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I have badly poisoned my recall cue with Rho to the point I can’t work with him anymore (i.e. train the things I’d like to). He won’t come when called and will slip away from me if I try to reach for him or bribe him to come to me with a treat (had to try both yesterday in a difficult situation). If he’s off-leash and I hide from him, he doesn’t care. If he’s on lead, he’ll just sniff around; on a short leash he’ll just stare at something that isn’t me and sigh loudly. If I wait him out, he’ll maybe offer a glance in my direction, but won’t take treats or play with me. I realize this is all my own doing, but it’s really challenging working with a 16-month old intact male dog that is very independent, but soft to +P coming from me at the same time. The recall cue got poisoned when I twice yelled in a strict voice for Rho to stop and come to me when he was taking off to greet another dog in the middle of agility practice. Apparently at the same time agility practice wasn’t reinforcing enough for him (treats/play not good enough, rate of reinforcement not good enough, distractions too difficult). My plan at the moment: 1) no more off-leash time, recall training on long lead 2) first week: food only from responding to name, starting at home and gradually adding distractions 3) second week: food only from responding to (new) recall cue 4) counter condition collar grab 5) I’ll stop yelling at Rho, minimize possibilities for bad situations such as him running for another dog and aim for as little (unintended) +P as I possibly can. Challenges: I’m frustrated and tend to lose my cool easily. Rho isn’t that food motivated. Kibble isn’t a reinforcer for him and I can’t feed him only treats for weeks on end. Rho plays well, but isn’t interested in playing with me at the moment. Biggest challenge: he’s a teenaged intact male. He’ll spend hours licking the floor if a bitch sat on it. Any comments and suggestions welcome. I really need to make this work so I can stick to my plan to start running him in trials next summer.
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Nov 11, 2010 11:08
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a life less posted:That's a tough call. When you say "food only from responding to x..." are you meaning meals or treats? I know you say he's not interested in kibble as treats, but I'd probably go hardcore NILIF and make him work for every piece at meals. Alternatively I was thinking of getting some chicken hearts and boil them for treats for the dogs, then spice Rho’s kibble with the chicken heart water. He loves it, but it’s also horribly disgusting to handle. You wouldn't believe how hard I'm kicking myself over all this. The worst part is knowing I brought this all on myself.
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Nov 11, 2010 15:26
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Is there something that's the most rewarding thing in the universe for him?  Spay/neuter your dogs, folks.But seriously, thanks for your comment. Gross isn't a problem for me, but I've yet to find something Rho goes absolutely nuts over. I know this will get better with time as he matures mentally, but drat if this stage in his development isn't the most frustrating thing ever.
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Nov 11, 2010 20:12
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a life less posted:So, because I had nothing better to do this afternoon I put together this video: You don't need to take brakes with Cohen very often, do you? Something I constantly run into with my dogs is that they absolutely need their breaks every 5-10 clicks or so. Otherwise they'll just stop offering behaviour and/or wander off. This makes shaping slower. The same thing applies with finished behaviours, except they get fed up more easily with repetition. And it's not because my rewards aren't reinforcing enough, because that's also something I need to balance: kibble doesn't work and the really good stuff will frustrate them, because oh god give it to me NOW!! I'd really really want to get that bc/belgian just to see how different training would be with a more biddable breed. Editing to add a question: yesterday at our Schutzhund obedience class (or "class", it's more a bunch of people training together) Rho couldn't focus at all, because he was to busy reinforcing himself for being a hormone-induced little monster by sniffing the ground with abandon. The same happens any time we are somewhere other dogs have been recently. I'm trying to premack the sniffing (which seems to work, hooray!), but I also need a way to tell Rho that self-reinforcing with sniffing isn't acceptable. How do I do this? What is a dog-friendly way of stopping him once he tries to sniff without approval? There's nothing I can offer him that's more rewarding for him at the moment. I'm really not into leash pops or the like and I know he thinks wearing a Gentle Leader is +P of the worst kind. Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Nov 12, 2010 |
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Nov 12, 2010 07:10
