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Instant Jellyfish posted:There actually is a movement to use clicker training with people called TAGteach which I find fascinating. It seems to be used mostly in kids sports for teaching form. Here's a video with some cheesy music about it. A professor of mine recently gave us a presentation on the 'virtues' of using personal response devices, i.e. clickers, in university classes. You know, those stupid devices they make students buy so that a professor can force attendance because no one wants to show up to watch them read from a powerpoint voluntarily. Anyway, he was going on about how when he first started using them, people would lose credit if they didn't answer or answered wrong (i.e. be punished) and they hated that, so he moved to a system of giving extra credit instead (i.e. rewarding). So they click...they get a treat...apparently the students love it.
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Jan 28, 2011 17:50
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So in class last night we did a kind of cool thing where the dogs went around in stations to do a quick runthrough a training exercise or sport. We had a shaping, agility, nosework, and rally station. Psyche did great at both nosework (admittedly it was a really simple exercise) and the A-frame, which she went straight up after a little prompting. She seemed to focus on those games really well, even through there were dogs at the other stations that had previously been driving her crazy. We also did a rally runthrough and while she mostly followed my lead (when she wasn't barking at an ill-placed mirror on the far wall), I noticed that she did not look at me. Not once. If we're practicing heel in a non-distraction environment, she'll look at me for treats, but I can never hold her attention. She's very curious and probably has ADD.  She has a Watch command that I need to work on more, but I think it bores her. Are there any fun focus games that people know of?
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Jan 29, 2011 15:37
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Captain Foxy posted:Congrats on a fun and mostly successful class, Psyche! Yeah, she gets hot dogs and pieces of string cheese for class and for training sessions primarily, though I try to throw in other stuff as well to keep her interested. I used to practice Watch outside all the time, but the winter has really restricted our time outside because it's cold and because our two feet of snow really restricts our movements and I don't want to spend much time hanging around in places where we can't bail if someone or a dog shows up. But of course that's where all the good distractions are. Sounds like I need to incorporate Watch into more of the games we play inside. We have a hard time keeping her interest with toys (except she loves monkey in the middle when me and my husband are both around), but I think I'll just ask for Watch more often. I was mostly doing dedicated Watch sessions before, but I should really just ask for it every so often, especially when she's excited. She really has no duration though. If I'm not holding a treat in front of her face, she'll glance around even with no real distractions. Honestly, I wonder if she'll just always do that. It seems like it's just her personality, but then again maybe we just need to work on it a lot more. We play the cups game too. 
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Jan 29, 2011 20:18
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Flesh Forge posted:Nothing to do with the phobia question, but: I had a thought regarding animal training that struck me as pretty useful but I've never seen noted anywhere - it seems to me that one of the first things you'd want to teach would be "when I call your name, pay attention to me, look at me". Maybe this is so obvious that nobody bothers to mention it, but it seems one of those things that clicker training is perfect for, and it's pretty important to get the animal's attention to get them to respond to commands. Yes, this is one of the first things you do with a clicker both because it reinforces the dog's name (which is really just a word to them) and because it's a good opportunity to cement the idea that the click means a treat is coming because the timing is really easy. It isn't mentioned often, though we did talk about it somewhere in the context of changing a dog's name when you adopt them.
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Jan 31, 2011 05:17
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Cassiope posted:Will sleeping out of the room help with separation anxiety? We've kicked Moxie out of the bedroom at night for the past three nights but I'd like input on whether or not that's likely to help or hurt her separation anxiety. a life less is right in that it depends on the dog. People have told me that their dogs are happiest sleeping in the room with them, but when Psyche was in our room, she would just bark and whine everytime we made a move. In the morning, she was so excited to wake up and cuddle with us on the bed that she would start whining whenever a noise woke her up. So we decided to move her to the next room with a white noise machine. She barked some the first couple nights and then was fine. Now she hardly ever makes a sound at night and in the morning she'll occasionally make some noise because she hears something outside, but she's not whining for us to get up. When I do get up, half the time she rolls over in her crate so that I'll give her belly rubs and I have to tell her to get moving. So just try everything as long as you try it long enough to determine whether or not it's working. Another thing I ended up doing was telling Psyche to be quiet in her crate when she was making noise. We had previously just ignored her, but that reminder really helped (combined with her never getting her way when she was making noise). I'm not sure doing it gradually is a good idea...I think it's a more binary thing than that, like the dog either hears you (and is comforted or bothered by that depending on the dog) or it doesn't. Also, a dog might be confused by the crate moving around. This would be true for Psyche at least.
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Jan 31, 2011 22:10
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Flesh Forge posted:If I understand what you mean by focus (attention?) I've been doing this "touch" trick in rapid succession for two days now and Darla really likes it, she'll go about 7-10 steps of it in a row between treats and while it holds her interest, it doesn't get her too aroused/excited, just very attentive. It also seems to be helping with her ongoing playbiting problem (which I caused in the first place). Basically I want to be able to get and hold her attention in chaotic situations. She's really curious and really intent on watching things. Her focus on things often escalates into getting upset and then barking/growling. Pulling her focus back before it escalates would really help us change her behavior. On a more basic level though I just noticed that whereas other people's dogs will stare at them for directions/treats during things like rally, my dog utterly ignores me and it kind of hurt my feelings. I was hoping for a really fun game to play that would help it move along, but really I just need to work on it more in a variety of situations.
