DOG' and 'DOG BEFORE BREED' and other I mean the whole "it is my replacement child/ fur babby" is crazy, but in a lot of ways relating to your dog in a similar way you would relate to another person/ a small child isn't a horrible idea. They've evolved around us and they learn in a pretty similar manner (that's a real simplification, but I think you guys know what I mean) and its not hard to understand why some training (especially P+) doesn't work well or isn't fair to a dog. I mean, think of all the times we were told as kids not to do something and got spanked/ time out/ whatever for it. How long does it take you to figure out, "Hey if they don't see me do it I might not get in trouble"?
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Sep 20, 2012 19:12
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The more I'm around small children, and the more I'm around dogs, the more it seems to me that they're really more similar than they are different. Basically your dog is just a small child who speaks a foreign language. It doesn't hold up in some of the more complex situations, of course, but for the most part I think it bears out.
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Sep 20, 2012 19:16
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I've actually been using an ecollar on my 6 month old child and frankly, it's not working as well as I expected. Should I be using an alpha roll instead?
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Sep 20, 2012 19:19
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Be careful with that, I tried to alpha roll my kid when he was about 14 and he broke my nose.
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Sep 20, 2012 19:23
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