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WolfensteinBag posted:a life less, I have to say, I disagree with you on this point. Although obviously the ultimate goal of any training is going to be solid obedience no matter if a reward is involved or not, but this is VERY different with different breeds of dogs. This is why we all say you can't use one blanket technique with every breed. If that were the case, it wouldn't matter what dog people got when they haven't had experience or are used to one type of dog (say, a sporting dog over a spitz). I don't mean any offense or anything, but you've only had experience working with a breed that is one of the highest on the charts for biddablility. Your dog has it ingrained in her DNA that she wants nothing more in life than to work, go over multiple repetitions, and please, please, please her owner. Spitz dogs, like Rho, literally do not give one poo poo what you want when they decide there's something else they'd rather have. This is going to sound harsher than I mean it, I'm sure, but this is why you need to be firm with these breeds as opposed to being all positive all the time. It's not that you want to use harsh corrections or anything, because obviously that'll be counter productive since the dog'll just say, "gently caress you, you're boring, I'm outta here," but (as PFox mentioned in the Primitive Breeds thread) your dog has to know your serious, like the tone you'd take with a disobedient 4 year old. You need to strike a balance between reward and correction, because reward on its own won't do, these dogs get bored and sick of you. I want my bc/mal because I want to see what training and competing would be like with a dog that can take repetition and has more of a natural inclination to view working together with the handler as worthwhile. Also I'd like a dog that's not as soft to +P coming from me as Rho is. I'm not and don't want to be heavy-handed with my dogs, but god drat Rho keeps surprising me with what he thinks is horrible dog-torture inflicted on him by me. WB, thanks for your comment, preventing him from sniffing exactly what I plan on doing. I just feel that physically restraining Rho from sniffing might do more harm than good, since I suspect it might make him dislike the whole training situation and I might poison working with me for him even further.
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Nov 12, 2010 14:03
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a life less posted:The easiest way to approach this is to not let him sniff in the first place. The longer he spends sniffing the more difficult it's going to be for you to interrupt his behavior  a life less posted:What you see in that video is fairly normal. She's good at working pretty hard for a solid length of time. Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Nov 12, 2010 |
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Nov 12, 2010 14:37
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Cassiope posted:So set her up for success. Start with tennis courts alone, then maybe add one dog she is familiar with and do the same thing (ask for her to come when she is very likely to), then maybe add another dog to the mix, and so on. Get a long line and practice with her on that long line. Get a friend with a reliable, calm dog to be a distraction for her when she comes to you in a non-distracting environment. See how far the helper dog must be in order for your dog to still be able to come when called at least 8 times out of 10. Then very gradually move the helper dog closer, keeping in mind that your dog needs to be successful nearly always. If she can't respond, the distractions are too much for her. After she's ok with a calm helper dog, move the helper dog further away and have his handler do some obedience with him, play with him, get him to bark etc. Then add another dog, change the environment etc. You must do this in several locations with several distractions in order for your dog to generalize the behavior. I'd have her on a long line until she comes to you reliably around other dogs. This way you can control her self-reinforcing behaviours - if you call for her and she doesn't come but instead chooses to dig or whatever, she just reinforced herself for the behaviour of NOT coming to you when called. Then take her off the line in a safe situation like a tennis court and start again with no distractions and then gradually add distractions like you did before. Practice three times a day. If you're really committed, you can stop feeding her from her bowl and only give her food as reinforcement for recalls. I don't mean not feeding her - you must set her up for success so that she gets her daily amount of food as rewards. Getting her to see coming to you as the way food is provided is excellent in building a reinforcement history for the recall. It's useful to view reinforcement histories as a bank balance: you make very small deposits hundreds and thousands of times in order to make a larger withdrawal every now and then (reward often with food and other good things and you can make a big withdrawal and call her to you when you want to leave the dog park, which is a really "expensive" behaviour for most dogs). I guarantee that will work, but it's a lot to do. I know, because I've just spent several posts complaining about Rho's poisoned recall cue Edited to add: It also sounds like being off-leash is a huge thing for her at the moment, because she gets to run around free pretty rarely. This is unfortunately how things are for a lot of urban dogs, but you can work to lessen her view that being off leash is a major opportunity for fun that must be exploited. If you can get your hands on Leslie McDevitt's book Control Unleashed, get it. It has excellent games for this sort of thing explained in detail. I've borrowed my copy to a friend so I can't give details, but the gist of it is, that you very gradually teach the dog that good things happen WITH you instead of away from you when the leash is dropped or the leash is undone. Control Unleashed also has an excellent Yahoo group archive (the group's now inactive) so you might want to search that. Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Nov 13, 2010 |
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Nov 13, 2010 08:32
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Update on Rho, we just came back from Agility practice. I had him on a long line and I pulled his nose up from the ground each time he tried to sniff. It kind of worked, and we were able to do a jump-tunnel-jump sequence AND he responded to me after taking an obstacle once or twice without trying to sniff the ground first. I guess that's a start I have to be careful to not be emotional about pulling his head up though, since a part of our problem seems to be that he sees me as somehow threatening and I absolutely don't want to make that worse.