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Feb 3, 2011 01:21
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Flesh Forge posted:Regarding impulse control and arousal, I'm trying to apply this in a pretty simple exercise: I waggle my fingers and move my hand around Darla's head in a circle, and her typical reaction would be to mouth my hand (not really to bite, just mouth it). When she doesn't react I reward her. Is this a good direction to go, with more variations and arousing stuff? I think these are useful things to encourage her not to react to anyway, to curb her playbiting, but I'm hoping this will take her towards a calmer general mental state in the long run - should it? This is definitely a good exercise for mouthing. Psyche would not stop biting at us (mostly hands but sometimes other things) when we first got her. So we did a lot of ignoring or leaving when she did, but we also played games with her where we would have her lay down and I would waggle my fingers at her or reach back to pet her side/feet and then I would reward her for not following my hand with her mouth. It really helped a lot. As for being more calm, I think it will help in situations where she'll need to be handled, but I'm not sure how well it will translate to other things. My trainer is really big on bodywork, basically massaging the dog to get them to relax in stressful situations. It has helped. When we first started class, Psyche was always alert and wouldn't lay down. Now she lays down and relaxes and we're trying to massage her into laying on her side and relax there. There are also exercises where you raise your dogs excitement level with toys or whatever and then bring them back down to a calm state. You work on how fast you can bring their excitement down and then that should translate into other situations. I haven't really done any of it directly though. So many things to do!
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Feb 3, 2011 23:25
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AzCoug posted:I find it hard to believe that this hasn't been covered yet but I did some scanning through a number of the pages and didn't find much. This stuff has been discussed a bit, but it's probably lost among all the chatter. There are a couple things I would suggest and then maybe others have suggestions as well. For barking at a doorbell or door opening, enlist a friend to ring the bell and then counter-condition your dog to the sound. When the bell rings, dog get yummy treats to eliminate any excitability or anxiety at the sound. I would do this for a while until the dog begins to react less to the sound, like it's become a background noise. Then you can start operant conditioning. Decide what you want your dog to do when someone comes in the door. Maybe teach him to go to a mat by the door and wait to be interacted with. Or maybe he should sit quietly for attention. You'll need to set up this foundation yourself because obviously your customers are not always going to cooperate. You can ask them to ignore the dog until he sits quietly, but of course it won't always happen and you'll probably have to restrict your dog's access until he learns what is expected of him before he can greet people. You can also work on a quiet command or an acknowledgment command. Some dogs just want to alert their people to what's going on and once you acknowledge what they're barking at, they will stop. Stopping your dog from sprinting to the door is probably very important because he's already overexcited and sprinting will just make it moreso. You could work on heel such that he learns to walk calmly by your side over to the door.
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Feb 4, 2011 19:59
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a life less posted:And then, because I'm crazy, I'll also converse with her when I don't think anyone's watching. She doesn't answer back. I talk to Psyche when people ARE watching. First, I haven't really been able to test it, but I think that my talking even when I'm not giving her a command will occasionally help her to calm down when she's having a fit because there's an off chance she'll hear me and focus on that, breaking her concentration on whatever else. But I've also developed this bad habit of telling her things like 'Don't be rude!' and that she's dumb and shouldn't bark at people. I know she doesn't understand, but I have this weird feeling that the people she's barking at don't think I'm doing anything about it in between commands and whatnot and that my telling Psyche that she shouldn't be upset makes them think I'm aware of how bad her behavior is...even if they thought about it for two seconds, they'd see how ineffective just talking is. But yes, I talk to my dog. If I want something specific, I give the short commands, but I also talk to her in sentences and whatnot. High pitched voices are supposed to reassure anxious dogs so...in conclusion, I probably look like an idiot at all times I'm with my dog.
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Feb 7, 2011 01:49
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Major and my homework for this last log session (we have phone interviews with the behaviorist every two weeks) was to see how he did without his DAP collar on. I've done a lot of behavior mod stuff so it was important to see which parts of our work are helping. I needed to give him a bath anyway so off it went and I promptly forgot about it. The next day I thought I was going to have to strangle him. He was driving me nuts! He was leaping at the windows inside, barking at everything, pacing, panting heavily, and generally being a trainwreck. The collar was off for less than 24 hours and I'm not entirely sure how I managed to live with Major before. I promptly ordered DAP spray and a diffuser after that. Today I forgot his morning L-theanine pill and had the same thing happen. Eventually he will be able to be off medications and things but we are not there yet. Wow, that's amazing that it is making such a big difference. But at least you know its working! Congrats on getting to moving the car! Edit: I'm pretty curious about the DAP collar now. They've pretty expensive though and I've read that they only last four weeks. Do you have a good source to buy them? Does Major wear it all the time? I wonder if they could be frozen at night to stretch them out a bit... Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Feb 9, 2011 |
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Feb 8, 2011 23:01
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^^^Thanks! I think I'll bring it up with my trainer at the end of the week and see about getting one.Cassiope posted:hey guys. I thought about a bark collar for a while and read the reviews on amazon and concluded they are pretty ineffective. Do you play music for her? It sounds like she is just getting used to all the new noises. I think she will adapt, but in the meantime, try covering the sound when you're not around with music, leave the tv on, etc. Also, tell your neighbors/landlord that you are working really hard on Moxie's training and that she will probably need a few weeks to adjust. We got several complaints the first week we got Psyche and our landlords understood that it takes a few weeks. And lo and behold, there have been no complaints since.
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Feb 9, 2011 01:31
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Cassiope posted:Yeah, I was pretty skeptical but thought I'd see what y'all thought anyway. My boyfriend is an idiot and is way too reactive about this whole thing. He wants to use a shock collar. Convo went like this: Holy poo poo, a shock collar. How long has it been since you moved? Give the poor dog a little time to get used to it. Ugh, I'll never understand why people think pain is the answer. Would you hit a child if you just moved and he wouldn't stop crying about it*? *I know you wouldn't, I'm just saying this line of thinking is so stupid.
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Feb 9, 2011 02:52
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SyHopeful posted:So I'm carrying over from the general question thread. I'm not sure what you mean...you can mostly teach your dog things in any order depending on if you have any issues you want to deal with or things that are particularly important (like a good recall). If you want to do some 'advanced' clicker training, you can try your hand at shaping. Shaping is building a difficult behavior through a succession of smaller steps. In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0XuafyPwkg, Dr. Sophia Yin teaches a dog to put her feet in a box by rewarding behavior that moves toward that goal. I think a life less put up a similar demo somewhere. Edit: I'm aware that Dr. Yin doesn't actually use a clicker in the video. Ha. Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 9, 2011 |
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Feb 9, 2011 05:44
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^^^ I want to say that any sort of training should be okay as long as you are not frustrating your dog. Always set the dog up for success and in that way the dog sets what kind of training it can receive. Maybe others have a more solid training schedule though.Rhymes With Clue posted:I got a harness for my puppy, now 14 weeks old, and he didn't mind it at all for the first few times, then suddenly he won't let me put it on him and in fact runs when I get it out. I have no idea what happened. I don't recall anything traumatic, but then, I'm not him. Psyche decided she hated her harness one day as well (turns out it was too tight because she gained some weight). So I did a shaping exercise with her until she liked it again. Did the same thing with her head collar and her muzzle. I'm not sure if this is a little advanced for a puppy that young but here's what I did: You start out with the harness just sitting on the floor and get the puppy to approach and then nose it. Treat for any movement toward it. Then pick it up without moving it toward the puppy and treat for puppy standing still or moving toward/nosing it. Then move it toward the puppy just a bit, then take it back away and treat for puppy not moving away from it. Keep moving it incrementally closer and if the puppy moves away, back up a step. You can have them sit if it helps them not move away. Eventually you'll get it over their head and they will have developed a habit of not moving away. Then you can keep giving treats when it's time to put it on. Treats are probably not being effective because you're starting with the behavior that sets the dog off. The harness sitting on the floor will be easier for puppy to approach for a first step. I can supply a video about incremental muzzle training if you'd like to see this kind of thing in action.
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Feb 9, 2011 06:51
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Demon_Corsair posted:If I'm looking at him, he just stares intently at me. But when I turn away, he goes for it. Did you try being excited about the object and drawing his attention to it? Interacting can be as little at first as just looking or moving in the general direction of something. I guess he isn't doing that if he's staring at you. How long did you try waiting him out?
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Feb 10, 2011 04:16
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Levitate posted:Just never teach them "leave it" with regular kibble Um, I did this. Why not? The only thing we use that hasn't been said already is (plain) cheerios, which are kind of like bread I guess.
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Feb 10, 2011 17:11
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Rixatrix posted:I've been skeptical about the DAP stuff, but I guess it can't hurt to try. Thanks for reminding me about it, I'll pick some up tomorrow. If the surgery is going to be postponed a lot, I'm going to ask the vet about psychopharmaceuticals. Pi seems really unhappy at times, crawling into crates on his own and such, which he never usually does. I hate to see him like that.  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. My husband reported that this morning Psyche climbed a mountain of snow and was spooked by her own shadow on the other side. It's both silly and serious at the same time.I don't know if you saw my post on prozac a while back, but I do recommend trying it if you're considering prescription drugs. After Psyche was on it for about four weeks, we really noticed a change (and her trainer and classmates did as well) and it was all positive. She's still a rambunctious little puppy, very hyper and playful, but it is a lot easier for her to relax after being spooked. Small things set her off less and this is on a minimal dose. So if your vet recommends it, I think it's worth a try. My vet told me and everything I've read suggests that side effects are very uncommon.
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Feb 11, 2011 17:53
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systran posted:I don't have time to read this whole thread so I apologize if this has already been answered: Every click is followed by a treat/reward (even if you mis-click) so as to maintain the connection between click and good stuff happening. You fade out or randomize the click and treat at the same time.
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Feb 22, 2011 14:25
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Gonktastic posted:I'm far too polite to get mean at other people but wtf is with them casually sauntering after their dog when my dog is freaking out and I'm clearly trying to keep their dog away? People are stupid. I have had several people ask me if my dog is friendly when she is barking and growling at them and I am hunched over her, clearly trying to get her to settle down. I know we talked about this before, but I forget, have you considered finding a trainer to help you out? Sometimes a dog that has bad doggie manners can benefit from interactions with a well-mannered dog who won't take their poo poo and yet knows how to deal with bad manners without fighting. You would likely not find these types of dogs at the beach and letting your dog loose with other potentially ill mannered dogs would at best teach her poorer manners and at worst lead to a traumatizing event. A trainer would be able to tell you for sure if your dog needs more socialization or if you need to approach this from a different direction. A trainer might also be able to supply a well-mannered dog for practice, I would think, though I'm not certain how common that is. My only other advice is what I have done in the past: if no distance is good enough, use a barrier between your dog and the other dog. Get your dog to sit in that situation, then slowly move out, ducking back behind the barrier as often as necessary. You said your dog isn't aggressive, so it's not really a matter of eliminating her fear, but of getting her to realize you want a different behavior. Use the best treats possible. Also just seeing the other dog can be a reward. Teach your dog that she can't have things until you say it's okay, from food to playtime.