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Nov 13, 2010 11:41
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rear end Crackers! posted:I've already bought a clicker, and luckily for me, both dogs are incredibly food motivated. I guess my question would be, how hard would it be to "fix" Loki, and where should I start?  People cross over from traditional dog training to +R/-P all the time. It may well be that Loki's reluctance for coming to you stems from how the recall cue was trained. If I were you, I'd reteach things from scratch with +R/-P and see what happens. Start with him like with a puppy: load the clicker and teach an easy behaviour, such as targeting. Keep your criteria really easy at first, so that you get to reinforce really often (often as in how fast you are able to click, move your hand to treat bag, deliver treat and click again). You need to get Loki to understand he can control the click and the reward, and that no bad things will happen if he guesses "wrong". With a traditionally trained dog it may take a while to get them to offer behavior, but he'll get it for sure. Edit: Clicker Solutions is an excellent resource, here's a link http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/index.htm They also have a very active and friendly Yahoo group you might want to join. Lots and lots of expertise there and people are very willing to help! Also, have a video showing how to shape a hand touch http://vimeo.com/16805482 Keep in mind that this dog is very "operant", i.e. willing to offer behavior and obviously a skilled learner. You'll need to take things more slowly with your dogs, but the method stays the same. a life less I have some suggestions you might consider to add to your excellent OP if you don't mind! Under vi Training methods you left out targeting. Targeting is different from luring in that a target is easier to fade than a lure. A lure is when you use a primary reinforcer (i.e. food, toy, whatever it is the dog ultimately wants) to get the behavior. Targeting is when you teach the dog to touch or orient to a target (touch a mouse pad with his nose or paw for example). The dog has learned previously that C&T follows from touching the target, so the target isn't a primary reinforcer. In order for that bit to make any sense to newbies, clarification on the terms primary and secondary reinforcer needs to be added. Primary reinforcers are food, toys, access to other dogs, getting to go out of the door etc, anything the dog ultimately wants. A secondary reinforcer is the click or marker word. A tertiary bridge is a signal that the secondary reinforcer is on its way ("Good, keep doing that and you will get a click"), but that's a pretty advanced and somewhat controversial concept. Also, some people like to add extinction to the four quadrants of R/P. Extinction is when a behavior that is no longer reinforced starts to occur less and less and eventually stops. It's worthwhile to note that some behaviors are really difficult to extinguish, since they are self-reinforcing i.e. performing them is enough to keep them going and thus it's difficult for the trainer to control the reinforcement. Barking is like this for a lot of dogs. This topic brings out the training nerd in me 
Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Nov 14, 2010 |
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Nov 14, 2010 08:22
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Kiri koli posted:I have another training question. Psyche is very good at standing up on her hind legs and balancing (she watched for a squirrel standing up for like 30 seconds the other day, it was soooooo cute). I'd like to figure out how to get her to do that on command, but before I do, I'm wondering if that's bad for her legs. It's an unnatural position and she'll small so I don't want to force her to strain herself. She already does plenty of things where she's liable to hurt herself (like falling up stairs and acting like a mountain goat on our furniture). I don't know if what she said was actually true as she was a physical therapist and not a vet/orthopedist, but I worry enough not to try my luck. There are other ways to develop core strength so that's what I do with my dogs.
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Nov 18, 2010 08:20
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a life less posted:You can start working on the basics now (focus, off leash control, basic obedience), but you'll not be able to really start the interesting stuff until the pup is 12-18 months old.