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Feb 23, 2011 00:51
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Gonktastic posted:What would you guys say is the right way to behave if another dog approaches or is nearby? I'm afraid I've confused her due to doing different things each time. Should I turn around and walk away from it? Keep walking like it doesn't exist? Make her sit and wait for it to pass? She won't eat at all if another dog is nearby. I know she can do this though- if she doesn't SEE the other dog, she doesn't react. Some douche earlier let his doberman run right up to her from behind multiple times, where it was sniffing her tail and butt, and she walked great until she turned around and saw it there, despite knowing it was about from the sniffing and collar sounds. I'm glad you're trying to phase out the prong collar, causing pain will only increase anxiety in your dog and may cause her behavior to go from just excitable to actually fearful. I try not to even pull on my dog's harness because I don't want to cause her more anxiety. If the front clip doesn't do it, I can attest to head halters working very well. Just keep trying things until you figure out what works. I won't claim to know right/best behavior for your dog when another approaches, so someone else might have a better answer. I do know that an option my trainer likes (esp. for reactive dogs) is teaching your dog Leave It as a body language cue that says the dog can't have anything until you say okay. So if your dog tries to go play, you would body block until the dog backs off and waits for your permission. I can explain it in more detail, but the end result is that your dog, when confronted with something interesting, will look to you for direction (you won't have to actually body block at this point) and not decide to run off after whatever it is. It's something the trainer demo'd for us and we've been practicing it, though my dog is a long, long way from being able to do it with other dogs. She does look to me for a lot of little things now though. Edit: Saw your edit, she sounds awesome.
Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Feb 23, 2011 |
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Feb 23, 2011 04:50
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a life less posted:recall stuff Thanks, a life less! I taught Psyche to touch other things, but I didn't think about using a cue for my hand other than as a novelty. It's such an easy trick and if it's made to be fun, I can imagine using it not just for recall, but also for giving my dog something fun and easy to do in some of her (less-)reactive situations, to get her attention back. It is also a good way to get her close to me without relying on her to just come all the way over on her own when interesting/upsetting things are around.
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Feb 25, 2011 21:32
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a life less posted:article That's very, very interesting. We did something similar with our trainer the first (and only) time she was in our apartment. We has her sit on the far side of the room and we had Psyche in the hallway. We played Leave It where we would block her view if she was reacting to the trainer and step out of the way when she was not reacting. Then when she was calm for a few seconds, we would step into an adjoining room as a stress relief reward for being good. We are close to starting the same kind of exercise inside with a friend of ours (we've been working with him outside so far) and maybe this time I will try to set it up such that he leaves instead of us taking her into the next room. That may at least get him up to a distance where he can comfortably start throwing food to her, which is what we've been doing so far. We're also going to try to find some doggie volunteers if it ever stops snowing and do desensitization exercises with the mix of counter-conditioning and simple operant conditioning (asking for a simple sit/focus) I've gotten in the habit of doing. I don't think that I will attempt to do this whole procedure on my own, but I think that incorporating the other dog backing up when Psyche is calm can't hurt as long as we get the timing right. We won't be doing super long sessions, but since Psyche's problem is pretty line of sight, we were probably going to have to have one of the dogs duck behind an object for the first rounds anyway. I wish I could go to my trainer with this it's already something she sort of does (she never walks away from us when Psyche is reacting to her). But I couldn't afford one-on-one time with her like this.
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Feb 27, 2011 16:22
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Gonktastic posted:Something I don't really ever see in training videos is what happens after! So, great, if I have treats on me, she walks politely at my side. If I don't have treats, she still does well but we're pretty limited to our block. So to expand her range should I bring treats? We apparently live in the most exciting neighborhood ever, with dogs or cats or squirrels every couple houses. I see lots about fading out lures, but what about treats for reinforcement? Should I randomly bring treats for some walks, and not for others? Will she get dependent and only obey when I bring yummy stuff? Get some of these! Treat bags: http://www.amazon.com/Canine-Hardware-Treat-Small-Colors/dp/B000274692/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1299625704&sr=8-3 They are super cheap and aren't huge fanny packs like some treat bags and yet they hold a lot. I bring it everytime I go outside because I don't want to miss an opportunity to reward good behavior or counter-condition my dog. As a life less said, you decide where your dog is at and phase out rewards by asking for something a little more impressive when your dog starts to get down the basics really well. My dog definitely knows the treat bag is there, but since I always bring it (and wear it around the house occasionally if I know she's going to have one of those 'life lesson' moments because my wallet/socks/cardboard is sitting out in plain sight), she doesn't do her best behavior dance like she would if I was holding the treat in front of her or had to spent a lot of time digging through pockets/plastic bags. Maybe your dog wouldn't be fooled by the bag, but I still think always bringing treats is a good idea and they are nice bags and easily accessible. They're washable too.
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Mar 9, 2011 00:20
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Dial M for MURDER posted:I have a 2 1/2 year old yellow lab and she is the same way, shoes and towels are never safe. I do a lot of tricks and give plenty of exercise, but that is not enough. Rather than always having something to chew on, which wouldn't work in my situation as I have second dog and giving them both stuff to chew on constantly just wouldn't work, Is there a way to redirect it somehow? Like when she goes for a shoe, take it from her and give the other dog a treat or something weird like that? We have very, very slowly been working on our dog's habit of stealing socks/shoes and table surfing. It is a hard habit to break because the act itself is rewarding for the dog and punishment is not very, very hard to time. Redirecting your dog to something appropriate to chew on is good, but you shouldn't need to provide them with a chew 24/7. What you do need to do is make sure that they are not getting to chance to chew on things that they shouldn't -- prevention is key. This means you either need to remove all the things they will chew on from their environment for a while or supervise them constantly through tethering or keeping them in sight or crated when you can't pay attention. The idea is to extinguish the behavior by making it no longer rewarding. We also use 'No' on my dog, and it is rather effective for her. I will leave my boots out on purpose and when she inevitably goes to steal them, I will be there and tell her no and reward her for leaving them alone. If she managed to sneak them past, I calmly walk over to her and take them back, rewarding her for dropping them and never chasing (she wears her leash around so we don't ever have to chase). We watched her like a hawk to prevent any stealing from our desks, immediately telling her 'Off' if she jumped on them before she could steal anything. It took a long time, but she now leaves the desks alone. You need to be consistent and patient and do your best to keep them from relapsing until they decide there are other more fun things to do (some of which you have provided, of course). For your second question, if you really want to discourage or distinguish this behavior, you should stop 'playtime' the minute something undesirable starts. I would recommend implementing a timeout if simply breaking it up doesn't help. When the dog starts in on the other dog, calmly separate them and place one in another room until the dog is being quiet and calm. Timeouts should be more of a calming cue than a punishment. My dog gets timeouts in the bathroom and she goes in willingly and immediately quiets down in there because she knows she can come back out once she's relaxed. I find that sarcasm works best as a reward rather than a punishment, for both people and dogs. When your dog is pissing you off, get them doing what you want and then tell them in a happy, high pitched voice just how dumb they are and be as sarcastic as possible! It will help both you and the dog feel better. Edit: So beaten by a life less. That's what I get for watching Dogtown in the middle of posting. I'll add though that dogs don't really learn through jealousy, but they can and do learn behaviors from each other so it is worth it to keep one behaving properly and the other might emulate that behavior. Of course, if you let one be bad, the other might pick up on that too. Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Mar 18, 2011 |
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Mar 18, 2011 01:44
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a life less posted:
Wow, that was amazing. I'm really excited and want to do this to build Psyche's recall. We'll have a yard we can do it in soon...the only problem is it isn't fenced and how can we trust her before we've built the recall? We should be pretty isolated, but there is always a possibility a person or dog will walk by and she could run off after them and do who knows what. It's more likely she would just posture and stay by us, scared, but we can't risk it. I feel like this kind of exercise would help build her confidence and trust in us, helping her with her reactivity issues. But those same reactivity issues keep us from doing it properly, i.e. off-leash. We have a 50 foot leash she could drag, but even that is risky and introduces a conditional response where she only comes with the long leash on. Life sucks.
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Mar 23, 2011 02:35
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a life less posted:encouragement Thanks. I thought about it more last night and we'll figure out a way to make it work. We can start inside and use a long leash as a safety. We'll just have to be super careful. We won't have a lot of neighbors, so we can explain the situation to them and if the backyard doesn't work, we'll find a field where we won't be disturbed (by people or dogs anyway, squirrels are a different story...). Rhymes With Clue posted:Oh dear. I couldn't explain this to the trainer of his puppy class, but... It's not picky to want more from your dog! Once they have the basics down, you want to up the bar, make it more challenging for them. So if your dog goes down 90%+ of the time, you can certainly start only reinforcing the particular down you want to see. I can't think of any way to lure him to do that particular down, so I would just capture the behavior. When he does the other down, say 'good dog!' or whatever. When he does the down you want, give a yummy treat! You can up to standard for any trick once they get it right most of the time, to make them do it faster or in a particular way. My dog does both those downs too, so I know what you mean. When she just folds down, she looks like a little sphinx. She also does a down where she stretches out her front paws in a bow and then plops her butt down. It's super cute, but it's ruining my attempts to teach her a proper bow.
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Mar 23, 2011 13:41
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Ginny Field posted:Are there any tips towards using the clicker to train out biting and nipping behavior? Our cattle dog is responding wonderfully to positive reinforcement training, and picks up tricks and behaviors with only a few repetitions. My dog was a huge mouther when we first got her, she'd do it when she got excited or wanted attention, or just whenever. If turning your back isn't strong enough, I would suggest trying time outs. If your dog bites you, stick her in a bathroom until she is calm and quiet, then let her out. She goes back in if she does it again. You don't need to say anything or be mad or yank her into the bathroom or anything, so I think it's a very mild punishment and it's really helped us (plus it teaches the dog calming down quickly). On the non-punishment side, we started playing a game. We would have her lay down and then make motions toward her with our hands. Normally a hand moving toward her was an obvious opportunity for mouthing, so she would bite or follow the movement with an open mouth, etc. Obviously you want to click and treat any other behavior. Find a distance and small motion where your dog maybe just looks with a close mouth or ignores. Click and treat. Then work up to anything that might encourage mouthing. Wave your hands around, move them along the ground like a critter, put them over her head and around her sides and just keep click/treating any reaction that doesn't involve her mouth/teeth. This combined with timeouts or otherwise just stopping interactions when biting was inappropriate made a ton of difference for us. Psyche's mouthing went down by 90% in like a month or two of us casually discouraging it and playing these kinds of games.