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Nov 24, 2010 21:48
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Apidae posted:Rixatrix I assumed a life less meant that high impact activies like agility shouldn't be done until the dog is fully grown, or is that more for long dogs and huge huge breeds? Anyway, Ted already enjoys vaulting over the barrier we set up to keep him out of the kitchen so I don't see jumps being a hard one to teach, I'd just keep them low till he's grown. Of course this depends on where you want to go with your training - if you just want to have fun with your dog once a week then it's completely sufficient to work on basic focus and off-leash control until the pup is grown and then start obstacle work directly. This is how I started with my older dog and we have fun. Teaching him the obstacles just took longer than it would've with appropriate groundwork, I'm going to have to redo his weaves and contacts and his overall performance isn't as good as it should be. So from my own experience I always recommend doing your groundwork well, because you never know, you might end up trialing sooner than later Check out the book I recommended if you're at all interested. It really is the best book on agility training I have ever read, and I've read many.
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Nov 25, 2010 08:07
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With a clicker you might be able to pick up and reinforce small things which using only treats might miss, like short moments when Lee isn’t growling, glances in your direction or calming behaviors/displacement behaviors which can be really small and quick like blinking, looking away, yawning, stretching, sniffing etc. If I were you, I’d use the clicker, but I’m sure you can do well with just using treats. I’m really pleased to hear you’re thinking of adopting Lee!
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Dec 8, 2010 11:11
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Ridonkulous, how much exercise does Dalaa get daily? How much time daily doing nosework, training and other mentally tiring activities? It sound like the key is that like the poster above me pointed out, she's six months old and it sounds like she's really energetic. My experience with my own dogs has been that the amount of chewed up stuff is inversely proportional to the amount of exercise and mental stimulation they are getting, even when puppies. Give her a more acceptable outlet for her energy, pick up all stuff that you don't want her to chew on and redirect her chewiness into something acceptable when you catch her in the act. It should sort itself out. If tiring her out doesn't work well enough or quickly enough, a popular option used here where I live is to fence off furniture until pup has grown old enough to know not to chew on furniture and people things (crating is illegal, so you work around it). With the crate barking I agree she's just going for attention and you need to ignore it. Only ever approach the crate when she's behaving.
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Dec 9, 2010 08:38
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Ridonkulous posted:Rixatrix: Can you explain or link to some "nosework" exercises? And what kind of mentally tiring activities do you/y'all recommend? Also, get puzzle toys and Kongs and feed her from those, she doesn't need to eat anything from a bowl (it's boring!) Teach her tricks - learning tires dogs out quickly. Take her to new places. I used to take Rho downtown when he got really annoyingly overenergetic. We'd walk around for an hour or so and I always brought back an exhausted pup. Edit. It seems PI has a nosework thread! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3330830 Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Dec 9, 2010 |
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Dec 9, 2010 20:39
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If it actually makes the behavior occur less frequently, it’s +P by definition and comes with all the fallout of positive punishment. If it just acts as a distraction to disrupt the “pattern of problem barking” it might work once or twice before the dog learns to ignore it, unless actual effort is made to train the dog at the same time. But then again, you can distract the dog with a hundred other things as well, you don’t need to buy this product for that.
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Dec 14, 2010 09:46
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For a quiet clicker, try a lid from a container which has that depressed middle part that pops up when you first open the container to show you the product inside is intact. Over here those can easily be found on baby food. They make a very soft click when you press the middle. Alternatively, try a ball point pen.