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Mar 24, 2011 13:39
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Ridonkulous posted:My dog scratched and destroyed the pain on the inside of our bathroom. That sucks. It doesn't need to be a bathroom though. You can try and be creative and find somewhere that they can't destroy anything. Psyche would attack the toilet paper or hanging towels at first, so we started hooking her leash to the door so she couldn't reach them. You could also do a time out in a pen-type situation, use a baby gate to section off the kitchen or something. Another option is to teach a very strong 'Go to mat' command where your dog goes and stays on a doggie bed or mat or a square of carpet/foam/etc. Then your dog can have a time out/calm down time on the mat. Unfortunately, no one thing works for every dog, so ymmv with time-outs. They just have worked very well with us so I thought I'd suggest it.
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Mar 24, 2011 18:13
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PurpleJesus posted:Thanks for the link! It's been all kinds of distances so far, pretty much as soon as she sees them. There are so many dogs in our neighborhood that it's tough to prepare for when we'll run into one. I hadn't thought about Daisy's reactions influencing her. I guess I'll have to start walking them separately for a while and see if that helps. Keep in mind that you can influence Violet as well. Make sure you don't get overly nervous or worried when Violet has a reaction because she will pick up on it. If you have to, even be cheerful to make sure you aren't giving off negative vibes.  I won't pretend to be an expert on puppies, but I think that the fear imprinting at early ages (and sometimes older ages) can be very important and have long lasting effects. If you can, try to minimize the number of negative experiences Violet has with larger dogs until she's a little older. If you have to, take her to somewhere you don't expect anyone to be for longer walks. Walk her at times of day when you expect less people to be out with their dogs. Do this until she's a little older and see if she doesn't start to adapt. Also if you can, borrow a friend with a dog and set Violet up for some positive experiences (i.e. keeping her a distance where she is under threshold and stuffing her face with yummy treats). I say all this because it is very easy for dogs to become habitual. You want to get Violet past her fearful puppy stage (which is hopefully what this is) without developing lasting fear but also without developing habits, which can perpetuate after the fear is gone.
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Mar 25, 2011 00:54
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a life less posted:I really like this post for instructions on how to increase play drive in your dog. That's a really good read. I've been having trouble getting Psyche to be enthusiastic about some things lately. Like I've been trying to get her to sit in front of me and look at me, and then I move and she's supposed to follow and then sit in front of me again. She does it, but not with a ton of energy, i.e. she just saunters after me. I'd love to be able to increase her enthusiasm by using a toy instead of food. But she is one of those dogs the article mentioned that only cares about toys when she's in the mood. I gather one of the things I've been doing wrong is letting the game end when she wants it to (we use toys to wear her out right now instead of training, so it makes sense to go until she's tired), but how else can I get her to start playing? The article has a lot to say about what to do once they are playing, but how do I get her to start when I want to engage her? She won't play if there is food around, so that's out. Any other ideas? Edit: Hmmm, we have another problem. Today is the second time Psyche has thrown up everything she ate on the way back from class. The first time we feed her a bunch of ham, which was probably a mistake and this time, she just had hot dog, some cheese, and dried chicken, but we had a pretty intense class and she ate a lot. I'm still looking for the treat that she likes best, but now I'm thinking boiled chicken for next class and see how she likes that. Any suggestions on things dogs generally like and can eat fast without upsetting their stomachs? Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Mar 26, 2011 |
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Mar 25, 2011 18:33
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RizieN posted:Its been a while PI...but I've got a bit of an issue. Sounds like leash reactivity and/or territorialness. Psyche has the same problem. For a very short period at her foster home, she was able to get along with other dogs off-leash, but on-leash she acts like a crazy dog.I don't remember Sagan's background, but it sounds like maybe she didn't learn good doggie manners at a young age? If she's bad at reading body language, that plus being confined on a leash (plus being close to home and over-protective) can lead to this kind of behavior. How close does the other dog have to be before she goes crazy? Really close, or at any distance? The fact that she barks at people passing by as well as dogs outside indicates she has an anxiety problem that is only compounded by the leash. The good news, I think, is that once she reaches the other dog, she is not violent. This will be REALLY helpful in your training. You'll want to do the usual desensitization/counter-conditioning on walks. Try to avoid any situations where she will go crazy by crossing the street or going a different direction if you see a dog. For inside, you want to replace the going crazy at windows with another behavior, like say going to a mat and laying down. Keep her away from windows whenever you can't be active about training a replacement response. In addition, I would train a special Leave It command. The way my trainer described my dog's problems to me is that she makes bad decisions, so I must teach her that I get to make the decisions (which is along the lines of the better distraction/focus you are looking for and is basically a trust building exercise). To do this, you teach a body-block Leave It command with the end goal that your dog will look to you for direction before going after something exciting/upsetting. To start training it, you can use treats or toys or anything your dog would go after. Drop the item on the floor and when your dog goes for it, block it with your body. Your whole body, your hand, your foot, whatever. When the dog backs off, you back off as well. If they go for it again, block again. When the dog has totally backed off and is watching you for permission (work up to this slowly of course), then you reward. For food, you can reward with a separate piece of food or let them have the same one (my trainer says never to let them have the food on the ground, but I'm not sure I agree). Then you move on to doing this with people, dogs, squirrels, etc. My trainer demoed it like this. She sat in our living room and Psyche didn't much care for that, so she was barking like a crazy dog from a distant hallway. So we drew an imaginary line and when Psyche tried to go toward the trainer, we blocked or even crowded her back. Once Psyche was calm or looked at us, we stepped aside so she could see the trainer. If she barked, we blocked until calm. When she was being good for a bit, we rewarded (we rewarded by taking her into the next room as a release). I use this technique a lot outside now when Psyche barks at people. It took us a while to get to that point because she will bite at us if she gets too upset, but I think this technique will be really good for Sagan because it sounds like she's not TOO upset, just making bad decisions. It seemed weird to me at first, but this training is all about your body language and getting your dog to look to you for decisions. It's not even really necessary to add in a cue because Sagan should eventually auto-look at you and know from your stance that you are demanding her attention until released. Sorry for the book, I hope that helps somewhat. We've tried tons of other things as well, but that's just what I thought of for your case.
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Mar 26, 2011 20:16
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anachrodragon posted:Josie, my two year old corgi, loves to fetch, and is quite excellent at finding balls in the yard and bringing them to me to initiate a game. I'll usually tell her to "Get your ball" if I want her to go find a ball for me to throw. I once saw a presentation by a guy who studies dogs and their cognitive abilities (can't remember his name of course) and their studies showed that not only can dogs learn the names of and differentiate between a large number of different objects, they can use the process of elimination to determine the names of new objects, i.e. they placed a number of objects a dog was already familiar with and one object that was new and told the dog 'Get the squid!' and since all the other objects were not squids, the dog grabbed the new object. He also said that you can even teach your dog the name of an object by staging fake conversations where you and a friend say short sentences about the object while holding it. Like you hold a ball and say 'This sure is a ball.' and your friend says 'What a nice ball' etc. So yeah, go nuts. Teach her the names of lots of things and you can even teach her to put her toys away. Here's a video on it (sorry the guy has a weird distortion thing going on while he talks, but his videos are pretty good otherwise): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ZajuATmeA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
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Mar 27, 2011 17:02
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Fraction posted:Thanks! I'm not at all bothered about her staying put - it's nice to have her come upstairs and be on guard/keep me company - I just felt a little like a heel for waking her up. Even if I did crate games with her, she'd probably still jolt awake; she does like to know what's going on. I wouldn't feel bad about it because there's really nothing you can do. Some dogs are just hypervigilant. It took my dog six months to be able to voluntarily hang out in a different room than me. She still opens her eyes every time we move around, but she doesn't jump up instantly anymore unless we make a big noise. It just takes time for them to settle in and I think they'd do it no matter how much you exercise them, unless you did it to the point of utter exhaustion.
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Mar 28, 2011 20:26
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Another Major update now that my computer is fixed and shearing is over. It sounds like Major has made a lot of progress, which is great, but I'm sorry you seem to have hit a plateau. I think that talking about anti-anxiety meds is a great idea especially if Major is having a lot of anxiety around the house. I think, after seeing my dog, that there is a large level of anxiety that can be present without us even noticing because dogs can't just tell us how they feel. If Major is showing his anxiety around the house often, it's a safe bet that he is probably stressed all the time at some level, even when he looks fine. I have noticed two changes in my dog thanks to Prozac. The first about five weeks after we started her on a low dose was noticeable to everyone in her class and now just recently we increased the dosage because she was pulling fur off her tail. The change here was pretty immediate. The tail fur pulling has decreased almost to zero (there was an attention whore component to that though) and she has had an almost complete attitude change toward people. Unless they are doing something crazy, she has started just checking them out and then leaving off or completely ignoring them and even let a friend of ours who has been working with her into our apartment with minor fuss. Now I know that the meds are no substitute for training, but I think they are worth it, besides the changes I mentioned, because she has shown other signs of relaxing. In the last couple weeks she has started to go lay in the other room and actually stay there even with us up and doing things. This is unprecedented. Previously she was completely unable to relax all the way, had to be near us no matter what we were doing and would jump up as soon as we moved. This is, of course, in addition to lunging and barking at the windows/doors whenever she heard someone outside. Now she can't be bothered to get up most of the time and more often gives tiny barks of protest rather than flying into a barking fit. I really think that it has improved her quality of life. Our next step is to move to a more quiet environment and I think the meds will let us bridge that to the point where she will get used to being relaxed and improve in her classes more quickly until the point where we can back her off the meds without losing the 'habit' of being relaxed. So anyway, I think it's worth a try if the vet behaviorist agrees. Stress becomes a quality of life issue when it is affecting dogs this badly, in my opinion.
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Mar 31, 2011 18:14
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Instant Jellyfish posted:I don't have any problem with using meds and I have been on them myself, I just have been beating myself up about not being able to do more and "if only..."s. I think you went through a similar process (I may be remembering someone else)? There's just a lot of stigma around it. Especially in my area where 95% of dogs don't even have collars. I swear the next person who tells me I'm wasting my money and to just crack the window for him is going to get punched in the face. No, that was definitely me. I don't have any experience with these kinds of medications myself and in the beginning I felt like I was doing the same thing as all those parents who throw their kids on Ritalin because they're acting like kids. It didn't help that the vet I talked to decided my dog was nuts in like two seconds and was ready to hand us the drugs two seconds after that. Ultimately I decided to do it for two reasons 1) a drug like Prozac has a short list of relatively mild side effects and can be backed off of at any time (slowly is best, of course) and 2) I was going to watch my dog like a hawk for any negative changes, particularly in her personality. I kept her on the lowest dose possible for more than a month after they said we should raise it because it was the bare minimum for her weight. I wanted to make sure we'd seen the full effects and then we just raised it to try and improve her stress level at home (we were afraid she might self-mutilate her tail); otherwise I would have relied more on training. In the end, it was the right decision, I think, but it's good to agonize over it and not take it lightly. I love that clicker training works on livestock. I want to get my friend to clicker train his cat (who does trick or two already), but I'm afraid I talk his ear off about dogs too much already...