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Dec 14, 2010 18:41
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Emasculatrix posted:I'm still reading these books but both Comet and I are incredibly unhappy and frustrated. I feel like no matter what I do, I can't win. What do I do with him in the meantime, while I read these books and put together a plan? I also had to give up off-leash time for a while, but I replaced it with playing fetch/frisbee with Pi on a long line or long walks/running in the forest. I also taught him a bunch of tricks and came up with all kinds of games and did a lot of nosework with him - anything I could think of that he might find enjoyable and that would get him to see working with ME is the best thing ever. Additionally I started rewarding him with whatever he thought is rewarding, regardless of whether I thought it was gross or not. What a life less said is good advice. I also suggest that in addition to the list of triggers you make a list of things Comet finds reinforcing. Don't think about if you think they are "good" things or not, just list them all and place them in order. Then think about which ones you could use to reward Comet and how. You can use things which you might think are "bad" behaviors to reinforce desired behaviors by using the Premack principle. For example, my dogs find chasing squirrels up trees extremely reinforcing. I don't like this behavior at all, but I sometimes allow them to chase as a reward for coming when called. Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Dec 21, 2010 |
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Dec 21, 2010 08:57
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Read this. It's long, but it's good. A simple way to start training a recall cue is The Recall Game. Here's another article on teaching a recall cue. Practice three times a day every day. You can give her all her food as rewards for recalls for a week or so if you like. Getting a long lead is a good idea. Never ever tell her off or otherwise have bad things happen to her for coming to you. Some people like to teach a separate emergency recall. Most people will need to use a separate cue for the emergency recall in order to avoid diluting or poisoning the cue by accident. A friend just told me the other day how she teaches hers: She uses a whistle for a cue, because it's something that always sounds the same, can be heard from afar, won't be used "by accident" in everyday situations and is neutral. Calling for your dog in an emergency will affect your voice and your dog may respond to the anger/worry/panic and decide it's best to keep away. Still, using a sound you wouldn't normally use in public (yodeling, going RRRRRRR, mimicking an ambulance etc. use your imagination) may also be ok and keep you from overusing the cue. She blows the whistle every single time before setting the dog's food bowl down. When practicing outside, she only uses the whistle when the dog is already coming to her and then rewards with something really really good, I think she said she uses whole pig ears. When the dog knows to come when she hears the whistle, she keeps up the whistle+food bowl thing and maintains the cue in other situations occasionally and still uses the best thing ever as a reward. With her method, you can't do many repetitions because you can't give your dog twenty pig ears in one session, but over time you end up classically conditioning the cue to Must Go Best Thing Ever Waiting. a life less, are the Training Levels already included in the recommended reading list? If not, they should be. It's a lot of reading but it's solid advice.
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Dec 22, 2010 07:39
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a life less posted:I've seen that before, but honestly I don't really understand why it was written. Is it essentially a training guide? Who wrote it? Where is it used? Maybe you could write up something about it and I'll add it to the OP. huskyjackal posted:I like that the first article doesn't poo-poo on the idea of shock collars, although I doubt I'd use one unless I were in a situation where my dog was heading toward danger and I needed to reinforce the STOP NOW thing. Just not gonna drop $150+ for one though when all I need to is re-establish her basics. Good luck with your training, huskyjackal!
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Dec 23, 2010 11:11
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So, if anyone has suggestions on how to improve Pi's teeter performance without retraining it from scratch, I'm all ears. He used to be somewhat slow/hesitant with the teeter before, but I got him to enjoy the movement/sound by lots of repetitions and rewarding the fastest performances really well (a whole meatball for a fast teeter if I recall correctly). Then a couple of months ago we were training in an indoor facility with plastic, somewhat slippery flooring. Pi ran to the teeter, which slid maybe half a meter on the floor before he had even had a chance to tip the teeter. After that his teeter performance slowed to a worried crawl. I timed a couple of his performances from videos taken at trials, and it takes him over five seconds to tip the drat thing at the moment. He's not a very fast dog overall and we just don't have the seconds to spare. I've tried using the best possible rewards (pig ears etc), shaping a faster performance by only rewarding the fastest, decreasing the movement by propping the teeter between two tables, using a buja board at home to get him to not worry about the movement. Nothing seems to work and Pi's still worried. He'll do it, but slooooowly. If I try too hard to egg him on, he'll jump off. Edit. Might as well give a Rho update! He's doing better and working with me again. He'll still wander off to sniff if there's any downtime, but it's manageable. I honestly don't know what did the trick, my guess is he kind of grew out of it. Maybe there were bitches in heat around where we live? Who knows, I'm happy to be working with him again
Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Dec 28, 2010 |
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Dec 28, 2010 10:52
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a life less posted:How did you start to train it? Pi was obstacle trained the way I never recommend anyone to do it these days He was pretty much just lured and gently half-forced onto equipment with a manic rate of reinforcement. Then as he got to realize there's really nothing to fear, he started enjoying himself. This was a couple of years ago, when I wasn't knowledgeable and confident enough to disagree with the trainer in the class. However I did manage to build on that and get him a decent teeter performance by reinforcing faster performances. That's gone now though - I'm not exaggerating if I say his training was set back about a year or so by that one incident. I'm not too keen on retraining because Pi isn't very shaping-savvy and I'm no good at helping him work through the stress and frustration shaping causes in him. Rho is being obstacle trained mostly through shaping and it suits him perfectly, Pi not so much. I have padded the end of the teeter if we're training on something other than sand and I'm already working on rewarding him for the downward movement. I guess I'll just keep at it, even though I feel we've made little progress in two months. I guess I might as well add counterconditioning him to loud noises into the mix. Can't hurt!
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Dec 28, 2010 14:15
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a life less posted:She said that the complaint she receives most often is that the trainers use too many treats. To this both she and I guffawed a little, but she said that she was genuinely listening to this concern and was trying to determine a way to reduce the feeding encouraged in classes. Again, she's striving to be as accessible as she can. I'm not surprised people are turning away from R+ training with people like Cesar Milan, Brad Patterson and their ilk on TV.
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Jan 13, 2011 23:43
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Cassiope posted:Is it a big deal if I growl at my dog while playing tug? ^ You absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks. Just start as you would with a puppy. I'm currently getting into competitive obedience with Pi, who is about to turn 5. He's learning beautifully
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Jan 14, 2011 13:33
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robayon, I'm really interested in reading about your franchise and anything you can tell me about your training methods. Personally I would never ever dream of taking my dogs to a trainer who cannot or will not freely discuss the methods he is using, in part because I enjoy talking about training at least as much as I enjoy doing it and in part because I don't trust anyone that much, least of all with my dogs. Do you ever run into problems with (potential) clients because of your non-disclosure agreement? What do you tell your clients about how you train? I tend to believe that all effective training can be explained with learning theory, regardless of whether it's "old school" or "new school". Sure dogs have a capability for social learning, emotions play a part and there's a lot of other stuff happening that's not covered by learning theory, but these are quite difficult to control/work with effectively. What is it about the BB method that's so unique? Also, I guess I don't fully understand what it is about your training methods that might be compromised if you talk about it? I just paid quite a bit for three private lessons with a very well respected and successful Comp Obed trainer in my area. Two lessons in, she hasn't told me anything I didn't already know in theory. However she has observed me working with my dogs and has given me advice that's absolutely worth every cent, and it's custom made advice for me and my dogs specifically. In my opinion, that's what you pay a trainer for, not anything they could discuss over the phone or write online. I don't mean to come across as argumentative or aggressive. I just haven't ever encountered a dog training franchise before and I'm really curious
Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jan 24, 2011 |
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Jan 24, 2011 11:01
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Thanks for all your answers robayon! I missed most of the discussion due to being several time zones away, but it was really interesting to read your responses. I think the thing that strikes me as the strangest in your way of training is the no treats approach. Clickers are useful but by no means compulsory, even for "clicker training". Food, on the other hand, is a universal primary reinforcer - EVERY dog is (eventually) interested in food - that choosing not to use it doesn't make much sense to me, though I understand you are required by BB to do things this way. I have a training question for the thread. Pi is a 4-year-old neutered male Lapponian herder, who is going blind in one eye. His eyesight has failed quite quickly, because all was well (or he had the cataracts but it hadn't advanced and he could see) when we went for our scheduled checkup last summer. Toward the end of last year he started being really really slow in agility, practically crawling on the contact obstacles. He's always been leash reactive to some extent, but it used to be manageable - now it's not. By Christmas I noticed his left eye was "dim" and the vet confirmed he doesn't see very well with that eye anymore. Now, we've stopped doing competition agility because what's the point - I tried for months to train him to be faster on the contact obstacles, but it didn't work, likely because he's unsure about not seeing clearly. The bigger issue is that he's gotten not just reactive but outright aggressive toward other dogs. My younger dog is an unneutered 1,5 year old male, who will attack another dog if he sees Pi doing it. Together my dogs weigh almost as much as I do and I'm starting to have a hard time controlling them (regular leashes and martingales). Yesterday the worst happened and they attacked a passerby's dog running straight toward rush hour traffic. I'd walked about 10m off the road to give the dogs space and feed them for being nice, but when Pi suddenly lunged I fell and the leashes slipped. Luckily no one was hurt and the dogs didn't run in front of the cars (they did stop traffic though), but it was a horrible situation. Obviously this can't go on but I'm not sure what I should do. Pi is a strong, largeish dog and I don't trust him with a head collar. My trainer friend suggested check chains for both of the dogs yesterday, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to introduce fear of pain into situations Pi is already worried about. I will of course work on DS&CC, but a lot of the stuff I used to do with him is out - I thought of doing Look At That work with him but I'm not sure if that'll work now. I do think I need a signal to tell him that a dog is coming so he can prepare. If anyone can tell me brand names for front clip harnesses I could google around for an internet store. For some reason those aren't available locally here, I've asked around lots. Sorry for the E/N wall of text, but I'm really upset about what happened yesterday (and Pi went for a dog on Sunday and Friday as well  )