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Mar 31, 2011 20:26
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^We use cheese all the time. Not velveeta, but we use cheap american cheese. I would just glance at the calorie content and go with the option that is tasty and has less calories. And of course, switch things up and use cheese in moderation. Your dogs might get bored if you use the same thing all the time.wtftastic posted:Yeah I'm not using a flexi lead; I got a nylon, fixed length lead for him. I always put the no pull on him, even for pee breaks, since I use those bathroom trips as sniff around and walk time as well. You've got some great advice to work on. I just wanted to add to keep in mind that wearing the harness and the act of putting it on might be separate in your dog's mind. He might hate one and not mind the other or hate both separately. In the beginning, if he hates the putting it on part but seems okay once it's on, I would go ahead and leave it on for the times when someone is home and you know you'll be going outside fairly often. My dog wore her harness almost all the time until recently when we were home. That way you can start with a smaller number of times a day you need to put the harness on and work your way up to the normal amount.
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Apr 5, 2011 23:34
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Emasculatrix posted:Hmmmm. Maybe I should take some supplements. That seems like a strange training session. Has your dog gotten pretty good about being around one or two other dogs? Have you worked with smallish group of 3-4 or more? I can't imagine going to a dog park until you were VERY confident that your dog was over most of his issues. The dog park dogs will be running and playing and barking, all of which are higher triggers for my dog than just standing or laying around. It's a very out of control situation.
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Apr 8, 2011 13:36
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Cassiope posted:Also try withholding a meal or two. A healthy dog won't be hurt by missing a meal and she might be a lot more interested in food if she isn't getting it in her bowl. To expand on this, try not feeding in a bowl at all. My dog recently just pretty much stopped listening to everything we said and started turning up her nose at her favorite treats. Besides the fact that she's a terrible teenager, my trainer suggested that maybe she was getting inundated with food (my dog's a bad bad girl, so we were doing a lot of reinforcing when she was being good). The trainer suggested that we save the best treats only for the things we really, really need to work on and to make her work for meals. If we don't have time to give all her daily food during training sessions, then we give her her food in a food-dispensing toy. It's already made some difference, Psyche is more excited about food and is listening a bit better. In other news, Psyche, for the first time since we got her, saw a dog at our apartment complex and didn't freak out! She watched the dog and I stuffed her face with treats, and she let the dog walk away without even a tiny growl! I was so proud. She's been doing great around people this week (only freaking out when a guy ran right in front of her and startled her) and apparently it's extending to dogs a bit too. We've been adapting our training a bit and only carrying the really good treats with us outside. She also might be responding more to the prozac increase we started a few weeks ago. Whatever the reason, I hope this continues! I'm excited to see how she does in class tonight.
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Apr 15, 2011 19:55
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Scenty posted:I scanned the last few pages, and didn't see anybody with this issue, sorry if I missed it! Before trying spray collars or weird remedies, have you tried playing music while you aren't at home? Is your dog crated? If not, I would considering crating or isolating in a smaller area of the house away from the worst windows and play music. The problem with barking is that it quickly moves from an anxious response to a habit. Training will help your dog overcome his anxiety at sounds outside while you are home, but you need to remove those triggers when you aren't around to actively train. I really doubt a calming remedy will help enough and I never did like the ideas of the sprays. I don't think they are effective at telling the dog what they are being punished for, nor do they tell the dog what they should be doing. When you are home, you can try replacing the barking behavior with another behavior, such as lying on a doggie bed. If you reinforce this behavior with treats, it can come to replace your dog's barking, depending on his anxiety level and how consistent you are with it.
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Apr 20, 2011 00:21
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Scenty posted:Yeah, I don't really WANT to use a collar, it's just that I also don't want to cause problems with the neighbors. Any music is fine. My adviser makes his dogs listen to NPR all day. We usually use a white noise machine these days, but we used to just put it on whatever rock station. The music isn't meant to be calming, but to drown out noise and make it below your dog's threshold. I would try to start the crate training again. We live in a complex as well and got 4 complaints the first week we got our dog, but we kept at it and we haven't gotten a complaint since (not that my dog doesn't bark, but we got it down to a manageable level). It helped to talk to the landlord and make sure they understood that we were transitioning to a quieter dog. You could take the crate training really slow, do it only during the day when people don't mind as much and keep the sessions super short (don't even leave him in the crate for more than 30 seconds or leave the room for a week if that's what it takes). Feed your dog in his crate. Look around this thread for a link to crate games you can play to make your dog more comfortable. Even if you don't plan to crate during the day all the time, it's still really valuable to have a crate-trained dog. If the cat is bothering your dog in the crate, put the crate in a room and shut the door for now. It helps with the noise anyway. You definitely want to teach the dog to go to the bed himself. Start off like any other training, with no distractions. We did it by cuing Down on the bed, rewarding, and then transitioning to a Bed command. Once the dog understands the bed command, start commanding Bed whenever there is a sound outside that he might bark at or after he has already started. At first you'll probably need to lead him to the bed or cue Bed from right next to the bed, but you can continue working on distance until doggie will go to the bed from across the room. In time, a sound outside should automatically make doggie want to go to the bed because it has been reinforced so many times. If you are patient and consistent, it can replace the barking in theory. We haven't gotten to this point, but my dog is a special snowflake who has to be super alarmed at everything ever.
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Apr 20, 2011 01:55
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