Rixatrix fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jan 25, 2011 |
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Jan 25, 2011 10:24
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Kiri koli posted:Helpful answer. I'll look into the canny collar, thanks for the tip. I'm going to get both dogs front clip harnesses regardless, but trying both can't hurt. Backaways are an excellent idea and I'll start working on that. Controlling surroundings is going to be difficult, as we live in the city. Yesterday's episode happened on our way to the parking lot. Very often just giving as much space as possible for the passing dog is the best I can do unfortunately. Separate walks are also going to be a bit of an issue as both dogs need at least about two hours of exercise daily, but I'll do my best.
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Jan 25, 2011 14:34
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Yeah you're all exactly right and I need to take them for walks separately. When Rho was a puppy, we took them separately for six months or so and after that it kind of got better - not perfect, but good enough for them to focus on treats if you didn't pass the other dogs too close. Now it seems to me that Rho is the one who loses it first, Pi might not even notice the other dog at a distance. However it's Pi who lunges and behaves more aggressively when he notices the other dog. Walking them separately or during the day when there's less dogs around will work for now, but might be too much for me in a couple of weeks when I start at my new job. We'll see. Thanks for all the concern and advice, it helps to talk about this
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Jan 25, 2011 18:09
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a life less posted:The three Ds of training are distance, duration and distraction. Work on one at a time. If you're adding distance, minimize distractions and keep it short. If you're working on duration, don't go too far, and again, minimize distractions. Eventually you'll be able to put all three together, but not yet.
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Jan 26, 2011 17:14
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Flesh Forge posted:For toy dogs, she recommends a treat the size of a pinhead. That is about 1/1000th the volume (yes, one one-thousandth) of the commercial treats I started with. I've switched over to very tiny cut-up pieces of leftover meats like pork chop and chicken and y'know, she works just as hard for these (harder actually because she isn't bloated after eating 10 of them). A small FYI for other noobs like me, I don't see this kind of thing really noted anywhere else (maybe I'm just a lot dumber than most other people about simple things like feeding huge chunks of food to tiny dogs). (Rho is actively weighing his options all the time, especially with recalls. He's a smart little dog.) Also, a small Pi update. It turns out I can praise him out of difficult situations. Yesterday I was out with both dogs at the same time (I know...) and Rho noticed an approaching dog. I praised him for keeping quiet, which let Pi know something's up. Pi scanned his surroundings, spotted the approaching dog and came to me to offer eye contact like a good dog I think I will keep working with Look At That type of stuff in spite of Pi's handicap. His increased reactivity seems to be due to him not noticing stimuli until they're close enough for him to be surprised/alarmed.
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Feb 2, 2011 12:46
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Instant Jellyfish posted:The Control Unleashed book really doesn't do that great of a job of explaining how to teach it and I've yet to see a good video about it. We're working on just looking at a neutral object now and not trying to touch it. He really likes touching things. I'm not quite sure on how to generalize the behavior though, or how to incrementally make it more difficult. It seems to me that going from neutral object to a live dog (no matter how far away) is a huge leap.
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Feb 2, 2011 18:06
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Rixatrix posted:I think I will keep working with Look At That type of stuff in spite of Pi's handicap. His increased reactivity seems to be due to him not noticing stimuli until they're close enough for him to be surprised/alarmed. We saw our regular vet yesterday and she couldn't find anything wrong. We have an appointment with the eye doc on Tuesday morning. I'm hoping I can convince her to do the surgery as soon as possible. On the last visit a month ago she thought Pi should still have enough sight left to do ok in normal life, but it's clear to me he's not coping very well. I'm worried that if he has a chance to "practice" aggressive behavior patterns too much before the surgery, he might not turn back into his old self again after his eyes have been fixed. Any suggestions are welcome, though it seems to me this is turning more into a management issue than a training issue.
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Feb 11, 2011 11:15
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a life less posted:Has Rho caught on to what might be up? I know some dogs can be super helpful with blind dogs as far as guiding and helping them. Any behaviour changes with your younger guy? Rho seems to be mostly confused about Pi's behavior. He's less active around Pi (not initiating play as much etc) and seems a bit intimidated by him. Outside when Pi barks/growls at random things, Rho will spin around and look for whatever it is that he should be worried about and then settles to bark at the general direction Pi is looking. This morning when we got closer to the trash can of doom, Pi was suddenly ok with it (he probably identified it then), but Rho was still unsure. He only settled when he got close enough to sniff and touch it.
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Feb 11, 2011 16:54
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Kiri koli posted:We sympathize with your and Pi's growing problems. It's always hard when the dog is spooked by otherwise inane things because you just want to explain to them that there really is no possible threat there. I'm definitely going to ask about the Prozac if we can't get the surgery soon. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
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Feb 11, 2011 22:20
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Flesh Forge posted:
I agree that you probably need to teach roll over again to Darla, it seems the toy in her mouth has become part of the cue for that trick. Teaching it again should be easier, because after all, she's familiar with how to do it now
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Feb 12, 2011 08:57
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Demon_Corsair posted:I just found out from a friend that used to be a behavioral therapist that R+ condition for autistic kids is almost exactly the same as for dogs. Slightly relevant to the thread, my new Bailey DVD arrived yesterday! I can't wait to watch it! I loved Fundamentals of Animal Training (the DVD I got earlier) so I'm really looking forward to this one.
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Feb 19, 2011 08:19
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Bullio posted:I have one dog that has learned helplessness. Is it possible to fix that? Clicker training is good for any dog, but it's an especially excellent way to encourage the offering of behaviors and active participation in a dog with learned helplessness. Shaping games and teaching very simple behaviors with nothing but positive reinforcement (even using negative punishment as little as possible!) will be helpful. It might take a while, though.
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Feb 25, 2011 20:38
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Bullio posted:Now if I approach him too fast, he pisses himself. If I reach down, he'll immediately roll over onto his back. He's a neat dog, especially when he's playing with the others and his confidence is up, but I need to figure out how to get him to trust me again as opposed to looking at me as someone who's liable to cause him pain. I'm not sure what you describe is learned helplessness. Your dog does react, just not in a way you'd like. A dog with learned helplessness doesn't really do much, good or bad. I do agree that your dog seems to fear you or at least not trust you, since he feels he must resort to pretty extreme pacifying displays if you approach him in a way he sees as threatening. Do all kinds of fun stuff with your dog every day. Do whatever it is that you both enjoy - frisbee, jogging, training tricks, taking an agility/rally/flyball/whatever class. Make your presence a positive experience for him and keep it up for months. He'll get over it, if you don't relapse to punishing him. If you want, you can also countercondition him to you approaching quickly or crouching over him. Right now he's learned that these things have bad consequences. With time and patience it's possible to change that in his mind. It's really simple, but not necessarily easy. Read up on classical conditioning and counterconditioning in this thread and ask if you have any questions. About charging the clicker - it usually doesn't take very long. Click+treat two or three 10 treat sessions with a short break in between. After this see, if your dog reacts to the click looking all hopeful for his treat, you're all set! Clicker Solutions is an excellent free online resource for clickerly stuff. Good luck!
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Feb 26, 2011 06:39
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The Power of Positive Dog Training is my favorite basic dog training book, but look through different ones and see which you like best. There's a lot of good ones around
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Feb 26, 2011 17:37
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I've heard of CAT before and I would've liked to try it myself (with the help of a trainer of course) or at least observe it done. However it's really difficult to find reliable enough helpers to pull that off. The technique reminded me of working with skittish llamas (I think?) in Don't Shoot the Dog or a method for (re)teaching the table outlined recently in Clean Run. They used allowing the dog off the obstacle as reinforcement for staying on it.
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Feb 27, 2011 14:32
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